Chainsaw Man: Devils With Objects For heads

Chainsaw Man is a new anime hit created by Tatsuki Fujimoto and produced by MAPPA, the same company that produced Attack on Titan. The anime is a humorous, action-packed, and gory yet beautifully animated anime about Denji, a devil-human hybrid trying to make his way as a devil hunter.

Chainsaw Man starts with Denji deep in his father’s debt to the Yakuza, and to pay the debt off he is tasked to kill devils. In order to kill them, he uses his pet devil Pochita, whose chainsaws come in handy. He is ordered to follow the old man that tasks him with killing devils. Once he arrives at an abandoned warehouse the old man thanks him for being a loyal dog who works for cheap and in that same moment he is stabbed by a man behind him, and the Zombie Devil reveals itself. The old man says he wanted to make a deal with a devil to expand the Yakuza. The Zombie Devil then states that people are dumb for a bit of power. The Zombie Devil commands its Yakuza zombie puppets to kill Denji and Pochita and after doing so Pochita, barely alive, merges into Denji’s chopped-up bits and that is when Chainsaw Man is born.

What are devils though? Devils in Chainsaw Man are supernatural creatures born from people’s fears. Devils can vary from guns to tomatoes to entirely different things like the future or curses and even to things that aren’t entirely real like zombies or angels. Devils are born in Hell and when they die in Hell they are reborn in the human world and when they die in the human world they are reborn in hell so they are basically immortal but only a select few devils actually remember anything from their previous lives.

The wonderful characters of Chainsaw Man all have their own unique backstories and one I find very interesting is Aki Hayakawa’s backstory. Aki is from Hokkaido, Japan, and lived with his family until one day when the Gun Devil decided to stop by. In 26 seconds, the Devil killed about 56,000 people, and Aki’s little brother and parents were, unfortunately, one of its victims. Since then he has made killing the Gun Devil his life’s mission, he has joined the Public Safety Devil Hunters in search of help finding and killing the gun devil.

As of writing this Chainsaw Man only has 7 episodes out and is set to have 12 episodes but this doesn’t mean that the anime will only have 12 episodes. Since its crazy success thus far, it would make sense to extend the series further and I’m sure that fans would be happy for more. This anime is definitely going to be in my top 3 favorites. The animation is beautiful, the song choices are fantastic, and the characters feel very well-written and fleshed out. I definitely recommend watching and/or reading the manga because they are both wonderful and worth your time.