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 Running in Weekly Shonen Jump since December 2018, Chainsaw Man is an action manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto, most widely known for Fire Punch. Set in a Cold War era Japan haunted by armies of demons, it's one of the most violent and over-the-top of their current offerings, with a dark-but-goofy sense of humor. (A manga that starts with the hero discussing how much he got for selling one of his testicles on the black market in comparison to his other organs is not a manga that's subtle about its tone.) Characters:  Denji is our hero. A broke teenager with no education, he took up demon hunting to pay off his dead father's debt to the Yakuza. The animal he's using as a weapon is Pochita, his best and only friend. Even if he's a Chainsaw Devil, he's a good dog. Together, they kill Devils and make plans to achieve Denji's dreams: Having jam on bread, and maybe, some day, getting to touch a boob. He likes people who like him!  Makima is Denji's superior, a Public Safety Devil Hunter. Mysterious and manipulative, she agrees to let him live and draw a government salary in exchange for doing exactly as she says. She's also a movie buff.  Aki Hayakawa is one of Denji's coworkers, a straightlaced professional who joined up to get revenge on the Gun Devil, the legendary monster who killed his family... along with over a million people. All in about five minutes. He doesn't approve of Denji's casual attitude. Denji doesn't much like him either. Makima makes them live in the same house, presumably because she finds it funny.  Power is a Fiend, a Devil that took up residence in a human corpse. As a Devil, she's incapable of lying, and wants to make sure everyone around her knows she's a genius with an IQ of at least 100 who's pretty much guaranteed to win the Nobel Prize. She joined up with the Devil Hunters to find and rescue her pet cat.  Himeno is one of the most veteran Devil Hunters working for Makima. A chain smoker whose partners have a bad habit of dying on her, she tries to teach Denji the ropes before he joins them. She sold her eye to a ghost so she could use its hand to kill things. Chainsaw Man is less than a year in, but it's already taking a unique approach to things, and seems to be finding an audience. Just another good find from the same editor who brought us Spy X Family. (Seriously, you have to see the tournament arc) The first three and the latest three chapters are available free online as part of Viz's offerings, with the archives available for just a couple bucks a month. (which also gets you access to One Piece, My Hero Academia, Dr. Stone, and much much more.)
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Oct 22, 2019 23:22
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Cuntellectual posted:I find it kinda funny how Power's got the whole cat motif going on when Cats are usually associated with cunning. Having dealt with cats all my life, they tend to be stupid, but they try to pretend not to be. Meanwhile, dogs are somewhat less stupid, but they leave all that stupid on public display. It's a pretty good match for Power and Denji, honestly.
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Oct 24, 2019 03:44
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Ethiser posted:I’m guessing she’s a human with a devil heart like Denji and the sword guy. She’s got the same teeth. And the same style of activation. Of course, she might even have liked Denji, if the offer was legitimate. He comes to the Soviet Union with her, does some work, gets a "normal" life with her by way of payment. It's just that, with Makima in play, that couldn't happen. And getting the Chainsaw mattered a lot more than how some teenager Reze just met felt about things.
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Oct 25, 2019 21:57
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Fantastic Flyer posted:Denji really needs to invest in some wristguards. That's ridiculous. Wristguards cost money. New wrists are free.
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Oct 26, 2019 23:18
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Sindai posted:After the gun devil arc is over comes the far more powerful spider devil We already met the Spider Devil. Like many terrifying things, she works for Makima.
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Oct 31, 2019 19:21
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Meme Emulator posted:Speculation Makimas gotta be contracted with the Devil of Heights, right? She splatted everyone and needed to be up high to use it Plausible enough. Of course, it's possible to be contracted with multiple devils at once. Aki did it, and it's not treated like a unique state of affairs. Might be worth laying out some of what we know, for posterity. First off, what we can eliminate, as long as Fujimoto is playing fair. Makima isn't a fiend like Power or Beam because she's got a normal person head. Fiends have some aspect of their faces that's a dead giveaway according to chapter four, so Makima would be rumbled pretty quick. Further, if she really does have a contract as she indicated in the temple scene, rather than just lying to cover up her real methods, then she can't be a Devil, since only humans can make contracts. The bit acts like a contract too, with payment for service rather than innate ability only limited by blood. She's also not the Gun Devil, despite some paranoid theories, since she can pick up its parts with her bare hands without them sticking, and because they aren't leading to her. All simple enough. Now that’s done, we can move onto the positives. She’s got odd eyes, but those could come from a contract as easily as anything else. Snake Devil girl had Snake Eyes, and she was a contractor. But contracts don’t let you return from the dead when you get a little blood on you. And Makima’s known contract requires a lot of setup. Setup she didn’t have when going through the train like the wrath of an angry god. (It’s unclear if she restricted herself to the culprits or went for a clean sweep. Knowing what we know of Makima, both seem plausible.) She’s got similar emotional reactions to Denji, which seems to be common to, well, people like Denji. (Also Reze, apparently. She’s sorry for having to kill Denji, and doesn’t go to massacre as a first solution, but she has no real problem with just icing everyone.) Best bet right now seems to be that she’s covertly like Denji and Reze, but with some contracts on top. As for her agenda… well, the strongest negative emotional response we’ve seen from her talking to people was when the old hunter said he was getting tired of training Denji and Power. Combined with her whole helping Denji through his emotional crises, she probably really likes him, especially when her bosses chide her for it. At the same time, the moment that makes Kishibe want to stop is seeing how gung ho for Makima Denji is. Apparently, that sort of thing and death aren’t exactly distant. Makima also smiles when Kishibe calls her on her PR bullshit excuse of “For the good of everyone!” when he brings up her letting most of her team get murdered. So, that’s really reassuring. Weirdest theory I’ve seen says that she’s got a connection to the afterlife somehow because of her movie habit, since movie theaters were tied to the afterlife in Fire Punch. Which… doesn’t actually feel entirely crazy with Makima’s other abilities.
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Nov 1, 2019 04:50
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In this week's Chainsaw Man, everything is fine.
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Nov 8, 2019 13:07
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Hamelekim posted:the humour in this manga is so on point, even when it is dark as hell. Even? Especially. I read an interview with Fujimoto where he talked about how he was balancing the tone, and one thing he brought up was Denji's optimism. Because he can go through all kinds of poo poo and bounce back, it's easier to laugh through horrifying situations than it would be with a protagonist like Aki, who actually has normal people emotional responses.
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Nov 16, 2019 01:09
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Shinjobi posted:Denji has thought about how to use his powers as much as Captain Murphy thought about having his brain in a robot's body. Not a ton of details hashed out, but CHAINSAW HANDS, BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Denji's "training" so far consisted of being murdered repeatedly until he figured out how to be murdered somewhat less. Reze is actually the first person he's met in a position to actually help him learn from experience. And... she's doing that by murdering him. Being Denji is a rough deal.
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Nov 22, 2019 10:10
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Mulderman posted:The way they show off Reze using multiple explosions in a row is so badass. It's a successful Shonen Jump manga. It's very likely to get an anime. Probably one announced in less than a year, going by the normal order of operations for these things. Quality, of course, is a more open question.
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Nov 22, 2019 12:21
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Hiro Protagonist posted:That was explicitly because he was also drinking it's blood the whole time. He ain't drinking blood, so yeah, Denji isn't his best self. He also didn't have enough blood to start out with this time. He's basically fighting half dead at the start, and it's not getting any better as he flails around like an idiot.
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Nov 24, 2019 10:10
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EmmyOk posted:the primary difference is that denji is still his human self and power is a devil in a human body so has none of the original human in her. it also sounds like they are a distinct thing from being a devil anymore so imagine we;ll get more differentiation Yeah. Denji's a human with a devil's heart, while Power is a devil in a human corpse. Symbiosis vs parasitism and all that. So far, it seems like Devil human hybrids are as strong as or stronger than their initial forms, while Fiends are weaker.
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Nov 27, 2019 01:25
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Sindai posted:Other Characters: Do a Spider Man, Denji Most dumbass shonen jump heroes will, when the going gets tough, come up with a brilliant plan out of their asses and shock their opponents with their clever plan. Denji is one step ahead, responding to high risk situations by doing something even stupider than his usual. さすが, デンジ. chiasaur11 fucked around with this message at 09:43 on Nov 29, 2019 |
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Nov 29, 2019 09:39
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Darth TNT posted:It's a Sharknado! Well, it is Denji. His ability to just get over things is outright disturbing. And, as we've learned before, half devils take a lot of killing. Much easier to bring them in alive after a few rounds of maiming.
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Dec 6, 2019 09:52
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Spiderdrake posted:I wasn't sure how to take the two months. Is that from his natural lifespan, or what he has left? The latter doesn't make much sense, but the former has the dramatic tension of a wet fart. Latter. Whatever mechanism the Curse Demon uses to take life, the Angel Demon does the same thing. So, Aki just lost 2 months of his remaining 24. Meanwhile, Denji's too stupid to die.
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Dec 6, 2019 10:51
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SyntheticPolygon posted:I enjoy the trend of my favourite idiot son Denji continuously finding ways to outwit his foes. I'm not even sure she's going to be a recurring villain. Like, at this point, she and Denji are in a very odd spot, and even if Denji doesn't ditch with her, (Unlikely, but with Fujimoto you never know...) it's not a guarantee that she'd be on the opposite side. After all, she just left Chainsaw behind despite him being her target. She's probably not going to be on the best terms with her handlers. And on Denji's end, there's Makima. Who I do not feel confident in predicting.
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Dec 14, 2019 10:46
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RatHat posted:I guess maybe Makima's deal is she's contracted with tons of different devils? Really weak seems like an exaggeration here. Angel's weapons have supernatural properties, and Makima is bullshit. But yeah. Reze and Denji have repeatedly shown that ambush attacks don't let them use their full abilities. Don't know what all Makima has deals with, but that can't be the whole of it. Aki's had deals with three devils, for example, and he's not half as bullshit as the boss. Plus, you know. She's got that same emotional emptiness as Denji. That probably means something. HerraS posted:not a single dog in sight in the latest chap, jose is a lying punk Well, there's still Denji.
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Dec 21, 2019 01:37
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Spiderdrake posted:She literally just use rat teleportation. Rateleportation. I feel like she's going to turn out to be a domesticated horseman of the apocalypse or something. She also talked about what Denji and Reze discussed at the school. Admittedly, she could have gotten that from Beam, but it's interesting attention to detail on Makima's part. And then she doesn't cut off Reze's other hand, instead holding it as she lowers Reze to the ground. Which is interesting. Oh, and Makima shows up in a maid outfit in the color spread this issue. Assuming that the writers for the manga were asked who the female lead was, that's an interesting thing to consider going forward.
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Dec 21, 2019 08:34
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Phimose Knight posted:I dunno. Denji has one Agni-like introspective moment of "am I incapable of feeling sadness because of my devil heart?", and he IMMEDIATELY pivots away with "ahh gently caress that philosophical poo poo, it's depressing". Then he eats a flower. Fujimoto's actually said in interviews that Denji basically exists to counter his bleakness boner. Denji's an optimistic dumbass immortal who can get over pretty much any bad thing that happens, and thus even when the manga throws dark as hell, the next panel can be Denji and Power bickering like idiots and it kind of lets people cool down. Also, thinking about it, I figure Reze didn't really believe Denji's descriptions of his life. If you grew up in government torture dungeons, then the idea that someone like Makima would let someone like Denji have this much slack in his leash would seem deeply, deeply unlikely.
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Dec 21, 2019 12:38
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RatHat posted:She was stopping Reze from pulling the pin on her neck and activating her powers. Yeah, I got that, but the interesting bit is the hand being gently held back rather than sliced off like the other one. It's kind of connected to Makima not being happy. Which, sometimes she is when killing people. The scenes with the condemned prisoners? She's smiling. Yakuza? Smiling. Reze? She looks a little sad, if anything. And even though Angel defied orders in leaving Aki behind, she's going for a compliment, not a reprimand. Which is the interesting bit.
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Dec 23, 2019 02:05
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Oh Snapple! posted:it's the suit Public Safety's uniforms aren't brought up much, but they do a great job, in universe and out. In the setting, putting a devil in a suit and tie says "Do not worry, citizen. I am a terrifying monster, but I am a terrifying monster who draws a government paycheck by keeping you safe." Out of setting, all the protagonists have similar but distinct visuals to make them feel like a team (and feel like professionals, despite being...themselves.) without making it hard to tell them apart. Denji still wearing the tie gives him visual continuity when going all chainsaw, which is handy for keeping track of things in a fight scene.
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Dec 23, 2019 04:15
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Mulderman posted:Reze during her introduction chapter. The titles are parallels too. "Love, Flower, Chainsaw" leads to "Lost Love, Flower, Chainsaw". (Which fits better than some fan translations going with heartbreak. Denji's emotional resilience is one of his defining traits, to the point of smiling while he's eating the flowers.)
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Dec 24, 2019 03:09
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Also, thinking about it... this is kinda Denji's fault. So, we know that Makima knew about Denji and Reze's dates. This suggests two possibilities. One is that Makima has yet another unknown power, she knew everything all along, and she just let a bunch of devil hunters die for no benefit. This also means she let Angel, one of the top three most powerful assets at her disposal, almost die as well, just for giggles, when she could have prevented it beforehand, and she left success up to a Rube Goldbergian array of questionable decisions on everyone's part. Option two is that she just heard about it from Beam. Beam was her spy all along, Beam was watching Denji this whole time, he's too scared of Makima to try anything, and he's very good at going undetected, seeing as Reze didn't know anything about him until he turned up for the save. Occam's razor suggests option 2. Which means that Denji just yelled out his plans to betray Makima right in front of her spy. Including where an enemy asset was going to be. Makima wasn't just waiting there because Denji might leave. It was also the only place where her agent had heard Reze might be. If Reze went to ground, she'd vanish. If Reze went for Denji, her location was, for once, clear to Public Safety. It also means Makima knew Denji was violating orders and attempting to quit, and , so far at least, didn't even bring it up despite telling Aki that Denji was a dead man the second he stepped out of line. Which is in keeping with how Makima didn't do anything when Denji suggested running in chapter 2.
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Dec 25, 2019 00:43
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RatHat posted:This presents a big problem then. Killing the gun devil will send it to Hell, and since it’s so strong it’ll probably kill a bunch of devils there and send them back to Earth. Unless they don’t retain their former strength and have to build it up from scratch. Presumably, Makima has a plan for that. Possibly Hell doesn't have the fear buffs, which would make the Gun Devil much less powerful. But even if it was still able to kill anything in Hell, and even if Makima doesn't have a plan for preventing it from just running wild, then the things the Gun sends up are going to be much less trouble than the Gun itself. Meanwhile, Denji demonstrates the levels of emotional resilience I expected.
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Dec 28, 2019 00:54
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Manatee Cannon posted:no reason to think he would. why would makima tell anyone about it? Well, Angel knows. He seems a more likely source of leaks, considering how much he's been violating orders in Aki's favor.
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Dec 30, 2019 04:52
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NowonSA posted:Death devil has to be in a whole other league of strength, that should really wait for the endgame of the manga. I like how the varied the levels of sympathy you feel for these poor dumb bastards going against Makima on her home turf are. You got the hunter, who's got some sociopathic detachment, but his goal is to just give his mentor a happy ending to her life. He wants something good and reasonable, even if how he's going about it is going to go bad. You've got the Chinese hunter, who wants to get her girls the same human rights that Power seems to enjoy. The intro panel is something that usually comes with a character being a massive sleazy piece of poo poo, but right now it seems like she really does care for the fiends. The Americans are just in it for the money. And evil Santa is already awful. He'll probably get worse. You got everything from possible tearjerkers to just rooting for Makima to get creative.
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Jan 19, 2020 23:49
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Sindai posted:I've learned not to get too attached to anyone except Denji, Power, and Makima. Denji and Power are just too stupid to stay dead.
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Jan 27, 2020 03:35
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Darth TNT posted:If Denji gets a stomach ache from eating from the floor, would drinking blood fix it for him? Probably on patrol with his regular buddy. The Special Fourth is supposed to be the heavy hitters. If they're all busy protecting Denji, they aren't doing their jobs, and then there's nobody to call in when a Devil is too tough for civilian hunters, but not big enough to need all hands on deck. It's easy to forget with how Denji keeps running into the absolute worst situations, but most Devils are much, much weaker than our main cast. Someone like Kobeni, in more normal situations, is terrifying overkill, not comic relief.
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Jan 28, 2020 03:14
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Hypocrisy posted:Violence Devil is an obvious liar and you suckers are the sort of people who would take off his mask. On the other hand, he did buy Kobeni soft serve. The interesting thing for me is how he's the second member of Makima's motley band who says he was saved by her. If they were both devils, that would be incredibly suspicious, even by Makima standards, but one is Aki, who's the closest to a good person in the cast and fully human on top, which leaves things at regular suspiscious. Really liking how the dynamic has changed with Power, Denji, and Aki. They're still absolutely horrible to each other, but now it's the kind of horrible that comes from getting along with people really well.
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Feb 3, 2020 01:37
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RatHat posted:How exactly do you stab someone with a nail 3 times without them noticing? Can Denji not feel pain? Considering how often Denji's died in agony, I suspect anything less than decapitation doesn't even make him stop eating lunch.
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Feb 3, 2020 05:29
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Hamelekim posted:Or just the pain from the chainsaws coming out and running. Let's not forget about him selling his organs and having a coughing-up-blood level terminal disease even before he died the first time. Denji's standards for pain have to be very different from normal people.
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Feb 3, 2020 06:33
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Sindai posted:Who's the guy with the earrings that kills the second doppleganger? He's a freelance devil hunter who Makima hired for this job. We've seen him in this arc before, but this is the first time he's done something notable.
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Feb 9, 2020 22:43
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Lurking Haro posted:That's her power, I think. A...Arbor Day?
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Feb 17, 2020 11:27
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Lurking Haro posted:Only if they are handsome. That's part of the prima donna. Fox devil's got a line around the block, and can thus afford to be choosy. Meanwhile, Denji and Power continue to be both the horny idiots who'd die first in any regular horror movie, and ridiculously hard to really kill. Oh, and some Makima conspiracy theories gained more evidence. At least she's keeping the whole potential epidemic thing under control.
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Feb 21, 2020 23:16
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Hamelekim posted:The app says the chapter is only viewable on the web and is 18+, lol. Oddly, Shonen Jump has that restriction. Meanwhile, Mangaplus leaves it out in the open for all and sundry. Fujimoto's editor having both this AND Spy X Family really seems to give him a lot of leeway when telling his authors to just do whatever they want.
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Feb 21, 2020 23:58
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Apparently, the chapter title this week was a tribute to a one-shot manga from 2010 that Fujimoto liked, Kirisuke and Johnny, The Slaying of 499. It's basically a hundred pages of people being sliced up in ridiculously over-the-top ways, with a punchline that seems very in keeping with Chainsaw Man's sense of humor. So, that explains the title, basically.
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Mar 2, 2020 03:19
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Man. Every chapter, Makima looks more and more on the up-and-up. Just the least shady character.
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Mar 8, 2020 23:28
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HerraS posted:Booze grandpa gonna gently caress someone up hell yeah I'd say to enjoy it because we're probably not seeing much more of him any time soon, but... Makima's been oddly patient with disobedience. Denji's planned to quit twice, she hasn't said anything about it. Angel ignored orders to bring Aki along, and she actually complimented him. Kobeni goes into the fetal position against Bomb, still gets the bonus to buy her new murder weapon. Someone quits, she gives severance pay. If Makima wasn't so incredibly sketchy, I'd just shrug and call it kindness. If she didn't have so much intel gathering ability, I might assume some of it was just her not knowing. But with that... well. Makima's interesting. And I suspect she wouldn't kill someone as useful as Kishibe until he actually takes a shot at her.
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Mar 9, 2020 05:29
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Hypocrisy posted:Huh. So the person we thought of as Santa was another "elaborate" puppet like Tolka got turned into. The real "Santa" is Tolka's master. Or perhaps Tolka's master is the inheritor. Whatever. Neat twist. First, speedscan, so arguments based on exact dialog are questionable. Second, if Denji's inside, he's still locked in with people who want to kill him, and he's sent to Hell, where presumably... Okay, where Poochita's presumably going to show just why every Devil in the place fears the rev of an engine, but where anyone without that inside information would assume he'd be doomed. Meanwhile, outside his body's going to have Makima sweeping in soon, and Kishibe's on site already. Any plan to retrieve his corpse would be... difficult. At best.
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Mar 21, 2020 12:46
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Oxxidation posted:so the official translation's phrasing of the Hell Devil's command has the plan make a lot more sense: send every living thing in the mall to hell Except that way, Kishibe, Yoshida, and Makima are in position for the save. That seems a very questionable plan. In fact, as a general policy, any plan that puts your mission at a higher risk of Makima is a bad plan. Meanwhile, if Denji is in Hell, his three most powerful defenders are off the table for now. Not saying it's impossible for that to be how it goes, but... seems odd.
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Mar 22, 2020 23:06
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