Chainsaw Man; animated horror series, Japan, 2022; D: Ryu Nakayama, S: Kikunosuke Toya, Fairouz Ai, Shogo Sakata, Tomori Kusunoki, Taku Yashiro
Teenager Denji is stuck paying off the debt of his late father by killing Devils, demons that sometimes appear in the city. Denji's demon pet dog Pochita has a chainsaw on its snout. When the Yakuza decide to switch sides and join the Devils to gain more power, their zombies attack and kill Denji in a warehouse. However, Pochita transfers his powers to Denji and merges with him, reviving him and giving him the ability to transform into Chainsaw Man. Denji is recruited by Makima and assigned to a special Division, which includes Power, Aki and Himeno, in order to fight the Devils. After an assassination attempt in which several agents are killed (including Himeno), Denji, Aki and Power manage to find the perpetrator and punish him.
The plot concepts of some anime TV series sometimes sound like April's Fools' Day. Sometimes the viewers just need to think of a preposterous idea, google it, and realize that it was already made into an anime. Did you ever wonder how it would look like if a teenager had the ability to transform into a superhero with two chainsaws on his hands and another one on his head? It can be tracked down in "Chainsaw Man", a bizarre blend between "Evil Dead II" and "RoboCop". The title protagonist, teenager Denji, is cynically introduced in the opening of the first episode—as he is walking down the road, wearing an eyepatch, he narrates: "Then there's the kidney I sold, that was 1.2 million. My right eye was 300,000. Sold one of my balls... How much was that again? I think not even 100,000. And I still owe about 38,040,000 yen." He sleeps in a shed in the forest, having only his demon dog Pochita for company. This already establishes his unappealing situation he found himself in due to his father's debt, as a motive for him to yearn for a change of this status quo and get out of this misery as soon as possible. And he does, in a very bloody, gory, brutal way, after he is attacked by zombies, but saved by Pochita who gives him demonic superpowers—as is the case in most superhero stories, where the protagonist starts out at the bottom but then slowly climbs up to the top. Denji is assigned to a special division of Devil Hunters and given a partner, Aki. There's a lot of black humor and sly jokes in these opening few episodes.
For instance, in episode 2, as they walk on the street, Denji randomly asks if their boss, Makima, has a boyfriend, so Aki just tells him to come with him, behind a back alley—where Aki kicks him and orders him to quit his job, ostensibly because it's too dangerous for him, since he is only after Makima's affection anyway. In a symbolic, lingering moment, Aki throws his cigarette at Denji's shirt, and extinguishes it by spitting on it (and Denji), with barely hidden contempt. To prove him he is not so weak, Denji then stands up and kicks him in the crutch. Later, upon returning back to Makima's office, Denji is holding a wounded Aki and says to her: "The guy's testicles were attacked by the Nut Devil, ma'am!" In episode 3, his colleague, girl Power, promises Denji that he can fondle her breasts three times if he is able to save her cat from a giant bat demon hiding in an abandoned house. Things go terribly wrong, the bat demon swallows Power and flies away, but then looks down—as Denji is hanging on to the demon's leg, saying: "Give me my tits back!" The whole storyline is full of these kind of humor and crazy style, but it also has stunning, incredibly detailed animation which gives it even a certain flair. Episode 7 breaks the high impression up to that point, though, and after it "Chainsaw Man" kind of loses its sense of humor and becomes just a routine fight-kill demons full of splatter violence at times. A really bad moment in episode 7 is at a dinner party, where a drunk Himeno decides to give Denji his first kiss, but due to alcohol, she throws up in his mouth. Disgusting and unnecessary. Later, after he passed out from alcohol, Denji wakes up in Himeno's room as she tries to have sex with him. He is tempted, but then remembers he only loves Makima and decides to save his "first time" for her. In a later episode, Himano dies due to a demon, which sends a rather somber message that sometimes it's better not to wait, but to indulge in some people's wishes while they are still alive. With only 12 episode, "Chainsaw Man" is concise and has no 'empty walk', yet its routine action second half drained a part of its freshness from the great opening episodes.
Grade:++
