It very much depends on whether you want to be hunted down for being a chainsaw super killer as you destroy the people who control all of your debt like Samson breaking the pillars of the very building he's in killing everyone and himself.

You can't use one, cuz you not only need to get creative with those you owe the debt to, but also to the system that upholds their power over you. The blade will simply get gunked up with blood and viscera. You need many chainsaws. This is a metaphor for unionization

​@@PanAndScanBuddy this, too, is solvable with enough chainsaws.

This thread brought to you by Project Mayhem. Do *you* know Tyler Durden?

I mean as Denji notes, he arguably does just that… he doesn’t owe anyone any money after he hacks the yakuza all to death. Which yeah, that step was arguably unnecessary since they’d already became zombie and zombies aren’t skilled at usury… but in some alternate scenario where he became the chainsaw man and killed them all while they were still living humans, it’d be equally resolved. Katana-Man may want revenge, but even he doesn’t seem to have a financial ledger to wave in Denji’s face.

I think it does.

It's very close to it!

Yes absolutely

*Pochita

Reverse John Wick is a double-reverse Ratatouille?

This is the best take I've seen all week lmao

holy shit good catch! Didn't even occur to me haha

The difference is that Power's _literal_ cat doesn't have a symbiotic relationship that gives her power. Well, there's another difference, but it's a big spoiler. Denji's dog "dies" before he does, Power dies before her cat.

@@timothymclean Depends on how you read it. Power would literally not be alive if not for how caring for the cat gave her purpose and identity. In that sense it gives her all her power.

@@timothymclean More like Denji's relationship is as a human was to a devil dog whereas Power's relationship is as a devil to a a human cat... or maybe a 'not-devil' cat.

Denji's stunted ability to seek long-term goals is a social commentary on the current generation who are living in such dire economic straits that they can't afford to do things like save up for home ownership, family planning, etc. I think the way that he's written makes it super believable that he'd end up that way, but some of the social commentary gets muddled by the fact that everyone who's abused him and stunted his growth has been an objectively evil individual person with a face and a name who just so happens to control an organization. I think it's only in part 2 that commentary on larger systems actually gets to be a bit more obvious, like Fujimoto wasn't satisfied with people not getting that Denji's supposed to be, like, the end game of the trajectory that zoomers are on. Like if you take all of these to the extreme: the debasement that they're put through by slave driver workers and increasingly authoritarian school systems, the utter hopelessness of their futures on a dying planet, the increased degree of influence over their minds they see companies and governments trying to exert on them, you get Denji, a guy who can't see into the future very far, who lives a hair's width away from death, and who's focused only on like, the first two tiers of Mazlow's hierarchy of needs, tops. And I think his growth arc is supposed to show how, even if "kids these days" manage to get out of the hole they're trapped in by the generations who came before them and the systems of oppression that rule our society, they're not even equipped to properly navigate a world where they can afford to live in more than just the present moment, to look more than a day or two into the future. I just freaking love Denji so much, Fujimoto created such a great character. He's like how Spider-Man was supposed to be relatable when Superman wasn't, but updated for this modern world where even Peter Parker's lifestyle seems not that bad overall: he's no millionaire and he still has to risk his life and face mixed opinions from the public about his existence, and he's lost people he cares about and has to deal with a guilty conscience, but at the end of the day, he has a good side hustle, a loving wife, and doesn't even have the government holding a gun to his head. Denji's got none of that, and that makes him relatable to teenagers and 20-somethings today. Perfect character writing for the modern age. Love it!

I'd likewise argue that Denji forces himself into acting horny despite not really being particularly horny at all as a commentary on society's insistence that it's normal for teenage men to be horny, as his goal is a normal life. One of the biggest tells that he isn't actually horny is actually near the beginning of the story, where he just.. completely forgets his deal with Power, he wasn't performing his perceived social obligation naturally or on his own, but only in front of others. However, he can't lie to himself to the extent that he feels fulfilled with performing his perceived social role, which is why he feels unfulfilled, it's not something he actually wants.

@@Peasham That's a good point! I'd say he thinks this is how a teenage boy is supposed to seek the intimacy he actually wants. In the first chapter when he's telling Pochita the dream he hopes to have when he sleeps, he wants a girl to kiss him and play video games with him and hold him in her arms. He yearns for affection but only knows how to seek it out through sex because that's what he's been led to believe he's *supposed* to want.

​@@drewbabe Agreed, Fujimoto is great at writing relatable protagonist. Asa from chainsaw man part 2 is also relatable for me, even more than Denji because of hard it is for her to maintain a relationship. I hope Fujimoto give a happy ending for Denji and Asa...

I came away with the same conclusion. I don't have an issue with characters being depicted as horny this way. In a lot of ways it's writing him accurate of his age, which is something a lot of shonen protagonists aren't. They usually have the energy of a 15 year old and the life experience and personal growth of a 35 year old. However, while I have no direct issue at Denji, I didn't like how the narrative sometimes chooses to objectify the female characters the same way Denji does, or at least the way he pretends he does. It kind of betrays that whole thing when there's gratuitous scenes of fondling and intimacy with very generous camera angles, especially in regards to some very questionable scenes where Denji's age of being 16 suddenly becomes too relevant. I know there's an interpretation of "growing up too soon", and what being a kid in a grown-up world with grown-up problems looks like, but I don't think it's handled very delicately, and it really just seems like fan-service, and the way it brushes it under the rug immediately is genuinely not OK imo. I feel like most see it as not a big problem because it's an older female colleague with our younger male protagonist through whom we're experiencing the story, and all it takes is recontextualizing the situation to know why it's pretty bad on the author's side. I haven't read the manga so this could be extra scenes added in the anime, but in that case... why?

I have made two Chainsaw Man OC's throughout the manga's runtime (not that I had the chance to use them for anything). One of them is a Hybrid whose Devil is the fear of new technology, which in 1997 would be things like cell phones and the internet and today would be stuff like AI art. A pretty fun character but less so related to this fear factor aspect. The second OC lives and breathes this part of the lore. She is the Witch Devil, the Magic Devil, the Devil who represents the fear of something that almost no one in the modern world even believes exists. In her prime, some 500 years ago, she was a Kaiju, a monstrosity laying waste to kingdoms, basically the Gun Devil of the middle ages and even less controllable. Today she is a pale, fading shadow of her former self, having regressed to being as vulnerable physically and mentally as a child and not even understanding she's a Devil, instead calling herself a "Magical Girl" - But the one thing she still remembers is that she's living on borrowed time and has resigned to her fate a long time ago. -Apologies if the mere mention of the word "OC" makes you cringe, by the way. I would have put a trigger warning at the beginning, but apparently some people are triggered by trigger warnings, so I didn't.-

It's such a great and straightforward idea for a power system. I don't think I've seen any other work of media use the idea of "fear makes him stronger" to that degree, to the degree that it literally influences the entire world and is an omnipresent factor in even ordinary people's day-to-day lives. Like yeah there have been slasher villains who grew stronger out of fear but they were just guys at the end of the day, not humongous demons that could grow to the size of a small island, travel at mach 10 or even teleport, defy all known laws of aviation, etc. etc., and they were just one bad guy in the slasher flick, not a countless stream of essentially-immortal blights who could only, at best, be confined in their weaker cases, or be temporarily killed until they respawned somewhere else. It's just such a great conceit for a horror-action series!! And it plays super well into the higher themes of the work that act as social commentary on late-stage capitalism, bureaucracy, the growing general collective feeling of the slow, painful end of the world looming on the horizon, etc. etc. Like, not to spoil stuff, but the fact that the gun devil isn't even the strongest devil, even though guns are the main implements of millions upon millions of murders every year worldwide, and that the stronger devils are what they are, says a whole lot about society!! (Peter Griffin pic goes here)

it also makes the world extremely bleak if you think about it, because devil powers are in a feedback loop where the stronger they get, the more terrifying they are, which in turn makes them stronger.

The trans women devel has destroyed britain. this is an anti terf comment to be clear, unfou nded fear can also work, like chainsaws are scary despite rarely being used on humans.

The appearance of the Darkness Devil later on in the manga is one of my favorite things in comics ever, up there with a handful of pages from Uzumaki.

It's kind of funny that she would probably be more powerful in this world if she just had an onlyfans

Same lol. I stayed up til like 4am reading and work the next day SUCKED and all I could think about was finishing pt 1.

Saaame, though this happened to me well before the anime was announced. All my friends seemed to have gotten into it at the same time and just wouldn't stop talking about it, so I decided to read it and had the exact same experience as you. It's such a fantastic manga. I won't pretend I'm so well-read in the art of manga that I can claim to rank it among the best of all time, but it *is* the best manga I've ever read out of hundreds of series (maybe even over a thousand, I lost track.) The big caveat is that I haven't read Berserk yet (dragging my feet on it, I know) and I hear that's *even better*, but if "almost as good as Berserk" is the worst someone can say about it, then it's probably pretty damn good!

​@@drewbabelmao fr tho Berserk is totally your Jame if you enjoyed the thoughtfulness of CM's character arcs. NEW TREND: really fucking good writing UNLOCKED!

Yeah, I thought chainsaw man was one of those overhyped Shonen anime but after reading all the chapters, including part 2, it's quickly became my favorite manga of all time. Relatable characters, epic, funny, chaotic, conspiracy, it's just have everything!

I thought it would be Halloween

Don't forget the overarching threat, the man made of guns.

@@Necrapocalypse Or the gaslighting, gatekeeping girlbosses (several of them! The author's barely disguised fetish, etc.!

@@drewbabe Please, give Fujimoto *some* credit! He doesn't disguise it.

Katana Man looks like Denji's equal and opposite rival, so it's pretty funny how irrelevant he ends up being in the face of stronger, more thematically-relevant devils.

​@@timothymclean Yeah, I just realized chainsaw man doesn't really have the "rival trope" or even main villain up until the last arc.

I need the Sapphic fiend harem now

It'll be even longer before we get Asa Mitaka animated. Quanxi fans can at least enjoy a bit of schaudenfreude at the expense of part 2 fans.

​@@timothymclean oh my God I just realized the fish monologue will be animated

Once, on a stream I think, he said he read Hyperion because someone spoiled "a really spooky thing that a spooky guy does" and yeah it was a spoiler, but its okay because he didn't even know he wanted to read it until someone gave him that spoiler. And I think there's a certain sensibility to that.

​@@paulsmart4672Super Eyepatch Wolf has a really interesting video essay about spoilers that's along the same lines, I'd highly recommend checking it out!

That's so neat! I never thought of doing preshows before a movie night

Can you please be my dad/mom? 🥺

MANNnnn... This is the most wholesome comment I've seen in forever!

dude that is such a cute idea! love that

Please do not expose kids to horror. I hope you are least getting consent from their parents/guardians.

I had that exact glance you're talking about. We paused the first episode [popcorn, bathroom, something like that] right AFTER his blood slipped into Pochita's mouth but BEFORE the second reveal of Pochita becoming his heart. I remember being really pumped by the episode so far, being super happy we had a whole season to go, and idly daydreaming about the devil who's about to go out into the world as a human. Exactly like you described. Then we unpaused. Still one of my favourite shows of all time, but I'll mourn what I briefly thought it was.

I mean, we sort of have that. Sure its played for laughs, but after a certain thing happens, Denji's will is broken and with it his pact. So for that short time we have Pochita doing that, or at least he tries. Which is why it is played for laughs. A Devil isn't human, some of them take on more human shapes or interact enough with humans to be able to effectively fake it till they make it so to speak, but all of them. Even the ones best at it...aren't human. They don't really have human reactions, they don't really have human thought processes, so mostly its guess work or study on their part. And that is the joke. Pochita isn't very good at the guess work.

​@@LupineShadowOmega Yes, the way devils work and their psychology would have to be very different for the story to play out like I describe. But it's interesting that Pochita "comes back" later in the story. I was definitely under the impression that he had died in order to save Denji. Even Denji himself speaks about him like he's gone for good, if I recall the show correctly

@@Sugugus_421He did thought Pochita was gone but then Makima just straight up says that Pochita is still there in his chest just chilling in the second episode of the anime.

Also every female character is precious and I would die defending every one. Except Makima.

@@Anarchomancer Except Makima.

Reflecting on themes of this manga helped me to appreciate other people's fear of "control". I never feared the government taking control of my life, I don't think that's realistic, I think other forces (market forces) are more apt to control our lives in less direct (perhaps more insidious) ways. But I can see better now how terrifying a lack of control (as a concept) can be. There is probably a component of fear of certain mental illnesses or dementia that is tied to a loss of control. To not have control over one's own life, your fate, or one's own body... yes, that is terrifying.

@@shannonolivas9524 "To not have control over one's own life, your fate, or one's own body" - well, yes, terrifying is one word for it, certainly. But you can also call it being poor and neurodivergent in late capitalism. Greetings from a poor, neurodivergent person, living in late capitalism.

Chainsaw man part 1 has the best ending/final arc in any manga ever! It's bittersweet, epic, sad, chaotic, unpredictable and just overall awesome. I hope part 2 can deliver the same epicness as well.

Exactly what I was thinking man. It's a nice bonus that a live action version would require just... so many wet puppets.

It would be impossible to do a live action adaptation without heavy use of CG, and once studios get addicted to CG, they forget the art of the wet puppet. Unfortunately, I think a live action Chainsaw Man adaptation would be entirely devoid of wet puppets... but I think a fanmade short film that just shows, like, idk, what the fight with the Tomato Devil would have looked like if they had animated it, would be an excellent opportunity for a nice, juicy, beefsteak wet puppet.

The slimiest puppets even.

I-i don't get it

Someone on Tumblr made a lot of posts about a hypothetical Muppet adaptation of Chainsaw Man. I don't remember if you're allowed to post arbitrary links in KZfaq comments, but if you are the next comment should have one.

As someone who has read the manga, season 2 is going to MESS YOU UP. You have no idea how twisted this story gets.

I heard him describe seeing other people's art, manga professionals, as so much better that he felt like they had cheated, because he is self taught. And boy does my heart break for him because I fuckin love Chainsaw Man.

@@PanAndScanBuddy he went to some classes for illustration, but it was a portrait drawing class, rather than manga illustration. So he's not entirely self taught but his training is so unorthodox that basically all of his paneling and layout sense is self taught. Which I think you can see in how extremely reminiscent of like, film storyboards his layouts are.

I wish the guy didn't have to stick to the weekly shounen jump schedule. He's said publicly that deadlines force him to produce stuff he's not happy with. I know he's kind of a perfectionist inside, despite the fact that his art skills are self-taught and he hasn't made time to refine them, but rather just kind of relies on his intuitive understanding of composition and how to use line strokes properly, so he'll probably never be truly happy with his own work. But you can kinda tell that if he was given 2 weeks per chapter instead of 1, the man would be able to make every single chapter bang instead of just, like, 90% of them.

@@drewbabe thankfully part 2 has been on a semi biweekly schedule. Seems like they're letting him take 2 weeks between chapters whenever he feels like he needs to.

​@@THeKallOfCtuludude should be able to singlehandedly spread better working conditions in manga just on the basis of his character work. Chainsaw man WILL make you cry and like it.

Every fight in the manga is about adding characterization or world building, primarily the former. So even though it is an action manga where I'd say more than half the chapters take place with some sort of violent conflict either front and center or happening in the background while dialogue occurs, it really is all in service of telling a story about the people taking part in it. I can't talk too much about it without spoiling stuff, but characters' fighting styles speak to their motivations (like, the characters who use contracts that put themselves more in harm's way speaking to how driven they are for their goals or how they prioritize others over themselves) and to their upbringing/background (like, how disciplined or skillful they are when fighting speaking to their dedication to their goals/job, or how reckless Denji is speaking to how he's been so used to pain and suffering making him not shy away from more of it.) It's really fantastic. I highly recommend if you watch the anime first you do it with subs since the dub cast isn't a perfect fit, but even moreso, I recommend the manga, as it's overall a better media experience and, with a few exceptions, is better at doing the character work even though you can't hear their voices. But definitely watch the anime after reading the manga anyway, cuz the voice acting is a great supplement to the characterization!

It is an incredibly character driven story, but you might not get that impression at first

they do kind of just quickly explain what fiends are in a single scene in a single chapter, so it's understandable that you missed that detail. but yeah, makes you wonder, if those are dead bodies then isn't the breast groping scene technically necrophilia? 😆it is explained that they have, like, warm bodies and a pulse, though, so maybe not. FWIW, since you missed that bit, you should also know that fiends are weaker than their devil forms. I don't know if they explained why devils even bother to become fiends in the first place though, tbh. they don't seem to care about fitting into human society all that much, so looking kinda like a human doesn't seem worth the vulnerability. maybe I missed an explicit or implicit explanation, idk. and one more detail is that Denji is not a fiend, he's a new type of existence... but I think they explained that more extensively in the anime and manga both, so you probably didn't miss that, but hey, I'm sharing just in case, since you're a fan and I bet you'd like to know more of the lore, so I wanna fill in any gaps I can!

@@drewbabeI'd say the reason why some Devil want to become Fiends is because they don't want to lose themselves. Because devils in Chainsaw man don't permanently die when they get killed(Excluding special circumstances). They get respawned back in hell as a new iteration of themselves, losing whatever personality that they have in the past version. My other theory is that these devils don't want to go back to hell because the place is terrifying and they rather become fiends then deal with whatever primal fear and other strong devils that hasn't died yet in hell.

replace all the hate speech from Cartman with just being an actual demon and you get a character who is unironically less of a bad person

Heh, mango

wait, did we ever see kobeni's apartment? doesn't she live with her family and use her salary to support them?

@@furbyacolyte5604 I assume they meant Himeno's apartment and got names mixed up. Himeno's apartment WAS pretty nice.

I don’t think we see where Kobeni lives. Are you thinking of Aki, Himeni, or Makima’s apartments?

I meant Himeno's.

Yeah one thing that's mentioned in the manga several times is that there are private devil hunters who don't get paid as well but they go private because they aren't obligated to do their job or die trying. I guess you could kind of think about it as a commentary on government authoritarianism or something, but my understanding is that Japanese civil servant type jobs aren't worse than working for private companies, so I'm not sure if it's meant to be commentary in and of itself, but rather it's more of a manifestation of the influence of those who control the department. Not sure! It's fun to think about though.

I highly recommend the upcoming Delicious In Dungeon. It starts with "Delving into a dungeon requires a lot of food, but your rations have diminishing returns because they get so heavy if you keep going deep" then "What if we ate the monsters of the dungeon" then "Wait the dungeon has an ecosystem in delicate balance" and just springboards so beautifully from there into even more amazing stuff.

@@PanAndScanBuddy this? This is the second one. Today has been a good day.

@@steveharrison76 I just want to second the recommendation of Delicious In Dungeon (aka Dungeon Meshi.) I went in expecting a whimsical take on a frankly overdone fantasy RPG setting, but I got something that's honestly right up there with The Hobbit in terms of actually amazing high fantasy fiction with a story filled with both lighthearted whimsy but also unsettling darkness. It's not, like, "entire Tolkeinverse" levels of complex lore-wise, it feels more like the way that The Hobbit was as a standalone work, before The Lord of the Rings complicated and somewhat retconned it. It's so good! The manga is great, and the upcoming anime looks like it's going to be beautiful!

I'm reporting back, having watched all 12 episodes and subsequently bought the first 11 volumes of the manga to arrive at my house posthaste: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA heck. it's so good. thank you for the rec. heck

Do you know about his literal My Hero Academia death fic?

@@Ponera-Sama No I do not

@@Necrapocalypse I don't remember if Fujimoto wrote it before or after Chainsaw Man started, but one of his manga is called "Goodbye Eri".

@@Ponera-Sama Okay this is kinda funny but that's about a completely different Eri. It's about a kid who gets a smartphone for his birthday and makes a film about his dying mother for school. He gives it a... controversial ending that everyone hates except this girl he meets, Eri. Anyway go read it it's awesome, short, and I believe freely available? Edit: Just a free preview now. I mean, legally.

Goodbye Eri is not about MHA, come on

i need more seasons

Because you're still on parole from horny jail!

Your comment was from 9 days ago. Hopefully you have rectified this dilemma by now! Or if you haven't watched it, you've at least (or rather, even better) read it!

My reason was pretty simple. I heard the adaption didn't live up to the insane hype. After having watched the adaption I can honestly say they were all off their rockers. I understand that the source material is probably even better as from what I can tell about how much fans seem to love Fujimoto and his work, but I'm just not good at mangas or comics. Can't do 'em, can't appreciate them very well. I need the pictures to move and have sound, I don't know why. Thankfully, the chainsaw man adaption is excellent.

@@gwen9939the adaptation was great im glad u enjoyed it and I can’t wait for season 2

It has to be complicated after THAT episode that introduced Katana man. Oh boy. Oh shit.

I know that I would be unable to physically or mentally resist Makima but it's not through any fault of my own, and I think the same can be said for most people. Except the people who unironically bark in the comments of fan art of her. They're... a lost cause.

​@@drewbabeI feel really stupid but I'm not sure what that last part even means. But nah I don't much care for her.

Without giving away spoilers, CSM is a shonen but I think it's also in its own way a criticism of shonen. In most shonen, the day Denji gets recruited would be where he's on his way to a perfect life, but CSM carefully undoes that to show that the people he thought he was protecting, the stability he thought he had, etc is not what it seems. I could gush more but I don't want to give it away haha

This ain't a battle Shonen, there's no semblance of a training arc or even particularly complex fights, It's literally only classified as such because it's serialized in Shonen Jump.

@@Peasham are there fights where the next opponent is stronger than the last opponent?

Also great vid Mildred!!! I'm not a horror connoisseur so most times I watch these videos to learn about something I have never seen and am too afraid to watch myself but it was really cool watching a video from you on one of my favorites!

There isn’t a black hole Devil that I’m aware of, but there actually is a Darkness Devil, who shows up in one of the most iconic scenes in the series. It’s what’s called a “primal fear” Devil, which are considered the most powerful devils in the world of the series. The way it’s portrayed is genuinely fucking terrifying yet simultaneously fucking GORGEOUS.

Only America has fear/distrust of clowns as a cultural signifier. Most other countries are pro-clown/clown ambivalent. To the point that some cultures, like Japan, are confused by the phenomenon in the states. Darkness devil rips though. And War Devil seems pretty scary too.

It's like the old apple catchphrase, "There's a devil for that." There's a devil for literally everything some human has ever feared at some point. But you just don't see them all at once cuz that would be an unbounded amount of drawing to do. I think there's something close to a clown devil, and like the other commenter said, there's a darkness devil. If you combine darkness devil with falling devil you basically have black hole devil, right? That's basically how it works, I think :)

There are some pretty existential devils beyond just things like Spiders or Chainsaws

Beam is (essentially) spoilers for anime-onlys right now, so I appreciate Mildred holding back on revealing the actual best girl.