Chainsaw Man, written and illustrated by Tatsuki Fujimoto has established itself as a one-of-a-kind, unpredictable, and bizarre series. Its gory violence, and outrageously over-the-top fight scenes, juxtaposed alongside the manga’s dark humor, makes it such an interesting read. Beyond the gripping action-packed plot and monsters, this manga series has so much more to offer, especially in regards to the extremely well-written characters.
Plot of Chainsaw Man
Denji as a protagonist is super refreshing and definitely not your average conventional hero. He shows a lot of heart and an incredible level of honesty that is quite endearing. Besides the focus on the protagonist, other side characters make the series extremely worth reading.
A huge reason why Chainsaw Man has seen such tremendous popularity is that the theme of struggling to attain some semblance of comfort in this strange and cruel world is something we can all resonate with. The audience can sympathize with such a universal sentiment. All the nihilistic attitude, the violence, the morbid humor, and explicit jokes can be understood as a reaction to the illogical world surrounding the characters.
We can never accurately predict what will happen next because the series always manages to subvert the readers’ expectations. And this constant uncertainty is what makes this manga such a riveting story. The audience is made aware and challenged to not get too comfortable because absolutely no character is safe within this story. Not even the main protagonist.
It is amazing how rapidly this series has taken over the manga community in a short span of about two years, ever since it was serialized in 2018. This is quite an impressive feat, for a manga series that has no anime counterpart. There’s news, however, that an anime adaptation is possibly in the works.
The gritty art style blends amazingly well with the storytelling.
It should be noted too that it’s not just the absurdly captivating plot or the incredibly well-crafted characters that make this manga so addictive. Well-deserved praise should also be given to the artwork. The rough, gritty art style blends amazingly well with the storytelling.
Fujimoto has pretty much got his signature aesthetic down to near perfection, one can say. It might not suit everyone’s personal palette. It can even be quite jarring to suddenly go from consuming a standard art style shonen series like My Hero Academia, or One Punch Man to something as comparatively different as Chainsaw Man.
For some, it can be quite a case of an acquired taste to get used to the highly realistic, messy, and gross sort of art style of Fujimoto. To conclude though, this hyper-realistic and visually disgusting art form wonderfully lends to the overall tone, narrative, and characters of the story. And this is the beauty of Chainsaw Man.
