Chainsaw Man

Denji has a simple dream—to live a happy and peaceful life, spending time with a girl he likes. This is a far cry from reality, however, as Denji is forced by the yakuza into killing devils in order to pay off his crushing debts. Using his pet devil Pochita as a weapon, he is ready to do anything for a bit of cash.

Unfortunately, he has outlived his usefulness and is murdered by a devil in contract with the yakuza. However, in an unexpected turn of events, Pochita merges with Denji's dead body and grants him the powers of a chainsaw devil. Now able to transform parts of his body into chainsaws, a revived Denji uses his new abilities to quickly and brutally dispatch his enemies. Catching the eye of the official devil hunters who arrive at the scene, he is offered work at the Public Safety Bureau as one of them. Now with the means to face even the toughest of enemies, Denji will stop at nothing to achieve his simple teenage dreams.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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BackgroundChainsaw Man ranked fourth and first in the 2020 and 2021 Kono Manga ga Sugoi! for the Male Readers division, respectively. The series was nominated for the 13th Manga Taisho Award in 2020. It won the 66th Shogakukan Manga Award in the Shounen category, along with Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san.

As part of the JUMP START initiative, the first three chapters of Chainsaw Man were published in English in VIZ Media's digital Weekly Shounen Jump on the same day as the Japanese release. It has been published digitally as an English simulpub through MANGA Plus. The volumes have been published in English by VIZ Media under the Shonen Jump imprint since October 6, 2020. The manga has also been published in German by Egmont since October 6, 2020, and in Italian by Planet Manga since July 22, 2021.

The first part of the series ended with 97 chapters on December 14, 2020. Serialization of the second part began on Shounen Jump+ with the release of chapter 98 on July 13, 2022.

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Characters

Power

Main

Denji

Main

Makima

Main

Hayakawa, Aki

Main

Mitaka, Asa

Main

Yoru

Main

Reze

Supporting

Higashiyama, Kobeni

Supporting

Pochita

Supporting

Himeno

Supporting

Reviews

Nov 14, 2022

denji83

Recommended

EDIT: Chainsaw Man is really intense, and not for everyone. This manga features child neglect/abuse, gore, vomiting, grooming/psychological manipulation, and pedophilia. If any of that is upsetting for you, tread carefully!

This review was written after the ending of Part 1.

--

I hate reviews that start off with unnecessary prose, so let's skip all that and get to the meat of things!

Chainsaw Man is a story which thrives in its unexpectedness. It's a story that takes you for twists and turns in its plot and characterization, but mostly through its simultaneous homage to and subversion of shonen tropes. It's a story that looks dumb as hell, with ...

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Dec 16, 2020

Cindy-Uchiha

Mixed Feelings

While rating this I've pulled out my shounen wow-those-fights-are-so-cool heart in order to review this as fair as possible for the mangaka. Still couldn't give this a high mark.

Story:
The story and worldbuilding are so incredibly weak. The mangaka pushes you straight into action and from that point on you're in a rollercoaster that's only going hard downwards with no rest, meaning that there's no time to rest and therefore no time to enjoy the hype (no light without darkness yknow).

Towards the end, the story underwent an acceleration. The story that didn't even have anything to offer, underwent a goddamn acceleration. I couldn't even believe ...

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Mar 6, 2022

Huskkay

Not Recommended

Plot
Where to start? It's nonsensical.
Pretty much all of it boils down to one thing: The author wanted to progress through the story at Mach speed. Never did he take his time to write compelling plot points or at least some interesting dialogue. Everything about this manga feels like mindless and soulless action fodder. It is just so irritating because the concept behind Chainsaw Man had a lot of potential to be great.
At its core, CSM is an action manga, but the fights are weak. They are over way too fast, every single one of them boiled down to having a one-shot kill conclusion. That is ... not a bad thing per se, look at One Punch Man for example, but CSM handled it poorly. At least the fights are accompanied by some decently drawn panels from time to time.
I just wish the action would feel more impactful and engaging, but it follows the same formula every single time. Humans are mostly red shirts and the whole power dynamic between devils is convoluted. But who cares, because Denji only has to rev up his chainsaw and the mind-numbing slaughter can commence.
Furthermore, the manga is stuffed with suggestive scenes and fetish moments because you need at least one thing to get the blood pumping for all the horny teens. At some point, it is just plain annoying, mainly the whole barking shtick.
At least it was a very fast read.

Characters
The characters are a disaster. At least in my opinion, not a single one was likeable or left a positive impression. Two characters were bearable, Kishibe and Quanxi.
My main gripe with all the characters is that they are just as shallow as a puddle. No development, no meaningful interactions and why would I care about them if they just get thrown into the meat grinder after a few chapters anyway.
Let's talk about a selected few characters in more detail.
Kobeni was a throwaway character. I think she is supposed to be cute and a bit hopeless, maybe even a bit of a comedic relief. For me, she just appeared to be irritating and laughable, especially in the hotel arc.
Now, Denji, the star of the whole ordeal. Well, he is terribly written. His main motivation was always inspired by sex, that's it. To be fair, Denji is a hormone-driven teenager, which is also probably the target audience. Thankfully, he realized at one point that sex alone might not be the greatest goal ever.
As the main character, he just had nothing going on for him that would make me like or even just tolerate him. No personality whatsoever, though, at least the author tried to introduce more character depth for Denji in the last few chapters with the help of Power but that just felt rushed and forced.
Talking about Power, what's the point of her character? What did she bring to the table besides acting as a wish fulfiller for Denji? She got my interest at first because she showed a bit more depth but that was scrapped real fast and she turned into another useless side character.
Last but not least, Makima. I already mentioned the whole barking shtick but it was just so tiresome. Her seeing Denji as nothing more than a dog got tiring real quick. Besides that, I don't have any strong feelings or opinions about her. I mainly was confused. I don't understand her motivation, it makes no sense to me, and her power level was way too high compared to everyone else. Her ruthlessness was the one trait that kept her somewhat interesting.

Art
Most of the art is below average. Nothing stood out in a major way and it sometimes felt like flipping through a sketchbook. I don't need perfect and polished art on every page but give it at least some sort of uniqueness or "spice". Some fighting panels were drawn with a solid style, but those were used only once every blue moon.
Although, I actually give credit to the author for the devil designs. Most of them were pretty solid and didn't get repetitive.

Overall opinion
I can't mention anything positive about this manga, therefore I'll keep this part short. I don't get the massive hype around CSM. It's not the worst manga I've ever read, but it disappoints in so many areas. The writing is subpar and the art is, for the most part, uninspired.
Still, I'll check out the anime because it is made by MAPPA. The CSM anime will probably be like a Michael Bay movie. Solid visuals while everything else is a dumpster fire.

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Poll: CSM should have only had Part 1 and not Part 2 MongoDB - Mar 29	3 replies	by ame »» 8 seconds ago
I hope there's an epilogue chapter Kampos - Mar 27	15 replies	by PumpkinDoge »» 4 minutes ago
Poll: Worst New Gen Ending Quandavio_Dingle - Mar 28	23 replies	by Mchwi »» 41 minutes ago
Poll: Chainsaw Man Chapter 220 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Ahohite-killer - Nov 11, 2025	64 replies	by Kyrisuu »» 2 hours ago
Poll: Chainsaw Man Chapter 213 Discussion jas-samaaa - Sep 2, 2025	48 replies	by Kyrisuu »» 3 hours ago

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