Chainsaw Man anime+manga

Little disclaimer, this will mostly be a rant, and it's spoiler free. Not exactly a detailed review as much as it's me unloading something that's been on my mind since I first heard about CSM a few years ago. Enjoy!

Once a year or so, I'm down to watch some overhyped garbage with my husband, in 2022 that was the one and only, Chainsaw Man.

I've been reading praise for CSM way before the adaptation was even announced and I never got what the big deal was. Every person that praised it, and had their identity tied to the post praising it or whatever, was a young weeb with a few exceptions. When things become big seemingly out of nowhere, I love observing the fanbase for some reason. The usual fan was someone that didn't read manga a lot, only watched entry level stuff, was in their 16 year old egdelord phase, you get the gist. If they were an adult, they were either a dude into femdom (the hot new thing!), a standard coomer, an nlog, or girls that felt really guilty for enjoying it because of how unoriginal it "seemed", and actually was. Because of that, I had no issues with handwaving the praise and the dick sucking. But as the adaptation got announced and as the anime came out, the fans became more numerous and they came out at full force to shit on the anime for being an awful, disgraceful adaptation that does the magnificent and awe-inspiring manga no justice. To the point they started a petition for a new director to remake it. As a result of that, I felt like it just wouldn't be fair to only review the anime but to read a bit of the manga as well, specifically up until the point the anime ends.

In a world where every dude wants to either be dommed by Makima or rape her, where people praise Denji to be a hilarious and ground breaking protagonist, where every 17 year old self identified "femcel" that just discovered imageboards other than 4chan exist avatarfags with kawaii, anxious, "she's licherally me!" Kobeni is that too specific? maybe, but it happens so often, where suddenly every "self aware", critical anime connoisseur references CSM or uses one of its characters as a profile picture - surely, this manga deserves the hype? It garnered such a huge fanbase, it seems to be the hot new thing, an amazing subversion of the genre, a self aware but poignant story, a deconstruction of the genre, etc, etc....

And with that, I have to say, there's nothing better than the feeling that you've been right all along. Turns out, all it takes to be called "deep" and "different" is for the mangaka to dress all the characters like in Reservoir Dogs (muh western references! the mangaka watches movies!), and all the weebs will worship the ground you walk on. Oh yeah, and instead of making the motivated, stubborn, tragic and vengeful character the protagonist, make the AnyRandomGuy a protagonist, but wait, he also has a tragic past because of course, but remember! this is still somehow subversive and deconstructive, what are words anymore?

I laughed when people unironically said Chainsaw Man is good actually because the women don't get blatantly sexually harassed and groped, nevermind the titty shots in every chapter, and that Denji had amazing character development, because he learns that sex without feelings is not special and he should strive to have sex with someone he gasp has feelings for! God! A concept never seen or explored before in media.

Now to give the fans some credit where credit is due, yes, the manga was more expressive and slightly more chaotic and I do think the anime felt more polished and thus not as fitting for the atmosphere and the whole vibe, I do agree with that. It still however doesn't make the characters any less bland and uninteresting, the story any less uninspired and boring etc. Although I had the ending spoiled a long time ago, I still might finish the manga at some point to give it a proper review perhaps, but the anime all the fans are outraged about - it only feels like it's exposing how delusional the fanbase got. When you remove the chaotic scratchy artstyle you're left with a dime a dozen storyline and maybe slightly more nihilistic characters than what is expected for the shonen demographic.

In the end, this manga does what so many manga did before and imo is not something worth praising for when it comes to originality, and it's that typical Japanese take on "society and people suck, everyone sucks and we have to deal with it and survive" or some variation of that. I encounter manga like that so often so I'm wondering, what the hell are csm fans reading if they think that csm is special? It only has a slight contemporary twist to it, but seinen manga is so full of these types of stories.

I'm not going to lie, if I continued reading maybe I'd find the characters more likeable, I have pretty low standards when it comes to that, I get attached to anything if I read it long enough. I already like Power and her antics, and I like Makima as well but.. BUT. I cannot stress this enough, this manga is not worth the praise it gets.