Landing finally after all this time with anticipation high and does Chainsaw Man land like a superhero or splat like the other guys. To give early judgment, I would consider it a success as it did what a first episode should do. Would that match the hype built up for it? No, but quite frankly nothing would. This episode was beautiful, Ushio did fantastic on the soundtrack and direction was excellent. I am aware that the voices Denji and Makima are different from what people imagined and personally I did feel a degree of dissonance which may need more time to fade. I expect more of that when I check out the english dub of the series. True be told I planned to include a section for it in this post but sadly Cruchyroll is late with that dub despite it being completed. Still I feel the Japanese actors did well for what little I can do to judge their performances. We got a good opening with my personal favorite touch being the movie references as Fujimoto is a well known movie nut. A nice blend of well known and fairly obscure as well as seeing as we got Pulp Fiction and Big Lebowski alongside Jacob’s Ladder, Constantine and Killer Tomatoes of all things. This thing is likely a litmus test for how well you know your movies. Full disclosure, I failed having only caught the Goodbye Eri and Big Lebowski reference but I know you looked them up too.
The events of this episode wouldn’t set the world on fire. It’s about Denji and Pochita and how they become the Chainsaw Man. I would say quite a few could point to other shounen origins and name similarities where an outcast in the first chapter gains power through a sudden dire event. I like to compare it to Devilman as I find both Akira and Denji’s transformations to be aesthetically alike and functionally as brutal. But as for the story of this episode it definitely shows it’s oneshot nature(Or a pitch Draft) as we have more or less a self contained arc. Denji dreams of a better life, gets betrayed and fights to get what he always wanted. Roll credits. You got yourself a perfectly serviceable OVA with that. The reason I bring this up is that I would like to point to the rather clumsy method Fujimoto took to fit all this into a neat chapter. Enter the Zombie devil who spends the majority of his time as an exposition device to what he is and why the Yakuza is betraying Denji. Look I get that it’s not something to dwell on as he’s here to get chopped into bits so the how or why isn’t important. Merely that here’s the quick reason to get some bloody action and axe the yakuza out of the plot. In the manga I could excuse it as it’s just a few pages but when you put words to screen it does provoke questions. Like why this devil is so forthcoming with the person he intends to just kill? There are a lot of things to foreshadow future events, likely more than the average viewer will realize till a second watch after series completion. However if I am to take this entire Zombie Devil event I just have to admit that Fujimoto just needed a quick and easy fix. I just feel that in the anime we could have maybe lessened the Zombie devils exposition dump by foreshadowing it a bit. It would take away a bit of the surprise but really that betrayal was inevitable.
Now let us discuss the other more obvious computer modeled elephant in the room. To be blunt I would think if you believed that Chainsaw Man would have no CGI at all then I would point to the very first scene of the first trailer. Where a clearly CGI rat scurried past Denji’s feet. I remember fearing for the worst when I saw that but then the rest of the trailer blew that away. Still I knew that this anime would have CGI and no matter how well done, there would be awkward moments. This episode had those moments with the action sequence being the prime offender. I would say that the CGI was better than most of its contemporaries, and in some cases the blend they did was seamless enough to be forgiven. But like any Marvel movie where CGI is top dollar, there is a part of the brain that recognises it and that can dispel the fourth wall. I consider Studio Orange the best at being able to manage this uncanny mix and even they can have moments of stop motion movement or distracting character modeling. Chainsaw Man is below that level and considering the highs it has in animation elsewhere, it makes the lows all the more apparent. I once thought that Denji would be the dividing factor and main target for hate but now it’s clear that the CGI will truly be it. What worries me is that the first episode of an anime is the money shot and in general there is a decline as you continue throughout the series. The opening has its share of uncanny moments with the first shot of the gang being the worst of it. So we could have a higher frequency of it that needs to be ignored in later episodes.
I spent two paragraphs there being pretty hard on this but I do want to say that I really liked this episode. As a fan I am satisfied with how this turned out. I said it before in my Chainsaw Man Primer post but I believe the true worth of this series isn’t in it’s action but rather the quieter character moments. In regards to that I say this episode was a success. It nailed every emotional beat the first chapter was going for and Pochita has likely set up a full merchandising lineup with this alone.(Provided he hasn’t already.) I would like to point out some problems I had with the translation though as there were some moments that made me slightly twitch. Things like Denji telling Pochita that giving his blood was a “Deal” instead of “Contract”. Or Denji saying he wants to “Score” with a girl instead of “Hug”. I am not one to rail on translation when they get the point across but there are small distinctions here that give different impressions. Like the second, the point is that Denji’s dream is to hug a girl, hence making sense of the scene in the episode where he asks Makima for one. He does clarify a hug later in the episode but the point is that Denji’s dreams are small in all aspects and does come into play later. And if I am picking these nits I just feel they should have had more blood splatter with the part where Denji saws the Zombie devil in half. That’s a pretty impactful panel in the manga that felt a bit underwhelming in the anime.
This is only the beginning and any great anime needs time to prove itself. I would ask viewers to continue even if they feel let down by this premiere. As if the action disappointed this could come to be entertaining once it delves into its more interesting aspects. Chainsaw Man is a story that gets better as it continues and from watching manga impressions I would say people truly come to like it in its later parts. There are those who deride the saying “It gets better later” but some things truly are like that. As for me I am in this ride till the end and Mappa has given me high hopes that it will be given justice. But will this stand as a must watch anime for any fan of the medium? Well only time can truly tell and it will certainly be interesting to see.
Oh I thought that looked familiar – didn’t realize there were so many movie references.
AND WTF?! The translator should be fired over that one – I definitely wasn’t paying that close attention to the audio when he said “score with a girl” but I was vaguely like, I don’t think that’s what he said. THAT’S SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT – I was really confused why he asked the girl to hug him.
As an anime only, as you figured, my big complaint is the CG. Everything else was better than expected.
For anime only viewers I strongly urge you to not underestimate Denji. Trust he his far more complex and sympathetic than he initially appears.
People warned he was a terrible character at first, but he seemed like a standard protag to me. He’s had a rough go of it too, so some of his less-than-ideal social behavior seems normal – would be weird if he was perfectly adjusted.