Chainsaw Man – 2 [Arrival in Tokyo]

Enter week two of Chainsaw Tuesdays and we have a quieter episode this week with the primary focus being the introduction of our main cast. We are near the end of volume 1 of the manga though that did resort in the cutting of a scene. But before getting to that I would give an overall impression of this episode being good. We got some laughs and it set up things for the next. It did the job it was meant to do though that may not wow people still looking for Chainsaw Man to deliver the answer to the hype it’s gotten. I think crunchyroll’s translation continues to muck up a bit thus making jokes land not as well or muddy certain lines with greater implications. CGI haters can relax as we have a fully 2D episode…I think. I will go into that but my confidence in telling the difference has been put down a notch. Also for those interested Crunchyroll has announced that the English Dub of Chainsaw Man will be debuting next week on the 25th. Which kinda shoots my plans of covering it weekly with the two episode delay but I am curious as to whether this could lead to grabbing a more mainstream audience. Chainsaw Man so far has landed pretty well but I think it has an appeal that could extend even to non anime watchers, with the only detriment at the moment being its subtitle only release.

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Chainsaw Man – 1 [Dog and Chainsaw]

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.
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Chainsaw Man – A Pre-Airing Primer

We are mere weeks away from the airing of Chainsaw Man and I thought I would take this time aside to have a little chat. I solemnly swear this post will have no spoilers and is just a means of helping newcomers get why this show is a big deal, what you could expect and how you shouldn’t walk into this expecting it to blow you away. I mean the series already has haters which even the most beloved of series have but I do understand how this series may not be for everyone and if you read the season preview you can likely tell who I have had fairly heated arguments with about it. So I have tried looking at opinions from those who were not quite as keen on the series to perhaps put forward reasons as to why this may not click with you. I have structured this post in a way where I will detail one positive and then one negative and by the end you can make your own judgments.

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