A world where every concept is incarnated in a demon, whose power depends on how feared is the concept. The Cucumber Demon. The Blood Demon. The Typhoon Demon. The Future Demon. The Darkness Demon. The Angel Demon. The Death Demon. These fiends fight among themselves to either reign in hell or escape to Earth through possessing hapless people, usually the recently deceased. Demons hold grudges against each other and against humans in general. Humanity exists in a state of constant peril, with societies having to organize militias dedicated to the ever-present threat of a demon showing up somewhere or possessing a loved one. Some of the humans make deals with captured or semi-friendly demons, to gain some of their powers for good or ill. The cold war persists, but with the focus on achieving control of the most dangerous demons.

A winning concept, I’d say. The premise follows an orphaned teenager named Denji. He never went to school, lived with his gambler father, was manipulated by the local Yakuza into doing their dirty work for them, and finally was abandoned to die. However, a demon recently escaped from hell took pity on Denji; this fiend was the Chainsaw Demon, who had possessed a dog (I think that’s how the story goes; I have a hard time imagining Chainsaw escaping hell as a dog).

Denji had been torn into pieces, his body parts thrown into a dumpster, only for the Chainsaw Demon to give himself away as Denji’s heart, which made the teenager a human with feet in both worlds (this is extremely common in Japanese stories).

Then, the teenager gets conscripted into some special forces by a shady young woman with light-red hair.

The least I say about this person, the better.

Anyway, Denji isn’t your average protagonist. He’s half-wild, emotionally stunted, doesn’t care about the world, barely knows how to deal with people, can’t realize when he’s being manipulated (which happens constantly), and he’s solely motivated by hedonism, usually in the form of food or a cute face (or a nice pair of tits, or a nice ass), for which he’ll kill and/or die over and over again if necessary.

I quite like Denji. It has become a meme on the internet to say about Ryan Gosling’s characters that “He’s literally me.” I feel similarly about Chainsaw Man‘s protagonist.

In any case, the anime adaptation of part of the manga was a runaway success, even capturing the attention of some people that usually wouldn’t be into this stuff. But the anime series ended right at the moment when one of the most popular arcs would begin. This one involves a peculiar girl named Reze.

I’ve finished watching the movie about an hour ago. Oh, what joy. Plenty of the artistry on display was mesmerizing, some of the best animation I’ve seen in my life. The cinematography, the subtle character moments, the amazing fight scenes, the way the tension and absurdity ramps up to the point when you ask yourself how the hell did we get here. I wish the movie had been longer, but I didn’t feel like it missed any of the content of this arc. Reze’s character was done justice, which is far more than you can usually say about adaptations.

You know, it gets easy to forget that when you go to the cinema, the contract used to be that you’re giving away your attention and time to be captured by a story told by competent, passionate people. These days you watch movies, if you dare, trying to find a few entertaining moments in the torrent of politics that gets diarrhea-ed down your throat. This movie I’m reviewing is the deranged tale of two young people who were fucked from birth and who have no choice but to do the things they’re told to do, to have in exchange some semblance of normality in their lives. It also involves a myriad explosions, chainsaws growing out of a head and limbs, and a shark mount. If you enjoy Chainsaw Man, you have to watch this one. If you haven’t followed the story up to this point, you’ll have no fucking clue about what’s going on.

Great times. I posted one of the trailers for the movie in the previous post, but I’ll post it again:

Sadly, the movie would have left a perfect taste in my mouth if it wasn’t because I know that the story doesn’t end with the first part of the manga. The author, for whatever reason, created a second part featuring a new main protagonist (they switch around afterwards, but still), and although it started out very promising, it quickly devolved into shittiness. Some great moments, but plenty of lame ones. And much worse: some characters were brought back only to do a disservice to them. Others were killed unjustly. I’m waiting for that part to end so I can read it in its entirety, but right now I’m of the opinion that it shouldn’t have been created at all.