Chainsaw Man anime

The Chainsaw Man anime finaly released this week!
Did you watch it? what did you think?

I've known the manga mostly from out-of-context memes so I went pretty spoiler free into this and DAMN i wasn't disappointed - the action was on point and the MC was painfully human.
The animation was top tier even in MAPPA's standarts (they have animated Attack on titan, Jujutsu Kaisen, Kakegurui and Hajime no Ippo: Rising among other things), And the soundtack was solid - the OP is one of my favs even after one episode!


I highly recommend it to anyone with no weak stomach (but considering this is BERSERK forum, yea yall good).


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Pic from the opening
 
Ah yeah the first episode is finally out.
Here's my post about it 2 years ago when the manga was starting to get popular. It's been honestly insane seeing it grow from something almost nobody talked about, to a decently popular manga, to an anime that's trending worldwide in just a couple years.
The author, Tatsuki Fujimoto is an amazing writer, though his writing style and art isn't for everyone, I'd still recommend you check out his other works. All of them are worth reading.
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I’ve been a fan of the manga since 2020, so I have been really looking forward to the anime adaptation; especially considering studio MAPPA was in charge of the production. Having seen the first episode I have to say I really liked it. The character animation and styling of the clothes is superb. However I avoided leaks so didn’t get to see the 2D/3D animation hybrid for the action scenes. Wasn’t that big of a distraction, but it is gonna take time for me to get used to it. And if that is the worst it looks, I can’t wait to see what the future is for the show. Also really looking forward to the dub
 
I have been watching it week to week on Hulu and am enjoying it. Had low expectations going in but it has been entertaining and the animation is dope.
 
The wildest part of the Chainsaw Man anime has been the discourse around this thing. Never have I seen people so literally crazed over a new series like this. This thing was hyped to shit, from my math is it was genuinely the most anticipated new anime series of all time and people are absolutely ready to tear it the fuck down or heap on the praise for being the greatest anime they have ever seen.

I enjoyed the manga quite a bit, and have been enjoying watching this weekly and getting excited not just to check out the animation, but to see what new shit storm people can pull off. Based on the way this series was hyped up, the huge manga following and the studio behind it, I was honestly expecting a little more. The director is certainly trying something with this and has made that quite clear, but I'm not the biggest fan of how grounded and realistic it all feels. The colours often make scenes looks pretty bland and grey and I would have appreciated a more stylized approach to a lot of scenes. The animation itself is above average for sure, but also not the kind of jaw dropping spectacle they should have been shooting for. You can see a lot of animation techniques and styles being used very liberally which diehards and purists can often freak the fuck out about (and certainly are) like CG/2D integration, rotoscoping and character animation with a sometimes distracting amount of frames.

With the trajectory of this series popularity and social media presence, I was expecting them to pull of some Tik Tok ready sakuga clip like Kimetsu no Yaiba or something to really blow peoples pants off, but nah not yet. The Bat Devil battle was fine and I was actually more impressed that the following episode kicked off with an even more elaborately animated fight right away. The 12 different ED artist and animations is also obviously cool and they've all been interesting in their own ways so far. Even if I sound somewhat down on it I'm enjoying myself quite a bit..I even ordered a case of official Chainsaw Man Zone energy drink (Blood flavour) to enjoy while watching. For me, as a Chainsaw Man adaptation, it's just clearing the bar but clearing it none-the-less.
 
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ou can see a lot of animation techniques and styles being used very liberally which diehards and purists can often freak the fuck out about (and certainly are) like CG/2D integration, rotoscoping and character animation with a sometimes distracting amount of frames.
Its a necessary evil unfortunately, hand drawing all this detailed action is not practical at all, the only example of that I can think of is AKIRA (and well.. it is one of a kind for a reason)

But overall I agree with your comment.

The latest episode so WILD! Seeing Denji dead inside after touching Power's boobs was such a suprise for me, and the scene after that with Makima took it even further, I love how the show always keep subverting my expectations..
The brand new ED in every episode is also a real bless, I listen to ED 1&2 non stop for weeks now, they are such a bangers :chomp:
 
Ever since the first PV came out last year I've been hugely captivated by those surreal and supernatural images and the incredibly wild elements of it (a man that transforms his head and arms into chainsaws?!?!) but I kept hearing of some gross and overly sexual content in the manga so I've been mixed between anticipation and avoidance.
Eventually curiosity won me over and now I'm watching it weekly. While as I expected I'm not very pleased by some elements of it, I'm not really grossed out (Denji's desires are like that but it's also very honest with itself), and the fights are absolutely spectacular. The supernatural stuff is really intriguing and the style is very unique and enjoyable. At the same time though I find myself not really caring for the characters.

Having read Fujimoto's Look Back one shot manga I'm very intrigued to see where Chainsaw Man will go, I find his style to be really captivating, even though that was a completely different story.
 
I've read the manga before the anime started airing. I like the visuals a lot however,
  • The direction does a disservice to the manga -- some scenes are stretched out in length compared to how you read through them in the manga, which make them less "impactful" and chaotic.
  • Action choreography is pretty bland compared to the manga imo - there's the same weightless and flashy animation style as in recent action-heavy anime, where characters zoom around and attack with zero weight behind movements & emphasis is put more in the flashy effects. After watching a lot of anime you can pretty much already picture in your head how the fights would appear on screen.
  • The slower pacing and having characters voiced somehow make it kind of unbearable to watch Denji's "want to touch boobs" motivations right now. I noticed when anime-only watchers comment that it's annoying how the main character is juvenile and how there's these "pervy" scenes, manga fans jump in right away saying that it's *actually* deep and makes sense because (insert Denji's abusive past here)...but like, gotcha, it's still annoying to have to sit through what's essentially fanservice for the sake of fanservice.
  • Lastly, for all the incredible hype the anime is getting right now, 5 episodes in and it isn't delivering as much as what one would expect honestly. So many other shows accomplish a lot more in half a season, but I get it--it's just based on the manga pacing. It's just interesting when the anime inevitably wins a lot of "Anime of the Year" awards due to the popularity and not necessarily based on objective critiques.
 
I think you're right on these criticisms, although I haven't read CSM I get the same feeling from other anime / manga I know. For example, regarding your third point about the anime giving a different feel than the manga, I get the same for Bleach (I'm currently reading it from the beginning and while I'm enjoying it on the manga, I can imagine many scenes being really annoying when animated and voiced faithfully). One could say the same for Berserk as well, it would feel really strange to see all those small comedic panels or one liners in the anime, and in this regard I appreciate how the 1997 anime did mostly remove or alter those moments so that it wouldn't break the overall tone. In this way I can imagine that those scenes in the CSM manga are much less annoying.
 
Its a necessary evil unfortunately, hand drawing all this detailed action is not practical at all, the only example of that I can think of is AKIRA (and well.. it is one of a kind for a reason)
Incoming anime nerd rant I want to get off my chest. I swear this isn't directed AT you in a negative way. More just what I'd like to say to the millions of people making comments like this to anyone criticizing the animation.

I find this type of comment very interesting. It seems to be the most common response to people that complain about the CG integration in this show and I think really speaks to peoples acceptance and the normalization of CG in anime. It isn't necessary at all, as it is completely down to the director and production staffs decisions.

Mappa is a huge studio with the biggest names in anime currently under their belts such as Attack on Titan and Jujutsu Kaisen. They definitely have the money and capabilities to hand draw the show if it is what they truly wanted to do, but are taking shortcuts and are trying to elevate their CGI game in order to maximize efficiency and pump out more product. Hell, Attack on Titan had stunning hand drawn animation and hand drawn titans battling each other as well as humans in all sorts of creative, sakuga filled scenes, some that were quite revolutionary. Then the show gets picked up by Mappa and they change the titans to CG models and lower the overall animation quality. Was this a "necessary evil"? The show was clearly capable of high quality hand drawn animation with some animation cuts being helmed as some of the best in modern anime. Now, in order to be "practical" and pump out more series, the product suffers.

Also, CGI PERIOD in anime isn't necessarily the problem, but the integration of it. Some scenes in Chainsaw Man look fine, but to have some of those scenes (in the first episode no less) with the camera just lingering on a pretty poor model mostly standing around just look bad and detract from the overall quality of the show. If a character is just standing there, literally not moving at all, why is a not-so-great CG model necessary? In the third episode with the Bat Devil, there is pretty egregious animation error where when the model is talking, there is a doubled up lower jaw. It might sound like I'm being super nit picky but I really feel like I'm just being reasonable in my critique. I still like the show!

Lastly...and I promise I'm not ranting AT you...just being triggered by the comment. There are loads of examples of recent anime that have detailed hand drawn action animation, or at least of a much higher quality than Chainsaw Man. I'm a bit confused, are you saying that AKIRA is the only anime with highly detailed hand drawn action animation? Or are you comparing AKIRA's action animation to Chainsaw Man (in which case we might have a problem XD). Stuff like Kimetsu no Yaiba, One Punch Man, MOB Psycho 100, even MAPPA's own Jujutsu Kaisen have higher quality 2D action animation than Chainsaw Man. I just feel like with the hype surrounding this series and the inevitable piles of money this thing is going to make, they made a real gamble on the CG integration and I'm not sure if it's paying off for them. People will still love the series, and other will like it fine like myself, but they had an easy win on their hands with this one and have created what I think was an avoidable "controversy" around how it is being directed and animated.
 
I've read the manga before the anime started airing. I like the visuals a lot however,
  • The direction does a disservice to the manga -- some scenes are stretched out in length compared to how you read through them in the manga, which make them less "impactful" and chaotic.
  • Action choreography is pretty bland compared to the manga imo - there's the same weightless and flashy animation style as in recent action-heavy anime, where characters zoom around and attack with zero weight behind movements & emphasis is put more in the flashy effects. After watching a lot of anime you can pretty much already picture in your head how the fights would appear on screen.
  • The slower pacing and having characters voiced somehow make it kind of unbearable to watch Denji's "want to touch boobs" motivations right now. I noticed when anime-only watchers comment that it's annoying how the main character is juvenile and how there's these "pervy" scenes, manga fans jump in right away saying that it's *actually* deep and makes sense because (insert Denji's abusive past here)...but like, gotcha, it's still annoying to have to sit through what's essentially fanservice for the sake of fanservice.
  • Lastly, for all the incredible hype the anime is getting right now, 5 episodes in and it isn't delivering as much as what one would expect honestly. So many other shows accomplish a lot more in half a season, but I get it--it's just based on the manga pacing. It's just interesting when the anime inevitably wins a lot of "Anime of the Year" awards due to the popularity and not necessarily based on objective critiques.
This post seems to agree with you https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2022-11-18/the-chainsaw-man-anime-style-feels-off/.191720
E.g.:
Fujimoto's linework is thick and loose, sketchy and somewhat chaotic—his sense of movement enhanced by increased sketchiness, nervous expressions are perfectly encapsulated by how he contorts faces into ugly mugs, and the horrors of devils are enhanced by messes of lines condensed to form their shapes. Fujimoto's sense of contrast feels lost too— something that comes naturally in a black and white manga, granted, but could feasibly be translated to color animation, yet isn't.

And… It feels like the anime ignores all of that in favor of being one big smoothed-out sakuga—which is neat in theory, but an ultimately unfitting choice for adapting a manga with such vibrantly kinetic linework. When looking at the anime, we see thin, clean lineart devoid of the endearing scribble and ink quality of Fujimoto's artwork. Also missing is his unique approach to designing faces, specifically in how they express and emote. The anime, on the other hand, goes to great lengths to animate smooth lip-synch and soft, subtle expressions, rather than adapt the delightfully ugly faces Fujimoto utilizes. Everything is just so soft and plain, so un-stylized—like this is one of those high-spec anime commercials for a company product or recruitment videos, and not freakin' Chainsaw Man. It feels like the anime is holding back from its potential.


I haven't read the manga (yet) but I get where the author is coming from, given the side by side comparisons. Still enjoying the anime but, damn, Genji is down bad. :ganishka: The anime sure is horny, but in a funny/innocent sense, so to say.
 
I haven't read much of the original, but personally I am not much offended by this type of adaptation to anime. As long as it's faithful to the story, character interactions and themes, I feel like the animation team should have the expression they want especially if the original author agrees and is involved in the process (which is the case here). I agree that a more unique and bolder animation style could reflect better the themes of the story but I disagree on how it is lost since it really isn't. Maybe an animation style like Ping Pong The Animation would have been a better choice for Fujimoto's artwork but I suppose MAPPA aimed at a more commercially successful approach and I don't find an issue in that... at least, for now. A few CSM manga reader friends of mine are really happy about it and recommend me to read the manga after the show finish airing (they want to see my reactions to the episodes as an anime only) so I could completely change my mind whenever I'll read the manga myself. I have to admit that due to horniness from how the last episode ended I went ahead and read 2 chapters after that and was delighted by the artwork and style, as well as got myself some considerable spoilers.

EDIT: I'd like to add that my indifference to this issue is likely because I don't really care about the source material and I'm fine with the anime adaptation (and don't really care much for the characters / story, I'm just having a good time with it for the most part). Also, the few manga readers I'm in contact with are happy. But I can imagine that I'd feel different if I had a much more familiarity with the manga like for example I do with Berserk or Attack on Titan. Sometimes the anime is a good interpretation or can even elevate the source material (see Attack on Titan's first season compared to the manga), but some woudl still argue that the anime completely reinvented the original aesthetic and that the original "roughness" of the manga art is lost. For something like Berserk, if ideally we had a Golden Age trilogy that was actually extemely faithful to the manga from a script and tone point of view, would I still like the visual style they employed? I'd probably still have issues with it to some extent.
 
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