Chainsaw Man

• 1. Introduction

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  Chainsaw Man is a Japanese manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto, and its world contains a creature that can erase an idea from human memory. When the Chainsaw Devil devours another devil, the thing that devil stood for vanishes from existence and from every mind. In the story's version of history, the Holocaust, AIDS, and nuclear weapons have all disappeared this way, and nobody remembers them. The hero is a poor teenager who shares his body with that creature. Several questions run through the story. What kind of world breeds devils like this? What happens to a boy who carries one inside him? How did an author with such a violent, odd imagination end up serializing in a weekly shōnen magazine? And why do critics keep reaching for words like chaotic, earnest, and unforgettable?

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• 2. A World Built From Fear

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  In the late 1990s of this story, the Soviet Union still exists. That single detail tells the reader the setting is an alternate timeline rather than our own history. Devils are born from the collective fears of humanity, and they grow more powerful as those fears become more widespread. Specialized operatives called devil hunters are tasked with eliminating them. Hunters often make contracts with devils, gaining their abilities in return for something. A devil that takes over a human body, usually a dead one, is called a fiend. Some people instead become hybrids by merging with a devil. Death works strangely for devils. When one is killed on Earth, it reappears in Hell. When it is killed in Hell, it returns to Earth. The Chainsaw Devil is the one exception to that endless cycle. The government answers all of this with a unit of professional hunters called the Public Safety Division, and that unit is about to gain a new recruit.

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• 3. Denji And Pochita

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  Denji owes a debt he never chose. His late father borrowed from the yakuza, and the teenager works as a devil hunter to pay it back. His companion is Pochita, a dog-like creature who is the Chainsaw Devil. The yakuza betray Denji and kill him in a deal with the Zombie Devil. Pochita then merges with him and revives him as a hybrid, on the condition that Denji live a humble, ordinary life. By pulling a cord in his chest, Denji becomes Chainsaw Man and kills both the yakuza and the Zombie Devil.

  Makima leads the Public Safety Division, and she recruits Denji and assigns him to hunt the Gun Devil. His partners are Aki Hayakawa, an experienced hunter, and Power, a fiend created from the Blood Devil. Makima hides her true identity. She is the Control Devil, and she wants to dominate Pochita, because his power to devour devils lets him erase the fears they embody.

  The United States sends the Gun Devil to eliminate Makima. She defeats it and forces it to possess Aki as the Gun Fiend, and Denji has to kill Aki in self-defense. Later Makima kills Power in front of Denji. He becomes catatonic, and Pochita must take over his body. Denji eventually kills Makima. In the aftermath he is entrusted with Nayuta, a young girl who is the reincarnation of the Control Devil. Nayuta follows him into the second arc, where a different girl takes center stage.

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• 4. Asa, Yoru, And Erasure

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  Asa Mitaka is a socially withdrawn high school student, and her part of the story begins with her death. A classmate who made a contract with the Justice Devil kills her. Asa then forms a contract with the War Devil, Yoru, and becomes a fiend with Yoru living inside her. Asa wants to break the pact. Yoru secretly plans to revive the Nuclear Weapons Devil and take revenge on Chainsaw Man for her near-destruction. Denji, meanwhile, balances school with his role as Chainsaw Man while caring for Nayuta.

  A girl named Fami claims to be the Famine Devil, and she manipulates events to delay the arrival of the Death Devil. She secretly controls a cult-like project called Chainsaw Man Church. Its second-in-command, Barem Bridge, destroys Denji's home and kills his pets. Nayuta seemingly sacrifices herself. Denji is imprisoned and harvested for parts, until Asa, Yoru, and Fami rescue him.

  Yoru is empowered by humanity's growing fear of war, and she offers Denji a new deal. He must defeat the Death Devil and earn Asa's affection, or be transformed. The pair fight the Falling Devil, and Yoru defeats it after America reinvents the nuclear bomb. Denji is left for dead, but Fami saves him. She turns out to be the Death Devil, Li'l D. She explains that Yoru wants an infinite war, which she will cause by having Pochita erase death. Barem returns, and an enraged Denji gives Pochita control so that he can devour him. Pochita then duels Yoru while Denji and Asa meet in a separate dimension. Asa decides to sacrifice herself so Denji can kill Yoru. Pochita instead devours Li'l D. Yoru seemingly kills Pochita, but Denji emerges in a new hybrid form and defeats her.

  With death erased, insect-based devils grow more powerful, and a global apocalypse follows. Devoured by a devil, Denji and Pochita find themselves in an open field. Pochita realizes that becoming Denji's heart caused his trauma. After they say goodbye, Pochita devours his own heart and erases himself. In a new reality, Denji wakes alone in a shack. The yakuza take him to an abandoned warehouse and nearly kill him, until Power arrives and saves him with her blood-related abilities, permanently linking the two. Nayuta, now working for Public Safety, recruits Denji and Power as devil hunters. Sent to kill a devil at a school, Denji meets Asa, who has never been possessed by Yoru. She thanks him and, seeing the chainsaw in his hands, calls him Chainsaw Man. That stirs a remnant of Pochita still inside him. Asa returns to her classmates, and Denji and Power head off to find money for food.

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• 5. Fujimoto's Method

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  Tatsuki Fujimoto always intended to serialize in Weekly Shōnen Jump, even with a story this violent and darkly funny. He feared that a conventional "Jump-like manga" would be overlooked. So he kept his individual style while borrowing the magazine's usual narrative structure and character types. The 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre inspired the series. Despite a demanding schedule, he kept absorbing new media and folding pieces of it into his work. On Twitter, he named the final battle of the 2016 film Kizumonogatari Part 3: Reiketsu as a direct influence on the climax of the first part. He has also described the series as a "copycat of Dorohedoro and Jujutsu Kaisen," a "wicked FLCL," and a "pop Abara."

  Some story elements were planned from the outset, and others grew during serialization. Fujimoto deliberately left many concepts vague and open-ended so that a second part could expand them. After the series succeeded, he chose Shōnen Jump+ for that part, hoping to explore a completely different direction. He found few differences between the two editorial processes. A few depictions were adjusted at the rough draft stage, but he had full creative freedom over the story's logic.

  In an interview with the magazine Da Vinci, he was asked what readers could expect from the second part. He pointed to the 1998 film The Big Lebowski, which left him questioning its ending and feeling that it had all been for nothing. Yet the protagonist and story had still developed. Fujimoto loved "this sublime absurdity" and hoped to give readers "that kind of aftertaste."

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• 6. Print Runs And Screens

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  The 3rd of December 2018 brought Chainsaw Man's first chapter to Weekly Shōnen Jump, where the first part ran until the 14th of December 2020. On the 19th of December 2020, Shueisha announced that the second part would feature Denji going to school. That part ran on the Shōnen Jump+ app and website from the 13th of July 2022 to the 25th of March 2026. The first collected volume appeared on the 4th of March 2019, and by the 4th of February 2026 there were 23.

  English readers had access almost immediately. Viz Media ran the first two chapters in its Weekly Shonen Jump digital magazine as part of a "Jump Start" initiative. Shueisha began publishing the series in English on Manga Plus in January 2019. In February 2020, Viz announced digital and print editions and posted a trailer set to high-octane opera vocals. Its first volume was released on the 6th of October 2020, and by the 3rd of March 2026 there were 20.

  MAPPA produced a 12-episode anime, broadcast on TV Tokyo and its affiliates from the 12th of October to the 28th of December 2022. An anime film, Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc, premiered in Japan on the 19th of September 2025. At Jump Festa '26 on the 21st of December 2025, a further anime adaptation of the "Assassins" arc was announced.

  A novel by Sakaku Hishikawa, illustrated by Fujimoto, was published on the 4th of November 2021. It tells three stories on the theme of "buddies": Power and Denji, Kishibe and Quanxi in their partner era, and Himeno and Aki around the time they first met. Viz released it in English on the 25th of July 2023.

  A stage play was announced on the 29th of December 2022, written and directed by Fumiya Matsuzaki, with music by Shunsuke Wada and choreography by Hidali. It ran at The Galaxy Theatre in Tokyo from the 16th of September to the 1st of October, then at the Kyoto Theater from the 6th to the 9th of October 2023. Naotake Tsuchiya played Denji and Aya Hirano played Makima. A second play adapting the Reze Arc is set for the Tennozu Galaxy Theater in Tokyo from the 25th of July to the 2nd of August 2026, with Yui Yokoyama as Reze.

  The series spilled further into everyday life. A manga exhibition ran at a Tower Records gallery in Shibuya from the 12th of June to the 4th of July 2021. Good Smile Company released Nendoroid figures of Denji, Pochita, and Power in October 2021. Denji even made a cameo in chapter 259 of My Hero Academia. A free browser game marked the fifteenth volume on the 4th of August 2023. Universal Studios Japan hosted a Chainsaw Man attraction from the 6th of September to the 4th of November 2024, as part of Halloween Horror Nights. A crossover with the mobile game BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! ran from the 15th to the 25th of December 2024, and it included covers of the anime songs "Chainsaw Blood" and "Fighting Song."

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• 7. The Numbers Climb

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  Over 3 million copies were in circulation in August 2020, a figure that had passed 5 million by December of that year. By March 2021 it stood above 9.3 million. The climb kept going: over 20 million by November 2022, over 30 million by December 2024, and over 35 million by January 2026.

  Japanese sales charts tracked the surge. The series was the fifth best-selling manga in the first half of 2021, with over 4 million copies sold. Over all of 2021 it ranked seventh, with over 5 million. In the first half of 2023 it ranked second, with over 4.4 million copies. Print runs show the publisher's confidence. Volume 14 had a first printing of 800,000 copies, Shueisha's sixth highest for the period from April 2023 to March 2024. Volume 17 started at 500,000, the publisher's eighth highest for April 2024 to March 2025.

  In the United States, the first volume sold 18,000 copies in 2020. The first eight volumes together sold 623,000 copies in 2021. The New York Times began listing the volumes on its monthly Graphic Books and Manga bestseller list in April 2021. ICv2 placed the franchise tenth among manga franchises for the last four months of 2021, and third for sales per volume on retailer shelves. By NPD BookScan's count, it was the best-selling manga series of 2022, with eight volumes among the top 20.

  Honors followed. In 2021 it won the 66th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category, and it won the Harvey Award for Best Manga each year from 2021 to 2023. Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi list put it fourth for 2020 among male readers and first for 2021. Bookstore employees surveyed by Honya Club ranked it second for 2020, behind Spy × Family. In TV Asahi's Manga Sōsenkyo 2021 poll, where 150,000 people voted, it placed 58th. Back in 2020, before any anime existed, fans in an AnimeJapan poll had already ranked it tenth among the most wanted adaptations.

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• 8. What Critics Argued

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  James Beckett of Anime News Network gave the first volume a B+, praising its eccentric mix of humor, violence, and emotional depth. Sheena McNeil of Sequential Tart gave it 9/10 and compared it to Army of Darkness, Devilman, and Dorohedoro. Ian Wolf of Anime UK News gave the first volume 6/10, liking the action but finding the writing shallow. Katherine Dacey of The Manga Critic was mixed, calling its appeal polarizing but undeniably unique. Hannah Collins of Comic Book Resources said it balanced supernatural action with poignant character moments and could become a future classic.

  Fujimoto's artwork drew particular praise. Collins admired his thick, expressive linework for its gritty atmosphere. Nicholas Dupree, also of Anime News Network, enjoyed how the devil designs grew more surreal and unsettling as the story went on. Wolf called the art the manga's strongest aspect. Beckett found the early human character designs generic, yet praised the clarity of the action. McNeil thought the human designs unremarkable, while the devils and gore were visually striking.

  Critics largely agreed that the violence served the story. Julia Lee of Polygon said the extreme gore set the series apart from conventional shōnen manga and suited its dark premise. Danica Davidson of Otaku USA found it gruesome but thematically appropriate. Beckett warned that the bloodshed and crude humor risked alienating some readers. Dupree saw the crass, nihilistic humor as a deliberate contrast with more "bleedingly sincere and family-friendly" titles like One Piece and My Hero Academia. Adi Tantimedh of Bleeding Cool credited the deadpan slapstick with keeping the series from becoming overly grim.

  The heart of the debate was Denji. Collins said the series is only "loosely" comparable to Jujutsu Kaisen, because Denji subverts the shōnen protagonist mold. She saw his "life on the fringes of society" as a "Dickensian parable about the plight of the working class." Tantimedh read the story as a critique of societal dehumanization. Dacey found Denji more flawed and realistic than most teenage heroes, though she struggled to connect with him. Lee felt his simple motivations could grow repetitive, until side characters like Power and Makima lifted the story. Reiichi Narima went further, reading the finale of the first part as a tragic love story.

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