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“Would you want to be the country mouse or the city mouse? The country mouse gets to live in safety but doesn’t get to eat delicious food like they have in the city. The Town mouse gets to eat delicious food but runs a higher risk of being killed by humans or cats.” (Chainsaw Man chapter 42/ ‘Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc’)
Chainsaw Man is a popular series released by Tatsuki Fujimoto on Shonen Jump on Dec. 3, 2018. It also gained an anime adaptation on Oct. 11, 2022. The original manga follows a boy named Denji in a world of creatures called devils created from people’s fears. In a mountain of debt with no other way out, he strikes a deal with the chainsaw devil and is forced to devil hunt for the mafia at first.
A chance encounter leaves him dismembered with his devil friend in a dumpster. In a last-ditch attempt to save and preserve his life, the devil strikes a final deal with Denji, giving him his heart in exchange for him living a normal life.
He then lives anything but a normal life, working for the Devil Hunter special unit, fighting for his and his colleagues’ lives against other strong devils and fiends. For those who aren’t aware of what devils and fiends are in this manga/anime, here’s a crash course before throwing you into the review for the actual movie.
Devils are the manifestations of human fears, such as the fear of guns, sharks, zombies, chainsaws, etc. They take on physical bodies and wreak havoc on the world, especially humans. Fiends are essentially devils possessing humanish vessels, with stark physical characteristics around the head and facial area.
Now that we have you up to speed, let’s talk about the actual movie.
There were plenty of well-done scenes throughout the movie, and wonderful characters were introduced that we didn’t get to see much of in the anime. There is one fiend, introduced by the movie, which the audience gets the chance to understand in small segments as he plays a nice part in the scenes he appears in: The Angel Devil.
The Angel Devil (Casey Mongillo) appears in some of the build-up scenes, providing insight into both his demonic and angelic tendencies. Aki Hayakawa is assigned as his partner, and they are told to get along. The issue between them is that Aki can’t get past his aversion to understanding and look past the devil’s demonic nature.
There is a beginning scene where they find a suffering human on the verge of death, and Aki pleads with the Angel Devil to use his life-siphoning power to give the man a fast and painless death; he tells him that he wants humans to suffer when they perish. This attitude shifts throughout the movie in a magnificent scene that Hattie Huffman, vice president of JARS (Japanese Amine Research Society), compliments as “beautiful” and goes on to describe it.
“My favorite scene is when Angel Devil kisses the woman’s hand.” she said.
The scene she’s referring to is when the Angel Devil finds a dying woman and, in a moment of silence by themselves, he kneels and kisses her hand, giving her a brisk death. It showed beautiful character growth and highlighted that he still has angelic tendencies, despite his prior belief that humans should suffer.
Cinematically, the movie was very well-animated, having beautifully done fight scenes, which most Chainsaw Man fans came for. There is excessive blood and some nudity in this film; if you plan to watch it, be aware of that with the R rating.
“My favorite cinematic moment was when Denji fought the typhoon devil. He went around riding on Beam and was cutting the intestines,” said Bradon Rogers, the vice president of the Order of the Skyhawks. “I also loved when Aki grabbed Angel Devil to keep him from flying away into the storm. He grabbed his hand knowing that he would lose some of his lifespan doing this, but did it anyway.”
The major fight between Denji, Reze and the Typhoon Devil was a strong match-up and seemed like such an impossible one for Denji to defeat. He was already having major issues keeping up with Reze in the major fight, so adding another big player into the ring made it all that much worse.
The fights in this film were well-animated and kept the heavy flashing at a minimum while flexing Reze’s bomb abilities throughout it beautifully. Every time she flicked her finger, there was a major explosion, keeping the theatergoers on the edge of their seats.
Toni Collins, a new viewer of Chainsaw Man, went into the movie blind, unaware of the manga, and gained a few new characters in the film, along with a massive surprise.
“The pin-up scene was so funny. Denji was thinking through all of these girls, and there was one random dude in there,” She said.
The pin-up scene that she’s talking about is when Denji thinks through each of the female characters that he thought were attractive until now, in their undergarments. In addition to them, there was the inclusion of the Angel Devil, who, despite his feminine looks, is a guy.
This movie was worth the nine-dollar admission, and I would gladly recommend and rewatch it again if given the chance. If you’re looking for a great film that does not require the series’ context, this one should be added to your list.
Grade: 9/10
