It’s easy to forget why you may have gotten into manga and anime in the first place sometimes. Sometimes you may find yourself watching an anime that you don’t care much about, and it’s going slow, and nothing interesting is happening, and you find yourself wondering if there’s anything better you could be doing with your time instead.
Anime, in general, has been on an onward trend of getting better over time in the years since it started to become mainstream, not worse, but there are obviously exceptions to that rule. With more anime everywhere comes more bad or boring anime, and it can be easy to be misled by what appears to be an exciting premise, only to find out later that something critical needs to be added later on.
Sometimes, even as an anime fan, it can feel like a drag looking for a good show to watch. “Why should I even bother” you might think to yourself as you sift through a sea of shows that, let’s be honest, basically all look the same sometimes.
And then a show like Chainsaw Man happens. Immediately, right out of the gate, Chainsaw Man was met with an unparalleled degree of hype. The trailer was uploaded to Youtube months before the show would air, and it almost immediately garnered 11 million views. The only other show that could come close to this amount of hype in terms of anime trailers was the reveal trailer for Attack on Titan, which was entering its final season. So to see this many views on an entirely new IP was just, for lack of a better word, insane.
It was easy to see why people were so interested in this show. The trailer was no more than a minute long, but it did a great job introducing people to the wonderful and crazy world of Chainsaw Man. There really isn’t much that needs to be said when you see the main protagonist, Denji, when he’s in Chainsaw form. He literally has a chainsaw for a head and chainsaws for both of his arms. There is absolutely no doubt what Chainsaw Man is about when you look at him. It’s very blunt and stupid but in the best possible way.
Chainsaw Man is dumb action done right. The animation is absolutely beautiful, and fans have taken a hard interest in this show largely in part due to that. Studio Mappa is working on various shows right now, but it’s incredible just how good this looks despite the fact that they are juggling so many other projects simultaneously.
This is where “The Rule of Cool” comes in. This expression originally comes from Dungeons and Dragons, and the idea is just that “something” should be allowed if it’s “cool” enough. It’s an expression that says that basically if it’s fun or exciting or indeed cool, that might be sufficient reason to break a rule or two if entertainment and fun are the overall goals. No other show exemplifies this expression more than Chainsaw Man.
The story of Chainsaw Man is good, but it’s really not why people are watching. Just about every episode, without fail, something shocking or absolutely insane will happen. It’s borderline crazy what this story can get away with saying sometimes, and people absolutely love it.
Mappa is currently working on Chainsaw Man season 2, and it’s safe to say that they have a powerhouse. Hopefully, the show can continue to meet fan expectations.
