The Ringer-Verse - 'Chainsaw Man' Series Premiere Reactions

Episode Date: October 16, 2022

Charles Holmes and Justin Charity get you ready to hunt some devils as they react to the series premiere of 'Chainsaw Man!' They go over the history of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s manga, how the pandemic ultimately drew in more readers, and why the story resonates with an American audience. Also, they discuss MAPPA’s reputation for creating high-level anime, the episode’s focus on Denji and Pochita, as well as the potential for a more widespread audience as the show grows. Host: Charles Holmes and Justin Charity Associate Producer: Jessie Lopez Additional Productional Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Yossi Salick, and I'm the host of Bansplain, a show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists by going deep into their histories and discographies. We're back with a brand new season at our brand new home, the Ringer podcast network, tackling a whole new batch of artists, from grunge gods to power pop pioneers to new metal legends and many, many more. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, only on Spotify. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required.

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Welcome to the Ringiverse, your Nexus Eve. For All Things Fandum, my name is Charles Holmes, The Midnight Boys. His name is Justin Charity of Sound Only. And together, we decided to convene a little anime club for y'all. We've heard. We've heard the rumblings, okay? We're here to talk about the biggest show of the season, Chainsaw Man.

And don't worry, this is a show for anime beginners and experts alike. So it doesn't matter if you've never watched an anime before or can name every member of the Straw Hat crew, Because Charity and I are going to have you covered. Now, with that out of the way, Charity, are you pumped to talk about anime? I had to pull a lot of strings behind the scenes to get the screenlets. You had to hit the jack. You had to hit Miyazaki on the jack.

The hype of the show is out of control. Like, this is, this is, are we safe to say this is like the most hype thing since attack on Titan? I feel like that's what we're dealing with, right? Oh, absolutely. I thought that you were going to have to talk me off it. It's different from Demon Slayer where like Demon Slayer didn't have hype until we saw the animation, it goes crazy.

Snowballed. This is attack on Titan level of once this is off, Crunchyroll or let's say Crunchyroll, maybe Hulu gets it. I don't think Americans will shut up about this show. Yeah, absolutely. So I want, because here's the thing, I have to pull a lot of strings and what I promise everyone is, is that I'm going to take you on a journey.

I'm going to be a nice teacher for everybody. So I want to tell everybody what Chainsaw Man is about before we hop into this conversation. So Chainsaw Man is a manga created in 2018 by Tatsuki Fujimoto. It follows the story of Denji, a poor orphan who bonds with his pet Pochita, becomes a devil hunter named Chainsaw Man with the power is. of you guessed it, a chainsaw. The series has sold more than 15 million copies worldwide. It's become one of the most popular manga and honestly just comics in general in the world. And now with the release of the Ryu Nakayama directed series by Mapa Studios on Cruncherol,

Chainsaw Man will most likely become one of the most popular TV shows on the planet if the studio can pull off the adaptation. But before we get into the first episode, I want to know from you, Charity, what's your just relationship with anime and how close or far is something like Shadesaw Man from what you normally consume?

I mean, this is my wheel. Come on, dog. This is my wheelhouse. This is my wheelhouse. Sailor Moon, you know, in the night. I have one of my earliest childhood memories is crying during like that first season finale of Sailor Moon.

So like this is me. This is my life. Wait, are we, We're both Sailor Moon Boys. When I was in... Oh, absolutely. When we were in kindergarten, oh, man, I...

Dragon Balls v. Sailor Moon. Everybody else... Everybody else I was friends with was DBZ. I was not messing with DBZ at all. I was in the Sailor Moon. And the rest is history. Oh. Charity, this is why we're doing this.

Because, as my brother likes to say it, I'm a fan of everything. I love the slop. If it's anime, I'm going to watch a good bad or indifferent. This is definitely guess the story but I am like, I am 70 episodes in

to Ace of Diamond on Crunchyroll and that's me watching it within a two weeks' bed. So I watch a lot of anime. But what I want to talk about first is Chainsong Man.

Because before it's in an anime, it's a manga. And the best way I can describe why I think Chainson Man is going to be so big once it really breaks through is that,

and I mean this in the highest compliment possible. Chainsaw Man is like prestige Chad comics. You're not wrong. You're not wrong at all. And I say that with so much love and reverence for Fujimoto. But what Chainsaw Man really is for people who are like, oh, why are like everybody going crazy? He's like, it's almost a send-up of battle shonen manga where it's subverting trends. So people are like, what's battle shonen? The most popular in the States is Dragon Ball See. where a young boy, in this case, Denji, gets magical powers, and he has to fight some type of enemies, in this case, devil.

So, Naruto, he has the demon fox within him. He has to fight ninjas. In bleach, he is a samurai who gets powers, and now he's a soul reaper. This is pretty much all of the biggest anime in America. It's a format. Yeah. Tend to be battle shonen from Shonen Jump because,

of honestly what was we got as kids, first of all off Tsunami. And I just think that when talking about Chainsaw, man, when I first read it, I was like, this is going to be dumb. And then as you read through the series, you're like, oh, this is someone

who understands so much about Battle Shodun that he can subvert it at every turn, which is why I loved it. Were you a fan of the manga? Yes, I am. Well, I'll say two things. One, I think, I think,

version is one way of looking of it. I think the other way is, it's kind of just aging it up, right? Because I think that there are a lot of different sort of like things that people call Sinan, which is like slightly older age range, as opposed to Shodun. That kind of do the thing where the format is like,

it's a manga, it has a villain of the week style, you know, but is not Naruto or something like that, right? Not Barutel is some people are watching. Right, right. Wait, can I just Is it wild that we're old enough where I'm just like, oh, there's a whole new generation.

Yeah. Watching Naruto's child. Yeah. But anyway, continue. But man, with the manga for this, right, Chainsaw Man, man, I feel like it was my sound elite co-host, Micah was talking about it back, like years back. I really wasn't until the pandemic because the manga's been going since like 2018, I want to say is when it started. 2018, yeah. I just remember during the pandemic, like the lockdowns in New York.

York, start of the pandemic. Maybe a little ways into it, but I remember trying to go to like, Kudakino, to like the bookstore to find chainsawman because you couldn't get it on Amazon. You couldn't get a single volume of it on Amazon. So I'm like going to Japanese bookstores and stuff, you go in, the whole shelf is ransacked. You can't find chainsaw men at any bookstore in New York City for a solid six months, right? Like, we're not just talking about something that's like, oh, this was popular for a bit.

We're talking about something like when Chainsaw Man just as a manga series blew up, it was all, it was on the New York Times bestseller list and you couldn't find it. You could not get your hands on like Chainsaw Man for a minute. It took me forever to assemble the first, I want to say, eight volumes of it. I didn't even read Chainsaw Man in like the Tonka Bon, which are like the physical chapters. I literally just like, I want to read this so much. I'm just going to use the Shonen Jump app. So I'm going to show to Jump app.

And like, to your point, I do think the pandemic, at least in the States, had a very, very big impact. Because Chainsaw Man, to your point, it is geared at older readers. And you are going to kill me for this comparison. But if somebody's like, I've never read a manga, what's like the American equivalent? To me, Chainsaw Man is similar to how, like, people were reacting to, like the Walking Dead, where people are like, what what is this? It's zombies, but

it's different. We're doing something here. That is the level of kind of, for lack of better term, like normies, people who don't read manga. I was in, last time I was in LA a couple weeks ago, someone sees me with like just reading a manga before

breakfast. And a 40-year-old white man walks up to me and he's like, yo, can I tell you something? No, I'm like, yeah, sure. He's like, I got my, I got my nephew of a manga. It's called Chainsaw Man. I'm like, uh, how old is he?

And he's just like, no, no, I don't matter. He plays Callow Duty and shit. It'll be fine. I'm like, I don't know to be fine. But like, that's the level of like, why is this random server just being like, yeah, I'm the coolest uncle. Like, I bought him some new chainsaw. Yep, yep.

That's right. He probably appreciated it too. That'd be probably appreciated it. And I want to ask you before we kind of delve into the first episode, why do you think Chainsaw Man is so popular, not only worldwide, but specifically in America, because the premise is very dumb on the surface. When I first, like, became aware of Chantan Man, I'm like,

wait, what? Yeah, like, and I read a lot of fucking weird manga. And even for me, I was just like, I don't, chains off her head. I don't know. And then after the first volume, I'm like, oh, this is not what I signed up for

and I'm actually very quite happy about it. So why do you think American audiences have taken to this so much? Well, you know, I can't speak for the zoomers, but I can speak as an old ass black man. I will say that I think the first

chapter of that manga is so arresting, right? Because to all of your points about Battle Shonen, like, this isn't a thing that begins with like, yeah, you get into convoluted stuff about devils and Department of Public Safety and all that stuff, right? But in the beginning, when it really, it has such a focused beginning, this story, the sense in which you meet Denji, he's just a kid who's down on, he's like, he's down and out, he's starving. And he's just like, a boy who wants to hug a girl one day. Like, I don't know. He, he, he, he, he's down and out. He's, he, he, His intro.

He wants to, it's not what we're used to in terms of, like, Naruto. You're like, I want to be, like, I want to be the Hokage or, like, Luffy. He's like, I want to be King of the Pirates. Like, you know, Goku wants to be the strongest man alive. Right. Denji, to your point, is literally, like, uh, I want to be popular with girls and I've been starving. I just want, like, bread and jam. And, like, his world opens up when, spoiler.

alert, a woman hugs him for the first time, which is like that was actually my clue in terms of like, this is different because we're so used to the most popular manga. It's almost different from superhero DC. Like, Batman isn't like every issue. Like, it's my lifelong dream to save Gotham. Like you'll say it. But like, when you're reading most manga, watching most anime, you're like, all right, Luffy, this has a said, I want to be King of the Pirates this episode. Where is it? Chainsaw Man does not have that.

It is something that is a little bit weirder. And that's what I think has made it so arresting when you read it. It's just like everything that these people are fighting for are just such base level weird, almost, especially for Denji, like, insully wants.

Yeah. Well, is it Insully? Because to me it's more so that I felt so protective of Denji within just reading the first 10 pages of the first chapter of this manga series. Like the thing you're saying about, you first see him and he's subsisting

on like one slice of bread that he's splitting with pochita. And his big dream is, man, I want to be rich one day and have like a buffet in my mansion. His dream is just, I want to have bread with jam. Right? And he looks emaciated. And you're just protective of this kid. You're like, this kid is adorable.

He's a wreck. I just want to, I want to hug him. Like, I want to protect this kid. I think that is what sucked people in the beginning. Oh, I totally agree. The vulnerability in the beginning is like, is key to it. And what I think about when I say Inselly is more so like this feeling, especially as the show is going to develop it in that first chapter in this first episode that we're about to talk about is that there's this main character who's just his base urges, which is not. something new. That is something where it's like, boys,

what's a protagonist in a manga? He wants to eat. He wants to eat. He wants to, he's going to win the day with the power of friendship. Just very, but like his urges are base level. Sex, food. And it is so, because everything around NGie is so gestit to and so grimy, he's sold off parts of himself to survive. A lot of chainsaw man. And this is why I love the series is about how you start becoming a human that looks at people past transactions, which is something that is very, very much sure in terms of subject matter for any comic that is geared towards older teens. But we're scratching up against what the first

episode is about. Before we go there, I want to go to a special corner for some people who are like, I want to watch Chainslaam, man, but I have some questions. Calling it frequently asked anime questions. Can you help me with this charity? Okay. All right. What would your elevator pitch be to someone who is on the fence about watching Chainsaw Man? Why are you on the fence about watching Chainsaw Man?

That's my first question. This is not, listen, this is not 1999 where I need to sort of sell you on the idea of anime. Come on. Just do it. It's, come on. Bandwagon with us. That's the elevator pitch. Just watch it.

This is the peak of anime, right? We're at the commercial peak of anime. Come on. Just watch it. For everybody, my elevator pitch would be like, as dumb as you think, a story about a boy who has a chain software ahead, can be. Remember that feeling.

Get the first volume. Come back. that is like the big like all right I went in like that by the end of the first volume I'm like hooked sold

now what genre we've already gone over this what genre would you say chainsaw man is well so it runs like chainsaw man legit runs in weekly Shonen jump right

so it is I guess by that account right a shonen manga but I think a lot of what you and I are talking about is it's a bit aged up right as I just say there's it like violence and cursing and boobies in Shonen stuff

right? But I think part of what you're saying in terms of the I think the thematic maturity of a lot of it, it does feel like it is one of those it is at least one of those anime or manga series that exists

specifically to create Reddit threads where people ask is X Shonen or Sinan. Yes, exactly. And within that, within that larger branch, I would say that chainsaw man is how'd I put this

it's a horror in terms of like there are blood there's blood there's guts there's war it's action it's visceral yeah it is very visceral but it's also very funny it is that's actually probably

the biggest part of its success in terms of like there are there are series like Demon Slire one of the most popular anime on the planet not laugh out loud funny for most of the run. It is a very serious type of story, like Japanese story. Chainsaw Man is not that.

I think Fujimoto, have you read Firepunch? I haven't read Firepunch. No, I haven't read that other Fujimodo story. Firepunch is another Fujimoto manga, and what you realize about him when you read a lot of his work is that he is very, very interested in not only American cinema. he is also interested in just like what is going on in the world. So a lot of the comedy of Chainsaw Man is characters referencing shit that is in our world.

It's almost, it's better than the MCU, but it is of that flavor sometimes when you read certain things where you're like, oh, they're poking fun at something that's very popular. Now, my third question, this is probably the most important one. would you classify chainsaw man as kid funny? I'm just thinking back to the anecdote you gave me about, you know, the dude who is like, I got some chainsaw man for my kid, which is like it depends on who your parent is. Because I was watching some gory stuff,

but I was, you know what I mean? I was born in 87. I was watching gory anime by 1997. Let's put it like that. But is it a parent listening to this? No, my formal legal answer under the

advisement of counsel is no, it is not kid friendly, but... There's titties. There's blood, there's guts, there's gore, there's... There's all of the things that honestly your kid could just look up on the internet. But I would tell y'all yeah, don't...

Don't show your five-year-old chainsaw man. It's not... It's goofy, but it might scar them. Yeah, two more questions. Where can... Dizzy's, where can people watch the first episode of Chainson Man? Crunchyroll, which is a strange. service for anime.

More importantly, what anime would you recommend if someone is intrigued after the first episode of Chain Saw Man? Oh, that's hard. I actually think it's a harder question. Because I don't know, anime is just such like a wide space. Like, what is the one-to-one sort of if you like this? What is

the next thing that the Netflix algorithm recommends if you like Chainsaw-Man? And you want to stay kind of in that age range, right? I don't know. I mean, I feel like the most stereotypical answer would probably be something like brotherhood, I guess. See, here's the thing.

I'm going to recommend some stuff for people who have never watched. These are going to be very basic for our answers. If you like the very mature, gory, but sexy and a little existential nature of chainsaw man,

neon genesis, Evangelion, it's on Netflix. Listen to the sound only. You guys did a great, great pod recapping it. I would also say, this is, I do not support any of the politics in it. But attack on Titan, watch the first season, then look up the politics, which aren't great.

Those are probably in America, the two closest examples of, like, here are the things that like are generally the, if you're going to be anime-pilled, these are the ones that people like, have you watched this nifty show called? Wait, can I, can I create an addendum show, an addendum wreck, though?

It's much easier for me to think of, what manga I would recommend to somebody who likes the chancelman manga or likes the anime, which is definitely Marshall ago. Like, because the, that's another case of something where it's like, absurd about a lesbian serial

killer who becomes a detective who hunts serial killers, very elevated, very gory, very violent, but is like, it still has that kind of flow, that kind of, um, it has a battle shonen flow, but it's aged up. And

again, is constantly going back and forth between being comedic and being visceral. Yeah, Marcella Lago, if you're into reading as opposed to watching stuff. This is why we have you on charity because you are the maister of the manga slash anime.

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If your doctor decides that you can self-inject trumphia, proper training is required. Tremfaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible.

Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Tramphia Radio.com. Without further ado, it's time, y'all. Let's get into episode one of Chainsaw Man. So, recap for y'all. We begin with Denji and his pet Pogita, a puppy-like creature with a chains on his head. They're trying to scrape by. Denji is an orphan who inherited his father's debt from the Gikusa.

He sells body parts and hunts devils to try and pay the gangsters off, but he's still desistute. Then, when Denji is lured to an abandoned warehouse by the Gikusa, it's revealed that the gangsters have sold their soul to the zombie devil. Denji is killed by the zombie horde, thrown in the trash, but Pogita bonds with him. This saves Denji's life and also turns him into Chainsaw Man. After he's done killing the horde and the zombie devil, he's visited by a mysterious woman, Makima. Then she asked for a hug for Makima and she offers him two options. Either she kills him like any other devil or she keeps him in her employ as a human who will basically be her pet. Charity. Please. Instant reactions. First episode of Chainsaw Man need to know

him. First of all, it's super faithful to the first chapter of the mind. Like the beat, it's almost beat for beat. Almost shot for shot. you know, the best way. Frame for frame, like faithful to the first chapter of the manga. But yeah, just that face value, right? Like, I thought it was, I don't know, I think it's the style they went with for this is really good.

The animation is really good. I feel like the sort of more action-oriented stuff obviously happens toward, like, the last five to seven minutes of the episode, sort of after he sort of makes the pact, right, with Pachita. But, yeah, I don't know. all the, like, even then, the best stuff to me is what I liked about the first chapter of the manga, which is just the time you spend with Dengi for the first five minutes when it's just him and Pachita, and he's giving you the whole spiel about like, oh, I sold my kidney for $1.2 million,

and sold my eye for $500,000. And then the lot, the line is sold what am I nuts for, sold one of my nuts for $100,000, which is like $700, right? Like that, uh, the color, the animation, the art style, like everything is just sort of, I don't know, man. Like, you just remember when you first saw the trailers for this come out, like they started dripping out a year ago. And I think the thing that was the most sort of that got people hype wasn't just that it was Chainsaw Man, but it was that it was Studio Mappa, just really bringing all the guns to bear on making the most beautiful, luxurious, like, action anime stuff you had seen. again, since basically attack on Titan and they really did it.

It's like it is exactly as pretty but also brutal as you imagined it would be. Oh, I will say that I think what they actually bring to it

and this is kind of what makes a successful adaptation is that when you read the manga that first chapter, Fujimoto's style is very crisp but also

crude in a way where it's like when he talks about like selling off his nut you got like when I first read that I rolled my eyes I'm like oh okay yes this is targeted at teams like yes like 15 year old me would be reading this like they said nuts in a manga

sick bro and what the anime does with the color palette with just how quiet and luxurious it is at moments is it really sets this atmosphere of not only the world, but where Denji is, where he is

destitute. His dad has left him with this debt from the Yakuza, and you feel as suffocated as he does, but you also feel this beauty of like Podita. He has this little puppy. Even when they're just eating like a slice of bread, you feel hungry for them, but you feel for Denji in this way we're like, oh, like he has a heart. There's something about him that cherishes not only Po Jita, but the world around him.

And that, it wasn't actually the action scenes that sold me on this first episode. It was like the downtime. Like right before Denji gets killed, they do the flashback of Denji and Po Jita just chilling, taking a break after they're basically cutting down trees for money. I was like, oh, this is actually the promise that the Chainsaw Man manga gives. you that between all of the gore, between all of the sex, between all of the cursing and all of these things, it's really this elemental story of like what it needs to be alive and like, what do you fight for? And I just thought it was very wildly beautiful. And this brings me to like

the biggest things that are happening on the inner webs, which is you said that Mapa. Like, before I ask the question, can you set the stage for, like, what Mapa is for people who don't know? Oh, let's like, can we talk about Mapa? Because, like, okay, here's the thing. You have this anime studio, right? I think the first big thing is kids on the slope. Kids on the slope is sort of like a very sentimental jazz. Like, uh, it's one of Watanabe who also did like, Kowai Bop and stuff like that.

Like Mapa just has really expensive-looking animation of some really interesting. stories, kids on the slope. Weirdly, like, of all of the Mapa stuff, so you have Uri on Ice, first of all. Uri on Ice is like the big Mapa thing that is like, people remember, Dog, if you remember like eight years ago, whatever, Yuri on Ice, the

gay, ice skating, anime that became like the biggest meme on the planet is a phenomenon. Yeah, really great show. Just could not be farther away from what I think Mapa is known for. today in terms of like a real story between like two like gay ice skaters. I remember watching

and be like, this is lovely. This is lovely. And when you think about Mapa studios now, I don't know if people like Yuri on Ice is the first thing people think of it. They still do stuff because Sada Zama is kind of

it's not like Yuri on Ice but it's certainly not a battle shonen thing. It's a you know, it's a Kunajiko Ikuhara thing. Again, pretty sentimental, thematically rich. But I don't know. Mapa does a lot of different kind of anime, but I think they have established the track record of like

really high level detail, like really luxurious looking animation. And that's regardless of the quality of some of these things. Like, I'll tell you, one of the studio Mapa things I think about constantly. Did you ever watch Terror and Resonance? No. So that's a Watanabe show as well.

Like I said, Watanabe did Cowan Way Blub and a bunch of other stuff. Terran Residence is terrible, right? The whole premise of Terran Residence, I'll tell you, this is like, go hate watching this. Actually, if you're really enterprising. Terran Residence, the pitch is, what if Japanese teenagers did 9-11? But it's like a beautiful looking show, even if I think that the execution of it falls flat on its ass constantly. It, one, looks great. And two, has, like, legit some of the best anime soundtracks.

It's like some of Yoko Kano's best stuff is in terror and resonance, which is unfortunate because that show is terrible. But Mapa is just, it's a powerhouse, right? Like, that's, that is a powerhouse animation studio in this decade at this point. When I think about them now, the meme that goes around the internet is they are known for helming so many popular adaptations, whether that's Jiu Jitsu Kizen, Tack on Titan, Vinlan Saga,

they're about to have Hell's Paradise, they have Chainsaw Man, where the meme going around on the internet now is basically like, how are the Mabai anime, just going to animate all this shit? Because to your point, they're known for this, like,

luscious work. And now, at this stage of the studio, it's like they have so many ongoing hits, that you're just like, how are they going to handle all of this? And what I want to ask you is that as much as we're talking about how beautiful the first episode looks for long stretches, the big controversy are the action sequences because when Denji turns into chainsaw man, not all of the time,

but primarily the chainsaw aesthetics are CGI, which I don't know about you. I know it on the ringerverse as someone who is very, very hard on the quality of CGI in 2020. How do you think the whole CGI holds up? Did it take away from the animation?

So I will say I'm probably a dissent here in general, right? Where I actually am a big fan. I think anime is the one corner of popular entertainment where the integration of computer graphics with I guess more quote unquote natural-looking animation

has actually gone pretty well at big studios. It would be one thing if we were talking about how anime looked in 2003 when studios first started doing like if we put CG in the middle of this 2D hand-d drawn thing and it looked like garbage. But I actually think that the past 10 years of CG being integrated into stuff like,

again, like Attack on Titan or Chainsaw Man. I was watching One Piece recently, And, like, I was just like, oh, like, I do agree with you. Whereas, like, everybody was like, oh, my God, he's CG. And I was just, yeah. Or Digimon, even Digimon. Stuff like Digimon, which I feel like it was the first big stuff that really started doing it. I think anime studios are actually, frankly, pretty good at that.

And so I never really, I've never really gotten worked up over, oh, there's too much CG in this, like, 2D thing. But I do think that I'm probably in the minority on that. And there are a lot of people who just still to this day get stressed out about the collision of 2D and 3D animation. Here's the thing. Do I wish that more of the fight scene was hand-drawn? Yeah.

Do I think the CG takes away from it? Not really. Like, I actually, it didn't take me out of the story. I still thought the staging of the fight was really, really beautiful. Yeah. Like I said, I don't actually think that that was the thing that I was most excited for in the Chainsaw Man series, because when I was reading the series,

it wasn't really the battles that did it for me. It was all the relationships. It's all the downtime of, like, like I said, Denji learning what it means to be a feral child who lives in a shack raised by himself. Now he's a devil hunter, and like, slight spoiler will work. But maybe not.

The series is going to be about dengy learning what it means to be, like, for lack of a better term, a city boy. Like, yeah. And those are the points of the manga that I enjoyed.

It was never like, all right, he's, he's fighting the night devil now, you know? Wait, actually, now that you say that,

I will say, I want to circle back now to the point I was making about whether we call this a shonen or a sign-in, right? And why I sort of recommend something like

Merchelle-go, if you like chainsaw man, as opposed to, oh, go read Demon Slayer, right, or go watch Demon Slayer. And I think it's because,

like, even insofar, as, yes, it's a battle-driven series. A lot of the battles in Chainsaw Man feel, they can end up feeling like, oh, this is really a problem-solving exercise, right? Like, you know when they fight the eternity devil, and it's more about trying to, like, think,

like, yeah, there's action to it, and it literally culminates with this sort of in-list bloodshed sequence, right? But it's more about the, oh, how do these characters with their personality traits, and temperaments reason through this situation, right? And that's sort of what it means in a lot of ways to age up something like Shonen from being about, oh, you have the firepower

and you have the ice power and boom, boom, boom, boom, and more about like, oh, we're trapped in this building by this devil, how do we get out? Oh, and I totally agree because if you go back to some of the popular anime, take Naruto, at a certain point, point, the power-ups become so ridiculous.

It's essentially being like, okay, I guess I'm watching Naruto learn how to make a bigger Rosengun. It's like, okay, what hair color does Goku have now? And Chainsaw Man is very much, like the fighting, to your point, is like, what does this fight actually

say about where these characters are emotionally at any given point? A lot of times, even when they win a fight, they don't win. Like, a lot of Ujimoto's stories, whether it's Firepunch, whether it's Chainsaw Man is like, yeah, you could be as powerful as you

fucking want. It doesn't make your life that much better. Like there's, and that's what I think Chainsaw Man is actually going to as we start going along like in the episodes where people will really, really take is that like

yeah, Denji, he has a chains on in his head. He can fight all these demons, but how does he make friends. Like, how does he get girls to like him? Once girls do start liking him, well, how does he deal with those? It is very much geared towards like it sometimes, and I love the CW, a lot of the problems that Dengy faces are like, CW problems. It's just like, girls, they don't want to hug me. Right. Yeah. Another thing that I wanted to kind of talk about too is to your point,

the first episode is such a faithful adaptation of the first chapter. As we go along in the series, a lot of chapters are going to be smushed together to have enough plot. What I think actually Chaita's Man does in that first chapter so well is that the world building is so fast and so crisp. The first devil we really see is the tomato devil. And you're like, the fuck is a tomato devil. And then they're like, all right, now it's a zombie devil.

and Fujimoto never stops really in that first chapter to over explain. Because like I said, because he's such a master of like battle shonen and sanean and all these different things, it's like, no, no, no, yada, yada, yada. We'll get there. But the actual important part of this is this boy and his chainsaw dog and their love for one another. That's what we're fucking focusing on. And that's what I thought the first episode did really, really well.

because it did not go out of its way to be like, all right, we're going to have a five minute long conversation in like an MCU movie. Voiceover, yeah. Yeah, it was just like, this is the history of what come. Nothing against my panther,

but they don't do that. There's no need for it. It's just this show expects that you will be like smart enough to like, and it's entertaining enough that at the end of it, you will at least have some type, some base level understanding. of this world and what it's all about.

Am I wild food? No, you're not. And it's why, like, you're talking about focus, right? And I think that gets back to what we're both saying about CG in a show like this, which is, I don't know, to me, the stuff that the show does preserve, that's more important about Fujimoto's style as stuff like, I don't know, like, you read the Fujimoto stuff. You read, you read Chainsaw Man, right?

and just think about how characters' faces look, right? That very specific, like, facial style, you know, it's like Fujimoto has a more realistic sense of human proportion. Characters look more, quote, unquote, real. There's that sort of vanishing nose quality. There's the way everybody's eyes look kind of like horror manga eyes, right? It's like, that's the kind of stuff.

The more human, realistic detail is the stuff that I think, at least based on these initial impressions that the anime is more dedicated to preserving. And yeah, you're right. It's like there's less of a priority on kind of making just flawless actions sequences, right? But I do think that the real priority

is that more human elements of chainsaw man that just make those characters kind of live rent free in your imagination like the minute you first encounter them. I mean, even with the action sequences, something that I noticed is, and tell me if I am like off my rocker. But when I was watching it, so much of battle showed it, once the fights start happening, gravity ceases to exist. When people are punching each other, when people are doing stuff, it's like, they just float. They do all this stuff.

There were multiple parts where I'm just like, this feels at least the weight of what it would feel like if humans are. getting ripped aside by a chainsaw. Like when the zombies are attacking Denji, there are moments where I'm just like, oh, I can feel the weight of all of these zombies on this very skinny drawn boy. And what he's like starting to hack and he's learning how to use the chainsaw,

there are moments where I'm just like, they could have animated this faster. He could have been like, this could have been staged, like how attack on Titan's stage when they're zipping across lines and like, just slashing max. And if you're thinking about the physics of it,

it's like, how are you slicing through meat that fast? Fast-al-loose, yeah. And with chains on, man, I'm just like, oh, it's not one-to-one in terms of reality, but there is a level of like, oh, no, he's still one boy with a chainsaw on his head. It's going to take him a while to cut all these people up, which I actually like. Yeah, I don't think it gets, I still think the standard for that, that kind of weight, the realism of the weight of fighting and being hurt. I still think the standard of that is Netflix,

Castlevania, because that's a show where it's like, you watch Netflix Castlevania. Like, if I watch that show for too long, my ribs start to hurt, you know? Because that, like, physical violence in Castlevania, the way that that show is animated, that to me is one to one.

That's a show that is, like, very attentive to the exhaustion and pain of people hitting each other and stabbing each other. And I don't think Chainsawman, quite gets there but I do think yeah it kind of airs at least in that direction of always kind of like

reinforcing like how young and kind of frail even though he has a eight pack right he's still like relatively frail dengy is it's airing in that direction it'll be interesting to see

like if I come around to your outlook on it but yeah I yes I get what you're saying it wasn't perfect but there were a few shots where I'm like oh they're at least thinking of the physics of it in a way that isn't like when I watch some like battle manga, I'm just

like, I'm just shutting my brain off at this point because I get it. The anime industry is just as exploitative as all art industries. I don't I'm not going to look too close. One thing, you're

mostly offline at this point. Right, Charity? I mean, allegedly. So I want to ask you, has it gotten to you yet? the stigma of chain saw man fans. Are they being annoying? Are they, like, explain it? So, I don't think they're being any more weird than, like, I don't know,

Genis Evangelion fans or JJK fans or whatever. There's just, it seems like there's more of them because, all right, perfect example. They're already getting weird about Makima, who is the orange-haired woman, with the eyes that come saves Denji at the end of this episode. There's also the stigma, I think, of... This is similar to the way I think people were talking about Attack on Titan, where I think there's this sense in America because the first, in my opinion,

animator really, really breakthrough on this national level is like Dragon Balls. It's something where it's like, okay, kids are buying T-shirts and lunchboxes, and this is a thing. Of course there's Sailor Moon. Of course there's Gundam. There's all of these things,

but DBZ does. Yeah. And I think that we are always living in the world in America that DVDZ made, where it's like, people think anime is about boys yelling at each other and a bunch of filler

and these big eyes and all of this shit that I'm just like, all right, Dragon Ball is actually one of the best, just pieces of art of all time. I just think that you guys haven't grown. But that is a long, long way of explaining that I think Chainsaw Man, the stigma that I think is starting to, that might evolve and has

already started to hit the inner webs is that this isn't anime for people who think that they're too good for anime. This is an anime for people who judge it on face value of it's about big titties and boys yelling and dumb shit. This isn't as good as my indie comics or my prestige MCU fair. I agree, this is like this, I feel like a version of this happened that like did happen to some extent

with full metal alchemist, especially with brotherhood, right? So it's basically are people being like that about it of, hmm, I don't know. I don't know what to do with fans. I mean, people are like that to some extent about brotherhood. I think that you're maybe even

describing a kind of fan of death note. I don't know. I'd have to think about that. Death Note is in there. But here's the thing. I think the thing that I want to stress about Chantan Man and Fujimoto is, I don't think he's a perfect creator, but I think actually the thing that drew into this first episode, drew him to his work, is that he loves manga and anime so much.

You can tell that there is this, for someone to maybe poke holes in Battle Shodun or poke holes in the way that this is how it's supposed to go, all right, we're going a different way. you have to understand the genre first. And that's something that you can tell in the first episode you'll be able to tell as you get later into the series is that Fujimoto, I don't think, is one of those people being like, hey,

all that battle shonen over there is shit. But mine is the prestige for me. He's like, no, I actually think that he's writing a love letter to all of the Shonen comics that he grew up with. Yeah, especially because there's not that much room for cynicism anyway in Chain Summit. just because Denji is the character that Denji is, right? Like, I do think that as cheeky as Shane Slyman can be,

Denji is like a nice boy. Do you know what I mean? It's like, this is just, yeah, this isn't like subversion the anime. I don't know. This is... I mean, here's the thing. Denji, which I think always grounds it, is that, like, Denji who is who he is.

Like, there is growth. But at the end of the day, he is like a... He's like adopting a feral little cat. Like, he's going to snuggle with you. But at the end of the day, it just wants, like, food and whatever the cat equivalent to boobs for teenage boys. Like, that's just, Denji is Dengy. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission.

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visit your local deli today, discover the craftsmanship behind every bite. Borshead committed to craft since 1905. I also want to know for you, do you think after watching the first episode that this can do what attack on Titan or Demon Slayer did? Because I do think that one hurdle

is, I know about Crunchyroll, you know about Crunchyroll, do you think your average person has a Crunchyroll account? No, absolutely. So that would be my first thing. But to your point earlier in this conversation, I'm not in the wild west of anime anymore

where you're going to like DHS shops and being like, oh, like, did it out. Like, no, there's a reason why when I'm reading a manga out in the wild, a 40-year-old server is like, you know, have you heard about this little thing called chainsaw man? Part of me is like, is this a test case to see how potent anime is? where if it's not readily available on your HBO Max or your Hulu or your Netflix, are people of this still going to flock to it?

Yeah, it's an interesting question, right? Because it's like at some point, slowly thinking about it, Crunchyroll, you take Netflix, right? Netflix is a broad streaming platform that has anime on it. Crunchyroll is an anime streaming platform, right? But Crunchyroll is also like Sony money. And at some point, if we're having this sort of, when is anime really, really going to sort of go, toe to toe with the rest of popular culture in terms of viewership counts and stuff like that. It's like they can't just say, well, chainsaw man is too big to gait behind just a crunchy roll

subscription, right? Because it's like if you just let every big potentially sort of like attack on Titan level thing, just go to Netflix, then you know what I mean? Like, I don't think that's good for the culture either. So in a way, you're right. It's like it is kind of, it feels like a bottleneck, right, of being like, you should watch Shane Sawman. You got to get a crunchy roll login for that. But at the same time, it's like, I don't know. Like, if I put the cigar down and stop trying to do the industry analysis and just look at it in terms of like, okay, how did Mapa execute this show? And also, how good is the source material?

Yeah, man, I think that Shane's on Man, like, attack on Titan had to win me over. Like for years, I did not get what y'all was talking about with Attack on Titan. It's just like the setting is not not sort of necessarily my vibe. And like a lot of the stuff about that show, it took me, it took me to the season three of Attack on Titan to really get like, oh, wow, this show actually is punching above its weight. Chainsaw Man is just something to me that like, from the first time I picked up the manga, I was like, yes, this is the what? And that's what I want to see. Do you think that people will have that same reaction when they watch the first episode? do you think that they've done a good enough job with the adaptation

that it captures the magic of picking up that first chapter and being like, oh shit? Yeah, I thought it did. And again, it's like the first chapter is like, it has like so many, it's so focused, right? Like you only, by the end of it, right? You meet Makamo, right? But, you know, it's sort of doing a very focused, limited thing in the beginning.

So there's that, right? It still feels like we have a very limited look at it. just because of how Denji and Bocita focused the first chapter slash first episode of Chainsaw Man is. But yeah, man, I believe in it. I believe in this. I think they did a lot of right

things. I will put it to you this way. So the question that I posed to you earlier, sometimes I think that like I'm getting washed because I underestimate how big anime and manga is until like I go outside.

And, for example, I live in Brooklyn around a bunch of white people. And the things that people are like kids, young kids are drawing in chalk on the sidewalk are characters from Demon Sire. Like, this is just mainstream culture. When I go to Barnes & Noble, the U.S. comic book section that houses DC and Marvel, no matter what Barnes & Noble I go to, gets smaller and smaller every year. and it seems like the manga section gets bigger and bigger.

Absolutely. Same thing with like, if you go on the bestselling books on Amazon or the New York Times best seller, you see manga on that shit. This is something where I do think if there is like a 12 year old who goes, hey, I want to watch chainsaw man,

mom, can I have a crunchier old account? We're not at a point where like, they're going to watch it. Chainsaw Man is so big. I think that a lot of things would happen. to go wrong for this to not be as big as I think it would be. I just don't know if we have the right tools to measure it yet. If that makes sense. Okay, so anecdotal measurement, like, I remember when I lived in Wisconsin, I remember once it was just like, I didn't want to drive all the way. I lived

in the middle of Wisconsin. I didn't want to drive all the way to Milwaukee where I knew there's like a manga shop. So I was just like, you know what, let me, I'm getting used to this area. Like, let me drive the Barnes & Noble, see if I can find Chainsaw Man 8, 9. But in my head, I'm like, there's no way to have it. Like, we're in the middle of it was a house, man. It's a Barnes & Noble. I walk in there, they got, like, four

copies of both volumes. Like, that's kind of the thing you're talking about. They have tables. Yeah, they have, their stocks. You know what I mean? It's like, they're about it. Like, they know. And that's my thing. I'm just like, these aren't invisible, like, people

who are, like, these are real people buying this. If people are buying all of 15 million sold worldwide, those 15 million people, there's going to be a large percentage of them and be like, nah, hook it up in my vein. I've been waiting for a studio like Mapa to make this.

I see though, the most cursed question for last. And I didn't want to derail the conversation up top, but I have to ask, charity. Are you a sub or dumb guy?

Okay, so this is the thing. I'm actually a centrist about it. Like, I can think of maybe two titles, two titles, maybe three titles in my entire life that I've seen that if I was recommending them to someone, I would say I also have a very specific recommendation about you need to watch the sub or the dub. I generally tend to watch the sub,

unless I'm really like only watching a kind of thing that I really only care to put on in the background, in which case I need to hear it in English because I don't speak Japanese, right? But like, I prefer subs, but I definitely, there are a lot of English voice actors for anime that I really like.

There are a lot of English dubs for anime that I really like. I love both Evangelian English dubs. I love both the original English dub of Ava and the Netflix dub, okay? That's my point of view on it. You're hurting my feelings so much right now. The only anime that I wish more people would watch,

and I would love to do a recap series about that. Revolutionary Girl Utena, people should watch it. And also, if you ever watch it, do not watch the English dub. It is terrible. It will make you think that the show is really bad. Just watch the sub. It's the only one I can think of. Off the top of my head right now is like, Oetna, watch the sub.

Everything else, all bets are off. Do whatever you want. Live your life. I'm a sub all the way, guy. I'm an elitist. I'm an elitist about it. And I will tell you. Hard way to live.

Here's a thing. And we're bringing up subs versus dubs because I watch this in subs. Chantown Man will get it up. It is happening. I tend to, I think so much of anime what I like about it and is that there's a quality to it that I will never understand. In the same way, there's a quality of hip-hop that someone who's like, didn't grow up in the U.S., doesn't understand the lingo. There's, like, you come to it, you love it, but there's a part of it where it's just like, it's over my head.

I think there's so many things in anime, the minute you put an English voice actor where I'm just like, this was so Japanese to begin with, and now you're trying to Americanize it, and it's like awkward and stilted, and I can tell. And like, it's nothing gets the voice actors, but like, sometimes I'm like, I don't want my fucking anime character to sound like Bart Simpson from like, from like, from like, middle America. I just don't. Like, it just takes me out of it. Yeah, but sometimes that, yeah, but sometimes that's part of the appeal of stuff, man.

Like, I think of like all those like Lodish Juice wraps from the persona soundtracks where it's just like, oh, this is like somebody from another culture doing American hip hop for Japanese video game, like anime, anime, manga, Japanese video game stuff. Like, it's full of that kind of back and forth over the Pacific. like translation era, error, transliteration error. I just think that starts to become part of the appeal of being

an American fan of Japanese animation. That's fair. You're never going to convince me. I can't do dubs. I was so afraid when they senses the screener. I'm like, if this is a dub, you can't do it right now.

I can't do it. But, yo, you and I were both fans of Chainsaw Man. And I have to ask you, how many balls out of 10 Dragon Balls would you give? The first episode. You forget I was got in a fight with like Big Sean on Twitter over Dragon Ball Z. Wait, what was the fight? It was like literally I was being my, my footwork colleague at Complex, Greg Babcock, and we did this article that was a Q&A between two of us where I was just like,

Greg, you love Dragon Ball Z. Explain it. I think it's trash. And the Complex tweeted out. And within like five minutes of the first tweet out from the publication of this sort of conversation we had, Sean like quoted it. It was like, what is this garbage? It was just amazing.

It was like the best days ever. Black people love Dragon Balls even. I don't know what to tell you. But what was the question again? How many one of what? How many balls out of 10 would you give chainsaw bin? Remember, I'm not a games journalist. I don't over inflate.

I don't give everything seven out of 10. Okay. that said, I would give the first episode of Chainsaw Man 7.5 out of 10. 8 out of 10. 8 out of 10. 8 out of 10? Is 8 out of 10 good? That's 8 out of 10. Charity. 8 out of 10. I'm going to go with my heart.

We don't do great inflation right here. Don't, you know what I mean? Like, it's good. It's really good. Watch the show. 8 out of 10. I'm giving it 8.5 nuts. At a time. All right? I think that they did a very, very good job on this first episode. I've enjoyed talking with you about this.

So much charity. We're going to be back. There's going to be so much more anime. I have greased the wheels. I'm paying people. All right. Leach is fucking back. Spy family is about.

You never know what we're going to hit. All right. Let's do it. Spy family. Wait, you don't like Spy Family. No, no, no, no. Don't you slander me. I was about to get really upset.

Five families. I love. I mean, Twitter, it's getting weird about that one as well. But that's for another episode. Yeah. Yo, thank you so much for charity for joining me. Thank you to our producer, Justin Lopez. I'm Charles Holmes.

He's charity. Amateur Club is dismus. What's the difference between butter and butter made from real California dairy? It's the real California farm families behind it. Real people. Real care. Real intention. Why? Because real matters. So whether you're pouring milk, melting of cheese, or just grabbing one more spoonful of yogurt. Keep it real. Look for the seal. Real California milk by Real California Farm Families.