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<\/a>From Volume 2 of Chainsaw Man. (\u00a9\u00a0Fujimoto Tatsuki\/Sh\u016beisha)<\/p>\n
Desperation Meets Pop Sensibilities<\/p>\n
Denji\u2014who could not go to school, who was loved by no one, and who lived in such poverty he sought to sell his organs\u2014wanted nothing more than a \u201cnormal life.\u201d His desires are simple: spreading jam on toast and eating it with Pochita, a girl to hug, and playing video games with her in his room. His fights with devils are largely orchestrated by his female superior, Makima, in the Public Safety Division, who plays on those hopes to manipulate him. The contrast with other Jump protagonists, like Kamado Tanjir\u014d of Demon Slayer or Midoriya Izuku of My Hero Academia, is stark.<\/p>\n
Author Fujimoto Tatsuki said in an interview with foreign press that he thought making it a \u201cJumplike manga\u201d could carry a risk of his work getting buried within the pages of the magazine. He goes on, \u201cBecause of that, I tried to retain much of my individuality as a creator while making only the structure and characters Jumplike.\u201d So, although there is that strategic element to the decision, it\u2019s impossible to ignore his individuality as a creator.<\/p>\n The sight of Denji with massive chainsaws protruding from his head and arms is an unforgettable one, but it seems more sinister than cool. In a conversation with Fujimoto, musician Yonezu Kenshi\u2014who provided the theme songs for both the TV and theatrical anime\u2014talks about his own reaction to the sight. \u201cWhen (the chainsaws) rip out of each of his arms . . . it comes across as a form of self-harm. It\u2019s not the kind of thing I\u2019ve seen in any other work.\u201d He also remarks: \u201cIt\u2019s dark and serious, while also having a sense of eccentricity. At the same time, it somehow appears to be pop.\u201d That intersection between the misery of self-harm and an eccentric pop sensibility is where Fujimoto\u2019s individuality really expresses itself.<\/p>\n Bouncing Between Arrogance and Self-deprecation<\/p>\n This work is not set in the twenty-first century. There are no smartphones, and the streets are lined with phone booths. There is a vague sense of the late 1990s. That would mean 16-year-old Denji was born in the early 1980s. In other words, this story lands right in the middle of Japan\u2019s great job drought of the late twentieth century.<\/p>\n The job drought, sometimes called the Employment Ice Age, lasted from the bursting of the economic bubble in 1993 through around 2005. Many of the young people who entered adulthood in that period struggled to find regular work, and are referred to as the \u201cLost Generation<\/a>.\u201d Those roughly 17 million people are now in their late thirties to mid-fifties and have a significant impact on Japan\u2019s public sentiment and politics.<\/p>\n One of the main sentiments that this generation shares is a pessimistic worldview that avoids holding out for big dreams, and a powerful sense of individual responsibility, where a person\u2019s struggles in life are blamed on a simple lack of effort. Fujimoto Tatsuki, born in the early 1990s, has likely seen up close the gloomy worldview of the Lost Generation.<\/p>\n Denji bounces between reckless arrogance and self-deprecation, and his primary motivations are the three fundamental desires of sex, food, and sleep. There is something about that fact that resonates with the lost generation. And that truth may not be limited to Japan. People all around the world seem to recognize something in him that they can relate to.<\/p>\n The Touch of Genius<\/p>\n I also want to discuss the work\u2019s antagonists, called devils. They first appear as unidentified monsters, but Denji\u2019s boss Makima soon explains their natures. \u201cAll devils are born with names, and the more those names are feared, the more powerful the devil becomes.\u201d In other words, the devils are the embodiments of concepts that people fear. Devils like the Zombie Devil or Bat Devil are straightforward, but others are harder to parse, like the Gun Devil, Control Devil, War Devil, or Aging Devil. These many devils are not only superbly designed, but also convey a sharp sense of social satire and give the work a certain philosophical abstraction.<\/p>\n The first section of the story, the \u201cPublic Safety Division\u201d arc, concluded at the end of 2020. The second, which moved to the Sh\u014dnen Jump+ app and began serialization in 2022, has departed from the role of simple entertainment. Some fans are complaining that they no longer \u201cget it.\u201d But the chaotic direction portrayed seems to reflect the state of the times we find ourselves in today. This is yet another era of war, with the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza filling the news.<\/p>\n I believe that Chainsaw Man\u2019s creator Fujimoto is the greatest manga genius since Akira creator \u014ctomo Katsuhiro. That begins with the quality of his art. \u014ctomo broke manga ground in the 1980s with a new three-dimensional style, evolved by artists like Shir\u014d Masamune in the 1990s, and further updated by Fujimoto. It conveys a thoroughly cinematic vision, fitting to this modern age when every smartphone has a video camera, turning everyone into a videographer.<\/p>\n But what really demands consideration is the cold vision that Fujimoto brings to his fictional style. His previous work, Fire Punch (2016), was an unconventional creation, with a character who wanted to film the protagonist\u2019s quest for revenge to make a revenge-tragedy story of his own, fictionalizing the story\u2019s plot inside the story. Chainsaw Man takes similar metafictional stabs, with scenes openly poking fun at Blake Snyder\u2019s famous scriptwriting guides, the Save The Cat trilogy.<\/p>\n Fujimoto is famous for creating scenes that pay homage to the author\u2019s favorite movies, but that in itself is a signal to the reader of the story\u2019s fictional nature. In other words, the manga itself works as both fiction and a metafictional critique of creative work. And that is perhaps the true essence of Fujimoto\u2019s \u201cindividuality as a creator.\u201d His web manga Look Back<\/a>, adapted into a film in 2024, is about two young women aspiring to become mangaka. It stands as an easy to read and understand masterpiece, but I think it is Chainsaw Man that shows his true face.<\/p>\n Having said that, the fact that his work defies any easy interpretation is perhaps what truly makes Fujimoto Tatsuki, well, Fujimoto Tatsuki.<\/p>\n Film and TV Resonating with Youth<\/p>\n The theatrical release now playing across Japan is an extension of the television anime. Its magnificent fight scenes alone are worth the price of admission, playing out like a concentrated showcase of Japan\u2019s anime prowess. The majority of the audience are in their twenties, and most leave the theater with a look of satisfaction. Apparently this work is resonating deeply with the younger demographic.<\/p>\n Chainsaw Man has won awards around the world. In Japan, it won the 2021 Sh\u014dgakukan Manga Awards Best Sh\u014dnen Manga award, and in the United States it won Best Manga at the Harvey Awards, the nation\u2019s oldest comics prizes, three years in a row from 2021.<\/p>\n Anime adaptations of eight of Fujimoto\u2019s early short works, including his debut piece A Couple Clucking Chickens Were Still Kickin\u2019 in the Schoolyard, are in the middle of a limited domestic cinema run and will begin global streaming from November. This is another sign that Fujimoto Tatsuki possesses something that sets fire to the hearts of other creators of his generation.<\/p>\n (Originally published in Japanese. Banner photo: Comic volumes of Chainsaw Man, originally serialized in Weekly Sh\u014dnen Jump magazine. \u00a9\u00a0Fujimoto Tatsuki\/Sh\u016beisha.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fujimoto Tatsuki\u2019s Chainsaw Man is one of the biggest manga hits of recent years, with tens of millions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172488,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[13913,787,146,85,46,31126,100314],"class_list":["post-172535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-anime","tag-art","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-manga","tag-manga-and-anime-in-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
Chainsaw Man fans are going global. Here, a cosplayer dressed as the titular character poses at Fan Expo Canada in Toronto in August 2023. (\u00a9\u00a0Ayush Chopra\/SOPA Images\/Sipa)<\/p>\n