The Patreon Letter - 27th April, 2020

NOTE: this letter contains some illustrations of violence and gore. 

Hello everyone! Em here, with a letter that's sliding in under the wire on the month. I'd offer up some excuses, but I think you all know the situation. The world sucks right now, and motivation to work is hard to come by. Thank you everyone for your eternal patience when some things slip a bit. I promise they are not forgotten, and we will continue to do our best.

I recently found myself looking for something fun to read to try to break out of the monotony of things, and remembered I'm paying for the Shonen Jump app but haven't used it since I read Naruto in November. Some of my friends have recently been talking about this one relatively recent manga called Chainsaw Man, so I figured I'd give it a shot, because some of the screencaps I'd seen had been fascinating and horrific in ways I vibe on when it comes to elaborate horror and action. 

I could not have blundered into a better book. I'm here to say you should read Chainsaw Man! Starting in 2018, it's a book by Tatsuki Fujimoto, and currently is coming up on its 70th chapter, which means it's a perfect time to get in on a book well before it gets a physical release in the US or (perish the thought) an anime adaptation. We'll talk about that further down.

The story is relatively simple: Denji is an incredibly poor teenager living out his life in a world plagued by monsters called Devils. Normally they show up and just violently kill people until the secret devil hunting parts of the government put them down, but Denji's managed to blunder into companionship with a tiny seemingly helpless little Devil named Pochita, a dog-like blob with a chainsaw sticking out of its head. 

Unfortunately, Pochita and Denji get into some trouble and Denji gets killed, but it doesn't take as Pochita offers up his heart to replace Denji's own and Denji is reborn as a human/Devil hybrid. What this means is when he pulls the ripcord coming out of his chest, he transforms from shaggy teen to mechanical monstrosity Chainsaw Man, an incredibly powerful devil form that goes until Denji runs out of blood. It's okay, he seems to not really be able to die from anything but his/Pochita's heart being removed.

What follows is that Denji gets scooped up by the Devil hunters who are mostly populated by people with similar strange abilities or contracts with human-sympathetic devils, who see Denji's relative lucidity as a blundering teen as a great weapon to hone into the front lines of the war against increasingly powerful and absurd Devils. The teams go out, usually get decimated, and then Chainsaw Man does some 'super-heroics' until there's nothing left of the enemy. 

This fits in with the burgeoning trend of manga that are basically superhero comics, but what Chainsaw Man has going for it is both a high level of stylish horror and splatter schlock, and a willingness to just go for ideas with a zeal that is stunning. 

The first chapters suggest a story about Denji being a victim of society, a poor boy who is getting the run around by people who know how to manipulate the poor. That never goes away, but it turns out that because Denji is a teen manga protagonist, he can be brought to heel by promises of food and the attention of his boss, an enigmatic and clearly evil woman. And then he gets his partner, a Devil named Power who is literally just 02 from Franxx but she talks like Thor from Marvel Comics, and suddenly the working day side of the book becomes an absurd sex comedy as Denji is motivated to be the weapon of the state by horny boy reasons.

Normally this would not be my thing, but it has the intense zeal of writing that comes not from the cynical expectation of this is what these comics have to contain (Mineta, looking at you) but a willingness to just make the hero motivated by the most animal desires of food and pretty girls in a way that feels refreshingly honest as it approaches a sort of horror superhero pastiche. Lofty ideals are great, but most people just want to get ahead, get fed, get laid, and there's a disarming quality to a book that can just admit that.

Part of why it doesn't seem especially abrasive is because these are characters who are set up to die every time they go on a mission. They're the expendable flesh of the enemy turned against itself, and if they don't go out there and fight the Devils they'll be hunted down themselves. Much like something like Suicide Squad, then, the hedonism feels appropriate to the premise, as everyone is living up their likely last moments and blowing off the steam of narrowly escaping death on every successful mission.

The other thing that makes this work is this is undeniably a comic that is unconcerned with the heroes and the villains representing moralistic sides. There are those hired to protect humanity, and those who want to consume it, and the difference is only in which uniform someone wears. This nihilism could easily overpower a comic that took itself too seriously, but Chainsaw Man generally trends to embracing how unconcerned and selfish Denji and Power are as they blunder through being used by the government. Their lack of concern isn't a heavy burden, or a thing for the audience to reflect on, it is the obvious outcome of being trapped in an impossible and terminal situation. Being carefree is the alternative to cracking entirely, as every character repeats (and their mentor wearily comment on as Denji and Power cause no end of trouble).

All of this is great, but the other thing I cannot emphasize enough is how incredible the book is at action sequences and beautiful horror tableaux. Chainsaw Man himself is a grinding gore-fest, lopping large enemies into just massive panels of blood and guts, but as the book evolves people emerge with stranger and visually striking powers and presentations like the one at the top of this book. A man who can summon the head of a giant fox to chomp his enemies? Done. A girl who can summon a ghost hand to attack all her enemies? Absolutely, kids stuff. How about the horrific Santa Claus, who turns people into mindless puppets that swarm the enemy with bladed arms? Every new foe has some strange ability that manifests in whole new ways to conceive of the structure of supernatural combat.

My favorite, however, is probably Bomb Woman, a figure who shows up to directly tempt Denji to join the side of the devils. Like him, she transforms by pulling a cord, in her case a ring on her choker that causes her head to explode like a grenade, revealing her full form. Unlike Denji, she's well used to her supernatural abilities, and being indestructible and explosive uses this to propel herself around environments and blow holes in anything and anyone who stands in her way with nothing more than a touch. Every attack she makes shatters the scene with explosions and rubble, and her pursuit of Denji through the chapters she's in evokes the sort of relentless power of something like The Terminator in the efficiency of carnage she leaves in her wake.

It's hard to know what will happen as Chainsaw Man goes on. It's a comic growing in popularity, but it's also so far managing to outdo itself with every arc in a way that feels unsustainable. There's an exhilaration in knowing that something so outrageous and extreme seemingly has to burn itself out before long. As the friend who convinced me to read it said, it's as if the Jump editor tells Fujimoto every arc that he's cancelled in four chapters, and every time Fujimoto grasps victory from the jaws of defeat. 

It also means that Chainsaw Man is a book that, despite being on polls for books that people want anime of, I can't imagine working when translated to the screen. So much of this book is in the framing of mundane workplace nonsense against huge splash pages of meticulous violence that the anarchic energy and excitement seem destined to fade when it has to be toned down and slowed down to fit within the framework of seasonal anime. I know I'm generally predisposed to preferring manga, but this one seems especially reliant upon the art and storytelling of a single person just putting it all on the page to carry it, and for that reason alone I find it arresting in a way few action comics have ever been able to do for me.

I know this is a comic that wouldn't be for everyone, but it's a book I can't wait to read more of, and given the very low cost of entry given Shonen Jump's pricing, I can't hesitate to recommend. Hell, you could read up to present in an afternoon and then spend a month's $2 sub on reading Naruto or Dragon Ball on top of it! Either way, it's nice to be excited for something so out of my wheelhouse, and I feel like I'm one step closer to understanding why everyone loved superhero comics in the 90s through my enjoyment of this.

Until next time,

BOOM