Manga Review: Chainsaw Man Chapter 39

Chainsaw Man Chapter 39

VIZ

Mangaka: Tatsuki Fujimoto

In the zombie battle from chapter 36, Power ended up drinking too much blood and now she has a new set of horns. Power is switched out for the shark fiend (who has a strange loyalty to Denji), and Makima and Denji spend the next day on a “date” watching several movies back to back at the cinema (the ideal date if you ask me). This chapter is a quiet change of pace after the conclusion of the previous arc.

Chainsaw Man has been a series that I really enjoy some chapters and am really bored by in others. The story is pretty standard (demon hunters looking for the Big Bad Demon™), and I really dislike the art outside of when Fujimoto is drawing bloody violence, but Denji is intriguing as a protagonist in that he doesn’t have many admirable qualities at all but still is someone you want to see succeed. Everybody loves an underdog (hell, Kishimoto’s made a career of it with Naruto and Samurai 8), and Denji’s live his entire life as little more than an errand dog.

In this chapter, we got more development of both Denji and his mysterious crush Makima. Denji has been questioning his own humanity lately, and we recently saw Makima both survive seemingly fatal wounds and use some unknown demon’s power to obliterate enemy forces. Having these chapters in which two characters watch movies and talk briefly between them gives readers a bit of insight into the type of characters they are. Denji’s reaction to the audience watching the films vs Makima’s vs his own show readers how detached Denji feels from typical citizens due to his life and upbringing but he seems to find a kindred spirit in Makima who has the same muted responses as he does. It’s also funny to see Denji’s childish crush on Makima in action anytime they get close to each other.

While not much plot-wise happens in this chapter, it was an enjoyable installment that gave us sweet character interactions between Denji and Makima and humanized both of them after their previously monstrous actions in the story. But now that we’ve gotten some characterization in, give me more chainsaw violence, please.

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