Characters / Chainsaw Man - Denji

Chainsaw Man Main Character Index
Main Characters (Denji | Makima and Nayuta) | Devil Hunters | Chainsaw Man Church | Devils and Fiends | Other Characters

Denji / Chainsaw Man

Voiced by: Kikunosuke Toya (Japanese), Ryan Colt Levy (English) ^{Foreign VAs} Emilio Treviño (Latin American Spanish), Mosè Singh (Italian)
Child Denji voiced by: Marina Inoue (Japanese), Ciarán Strange (English)
Played by: Naotake Tsuchiya (JP stage play, human form), Masahide Tada/Yutaka Nakasone (JP stage play, Devil form)^note When Denji transforms, a separate stunt actor portrays Chainsaw Man on stage while Denji's actor "shadows" their movements in the background and provides the character's voice.

^{As Chainsaw Man}

"So what if I didn't think it through when I agreed to this gig? I would die to keep this life. Understand me?"

The Hero of Chainsaw Man. Denji was once an orphan independent Devil Hunter working with his Devil pet / best friend, Pochita, in a vain attempt to clear his dead father's debt to a bunch of local yakuza and escape their life of poverty. However, after being killed by the yakuza after their attempt to enlist a Devil of their own goes horribly wrong, Pochita merges with Denji to resurrect him as a half-Devil Henshin Hero with a blood-fuelled Healing Factor and the power to sprout chainsaws out of his limbs and face by pulling a ripcord in his chest. After receiving an ultimatum from the Public Safety Devil Hunting Bureau, Denji quickly accepts for a shot at the better life he’s always dreamt of.

While very immature and easily led on by promises of food, money, and sexual favors, Denji is both far less stupid than he appears and nigh-unbreakably determined to live out his meager dreams.

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A-C

• A Good Way to Die: Begins the manga as a bit of a fatalist, taking comfort in his informal contract with Pochita that his companion will take over his body as a Fiend and live a new life when he dies.
• Absurd Cutting Power: His primary strength as a combatant, thanks to becoming the eponymous Henshin Hero.
• Abusive Parents: His father was an abusive alcoholic who attempted to kill him in a drunken rage.
• Achievements in Ignorance:
  • His friendship with Pochita was born from one. Denji first met him when the devil was wounded and clearly in pain, and seeing an innocent animal hurting fed Pochita some of his blood so he could heal. Since Pochita's true form is arguably the most powerful Devil in existence thanks to his ability to Ret-Gone things right out of reality, Denji accidentally saved the whole world from being destroyed in Pochita's destructive battle with the Four Horsemen simply because he was a scared little boy who just wanted a friend and risked serious injury or death just to help out a wounded animal in its time of need.
  • During his fight with Bomb Girl, Beam observes that Chainsaw Man can extend his chains as long as he wishes, suggesting that Denji use them to travel, presumably meaning that he uses them like grappling hooks to Building Swing. Denji instead uses them as a reigns and bridle to saddle Beam up and ride him like a horse. Beam doesn't have the heart to correct him.
  • Denji's solution to fighting the Darkness-empowered Doll Devil, who's invincible as long as she stays in the darkness? Light himself on fire so she'll always be illuminated while he's fighting her. His opponent is, understandably, baffled by this strategy. The best part? It works.
  • Denji finally defeats Makima for good by cutting her into tiny bite-size pieces and eating her, theorizing that since it doesn't count as an attack if he's doing it to "make her a part of him forever," and therefore won't trigger her Healing Factor. Kishibe theorizes that instead, Denji lucked out and that this strategy was so absurdly specific that it wasn't covered by the terms of Makima's contract.
  • In Part 2, a Justice Devil contractor tries to get a leg up over Denji in their fight by scanning his mind to figure out his strategy. She's downright incredulous when she realizes that Denji isn't even thinking about the fight and instead all his attention is focused on figuring out a way to blow his own cover without making it look like he's doing it on purpose.
• Adaptational Badass: The anime adaptation expands his brief scuffle with the Leech Devil into a full blown fight. In the manga he was too exhausted to put up a long enough fight and it just ended with him running into its tongue. The anime has him run on its arms to outmaneuver its attacks, briefly tie its legs together with the Bat Devil's intestines to get a hit in, and hide under the Bat's organs in a failed attempt to ambush it.
• Addled Addict: Denji's development in the Chainsaw Man Church arc of Part 2 can arguably be read as a hopeless adrenaline addict trying to change for the sake of his loved ones, only for him to relapse due to his lack of a support system. Throughout the arc, both Yoshida and Fumiko make it entirely clear that turning into Chainsaw Man is a horrible idea which will hurt Denji and his loved ones. Although Denji tries to give up Chainsaw Man when Nayuta's life is threatened, ultimately he's too traumatized, broken, and self-loathing to give up the adrenaline rush and attention of Chainsaw Man. Although one could certainly argue that Denji was justified in transforming when he did, given that Barem just murdered all of his pets, it's worth noting that Denji decided that he wanted to be Chainsaw Man before he arrived at the house. He was going to transform regardless; Barem merely gave him an excuse to do so, an interpretation which is supported by Denji's disturbingly gleeful behavior during the fight. Yoshida's dialogue to Denji in chapter 156 seems to support this interpretation somewhat. Yoshida makes it clear to Denji that he had done everything he could have done for Denji within reason, but at the end of the day, Yoshida can't protect Denji from the consequences of his own self-destructive behavior. It comes across as highly akin to someone trying to help their friend with an addiction, only to give up and leave them to their own destruction after their friend repeatedly refuses to be helped.
• Aggressive Submissive: Very much so. Though loud, selfish, and violent to men, he's much shyer and kinder to women and loves when they tease and hit on him. Partly this is because, as strong as his sex drive is, he lacks the confidence in his social skills to be sexually forward.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: In Part 2, when he and Nayuta are kidnapped by Yoshida's organization, he offers to tongue Yoshida's butthole for a week in return for being let go.
• Ambiguous Situation: In Part 2, how much does he knows of exactly what he is and what he's capable of? It's almost deliberately vague if he knows the true power of the Chainsaw Man, since he outright doesn't answer when Yoshida asks him. He later eats the Falling Devil only for her to pop out unharmed, implying that either he can't use Pochita's Ret-Gone powers or that Falling is simply too powerful for them to work.
• Ambition Is Evil: Inverted. Rather then a desire for more from life then he could ever possibly need being used to illustrate his malevolence, Denji’s hunger for the basic amenities he was denied in childhood is one of his most sympathetic qualities.
• Amicable Exes: A variant. Though they didn't date for long, Denji attacks the Falling Devil more frantically during their fight in Part 2 when she mentions how she intends to harm Asa Mitaka.
• Animal Motifs: Dogs. Beyond fusing with a Devil with the appearance and demeanor of one, he's got many of the traits of one, being quick to violence when prompted, prone to hormonal outbursts, and being completely subservient to someone as long as they give him food and shelter.
• Annoying Younger Sibling: He gets in on the action with Power in annoying Aki once their Family of Choice dynamic begins to settle in.
• Anti-Hero: Denji is driven primarily by material wants and only became a Devil Hunter for the sake of fulfilling them. With most of his heroism throughout Part 1 is fuelled motivated by the desire to keep Public Safety paying for his nice new apartment and food, though he still dislikes the idea of civilians dying on his watch and usually goes out of his way to keep them safe in the middle of a fight. Part 2 takes this further thanks to Denji losing the Sympathetic P.O.V. to Asa. Without it, a lot of his behavior such as scamming homeless people with recycled cigarettes, letting others use him as furniture for money, and eating cake with his bare hands rather than a fork, makes him look like a pathetic loser who'll do anything to make a quick buck, said idea being enough for Asa to decide on using him to make a weapon out of someone she cares for, as he's nowhere near a "good" person she'd hate to do it to, but he isn't "evil" enough that she wouldn't want to associate with him in the first place.
• Anti-Regeneration: The chainsaw he made with Power's blood nullifies Makima's Healing Factor. It's still there, but it's slowed down enough that Denji can finish her off.
• Ax-Crazy: Has shades of this. Denji most of the time acts like your typical teenager but transforming into Chainsaw Man in battle has him going cackling mad when tearing through his enemies. It could be his way of coping with the pain the transformation does to his body.
• Back from the Dead: Thanks to fusing with Pochita, Denji is functionally immortal as long as he gets even a drop of blood. He's come back from being stabbed in various vital organs, shot in the head, blown up, reduced to a torso, and chopped to pieces. While training with Kishibe, he was killed apparently 20 times in a single day, only to come back just fine.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Wears the full Public Safety Bureau uniform to disguise himself during his final battle with Makima at the end of Part 1.
• Badass in Distress:
  • Antagonists recognize him as the largest threat among the protagonists and work to disable him before moving on to the rest, leaving his allies to rescue Denji or protect him long enough for him to recover.
  • At the end of the Chainsaw Man Church arc in Part 2, Denji is betrayed and imprisoned by Public Safety.
• Badass Normal: Starts the series as one. He briefly becomes this at the end of Part 1 again to fool and defeat Makima. In Part 2, he's ambushed by a small army of thugs while in human form and utterly thrashes them without using his powers.
• Base-Breaking Character: In-Universe example. In Part 2, Chainsaw Man is a hotly debated figure; one half of Japan loves and adores him and the other half hates him for being a Devil and the amount of property damage his battles involve. In the aftermath of the Falling Devil arc, public opinion starts to sway as Denji's popularity starts waning. By Chapter 146, it's all but guaranteed Denji's on his way to becoming a malignant figure in the eyes of the public as part of Fami's plans involve boosting the Chainsaw and War Devils' powers by increasing people's fears toward them and turning followers of the Chainsaw Man Church into facsimiles in his image wreaking havoc.
• Batman Gambit: Knowing it was practically impossible to defeat Makima head-on, Denji relied on her obsession with Chainsaw Man to take her down. Using Pochita as a decoy, Denji hid himself among Makima's puppets and struck her down when she least expected it with a chainsaw made of Power's blood.
• Barrier Maiden: His emotional well-being is basically the only thing holding back the Control and Chainsaw Devils from continuing their fight with each other, which will result in either one of the most dangerous Devils in existence conquering the world and erasing anything that could possibly threaten their new position, or all forms of control (such as every form of government or the laws of physics) never existing.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • Played for laughs. One of Denji's main goals in Part 2 is to get a girlfriend, preferably by exposing himself as Chainsaw Man as he thinks it will be a surefire way to get attention from girls. He sort of gets his wish with Fumiko Mifune, a Public Safety Devil Hunter assigned by Yoshida to be his bodyguard who claims to be interested in him because he is the infamous Chainsaw Man. Rather than be ecstatic, Denji's more annoyed than anything and has zero interest in her. Their first meeting probably didn't help.
  • On a more serious case, his attempts to be recognized as Chainsaw Man and get a girlfriend begins biting him hard when he sees the sheer fanaticism of the Cult that exists around Chainsaw Man that formed in part due to his reckless abandon are committed to interfering with him having any chance of a normal life so he can be Chainsaw Man full-time, up to leveling a threat to kill Asa Mitaka, in hopes that destroying the one desire he has will fulfill their insane obsession with his other identity.
• Because You Were Nice to Me:
  • Denji is forever loyal to Makima for being the first person in his whole life to compliment him and hug him. That and because she's a pretty girl but Denji is aware that her looks are not everything he loves about her. This motivation extends to the Public Safety 4th Division and he works for them because they treat him to an apartment and food.
  • He falls for Reze and almost runs away with her because of this. Unlike Makima and Public Safety, Reze seemed to be the first person since Pochita to like Denji for being Denji rather than what he could provide for her as the Chainsaw Man. This makes him momentarily forget about the whole "forever loyal to Makima" thing above and risk everything just because Reze's kindness vastly outclassed what his co-workers and boss had given him.
• Being Good Sucks:
  • Learning to love and care for those around him only ends up bringing Denji a lot of sadness and misery as he loses them just as quickly as he gets to know them. This is especially true when he enters an intense Heroic BSoD after having to kill the closest thing he has to a brother to save an entire neighborhood.
  • This further ends up biting Pochita/Chainsaw Man in the ass as Denji's heroic deeds has caused the Chainsaw Man to be revered by humanity as their savior from Devils, substantially decreasing the fear that powers him and weakening him.
• The Berserker: As you can expect with someone with chainsaws sprouting out of his arms Denji naturally fights in a savage and frenetic manner that always results in gallons of gore in his wake. Subverted later on however as he starts to become downright analytical in fighting particularly powerful enemies such as the Santa Claus and the Control Devil.
  • However this trait comes back in full force after Barem and the Chainsaw Man Church burn down Denji and Nayuta's apartment. This results speak for themselves.
• Berserk Button: After the ending of Part 1, trying to be too controlling over his decisions. He appears willing to tolerate a date at the aquarium with Asa even when she keeps droning on and on forever about marine life facts, right until the moment where she tells him "you don't need to think about a thing"... unknowingly repeating, almost word-for-word, what Makima said to him before forcing him to become her slave. Unsurprisingly, he snaps that he can think for himself and immediately walks off in a huff.
• Big Brother Instinct: After the International Assassins arc, Denji becomes more patient and caring towards Power after she is traumatized by their trip to Hell. Notice how they barely bicker like they usually did in prior story arcs.
• Black Bug Room: First seen in Chapter 38, and then opened in full during the final act of Part 1. It resembles his childhood home where he was abused by and eventually killed his father.
• Bleed 'Em and Weep: Does this after killing Aki... and it only gets worse from there.
• Blood Iron: His contract with Power lets him create a chainsaw out of her blood. This lets him get the killing blow on Makima after he briefly splits himself from Pochita in a Death or Glory Attack.
• Blood Knight: ZigZagged. He revels in fighting and killing to no end when in his Devil form, coming off as a deranged sadist in his most ruthless moments. However, he doesn't show this behavior regularly and is content to leave others alone if left alone. On the other hand, when in an extremely depressed slump after a series of confidence-crushing events occur one after the other, getting attacked by a small army of goons as the capper to a Honey Trap doesn't break Denji's resolve, but actually strengthens it, as he proceeds to go One-Man Army on them in human form with a beaming smile on his face, implying that part of him is eager for violence as a means of venting regarding the shittier parts of his life.
  • Taken to frightening levels in chapter 152, where his return as Chainsaw Man is marked by increasingly brutal and even sadistic behavior where he not only tears apart the Weapon Hybrids but also cannibalizes them when they're down, even comparing the entire thing to a relaxing massage. And then there's his unusually cold behavior to Nayuta, telling her outright to piss off and leave.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Thanks to his upbringing and subsequent trauma as an official Devil Hunter, Denji develops a rather skewed perspective on right and wrong. In Part 2, when given a choice between saving a teenager or a car full of elderly people, he chooses to Take a Third Option by killing the devil who tried to force him into this dilemma and saving a cat instead. Although, this is perhaps best exemplified by his belief that eating Makima piece by piece to defeat her was an act of love.
• Book Dumb: An Idiot Hero par excellence for sure, but it's repeatedly demonstrated that Denji's stupidity is the inevitable consequence of him being robbed of anything remotely approaching a stable upbringing. Several times he's shown to be actually rather quick-witted and insightful when he needs to be, even outwitting incredibly dangerous opponents like Bomb Girl, Doll Woman, and Makima who all things considered should be much smarter than him.
• Book Ends: His first and last battles in Part 1 involve him sneaking up on a Devil and defeating it with a chainsaw.
• Boring, but Practical: He transforms by pulling the cord on his chest. It looks rather silly and just dangles out most of the time, but it's a lot more convenient than how other Hybrids transform, and he didn't have to sacrifice any limbs or sensory organs like hands or eyes.
• Brains Evil, Brawn Good: His relationship and final battle with Makima at the end of Part 1 amounts to this, with Denji as the Book Dumb but incredibly strong Chainsaw Man contrasting Makima as the scheming, manipulative Evil Genius. In the end, Denji overcomes this and defeats his almighty, abusive crush by outsmarting her with Pochita's help.
• Break the Cutie: Denji is not a bad person at heart and is really just a human version of a rowdy but otherwise friendly and loveable dog. But 97 chapters of having happiness given and taken away from him took their toll on him, maturing him but clearly making him dead inside. By the end of Part 1, he's almost completely lacking in the manic energy he often displayed at the start of the series. And by Part 2, his default expression is a blank, slack-jawed tired stare.
• Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: His father turned out to be an abusive drunk that Denji had to kill in self-defense. Makima, while a Love Interest, had multiple signs of being a maternal figure for him and ended up mentally and emotionally destroying him. So when he adopts Nayuta, the new Control Devil, he does his best to raise her with love and care in the hopes of preventing another Makima from being born. There are some bumps in that road, but Nayuta so far seems be a much better person than her predecessor.
• Bridal Carry: Carries Asa like this when he and her are being chased by the caterpillar-like Devil's tentacles.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: In Part 2, Denji won't stop singing Chainsaw Man's praises while denying or downplaying any of his prior transgressions when asked about him, if only to achieve his new goal of becoming a superhero with a secret identity so that he can attract the ladies. Despite how obvious it is, no one not already in the know thus far has cottoned to the truth, instead thinking that he's just a Loony Fan.
• Call-Back: His comeback in the final events of Part 1, after Makima completely destroyed his spirit, Power sacrifices all of her remaining blood to save Chainsaw Man's dying body inside a dumpster, just like the one Denji first died in at the beginning of the series; the scene where Denji wakes up calling for a already gone Power is framed the exact same way he did when calling for Pochita who became his heart.
  • Part 2 has numerous instances of this to Part 1, from some of Denji's old enemies to similar story beats. For example, at around the same chapter count he was bisected in Part 1 by Samurai Sword, he is similarly torn in half by the Falling Devil in Part 2.
• Came Back Strong: In chapter 1, Denji is cut into pieces by a mob of yakuzas turned zombies. However, he's made a contract with Pochita earlier who made Pochita able to take over Denji's body after his death, since he didn't expect to live long. Pochita merges with him and resurrects him, giving him chainsaw powers and the abilities of a devil.
• Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest:
  • A justified case as Denji is smart enough to know that Makima will likely not appreciate it if he was open about just wanting to touch her boobs. This ends up being used to manipulate him more as Makima assures him that she's fine with knowing that he is attracted to her, and even goes as far as letting him grope her to lure him into a false sense of hope.
  • Subverted in regards to Reze. He only ever sees her in a sexual light after she strips naked in front of him, but it only occurs all but once and by this point of his Character Development, he'd learned to understand the distinction between physical and romantic attraction.
  • Played with in regards to Asa Mitaka. The first time he sees her in her underwear, Denji being Denji spends an entire page staring at her exposed body. But despite his desperation to have a girlfriend in Part 2, he doesn't do anything to pressure Asa or make her uncomfortable, and sex doesn't even seem to register as any kind of desirable outcome throughout their time together.
• Can't Live Without You: Due to his hereditary cardiac condition from his mother (and being murdered at the end of Chapter 1), Pochita fuses with him, becoming his heart. In possibly the most-selfless contract known, Pochita will sustain him if he follows his dreams, but Denji cannot live without his devil best friend now.
• Can't Stay Normal: A rather depressing theme of Denji's throughout the series is that his desire for a "normal life" (both what he considers "normal" and what everyone else does) is constantly yanked away from him just when it looks to be within arms' reach. In Part 1, Makima purposely gave him a glimpse of happiness and then brutally rip it away from him in her plans to separate Denji from Pochita. In Part 2, Hirofumi and Fumiko try to give Denji a normal life (which Denji finds incredibly poor and boring) by making him agree not to become Chainsaw Man again in exchange for not going after Nayuta. Unfortunately for him, Fami's plan involves turning Chainsaw Man and Asa Mitaka into Public Enemy #1 so as to strengthen the Chainsaw and War Devils in preparation for the Death Devil's arrival on Earth. This one is arguably worse in that Denji's initial idea of normalcy involved him lavishing in attention and praise from his fans. Chapter 150 reinforces this with Barem burning down his and Nayuta's apartment with their pets still inside to force Denji into becoming Chainsaw Man again regardless of what Denji wants. That said, the conversation between Pochita and Denji in the same chapter implies Denji still wants to be Chainsaw Man.
• Cartwright Curse: Poor Denji. The kid does not have good luck when it comes to women - as he himself laments during his fight with the Bomb Devil, every cute girl he's ever met has either lied to him and manipulated him, tried to kill him, or both, and things don't usually end well for the women in question either - Himeno (who takes his first kiss) dies fighting the Snake Devil, Power is pointlessly killed by Makima right in front of Denji on his birthday, Reze is killed by Makima specifically to cement her control over Denji, and Denji himself laments with some disgust at the end of Part One that he still loves Makima, despite how she systematically destroyed his life and the fact that he's already killed and eaten her. The guy simply cannot catch a break in his love life.
  • Things don't get much better for him in Part 2. The first time a girl asks him out on a date, it's because she, Asa Mitaka, is planning to turn him into a living weapon - so she can use it to kill Chainsaw Man. Hard to say whether the fact that she bombs spectacularly at making herself appealing to him makes things better or worse for him, especially with the added irony that she ends up developing a legitimate crush on him afterwards. The situation is also not helped by Nayuta sabotaging their date because she doesn't trust Asa and knows about Denji's history.
• Celebrity Superhero: Though Denji himself remains a public unknown, the Chainsaw Man becomes the world's most famous and loved Devil Hunter, even receiving (unlicensed) merchandise. Makima deliberately let the news get out to rob Pochita of the fear the name "Chainsaw Man" provides him. But this also backfires by giving Denji motivation to keep carrying the name on, even if he has to kill Makima to do it. In Part 2, he schemes to eventually push the public's attention to his true identity, thinking that exposing his identity as Chainsaw Man will make him attractive to girls.
• Chain Pain: He can take the chains off his chainsaw arms to tie up his enemies and prevent them from escaping.
• Chainsaw Good: Goes without saying. Denji's chainsaws are powerful weapons that he typically swings around and stabs enemies with to shread their flesh, but he can also perform a Clean Cut if he puts his mind to it. His main chainsaws are on the head and arms, but he can summons two more in his legs.
• Character Development:
  • He matures from a manic, hedonistic horndog to a tired but experienced Knight in Sour Armor. His desire for a normal life leads to many hardships and losses, but in the end he comes to accept that it's just how the world is, and the best he can do is to keep dreaming and to show kindness where it was previously absent to make life just a little bit better. He's ultimately rewarded for his efforts with a surrogate daughter/sister that becomes very affectionate to him.
  • Denji starts off as someone with very simplistic goals and wants in life, aspiring to be taken care of by someone else almost entirely. By the end of Part 1, he tearfully confesses to Kishibe and Kobeni that he wants more out of life than just “eating bread” and “touching boobs” but rather wants steak and having sex with a hot girl. He also learns to handle life on his own while also caring for someone else… who just so happens to be the reincarnation of the woman he fell in love with.
  • Part 1 concerned his lack of control over his own life, as he was constantly the pawn of multiple people especially Makima. In Part 2, he's become much more mature and individualistic, refusing to let the likes of Yoshida and Asa take control over him, whether it be preventing him from eating cake or ordering him to blindly follow along a tightly scheduled date.
    Denji: I decided... to think about stuff in my own way, y'know!
    • By the time of Part 2, Denji is shown to have gone a bit too far in the other direction, where he refuses to compromise his newfound individualism even when doing so would be better for him and his loved ones. When Yoshida offers Denji an ultimatum between Nayuta's safety and being Chainsaw Man, Denji persistently chooses both. Yoshida makes it clear that he's not kidding and Nayuta will be put in danger if he continues to be Chainsaw Man, but Denji simply rejects the terms of the decision altogether, much to Yoshida's bafflement. It's ultimately downplayed, however, as he does reluctantly decide to quit being Chainsaw Man for Nayuta's sake.
  • Played for darkly humorous laughs in Chapter 119. When Yoru-in-Asa's body unexpectedly kisses him, he keeps his mouth tightly shut against her lips and doesn't use his tongue. Clearly, he remembered how his last two kisses went and is not taking chances this time.
  • The one thing that can get him to drop his quest for a girlfriend is Nayuta's wellbeing; he's quickly willing to go along with Nayuta erasing her memory of their date to get rid of her, though he does get a little depressed about it since it seemed like things were working out. He admits that "Nayuta always will come first" (he says that she's his most precious person in the original Japanese version).
• Character Tic:
  • Sticking out his tongue. Which is turned against him when Reze bites it off to get the edge over him during her assassination attempt.
  • He has a tendency to raise up a peace sign in response to something. Every time he does it though, they're good indicators for where he is mentally and emotionally. Suffice to say, they're not going uphill.
  • Offering a gift (a flower he just puked up in the first instance, a starfish in the second) to a girl he thinks is cute with a big smile and a cheerful "Ta-da!" The hilarious thing? It succeeds in charming them both times he's tried it.
• Characterization Marches On: He's always been more considerate to women than men, but early on seemed extremely, callously apathetic to the latter. While fighting the Bat Devil in the second volume, Denji warns a woman to stay away and saves a man's life by catching the car he was in. Then, he nearly kills the man himself by throwing the car, just to prove he didn't care about the guy. Later chapters show Denji has always been incredibly reluctant to kill any human, even in self-defense.
• The Charmer: Surprisingly, despite his crass and often immature behavior, Denji has shown a remarkable talent for winning people over with his kind heart and compassion for those in pain, even those who previously despised him. Himeno recognizes him as a great kid immediately while Aki and Power end up becoming his devoted friends despite looking down on him earlier, and even Reze, a trained assassin sent to steal his heart, finds herself becoming attracted to him for real. In Part 2, despite intentionally targeting him because he was the most outwardly unpleasant person she'd still feel guilty about hurting, Asa Mitaka finds herself developing a huge crush on him after he's the only one who tries cheering her up while they're trapped in the aquarium.
• Chick Magnet: Despite his horrible luck with women, it's still surprising how many he's able to genuinely attract in both Parts 1 and 2 combined. Power is implied to have feelings for him, Reze fell for him after a few exchanges that exposed a Commonality Connection despite being her target, Asa Mitaka fell for both him and his Chainsaw form hard after he revealed a level of kindness she didn't expect, and Fumiko Mifune made it no secret that she would really like to touch his wiener. Then there's the many fangirls that Chainsaw Man has across the world that beg to be his girlfriend. Some girls in his class have also implied that they find him cute.
• Chivalrous Pervert:
  • In Part 1, Denji enjoys porn magazines and decides his new goal in life will be to touch boobs. However, he makes a point of wanting permission before doing it and has a soft spot for people in trouble. This is Played With in that when he does actually get to touch a woman's chest (Power's), he doesn't feel much of anything and goes into an existential funk about it, wondering if chasing after a goal is better than achieving it since the latter means you have nothing to live for anymore. After speaking with Makima, he comes to the conclusion that sexual contact won't mean a lot without emotional intimacy behind it. He even rejects Himeno's advances, part of it is because she was drunk and the other part of it was because he wanted his first time to be with Makima.
  • In Part 2, he freely admits the reason he wants everyone to find out he's Chainsaw Man is so that girls will be into him, and he even hires himself out as a chair for girls at his school. While on a date with Asa that results in them being trapped by the Eternity Devil, Asa formulates a plan to get free that requires Denji to give her the million yen they've collected. Denji immediately agrees when Asa says she'll grant him any request if he agrees, framed in a way similar to Makima implying she'll sleep with Denji if he kills the Gun Devil. After they're free and Denji brings up her promise, Asa clearly looks scared Denji will ask for sex. Instead, he asks her for a second date, because he has more experience with it and "will teach [her] how to have the best dates ever." Yoru, who experiences the same thoughts and feelings as Asa, believes Asa's fallen in love with him.
• The Chosen One: Deconstructed. Everyone who meets Denji and hears of his desire to defeat the Gun Devil so Makima will be his girlfriend eventually come around to the idea that he's strong, skilled, and crazy enough to do it. They're all correct. Sort of. As he ultimately winds up slaying the Gun Fiend at the behest of a vile conspiracy to destroy his spirit.
• Color-Coded Characters: In Part 2, Fami refers to him as the Red Chainsaw Man in order to distinguish him from Pochita in his true form (the Black Chainsaw Man). While they look nothing alike, Fami admits that she and her sisters are faceblind.
• Combat Pragmatist: He makes it a personal policy to always go for the nuts (possibly because he once sold one of his own bollocks before he got it back through fusing with Pochita).
• Coming of Age Story: Starts the series willing to work for humans or devils depending on whichever "takes care" of him after spending much of his life struggling to support himself. Ultimately, Part 1 has him reluctantly taking on personal autonomy and agency in very short order, even becoming a surrogate parent by the end of it.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Denji spent childhood was spent living in nightmarish poverty, forced to risk his life against Devils and sell bodyparts just to make ends meet. His “job” for Public Safety is such a massive step-up by comparison that he fails to realise how much he’s being exploited until Reze spells it out to him.
• Confusion Fu: His greatest assets in combat aren't his powers, but his cunning, ingenuity, and sheer unpredictability that let him keep his enemies guessing, even as he snatches victory from opponents more powerful, experienced, and intelligent than himself. No one but Denji would think of countering a darkness-based Healing Factor by setting himself on fire, nobody but Denji would conceivably expect this tactic, and nobody but Denji would make it work.
• Country Mouse: The opening chapter features Denji as a rural Devil Hunter before being drafted by Makima to join the government in Tokyo. He's ecstatic at first, believing that he'll be able to accomplish his simple if ribald dreams only for each of them to become disappointments when they come true. His sole attempt to leave the big city to go on the run with Reze is thwarted, and Part 1 ends with him deciding to stay because he needs to take care of Nayuta and there's nothing for him to go back to in the countryside.
• Converted Fanboy: His date with Makima at the movie theater seems to have made him a small movie fan. His idea for a second date with Asa that will improve upon their disastrous outing at the aquarium was to go on a mummy movie marathon before she shot it down. This newfound love for cinema also informed his and Pochita's final decision to kill Makima, as her desire to also erase bad movies from existence cemented her fate.
• Crazy Enough to Work: Denji has a knack for coming up truly baffling plans in the middle of a fight he can’t win just by flailing his chainsaws. For example, his solution to beat Doll Woman, who’s extremely potent Healing Factor only works in darkness, is to light himself on fire with gasoline. His opponent notes that it’s a crazy stupid move and yet, Denji's sheer determination to keep on fighting despite the searing hot pain allows him to get the drop on Doll Woman.
  • In between Parts 1 and 2, he's developed a grotesque countermeasure against mental attacks, during which he inflicts grievous (but not lethal) chainsaw wounds on his own brain to return him to his senses. Afterwards, he devours chunks of his opponent to heal the damage.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: At first glance, he seems like a pathetic loser and idiot, and Aki immediately becomes convinced that he has no idea what he's getting himself into and will get himself killed horribly. However, underestimate Denji at your own peril. His dreams of living a comfortable life and getting laid may seem humble, but he will fight for them just as fiercely as anyone has ever fought for any lofty ideal, and his trusty chainsaws will see to it that any obstacle standing in the way of him achieving these goals will get torn asunder. He is also nowhere near as dumb as he seems. For instance, he is the only member of his group to figure out that if the seemingly invincible Eternity Devil is trying to manipulate his allies into killing him instead of doing the job itself, well, there might be a reason for that.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Denji was killed by the Yakuza, who betrayed him by chopping his body into pieces and throwing them into a trash bin.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Once Pochita takes over his body fully thanks to Makima's manipulations, he starts dishing these out like candy, shredding all of Makima's Weapon Hybrid slaves in a matter of seconds. Twice!
  • By the time of his first appearance in Part 2, he's grown so strong that even in his regular human form (and not Pochita's "Hero of Hell" form) he's reintroduced utterly thrashing a monstrous devil the size of an average apartment building, squashing the Bat Devil (his first major opponent from Part 1) in the process by complete acccident.
  • He utterly demolishes Yuko during their fight, ripping her to shreds in a matter of seconds without ever taking a single hit.
• Cute Monster Boy: His overall Endearingly Dorky nature makes it hard not to like Denji, even in his Hybrid form.
• Cuteness Proximity: In Part 2, during a date at the aquarium, he's really interested in seeing the penguins. When he comes face-to-face with one, he's so overjoyed at how cute it is that he spends all his time cuddling it and doesn't even notice his date has freed them from the aquarium they'd been trapped in and killed the Eternity Devil responsible. He claims getting to hold the penguin was reason alone for his date with Asa to not be the worst ever.
  Denji: He's so cute. I wanna keep 'im!

D-H

• Dark and Troubled Past: His father was an abusive alcoholic, leading to Denji killing him in self-defense during one of his violent spouts. After that, he became an orphan in absolute poverty, forced to sell off many of his body parts on the black market and kill Devils for the Yakuza to pay off his debt. All of this made him into the hedonistic, short-tempered, idiotic jerk that he is today.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The blades on his arms and his pointily fanged head causes him to scare all the civilians who see him in Part 1, but he means well, and said civilians are quick to recognize tropes when instead of attacking them, he screams that they should leave the area as he's fighting something more terrifying and malevolent than a Humanoid Abomination covered in chainsaws.
• Deal with the Devil: Made a blood pact with Pochita to get a second chance to live. Thankfully Pochita did it out of benevolence compared to the usual Devil's contracts, but it still comes with the consequence of putting a target square on Denji's head.
• Debt Detester: Due to his backstory of spending his formative years in crippling debt, he absolutely despises owing anyone anything, be it money or favors. He makes a point of getting even as soon as possible.
• Death or Glory Attack: He and Pochita manage to hoodwink the Control Devil in Chapter 96 into thinking she was attacking Denji, when in fact, she was fighting Chainsaw Devil the whole time. The young man hid himself, until she finally let her guard down. During this split in their fusion, all that was sustaining Denji for that fight was Power's blood given to him in a new contract, of which he ended up using every last drop she gave him, until he could recover Pochita. Denji was seconds away from death.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Denji is a hyperactive, bombastic and plain strange Idiot Hero that also happens to be a decent person at heart looking for some semblance of respect, affection and attention, like some other Shonen protagonists. He's also an absolutely broken individual in terms of what he's had to go through in his life, his happiness is a major plot point as Makima sends him into the Despair Event Horizon by making him think he can never be happy so that she can separate Pochita from him, and for all of his urges to do heroic things for that attention (and a pay check), the reality completely subverts the usual big dreams of such characters; he's not out to be the greatest hero or the biggest figure ever - being normal to him means living like anyone else with gaining mundane luxuries like a decent meal and a girlfriend, preventing him from potentially self-destructing on troves of ambition. Never mind the guilt he feels even when he does achieve such things. These simplicities are what makes him the hero that is Chainsaw Man, rather than impossible expectations and goals.
• Despair Event Horizon: Being forced to kill Aki sends him down this path, and he fully crosses it when Makima kills Power and reveals that he killed his own father in self-defense, causing him to snap and relinquish all free will to her so he can live in blissful ignorance.
  • Parodied in Part 2 when he tries to save Asa from the Falling Devil. When Asa tells him that no girl would ever want to have sex with someone with a chainsaw on his head, he is immediately horrified and becomes vulnerable to the Falling Devil himself, sending both of them plummeting into the door that leads to Hell.
  • Part 2 later plays this straight when Barem and the Weapon Hybrids burn down his and Nayuta's apartment, killing their pets as well. As a result, Denji finally snaps and transforms into Chainsaw Man once more, attempts to kill the Hybrids, and tells Nayuta to her face that he always saw her as a burden.
• Desperately Craves Affection: On the surface, he seems like a Hormone-Addled Teenager simply willing to throw himself into a meat grinder if an attractive woman (or any woman, to be honest) offers some sensual reward. As the series goes on however it becomes depressingly clear that Denji's upbringing as an abused child has made him starved for any kind of affection and companionship, causing him to be perfectly willing to throw away his dignity for the sake of a hint of said affection. His motivation in Part 2 to get a girlfriend in particular has signs of him actually trying to fill the massive hole that Makima had left in him after all that she had put him through.
• Desperation Attack: A Partial Transformation that causes a small chainsaw to jut out of his forehead. He loses every fight where he's reduced to bringing it out.
• Destructive Savior: Though generally viewed favorably by the public in Part 2, because the Devils he fights are too dead or dangerous to be criticized, Chainsaw Man is often blamed for the collateral damage from his hunts.
• Detachment Combat: In Part 2, he's learned to tether his head to his body with a chain if it gets cut off. Hell of an upgrade, since decapitation used to be his biggest weakness.
• Determinator: He might be sharp as a wet sponge, but Denji will never stop fighting for his dreams. Perhaps the most triumphant example being, after he and the Eternity Devil spent three days non-stop gorily ripping each other to shreds, his response when it weakly pleads for a Mercy Kill.
  Denji: What?! You're done already?! I was havin' fun splashing around in this bloodbath like a kid in a pool!!
• Did Not Get the Girl: He has several burgeoning intimate relationships with women all throughout Part 1. Most of them wind up dead.
• Disappeared Dad: Denji's father committed suicide. Except he didn't.
• Difficult, but Awesome: His hybrid form’s chainsaws are powerful enough to cut through most Devils, Fiends and other Weapon Humans like butter, but having chainsaws constantly grinding away at his flesh means Denji has to use up blood to even stay transformed. He gets around this weakness by drinking as much spilled blood from his enemies as he possibly can.
• Distracted by the Sexy: There are normally only two things on Denji's mind: women and their boobs. It's fairly easy to get Denji's attention so long as you promise him some form of sexual reward. When Yoru confronts him, he takes a good second to stare at Asa's blood-soaked body in her underwear.
• Does Not Like Spam: Having to cannibalise Makima’s remains to finally get rid of her leaves him very averse to meat.
• Dramatic Irony: Denji becomes markedly more depressed and cynical after Reze fails to meet him at the cafe, thinking that she broke her promise and abandoned him. In reality, she was actually almost there when Makima cornered and killed her specifically because Reze genuinely loved Denji and was going to run away with him - and more importantly, threatening Denji's subservience to Makima. In fact, she was so close to the cafe that she could literally see Denji waiting for her through the window with a bouquet of flowers as she was dying.
• Dub Personality Change: In the English dub, he throws a car and the man in it back at the Bat Devil without clarifying that the driver's gender is a deciding factor to his callous counterattack.
• Dumbass Has a Point: While it's because he's not happy with words being put into his mouth and his anger at having to tie the knot before getting laid, Denji raises a valid point about how the Chainsaw Man Church sure does a lot of shady things despite claiming to help those in need, such as forcing high schoolers to marry and procreate and spreading ridiculous lies about others to manipulate masses. Denji makes a solid enough callout that even Sword Man is taken aback and forced to invoke The Needs of the Many to justify the Church's actions.
• Dumb Blonde: Gender-inverted. He's book-dumb as hell and has blonde hair. However, he's got quite the creative bone in him when it comes to fights, especially after training with Kishibe.
• Dumb Muscle: As Chainsaw Man, he's a hulking mass of muscle and steel that can slice through and brutalize Devils like they were made of paper, but once again, he's Book Dumb.
• Eating the Enemy: This is how he defeats Makima. To bypass her Healing Factor, Denji first chops her into bite-sized pieces, then cooks said pieces into dishes for him to consume.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Denji has already been killing Devils for the Yakuza with no actual superpowers of his own except having Pochita as his weapon since he was a child by the time the story begins. It would be less accurate to say that performing a Fusion Dance with Pochita helps him learn how to fight and more that getting the ability to grow chainsaws out of his arms makes killing enemies much easier.
• Establishing Character Moment: He and Pochita became friends because he willingly risked death or major injury to help the Devil recover by feeding him his blood. Whatever his behavior is like in the coming days, the series wants it understood that Denji is ultimately a selfless person.
  • The Yakuza think he'll do anything for cash, and make him eat a used cigarette for a few measly yen. Which Denji does, only to reveal that he'd actually tucked the cigarette under his tongue so he could spit it out as soon as they were gone. In doing so, he shows that while he's willing to debase himself for his goals, he has his limits, and he's far more clever than he appears.
• Every Man Has His Price: He'll let women sit on him for money. For guys, that'll cost extra, but he'll do it, even if it's for a man who's taller and heavier than him like Yoshida.
• Everybody Has Standards:
  • Denji might be willing to risk life and limb for the slightest chance of a hot girlfriend, but even he quickly loses interest in Power. He also bounces off of Asa after she attempts to take him on a "date" because she turns out to be very boring and something of a Control Freak.
  • While he's willing to join the Chainsaw Man Church for a position that can get him laid, Denji is disgusted to learn they encourage their members to marry and have children before they're even adults (even besides expecting him to do so).
  • Denji is visibly jealous when he has to give up being Chainsaw Man, only for Asa Mitaka to become a celebrity and be credited for all of his accomplishments. However, Denji is horrified when Barem suggests murdering her so that he can be Chainsaw Man again, immediately choosing to get the hell out of the Chainsaw Man Church.
• Expecting Someone Taller: Some Devils are surprised at how relatively weak Denji is because they thought they'd be encountering the original Chainsaw Man instead.
• Experienced Protagonist: While amateurish and unskilled, Denji has actually already been a Devil Hunter for the Yakuza since childhood by the time the story proper kicks off. By the end of Part 1, he's taken this to a whole new extreme: when he finally reappears in Part 2, Denji has killed so many powerful Devils and lost so many friends that no opponent he faces can even hold his attention. He kills the Justice Devil Yuko in three pages without even thinking about the fight and his reaction to being trapped in the Eternity Devil's time loop for a sec is about the level of annoyance one would expect from him seeing someone steal his parking space.
• Extreme Omnivore: A very dark example. Due to growing in extreme poverty, he's trained himself to eat basically anything, no matter how bad it tastes, to the point he reflexively swallows anything put in his mouth. This bites him when Himeno ends up throwing up in his mouth during their french kiss, and his immediate response is to try to eat it, leaving him puking in the toilet.
• Eyepatch of Power: Denji initially wears one over his right eye because he'd sold it to pay off part of his debt, but he quickly casts it off once he resurrects and regenerates a new one.
• Fake Ultimate Hero: Downplayed. Chainsaw Man is lauded as a hero for defeating the Gun Devil when he actually just killed the Gun Fiend. However, the public will never know of his actual greatest battle and victory in Part 1: ridding them of the Makima iteration of the Control Devil.
• Fearless Fool: Has shades of this trope, being one of the least (conventionally) intelligent characters in the cast and simultaneously the bravest. It's actually reasonably justified, as Aki learns from Denji after mistakenly assuming this trope is in effect (and subsequently getting kicked in the nuts by Denji multiple times), Denji isn't stupid and he knows when he's being taken advantage of, it's just that the standard of living he's used to is so utterly horrible that literally nothing he encounters as a Devil Hunter can intimidate him anymore.
• First-Episode Resurrection: Denji is brutally murdered by the Yakuza-turned-zombies and left to rot in a dumpster. A contract with Pochita resurrects him as the immortal Chainsaw Man.
• Flash Step: As Chainsaw Man, he can appear and disappear between panels of the manga, usually with the the opponent shredded into pieces.
• Foreshadowing: During the aftermath of his last training session with Kishibe before his rematch with Katana Man, Denji's pants sleeves seem to be randomly torn, hinting at how he's learned how to create chainsaws along his legs.
• Friendless Background: Denji grew up with no friends until he met Pochita, which makes it all the more devastating when Pochita does his Heroic Sacrifice in order to help Denji live out his dreams of a normal life.
• Freudian Excuse: He's a hero, not a villain, but he spending the majority of his formative years as a miserably-treated debt-slave is a pretty solid explanation for why he starts his “heroic career” as an amoral, hedonistic jerk.
• Fusion Dance: Him and Pochita doing this is what helps kick off the main story.
• Good Feels Good: Especially when Denji sees, after God knows how long of feeling like he'd been doing a thankless job, literal parades of people celebrating the Chainsaw Man for defeating the Gun Devil and for saving some of them individually. It helps that there are girls carrying signs asking for the Chainsaw Man to be their boyfriend.
• Good with Numbers: Despite his general Idiot Hero status and total lack of education, he's very good at keeping track of his finances right from the first chapter.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Denji is...not exactly a stable individual at the beginning of the story, thanks to growing up without literally a single friend except a dog-like Devil that can't speak, and zero human contact except for his brutal Yakuza slavedrivers who worked him to the bone just to survive.
• Greed: Justified by his history of poverty, but Denji will do almost anything for money.
• Grew a Spine: While he's still kind of a loser, by the time of Part 2 Denji displays a healthy amount of self-respect that he didn't have before that point. He actually tells Asa off during their date at the aquarium after she repeatedly dismisses his input, quite a notable deviation from his usual desperation with women.
• Harem Seeker: Tearfully breaks down in front of Kishibe expressing his wish to get five - no, TEN girlfriends - upon seeing how much the public, and especially the ladies, have come to love him as Chainsaw Man. It's clear he'd be satisfied with just one girl, but also that he wouldn't say no if given the opportunity for more.
• Has a Type: While his self-proclaimed type is “any girl that's really desperate for a boyfriend”, Denji repeatedly displays a strong preference for aggressive, sexually-dominant women. Comically, he seems to lack any awareness of this, expressing disinterest in Kobeni not for her timid personality but for trying to kill him - even though pretty much every woman he likes has done the same at least once. When Asa Mitaka takes him on a date in Part 2, one of the reasons it goes disastrously for her is because, in addition to taking a flying elbow drop onto his Trauma Button, she's actually even more hopeless at talking to the opposite sex than he is. Then Denji manages to restore her confidence and he suddenly likes her a lot more.
• Hates My Secret Identity: While Asa Mitaka isn't very friendly with Denji, she's really not that friendly to much of anyone. It's Chainsaw Man that she despises, enough that she decides to turn Denji into a weapon so she can use him to kill "Chainsaw Man."
  • Becomes even more apparent when Asa begins to genuinely fall for his human traits that have nothing to do with his Chainsaw Man persona.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Denji is quick to refuse to hold another man's hand, even for a handshake. He also yells that he's not into guys when Beam jumps out to hug him.
• The Hedonist: Tends to be more driven by a desire for luxury, good food, and the opposite sex than by any higher motive, although he's got a perfectly good reason for it - as a debt-slave, even buttered bread was an impossible dream. Once he gets the bare minimum of these, however, it's clear he feels the prices he had to pay aren't really worth it and even laments what he had to go through to achieve them. While his "No More Holding Back" Speech shows that he still wants more (as anybody would), he's ultimately learned to settle for and enjoy what he has.
• The Hero: He is the main protagonist of the series and is part of the Devil Hunter organization. However, he starts off as more of a Nominal Hero as he is mostly doing this for his own personal gain (ie. having money, a roof over his head, food). But hints of his genuine heroism are shown early on, like when he saved a woman from the Bat Devil's attack. By the end of Part 1, Chainsaw Man is now embraced by the public as a hero with Denji continuing to fight other Devils despite his resignation from the Devil Hunters and now being a high-school student.
• Henshin Hero: A Decon-Recon Switch of one. He can transform into his Devil form with a drawstring on his chest, but this comes with the caveat of his current blood count. If Denji doesn't have enough blood, his Devil form is incomplete and he is miles weaker than his full Devil form. Give him the blood he needs however, he's in top form, shredding through Devils like butter.
• Here We Go Again!: Having been imprisoned by the Eternity Devil and possibly due to spending time in actual Hell, Denji's reaction to Fami trapping him in yet another endless Eldritch Location is frustrated boredom.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Played for Laughs when he touches boobs for the first time, and is so underwhelmed that he maintains a Thousand-Yard Stare for several panels.
  • Played straight after he is forced to kill Aki. He becomes so depressed that it makes even Makima put in a little more effort to try to cheer him back up.
  • Gets hit with it even HARDER in Chapter 82 where Makima reveals that she orchestrated Aki and Power's murder, and then forces Denji to remember he murdered his own father, all to make Denji think that he can never live a happy, normal life. Poor kid gets left broken on the couch after that.
• Heroic Safe Mode: His lack of reaction towards the deaths of Himeno, Arai, and several fellow Devil Hunters makes him concerned that he's incapable of feeling or caring for others. It's actually due more to an example of this trope, as losing even more people in his life starts to wear on him with Makima's killing stroke outing this behavior as an attempt to suppress his guilt and horror over killing his abusive father.
• He's Back!:
  • In Chapter 91, Power's Heroic Sacrifice followed by seeing how the general public now love him inspires Denji to want to live again, even if it means taking Makima down to do it.
  • After spending several chapters having begrudgingly given up being Chainsaw Man, the Chainsaw Man Church's actions eventually forces Denji to come out of retirement. Unlike last time, Denji is a hell of a lot more bitter since he just lost not only his and Nayuta's house, but also their pets, including Meowy, his one last link to Power.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: In Part 2, Denji's becoming something of a Base-Breaking Character in-universe. While he has no shortage of fans, he also has several detractors who rightfully point out the copious amounts of collateral damage and death that follow in his wake when battling some of the more dangerous Devils out in public, with the Falling Devil being one of the most catastrophic Devils to ever appear since the Gun Devil. Chapter 146 has Fami exploiting this by using the Chainsaw Man Church to boost people's fears of the Chainsaw Devil by turning its members into Chainsaw Man-like facsimiles and have them run amok.
• Hidden Depths: As much of a hedonistic, Hormone-Addled Teenager he is, Denji proves to be a surprisingly philosophical thinker. One example is, right before slaughtering his zombified Yakuza superiors, he questions why people so fortunate would still demand more from life rather then just relishing the chance for revenge on his abusive bosses. And later, after Power lets him cop a feel, he finds the experience dull and concludes being in a sexual relationship with a girl won’t be fulfilling unless he likes that girl as a person with little prodding. He’s also savvy enough to realize that everyone is constantly trying to manipulate him. While he admits frustration sometimes, he has so little to lose that the Comically Small Bribes that drive his actions are enough for him to charge headfirst into danger.
• His Own Worst Enemy: In Part 2, while Denji comes into conflict with several other characters like Barem or Public Safety, but ultimately it's made clear that Denji is the villain of his own story. Because deep down, Denji doesn't want to be saved. He hates himself far, far too much for that. Denji refuses to change his own self-destructive behavior because he wants destruction. Denji fundamentally believes that someone like him does not deserve to be happy.
• Hormone-Addled Teenager: Denji is sixteen and very easily lead along by his libido. Makima, Himeno, Reze, and (early on) Power end up freely exploiting this to their advantage. He doesn't really grow out of this, because he's still desperately trying to get a girl in Part 2 and even Asa acknowledges that Chainsaw Man mostly saves women.
• Horrible Housing: For most of his life, Denji lived in a run-down shack in the middle of nowhere. After joining the bureau, he’s overjoyed to finally live in a normal apartment.
• Horrifying Hero: Denji's Devil form consists of a chainsaw with teeth replacing his skull and chainsaw blades bloodily ripping out of his arms. While crass and impulsive, Denji is an empathic person at heart, doing his very best to save as many people as he can despite his callous demeanor.
• Horrifying the Horror: Even Devils who don't recognize his link to the original Chainsaw Man gradually begin to fear Denji when they see that his size belies his immense strength, vindictiveness, and determination.
• Human-Demon Hybrid: Denji became a Devil-human hybrid after Pochita fused with his heart.
• Humble Goal: Despite (quite deliberately) fitting the Stock Shōnen Hero to a tee, Denji has zero ambition To Be a Master, become the strongest Devil Hunter, or get anything like that: he just wants to live in a decent house, eat decent food, and date a hot girl. This ends up biting him in the ass multiple times throughout the series, because his sheer lack of ambition makes Aki refuse to take him seriously and also makes him extremely easy to bribe and manipulate, especially if you're a hot girl.
• The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: After spending much of his youth making a meagre living hunting Devils, Denji spends the rest of the series being pursued by demons, assassins, and other hunters for his association with the Chainsaw Devil. Of all his opponents in Part 1, only four of them (Zombie, Muscle, Bat, and Leech) weren't out to get him specifically.

I-O

• I Am a Monster: After Aki and Power's deaths, the final straw for Denji is remembering that he killed his father. He finds this act so heinous and unforgivable that he agrees with Makima that a murderer like him doesn't deserve the normal, happy life he dreamed of. Chapter 155 shows that he still carries his mentality, believing that because he killed his father, he has no right to have a family.
• The Idealist: It's easily overshadowed by his hormonal and crass behavior, but Denji is remarkably optimistic.
  • Not many people get told that they are trapped in an Unnaturally Looping Location with no means of escape or calling for help and see it as an opportunity to take a nap as long as they want, rationalizing that they'll figure out a way eventually anyways.
  • He even saw earning only 100 yen as a victory since it meant he and Pochita would get to eat for another three days.
  • His optimism sometimes tragically gets used against him; his reaction to seeing Power killed by Makima right in front of him is to try to laugh it off as a bad dream, only for it to come crashing down as Makima laughs in his face and completes her plan to tear his hopes and dreams into dust.
• Idiot Ball: While he was never exactly the most educated guy out there, Denji not picking up on the many red flags surrounding Asa Mitaka in Part 2 is pretty glaring. Even after the Falling Devil, a primal fear, tells him that she's specifically going after Asa and when he later sees Asa kill devils on live television, Denji never suspects that she's anything more than just another civilian.
• Idiot Hair: It's hard to notice, but Denji usually has one small strand of hair on his head sticking up in most scenes he's in, adding to his status of being a simpleton.
• Idiot Hero: Deconstructed, his idiocy comes from a horrific childhood of isolation and poverty which has left him with No Social Skills, illiterate and short-tempered. Despite this, he's shown to be quite clever and insightful when it comes down to it.
• I Fight for the Strongest Side!: When asked which side he is on, he says this to Kishibe, though it is more about fighting for whoever is taking care of him and less about fighting for whoever is the strongest.
• Ignored Epiphany:
  • When he finds himself Unable to Cry about Himeno's death, he realizes that he might be losing his humanity after fusing with a Devil. He very quickly shrugs it off because he didn't feel like dealing with negative thoughts.
  • During his fight with the Bomb Devil, he's come to realize that all the women he's met so far had manipulated him, tried to kill him, or both, and he includes Makima among these women. He's quickly back to being head over heels for Makima by the very next arc, and seems to completely forget about Reze in spite of the impact she made on him in the short time they knew each other.
  • Even back in Chapter 2, Denji seems to have been quick to figure out that Makima is not as nice as he initially assumed, but quickly goes back to being smitten with her and figuring he has a shot when she cheekily suggests she might be attracted to him.
  • He doesn't seem to learn anything from Part 1, as Part 2 shows that his new goal is to expose himself as Chainsaw Man to the public in the vain hopes of finding a girlfriend. This is in spite of the fact that, to reiterate a point from above, almost all the women who knew that he was Chainsaw Man tried to kill him and take his heart. Sure enough, his efforts to reveal his identity has caught the attention of the War Devil, who's infiltrated his school to confront him.
• Ignored Expert: Ironically, he becomes this in the Aquarium Arc in part 2: since he's an experienced Devil Hunter who's not only killed many Devils before but this specific Devil in particular, he calmly and accurately explains what's going on only for Asa and the Devil Hunter Club to reject his advice and insist he stop making stuff up.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Part of Denji's dreams of having a normal life includes basic companionship. He's distraught that he's now alone when Pochita merged with him and Makima showing him an adequate amount of physical affection started him down the road of doing her bidding. Seeing all of the world loving him and revering him for his heroic actions as Chainsaw Man gets him out of his Heroic BSoD and decide that he really does want to live and aim for even bigger dreams even after all he's been through at that point.
• I Just Want to Be Normal:
  • The dreams Denji details to Pochita are ultimately mundane but otherwise leagues above the poverty he was stuck in at the beginning of the story. He only agrees to Devil hunting and using his Hybrid abilities because doing so gives him a close semblance to the normal life he desires. When Denji despairs that he'll only ever have control over the smallest parts of his life, Kobeni shocks him by pointing out that is normal.
  • This begins getting deconstructed in Part 2. Denji's wish for normalcy was ultimately subverted by him becoming a Celebrity Superhero with a Secret Identity he's actively trying to expose. So in order to keep him under Public Safety's thumb and no longer be Chainsaw Man, Yoshida forces him into a more definitive mundane life as a simple high-schooler... and Denji ends up feeling unfulfilled and even more miserable as he finds himself fading away into the background as basically an extra as opposed to the protagonist of his own story, having to sit by and watch as someone else poses as Chainsaw Man and receives the adulation Denji enjoyed until now. By forcing him to do this, Yoshida spells out what a truly "normal" life entails: having to live with the world getting by just fine without knowing that you exist. With much reluctance, Denji decides he cannot accept that.
• Ignorance Is Bliss: Subverted. Learning the truth about those around him and his own past destroys him, but not utterly, as the connections he made over the course of the series help him recover and ultimately grow stronger after overcoming the aforementioned revelations.
• Image Song: Most of the ED tracks of the anime adaptation are sung from Denji's perspective regarding his thoughts on the events of Part 1 and his complicated relationship with Makima.
• Insecure Love Interest: Asa declaring that she hates him and that she only agreed to the movie date at his home for a distraction genuinely depresses Denji, who genuinely thought she liked him and whose mind begins wandering to figure out exactly what he did wrong. He doesn't know that she's actually trying to avoid getting attached to him so Yoru can't turn him into a weapon despite her growing crush on him.
• Irony:
  • After Himeno's death, Denji concludes that he wouldn't cry if Aki or Power were to die, but would be down in the dumps for a while if Makima were to die. Denji is outright sobbing when he's forced to kill Aki and later sheds tears when Power gives up her life to revive him, but isn't nearly so emotional when he kills and eats Makima.
  • Started the series willing to work for anyone who would take care of him, whether they be human, Devil, or the government. He winds up as the sole breadwinner of a new household featuring several dogs and a young girl Devil by the end of Part 1.
• It's All My Fault: He completely blames himself for Aki and Power's deaths, having killed the former to stop his rampage as the Gun Fiend and inadvertently allowed Makima to murder the latter. The idea that both were his fault was placed in his mind by Makima in order to break him into an Empty Shell so Pochita could return.
• It Gets Easier: His hesitation to give it his all during his climactic battle with the Gun Fiend out of the hope that he could save Aki indirectly resulted in tremendous collateral damage and would have killed him if not for some brave bystanders giving him some blood. Fast forward to Part 2, and he has an easier time making hard decisions to end Devil battles quicker, willing to sacrifice the lives of several civilians to prevent the Cockroach Devil from wrecking the city further. And to save a nearby cat.
• It's the Journey That Counts: Deconstructed after he finally gets a chance to touch a woman's breasts vis-a-vis Power. It's such a middling and mundane experience compared to what he was expecting and how hard he worked to attain it, that's he's left dreading if any other goal he tries to attain will turn out just as unfulfilling once he achieves them.
  There's something I was chasing after, and I finally managed to get it. But once I did, it wasn't... as big of a deal as I thought. Now I'm wondering, if I go after something else, and get my hands on it, am I just gonna think I was happier during the chase?
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he has terrible manners and isn't above threatening others to get an advantage, he's not a bad person at heart. The "heart of gold" part becomes more apparent as the series goes on.
• Karmic Jackpot: For giving Pochita the companionship and hugs he longed for the most, Denji gets a contract from the devil on very generous terms. Pochita fuses with him to provide his heart, making him effectively an immortal juggernaut, and all his best friend asks of him is to work towards his dreams, which he was going to do anyway.
• Kindhearted Cat Lover: Upon his return in Chapter 2, Denji casually lets half a dozen civilians die just so he can save an endangered cat that the kaiju-sized devil he's fighting hadn't even noticed. Rather tragically, it's implied that this is because he's still not gotten over Power's death, and is taking care of cats as a way to honor her memory until he's able to go down to Hell and find the Blood Devil again.
• Kinslaying Is a Special Kind of Evil: What drives Denji to fully surrender himself to Makima is remembering that he killed his father, and doesn't even find doing it in self-defense justifiable in any way. Part 2 eventually shows that although Denji rarely dwells on it, he will never forgive himself for his patricide at all. When he is separated from Nayuta, Denji even has a nightmare where his child self concludes killing his father means he will never have a family.
• Knight in Sour Armor: He grows into this by the time Makima reveals herself as the Big Bad. He's immensely saddened that his quest for a normal life had led him astray into misery, but seeing how many people revere the Chainsaw Man for his heroics as well as a talk with the equally despondent Kobeni makes him accept that bad things in life are perfectly normal. This is best exemplified when he and Pochita finally decide to kill Makima when she admits she'd also erase bad movies from existence. As Kobeni told him, wanting to live in a world where there is no bad to highlight the good is unrealistic. By Part 2, the sourness is more on display ironically along with his greater capacity for outward kindness. He's lost the manic energy he had in Part 1 and is far more muted and wary in his interactions with the opposite sex despite his continued desire to hook up with a girl, but he's still trying to do good as Chainsaw Man and wants to be acknowledged as a hero.
• Lack of Empathy: Discussed, causing him to begin questioning his own humanity after becoming a hybrid. Denji realizes he doesn't feel much over the death of Himeno, and wonders if this really does mean he's become a monster. More than likely, as a result of his upbringing leaving him devoid of emotional connections outside of Pochita and filled with nothing but death and poverty, combined with his desire to ignore negative thoughts overall, he's become Conditioned to Accept Horror and finds it harder to express empathy, only doing so when his emotional dam is pushed to its absolute brink. Prime example being when he's forced to kill Aki turned into the Gun Fiend, and completely breaks down afterwards.
• Laughing Mad: When he transforms in Chapter 151, a very concerned Nayuta notes that he's laughing. By this point, Denji has seemingly lost everything that could allow him the normal life he wanted, and has reached such a point of despair that he embraces the fact that he has nothing left but to be Chainsaw Man.
• Legacy Character: He's not "Chainsaw Man" because he's a Human-Demon Hybrid between the Chainsaw Devil and a human. He's the second Chainsaw Man, as that was Pochita's moniker back in Hell.
• Light Is Good: In his fight with Doll Woman, he uses light (from gasoline fires) to counteract her darkness powers that she got from consuming a piece of the Darkness Devil. Also, Denji is usually depicted as a Light or Electric type in gacha games where he appears as a Guest Fighter.
• Lightning Bruiser: As Chainsaw Man, he is incredibly fast despite the weight of his chainsaws, striking at Devils with a monstrous amount of power along with his speed. His speed and strength is still applicable even when he isn't in full Devil form, albeit less insanely powerful due to a lack of blood. This trope is taken to its EXTREME when Pochita assumes control.
• Living MacGuffin: Due to having Pochita's heart as a result of their Fusion Dance. Many of the conflicts during the series specifically centre around Devils targeting him over his heart.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • It's ambiguous if he ever managed to glean that Reze was abducted and brainwashed by Makima, and didn't abandon him like he initially thought, since Pochita was the only one who ever fought her when she was under Makima's control and Denji didn't appear in the final battle with Makima until after Pochita had killed all the Hybrids.
  • He also doesn't seem to be aware of Pochita's true power, and doesn't comment when Yoshida brings it up.
• Logical Weakness:
  • Though Denji can extend his time as Chainsaw Man by drinking blood, it's still too exhausting and painful to keep up full time. He has no powers when not transformed and can easily be prevented from pulling his starter, making him vulnerable to ambushes, especially from people who knows his identity and where he lives. After he leaves Public Safety, Yoshida has Denji kidnapped in his sleep to show he can't ignore their demands.
  • Pochita creates a contract and becomes his very heart, keeping him alive after the events of chapter 1. The contract depends upon Denji living and working towards finding his dreams. Should he ever suffer a Heroic BSoD or Despair Event Horizon, it threatens to nullify the contract and he will perish. This nearly ended up being the case at the end of Part 1. Horrified, Pochita takes extreme measures to enforce the contract personally.
  • Slashing his brain to shake off mental attacks works well since his reflexes and fighting instincts can keep him in a battle, but he still needs at least one arm to do this as seen when his attempt to rescue Asa from the Falling Devil goes terribly wrong.
• Loophole Abuse: How did Denji manage to get around Makima’s contract with the Prime Minister of Japan, where any attack against her is transferred as appropriate illnesses or accidents among the Japanese people? By taking advantage of the fact that the contract specified any attack. Denji didn’t consider his consuming Makima as an attack in any way, rather he considered it an act of love and thus found a way around Makima’s contract to kill her.
• Loser Protagonist: Albeit a very sympathetic example. Not only was his father an abusive alcoholic, he was previously an orphan living in extreme poverty only barely scraping by due to working for the Yakuza. It's only until he bonds with Pochita that his life starts to get better, and even then it's not a cakewalk.
• Love Martyr: He has a pretty huge crush on Makima, who at best uses these feelings to manipulate him in to taking increasingly risky and suicidal missions in an attempt to gain her approval. He finds that he still loves her even after she's arranged the deaths of his friends and tried to emotionally break him, and only reluctantly decides that she needs to die after she reveals that she intends to use the Chainsaw Devil for reasons that are much less altruistic than she originally lead on. His motivation for consuming her in the end is partially so that she can be a part of him forever.
• Magic Pants: Averted, which is why Denji is the only Public Safety agent who always fights with his jacket off and his sleeves rolled up, as otherwise his chainsaws would cut his clothes to ribbons. Oddly played straight with the saws on his legs, as no mention is ever made of of him needing to acquire new slacks or sneakers after his saws shred through them. That said, he only ever fully extended a blade from them once as a Finishing Move against Katana man, and has otherwise only partially extended the tips of the chainsaws through the soles of his feet as a means of gaining purchase when doing a Wall Run, keeping his shoes relatively intact.
• Man of Kryptonite: To the Typhoon Devil. Denji even admits how easy it is to defeat him since all he needs to do is extend his chainsaw and Typhoon does all the spinning.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Denji at one point Flash Steps in human form to intercept Miri Sugo, so fast that Sugo legitimately wonders if he teleported. Similar to Quanxi's own Super-Speed, it's not clear if Denji has access to Chainsaw Man's speed in human form or if this whole scene was just Rule of Funny.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His name (spelled "デンジ") is a play on "tenshi (テンシ)"; the Japanese word for "angel". It makes him as a warrior that defends humanity from Devils, as well as fitting the angelic Theme Naming of Makima’s Devil minions (the archangels being the one type otherwise missing).
  • It also a homophone for "electromagnetism", with some similar related words being "denshi (electronic/electrical)" or "denchi (battery)". Denji is the battery that birthed the second coming of Chainsaw Man, he is the one Pochita choose to steer them forward with ever developing dreams.
• Mighty Glacier: The anime adaptation makes his chainsaws more weighty to use, causing him to run more heavily and sometimes even reorient himself after he swings them.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Though not given an explicit relationship, Denji seems far more aggressive and sadistic in Chainsaw Man form. His threatening Trash Talk sounds outright deranged, even if he still has the composure to protect nearby civilians.
• Minor Living Alone: At the start of the series, Denji is on his own with only Pochita to keep him company.
• Morality Pet: Even as Nayuta gains more Makima-like qualities come Part 2, she's kept from being as bad as Makima was by her legitimate attachment to Denji.
• More Teeth than the Osmond Family: His chainsaw head has a full mouth of pointy fangs.
• Mundane Luxury: Due to living in abject poverty his entire life, he sees being able to eat three meals a day and having a place to sleep as a dream come true. Before the series begins, he'd never even eaten udon noodles before.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Denji is an outright malnourished young man and the Super-Strength he gets in his Devil form doesn't seem to provide increased muscle mass, with the result that he can go toe-to-toe with opponents like Katana Man who are much bigger and buffer than him physically. However Denji is noticeably buffer by the time of Part 2, no doubt due to living on a good diet for once.
• Nerves of Steel: Years of hunting Devils has hardened Denji's resolve, and while he'll retreat to regroup from an untenable situation, he never shows fear when it comes to facing demonic forces.
• Never Hurt an Innocent: Denji genuinely doesn't want to hurt innocent people—human or devil—if he can help it. When Santa Claus's Dolls are given back a small amount of their humanity to freak him out, he seems genuinely scared to as he flees from the Doll Devil's dolls while screaming that he's not a murderer. An important caveat is that Denji doesn't feel obligated to save everyone he sees in danger, which makes blatant hostage coercion ineffective.
• Never Learned to Read: Due to his rather...poor upbringing, Denji never went to school as a child. In the present day, his literacy is too poor to read most of the items of a restaurant menu, though he can do some clerical work.
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: His realization that the world at large loves the Chainsaw Man, coupled with Kobeni telling him that a troubled life is normal, gives him the drive to keep on dreaming and living even when he's at his lowest point at the moment by Chapter 92.
  Denji: The real truth is I'm tired of eatin' stuff like toast with jam for breakfast! What I really want... is to eat steak for breakfast every morning! I know I shouldn't! I know it's terrible! But it's the same when it comes to girls too! Deep down... I want five! No, ten girlfriends! I WANNA HAVE TONS OF SEX!!! That's why... That's why I... I wanna be Chainsaw Man!
• No Place for Me There: Works tirelessly and shamelessly to save up a future college tuition fund for Nayuta with no designs to do so for himself due to monetary issues and how he struggles academically.
• No-Sell: As a Hybrid, Denji is inherently immune to the effects of certain Devils' powers. Santa Claus was unable to turn him into a doll. Makima's Compelling Voice did not affect him due to her love for Pochita, which extended to Denji. Finally, Yoru can't turn him into a weapon, though the exact reason for this hasn't been revealed: Asa believes it's because he isn't emotionally attached to her.
• No Social Skills: He has terrible social skills as a result of his upbringing, though being next to Power constantly makes him look downright normal by comparison.
• Nominal Hero: Early on, his only real motivation upon joining the Bureau is to enjoy the good life now that he has it. Most of his missions are explicitly fueled by some stripe of hedonism or self-fulfillment (like getting to grope breasts or kiss someone), and he doesn't show interest in the idea that his actions serve to benefit anyone but himself. As the story goes on, though, his good nature and empathy start to come to the fore... but only so much.
• Non-Human Head: Whenever he turns, Denji's head turns into a chainsaw, with all the properties it entails. Notably, his head is now made of metal, giving him the ability to resist bullets aimed at his face.
• Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: Spends the final battle of Part 1 without a heart, which is lethal for hybrids, all for the slimmest chance of defeating Makima.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: Played straight when he sees Yoru (by way of Asa) in her underwear. He gives her a lookover, but he doesn't seem too impressed by what he sees. When the bully he was trying to rescue pops out of Yuko's guts, she instead gets Denji's full attention in his bid to reveal his identity, opening him up to being sneak attacked by Yoru, who might have mortally wounded him if Yoshida hadn't extracted him.
• Offscreen Teleportation: A reoccurring gag in the series is Denji somehow appearing in front of people despite it otherwise being literally impossible for him to do so, such as when he appears at Reze’s cafe before she arrives there, as well as when he somehow overtakes Miri on the rooftop stairs despite there only being one entrance.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: A nasty rumor about Chainsaw Man circulating in Part 2 is that he eats humans like most Fiends and hybrids. Due to how Part 1 ended, Denji can't fully refute these claims.
• One-Man Army: In Part 2, he gets ambushed by a group of around twenty thugs armed with bats while on a karaoke date. He makes quick work of them all while in human form.
• Only Mostly Dead: Has traded places with Pochita after Pochita is forced to take control of their body. Comments from Pochita imply he is still alive but not for long if Makima gets her way. He comes back later thanks to Power.
• Only One Name: He's just "Denji." He admits to Power in the anime that he "doesn't really have a last name," and just uses Aki's when he needs to fill out paperwork.
• Only Sane Man: Takes Aki's place as this in the Part 2 trio of protagonists as a struggling and chronically exhausted single father who is a stabilizing presence when put alongside the manic-depressive Asa/Yoru and the enigmatically sinister dandy that is Yoshida. He also shows himself as this when he's introduced to the Chainsaw Man Church. Despite wanting to have sex with a girl, he rejects the idea of immediately marrying the girl he has sex with. He's able to understand how completely stupid the idea of an American ultraviolet weapon in the air diminishing the mental faculties of adults sounds, and can see how morally reprehensible it is to have teenagers get married. Once Barem introduces himself and tells Denji to kill Asa Mitaka to bring back Chainsaw Man, that's the last straw for Denji to leave, accurately describing the church as a crazy place.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • To show that Reze had gotten through to him, Denji momentarily rejects Makima in favor of running away with her. This is all especially in spite of the fact that he's previously shown to understand the risks doing so would entail as well as refusing to literally the night before.
  • While it was Through the Eyes of Madness as he's rampaging as the Gun Fiend, Aki realizes that something is wrong when Denji is crying during their Snowball Fight, noting that he's never seen him cry before. This gives Denji an opening to kill him, which very clearly destroys him emotionally.
  • Denji usually goes catatonic with a Thousand-Yard Stare whenever in situations where he's clearly terrified out of his mind. But when the Falling Devil uses her Emotion Bomb powers to conjure images of Aki as the Gun Fiend and Power bringing him a birthday cake, Denji screams in terror.
  • Denji is generally a very easygoing guy, rarely losing his temper even when staring down enemies trying to kill him. He is absolutely livid at Yoshida when the latter tells him that his organization placed Nayuta and their dogs under "protection" and outright threatens to kill him if his organization harms them.
  • The fallout of the rise of the Church of Chainsaw Man, the Copycat stealing his identity, and Asa stealing credit for his past heroisms depresses Denji so much that when Yoshida presents him with a girl who specifically wanted a date with him, Denji can only politely ask her to leave him alone due to his downtrodden mood.
• Out of Focus: He's conspicuously absent at the beginning of Part 2, since the focus has shifted to the new Villain Protagonist Asa Mitaka, and her unwilling partnership with the War Devil. When he does return, he instead takes on the role of deuteragonist, his story shown parallel to Asa's and occasionally intersecting, at the cost of the Sympathetic P.O.V. shifting to Asa.

P-Z

• Painful Transformation: Downplayed. Becoming Chainsaw Man hurts due to the blades bursting out of his skin, and it's unpleasant enough that he prefers hunting Devils with regular weapons if that's possible, but he doesn't find the pain so unbearable that it prevents him from fighting while transformed.
• Painting the Medium: Denji's dialogue is always written in a looser, messier font than the other characters to reflect his total lack of formal education. Interestingly, Asa also briefly speaks in this same messy font when she fucks up their date in Part 2, hinting at how they're both friendless losers with zero social life.
• Parental Abandonment: Denji's mother died from disease when he was very young and his father later committed suicide, literally abandoning him with a mountain of debts to the yakuza he was obliged to pay by hunting devils. Except we learn that he actually killed his father and repressed the memory of it.
• Patricide: It turns out that Denji's father didn't kill himself, but rather Denji killed him in self defense, as his father was an abusive alcoholic. The memory was horrible enough that Denji mentally repressed it until Makima forces him to remember.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: While he's terrified of hurting innocent people, Denji loves fighting truly reprehensible opponents like Katana Man and the Yakuza because nobody will care if he brutally chops them up.
• Perpetual-Motion Monster: Denji's chainsaw-engine runs on blood, so as long he can drink, it won't ever stop running. When the Eternity Devil set after him with an enormous mass of regenerating flesh, it basically provided all the fuel Denji could ever wish for while engaged in a fight with it, much to the Devil's immense grief. He even calls himself "a fucking perpetual-motion machine" when he's fighting it.
• Perpetual Poverty:
  • Up until the story's beginning, he made plenty of money hunting devils, but his debtors took nearly all of with arbitrary fees and interest for his debt.
  • In Part 2, despite receiving Aki's inheritance, Denji is no longer being paid by the agency and part-time jobs are not allowed by his school. His increased domestic responsibilities see him taking on various side hustles such as scamming homeless people with recycled cigarettes and letting people sit on him for a modest fee.
• Personality Powers: A temperamental, brutish boy with the power to sprout chainsaws all over his body. The later reveal of Chainsaw Man’s cataclysmic true power also serves as a mirror to how Denji can become far more competent and threatening then his moronic demeanour suggests when he feels pushed into a corner.
• Pet the Dog: When he sees them where he fights, he'll scream for civilians to run away to safety as he battles Devils, and will sometimes shield them with his own body to protect them, although his enemies shouldn't try to exploit this. Back when he used to work independently alongside Pochita, he would share the pleasures of what few meals he had with his partner despite having limited supplies and the fact that Devils don't need regular food to survive.
• Phrase Catcher: "Dog" by those who look down on him. "STAY AWAY!" from Devils who realize that he's immensely skilled with his chainsaws.
• Pinball Protagonist: Starts to catch on that he's one of these during his clash with Bomb Girl, and this awareness doesn't prevent him from getting knocked around even worse in the following arcs. Denji ultimately manages to regain control over his own life at the end though, when he chooses to hunt down Makima rather than run away from her for the rest of his life.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Denji appears to be at least mildly homophobic. He immediately backtracks in horror when he realizes the Angel is a boy, and his response to Beam hugging him is to loudly protest that he's not into men. In his defense, the closest thing he had to parental figures growing up were a bunch of abusive Yakuza, so it's not as if he had many great male role models to choose from.
• Positive Friend Influence: His inherent good nature is not always at the forefront, but whenever it's shown it's quite obvious that he has a very positive effect on his closest friends.
  • Both Aki and Power are changed for the better and the two that originally started off fairly selfish end their respective journeys having learned to love Denji and become willing to sacrifice themselves for his and others' happiness.
  • Denji's kindness earned him the love, affection, and loyalty of the Chainsaw Devil who becomes a pet he names Pochita. While already remarkable due to Pochita being a Devil, Denji's effect on him takes on much bigger meaning once it's revealed that Pochita is in fact The Dreaded Chainsaw Man, who is responsible for erasing some of the most dangerous Devils and their respective fears from history. While Pochita had always wanted a hug he was still Ambiguously Evil, but Denji's influence has led Pochita to try to be more heroic towards others, Taking the Bullet for Kobeni and even encouraging Denji to adopt Nayuta despite all that the Control Devil had done.
  • Kishibe looked genuinely taken aback by Denji's promise to spare him as thanks for training him if Public Safety ever decided to turn on him. Based on his meeting with Makima not too long after, there's implications that this made Kishibe realize Denji was ultimately just another innocent life under Makima's thrall, making him more determined to retaliate against her if she ever showed her true self and turned on humanity.
  • Hanging out with him also seems to have given Reze enough courage to make a try for abandoning her mission and life as the Bomb Devil just to be with him.
  • After Makima is reincarnated into Nayuta with all of her previous personality wiped, Denji is entrusted with raising her so she doesn't become another monster like Makima. With his track record, it's very likely Nayuta will grow up having the friends and family Makima had yearned for. Part 2 shows that there are some major bumps in the road due to Nature Versus Nurture, but Denji's effect on Nayuta is positive enough for her to see him in a genuinely loving light and for the moment give up on wanting to kill humans just for his sake.
  • Asa Mitaka starts falling for him after seeing past his crass and greedy exterior and learning about his capacity for earnest kindness, and falls so hard that even Yoru can feel it. She also ends up falling for his Chainsaw Man form, mostly in part due to Denji managing to convince her to find the will to live again while under the Emotion Bomb effects of the Falling Devil.
• Promotion to Parent: Becomes Nayuta’s guardian at Kishibe’s request and is asked by both Kishibe and Pochita to take care of Nayuta and show her lots of love to ensure she doesn’t become another Makima. Made all the more bizarre considering Nayuta is something of his and Makima's child, coming into being after he ate her. To a lesser extent, he also adopts all of Makima's dogs.
• Properly Paranoid: Getting brutalized every time he lets his guard down has led Denji to be very cautious about enemies with abilities he didn't see coming. When Katana Man wakes up after Denji cuts him in half, he's already tied up and restrained from transforming even though Denji wasn't sure he would actually wake up at all.
  • In a darkly humorous manner, in Part 2 when Yoru kisses Denji, he keeps his lips tightly closed. The poor boy has clearly learned his lesson from his kisses with Himeno and Reze and is not taking any chances.
• Protagonist Power-Up Privileges: Very downplayed. Denji's cord remaining on his chest in both his states makes him unique among hybrids as it can be pulled multiple times even while he's transformed. This can rev up his blades or even heal some of his wounds faster at the cost of some of his blood. Someone else can even pull it to revive him if he's unable to reach the cord himself, like when Himeno did so during his fight with the Eternity Devil to help him recover from a Neck Snap that left him otherwise immobile.
• Pulling Themselves Together: When first ripped apart, Pochita revives Denji by pulling his pieces together with his chains. By Part 2, Denji can do the same at will, instantly recovering from both decapitation and bisection without even pulling his starter.
• Rage Breaking Point: Transforms sparingly and only during moments when the enemy he's facing is too strong to defeat with his usual weaponry and skills, or if they've irrevocably cheesed him off.
• Red Is Heroic: His Chainsaw Man form is depicted with a red or orange chainsaw head to match Pochita. Just like another working-class teen superhero, this is color-coordinated with the hair color of his main squeeze (Makima).
• Refuge in Audacity: He kills Makima for good by cooking and eating her for dinner over the course of several weeks, rationalizing that she wouldn't come back from this because it was an act of love and not an attack. Kishibe theorizes that Denji basically lucked out, and instead his methods were so extremely specific that it wasn't covered by the terms of her contract.
• Removed Achilles' Heel: Removing his head or snapping his neck is Denji's main weakness, since he needs his brain to control his body… at least until Part 2, when he's learned to keep his head chained to his body even when it's severed and keep on fighting.
• Replacement Goldfish: Gets a bunch of dogs in Part 1's epilogue which, as a dream sequence stresses, are meant as stand-ins for Pochita.
• Required Secondary Powers: The Super-Strength he gets in his Chainsaw Man form isn't just an extra bonus, but a pretty essential part of his fighting abilities. Chainsaws are, after all, extremely heavy and not meant to be swung around like broadswords, so Denji needs to be abnormally strong just to be able to lift the weight of his own head and arms when transformed. The anime even plays up how heavy his chainsaws are by having Denji mostly make slow, lumbering movements and throwing much of his body weight into wild swings when fighting.
• Retirony: Just when it seems like he's accepted letting go of seeking fame and fortune as Chainsaw Man in favor of living a peaceful ordinary life with Nayuta in Part 2, the Chainsaw Man Church makes their play and Denji learns about the coming apocalypse.
• Right Man in the Wrong Place: A poor child with no future and humble aspirations unwittingly becomes the guardian of the world's most powerful Devil, and ultimately overcomes many of its worst villains.
• Scary Teeth: His teeth are unusually sharp looking even before becoming Chainsaw Man.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After realizing what the Chainsaw Man Church does to its members (with their members proposing teen marriage) and Barem suggesting him to kill Asa, Denji (despite supposedly in a place where he is universally adored) refuses their offer and doesn't give any other thought to join it.
• Sealed Good in a Can: When Public Safety finally turn on Denji, they're either unable to kill him, expect they may need to his power, or want to avoid a new Chainsaw Devil being born. So they sedate Denji and cut him into pieces to put into long-term storage.
• Secret Identity: Chainsaw Man becomes a well-known public figure, but there are only vague rumors about what he's like beneath the "mask". Denji doesn't try to keep his identity secret, it's mostly thanks to the government's very tight media control, which could have kept the public from being aware of Chainsaw Man at all if Makima didn't want it to.
• Secret-Identity Identity: In Part 2, Denji becomes conflicted on prioritizing his life as Denji, the ordinary high schooler and Nayuta's big brother, or the famous superhero Chainsaw Man. Denji does feel "ordinary" life is incredibly boring and frustrating, seeing Chainsaw Man as his only way to earn more praise or attention. On the other, Fumiko seeing herself as a "Denji fan" (empathizing with the vulnerable human under the mask) is portrayed far more positively than Barem being a "Chainsaw Man fan" (who'll do any horrible thing to see him fight again). The latter doesn't only get what they want, Denji shamefully admits that's also what he wanted.
• Serious Business: He tells Asa that abiding by his house rules is mandatory or else she runs the risk of death. Asa is understandably confused but knowing that he's undoubtedly talking about Nayuta, a natural Control Freak whose power rests heavily on how she perceives others and how one treats her, he's entirely justified in giving such a grim warning.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Hinted at the start of the series, but fully spelt out only in the International Assassins arc, he doesn't want to be a murderer. That is, he doesn't want to ever kill a human being, as death works differently for Devils, Fiends, and hybrids like him. Makima's deals a death blow to his very spirit with the revelation that he was one all along due to having killed his father years ago.
• Shonen Hair: A more realistic take as Denji has hair that just looks like it doesn't know what a comb is yet.
• Shirtless Scene: He often is seen without a shirt after transforming back from his Devil form, though it's more of a visual indicator than true fanservice.
• Shoot the Hostage Taker: Denji is immune to conventional hostage situations, and has shown this as early as his battle with the Bat Devil. During his first major fight in Part 2, Denji blows right past the Cockroach Devil's attempt at pulling a Sadistic Choice and just rips it to shreds in seconds (letting all the hostages die in the process) so he can save an endangered cat that the Devil hadn't even noticed.
• Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Denji has never had a formal education, because his caretakers (gangsters and then Public Safety) use him as a tool with no concern for his long-term wellbeing. The final page of Part 1 shows him in a school uniform, and speech balloons indicate that people are catching onto rumors that the Chainsaw Man is actually a high school student.
• Signature Move: A flying knee/kick to open enemies up to his chainsaw strikes.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: He is incredibly foul-mouthed most of the time, rarely speaking formally to his seniors despite his youth and inexperience.
• Slasher Smile: Sports one whenever he realizes that he can't opt out of a fight, so he might as well enjoy being part of it.
• Smarter Than You Look: Despite having no formal education, Denji is cunning, imaginative, surprisingly perceptive, and has an excellent memory.
  • In the first chapter alone, he shows that he has a good head for numbers; a necessity for keeping track of his debt to the yakuza.
  • He defeats Samurai Sword by baiting him into paying attention to the wrong appendage, surprising him with a new trick he just picked up.
  • When fighting Reze, he figures that she can't explode when wet, so he tosses her into the ocean.
  • In his fight with Doll Woman he figures out that she's invincible in the shadows and only a strong light source will make her vulnerable. Denji's solution? Light himself on fire so she'll always be illuminated.
  • Rather impressively, he was able to figure out Makima only recognizes people based on smell and was able to defeat her by guessing she never remembered his smell, just Chainsaw Man's.
  • Even if he was completely bored, the fact that he offered Asa a starfish to eat after she mentioned it briefly proves that he was listening to her.
• Spider-Man Send-Up: It's not as immediately obvious as some other examples, but Denji has a surprising number of traits in common with the Wall-Crawler. Aside from the overlapping powers of Building Swinging, Super-Strength, and sticking to walls, Denji is also a strongly red-colored teenaged superhero who's in love with a redheaded woman, constantly broke, and perpetually struggles with the exaggerated work-life balance that comes with being a hero.
• Stock Shōnen Hero: Denji shares some traits of the archetype initially, however their origins stem from depressing circumstances. He's a Big Eater, but it's because he lived in abject poverty and frequently had to eat from the dumpster to survive, so when given the chance to indulge he can't help it. He often comes across as an Idiot Hero but that's because he had no access to education or any real parental figures or intellectual stimulation, so he's not really stupid so much as emotionally and socially underdeveloped. This aspect of him slowly changes across the series as Denji becomes more self-actualized.
• Strong Family Resemblance: What little we see of him suggests that Denji looks like a younger version of his father.
• Super-Strength: In addition to its built-in chainsaws, Denji’s Devil form is supernaturally strong. For reference, his first scene in Part 2 after growing much stronger shows him launching the Cockroach Devil (a monster the size of a large mansion) halfway across the city with a kick.
• Supporting Protagonist: In Part 2. While he is still an important character his Reintroduction happens in chapter 102 (Chapter 5 of part 2) and he only gets one chapter completely dedicated to himself, leaving Asa and Yoru as the Protagonists, with Yoru hunting down Chainsaw Man as the main narrative of Part 2. This does start to balance out however after the conclusion of the Falling Arc where Denji again begins to have the primary focus as multiple parties all try to steer him either towards abandoning his life as Chainsaw Man or committing to it full time.
• Sympathetic P.O.V.: As the protagonist of Part 1, his deeper thoughts and emotions make a strong contrast with his crude words and slovenly behavior. In Part 2, with Asa taking the spotlight, the reader gets to see what Denji looks like from an outsider perspective, and he looks to be a loud, awkward loser.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Gets away with a lot of trash talk for half of Part 1, but his luck runs out as he's exchanging post-fight banter with Doll Woman. He's so focused on trading barbs that he leaves himself open to Quanxi decapitating him from behind.
• Tears of Joy: Rather poignantly after spending most of the series Unable to Cry, Denji happily cries when he sees that the whole world is celebrating and loving him for his heroic deeds as Chainsaw Man.
• Tempting Fate: After a date with Makima he thinks that he would never fall for anybody else. Almost immediately after he runs into Reze, who provides a significant challenge to that assumption.
• Terror Hero: He fully dives into this in Chapter 152 as everything finally collapses in on itself within his sanity: transforming into Chainsaw Man after a long hiatus, his behavior isn't cool or badass or even entertaining, but horrifying as he goes to such brutal lengths to attack Spear, Whip, and Sword that even Nayuta is horrified by the sight.
• Think Happy Thoughts: As they're sent tumbling into the sky towards a door to Hell by the Falling Devil's despair-triggered powers, Denji tries to bring Asa and himself back down to earth by thinking of pleasant things like pets and ice cream. While doing this is enough to stop his own tumble, it just barely slows down Asa's, and he's forced to engage in a longer conversation about why even a life full of hardship is worth sticking around for.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: Pulls his punches against human opponents in Part 1, which indirectly costs him his first fight with Katana Man.
• Timed Power-Up: After he transforms, he has a few minutes where his chainsaws spin automatically before they slow to a halt. While he can still fight like this, if he wants to restore his optimal cutting power, he has to pull on the cord of his chest again. This will make his blades spin, but they'll cut him up further and consume more of his blood.
• Tiny Schoolboy: Downplayed as he's not really short, but due to lack of proper nutrition, at the start of the series he looks like skin-and-bones. His height reaches 173cm (roughly 5'8), which is on the shorter side comparing to other young man his age. There even are scenes when female characters such as Himeno and Quanxi towering over him.
• Took a Level in Badass: While Denji’s fighting style initially consisted of wailing on his opponent until either he died or they died, Kishibe’s brutal training methods gradually forces the boy to evolve past basic brawling and rely more on his knack for coming up with insane, baffling plans mid-fight. This comes to a head with his final battle with Makima. She might've had more power, but she never counted on Denji on creating a chainsaw out of Power's blood to disrupt her healing factor, allowing for Denji to finish her off once and for all. At the start of Part 2, Denji's growth is showcased by killing the Bat Devil (his first real challenge in Part 1) by accident while fighting a much larger and more fearsome Devil, one that he not only defeats but completely overpowers.
• Took a Level in Cynic: Depressingly, the events of Part 1 have clearly plumb worn him out when we get to see him in his civilian identity again. He displays little of the manic enthusiasm he showed off before and whereas previously Denji managed to maintain a surprisingly upbeat attitude even in horrible circumstances, here he looks visibly haggard and has Exhausted Eye Bags even when he's in a good mood. Tellingly, when Asa asks him out on a date, his response is not shouting for joy at a girl displaying attraction to him, but a rather muted "ok" as if he's given up all hope on ever finding happiness with a woman.
• Took a Level in Kindness: By the time Part 1 ends, Denji decides to shed his jerkass attitude after the massive Trauma Conga Line he went through. While understandably dour, he is far kinder to the world around him. During Part 2's aquarium arc, Asa finally gets to experience the heart that the audience has known Denji's had the entire time; he cares enough about this girl who's placed him in an impossibly dangerous situation, and, in his own Denji way, tries to cheer her up by offering her a starfish to eat. It's weird, it's more than a little unhinged, but it's unapologetically Denji.
• Tragic Keepsake: At the end of the final chapter of Part 1, Denji is taking care of Meowy, Power's old pet.
• Transformation Trinket: A Body Horror version, with him having a chainsaw ripcord stuck in his chest that he has to pull to transform into his Chainsaw Man form.
• Trauma Button: In Part 2, he does not take kindly to Asa telling him to blindly follow her game plan for their date and that he doesn't need to think about anything. For as much as he's willing to degrade himself for money and for any kind of attention from girls, the moment someone genuinely threatens his individuality like Makima did will be the last straw for his patience in spite of his desire to be loved.
• Trauma Conga Line: Good lord, where to begin? His mom died when he was a kid. His dad was a drunk who followed shortly afterwards after Denji was forced to kill him in self-defense and left Denji saddled with a mountain of debt and left at the mercy of vicious Yakuza thugs and with a Devil as his only friend. He spent his entire childhood as an indentured servant to the Yakuza surviving on garbage and scraps of bread, and eventually they murdered him anyway and threw his body in a dumpster. The woman who found him made him into a slave for the government with veiled threats to kill him if he ever disobeyed her. The first girl he found attractive betrayed him so she could get her cat back. The second girl he fell in love with also betrayed him. The third girl he fell in love with murdered the aforementioned second girl, breaking Denji's heart because he thought that she abandoned him, turned his adoptive brother into a monster that Denji was forced to personally put down, then murdered his adoptive sister in front of him on his birthday to utterly destroy his spirit and convince him that he would never be happy and that it was all his fault for his siblings' deaths. And even after finally overcoming that obstacle, he got saddled with caring for a ten-year-old girl who was the reincarnation of the woman who ruined his life, plus seven dogs and a cat, while still trying to attend high school at the same time, and without being allowed to hold a job. The poor kid simply cannot catch a break.
• Troubled Teen: He's only 16, and as the rest of this page shows he is laden with deep psychological issues that are only exacerbated by the people around him.
• Two-Person Love Triangle: In Part 2, Asa Mitaka ends up falling for Denji and his alter ego Chainsaw Man, having no idea that they're the same person.
• Unable to Cry: Due to being Conditioned to Accept Horror, Denji finds himself unable to muster up tears even though he does actually feel bad whenever he loses people he cares about. A notable exception is when he's forced to fight Aki, showing that he's extremely broken up over having to kill him.
• Unscrupulous Hero: Even putting aside his rather shallow motivations and general lack of concern about civilian casualties, Denji is never afraid to take a cheap shot in a fight if he sees an opening. His response to being outmatched by Katana Man in a straight-up fight is to immediately take one of his goons hostage, not that Katana Man cares about the lives of his own men. He ultimately defeats Makima by getting her to wear herself out in a brawl with Pochita and then ambushing her from behind with a weapon that stops her regeneration.
• Unskilled, but Strong: When he first starts out, Denji is just a sickly teenager with no real fighting skills, but that doesn't really matter quite as much when you can just rip everything that comes at you to shreds with chainsaw arms. Kishibe teaches him and Power to start thinking tactically as well, by repeatedly killing them over and over until they learn to start fighting smarter.
• Use Your Head: The chainsaw affixed to his skull is as lethal as the ones on any of his limbs, although it sees more action in the animated adaptation for smaller fight scenes between the big action shots.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Power and, after a bit of Character Development, Aki as well.
• Wall Run: Denji is able to run along vertical surfaces by using the chainsaws in his legs to embed himself into them.
• Was It All a Lie?: Despite his love for her, Denji has to come to terms with the fact that Makima never actually cared for him in return, she only ever cared for Chainsaw Man, aka Pochita, who was inside him. After the reveal of her plan, she shows nothing but contempt for Denji himself. And Denji's ultimate plan for beating Makima relies on her having forgotten what he smells like, as she doesn't bother remembering the smells of people unimportant to her, which allows him to get the drop on her.
• What Is This Feeling?: Denji becomes immensely confused by his feelings for Reze after having believed himself to be in love with Makima, behaving as if his body was acting against his will when spending time with her.
• Weak, but Skilled: Interestingly, Denji is both this and Unskilled, but Strong as the series goes on. Despite being a sickly teenager with no formal combat training, he repeatedly demonstrates that he has a keen tactical mind that allows him to outwit and outmaneuver opponents far more powerful (and frankly intelligent) than he is. Over and over he shows himself to be clever enough to identify, and then exploit, the weaknesses of far more powerful Devils, and he ultimately manages to defeat Makima (herself a devil powerful enough to defeat the Gun Devil with ease) by hiding amongst her slaves, waiting for her to tire herself out in a fight with Pochita and then launching a sneak attack from behind while she's distracted, which disables her long enough for him to put his real plan into action.
• Weapons of Their Trade: Having to survive with Pochita as his only tool during his childhood of debt-slavery to the Yakuza has left Denji extremely skilled at using chainsaws as a weapon, allowing to get a handle on dual-wielding them as Chainsaw Man very quickly.
• What You Are in the Dark: The series intentionally breezes by them but there are many notable moments of Denji saving people of his own volition without asking for rewards. These simultaneously bite him in the ass and raise him up as his off-handed heroic deeds severely weaken Pochita due to lack of fear of him, but encourages Denji to give dreaming of a happy life another chance.
• When He Smiles: For such a crass and abrasive young man, Denji actually has a wonderful smile when he's genuinely happy, that's all the more beautiful for how little we actually see it. Despite their ulterior motives for going out with him, both Reze and later Asa are shocked upon seeing Denji's smile because of how lovely it is, and start genuinely warming up to him afterwards. It's so lovely that Asa Mitaka falls asleep just thinking about his smile, while telling herself she hates him.
• Why Can't I Hate You?: Even after seeing Makima for what she really is and killing her for it, Denji is disgusted in himself for still loving her.
• Wistful Smile: The final volume of Part 1 has Denji sporting one of these, a visual metaphor for how much he's grown and how much he's lost over the course of the story.
• Wolverine Wannabe: Alongside the Spider-Man Send-Up homage above, Denji shares certain traits with a certain adamantium-clawed mutant: Retractable blades, canine-motif, fighting in a wild, savage manner, tense partnerships with straight-laced comrades (Aki and later Yoshida) and the aforementioned attraction to redheads. On a darker note Denji also shares Logan's abysmal luck with women, with many a potential love interest dying messily.
• Work Off the Debt: Denji spends his youth indebted to yakuzas who demand outrageous sums to pay for his father's debt. He begins devil hunting, sells part of his organs, and even humiliates himself in public to amuse the goons while barely keeping up with the interest. At the end, they sacrifice him to a Devil anyway.
• Worst News Judgement Ever: At the start of Part 2, with the government's devil hunters decimated and his reputation still riding high after supposedly defeating the Gun Devil (read: Fiend, actually), Chainsaw Man becomes a local celebrity and controversial hero figure for being the most visible and effective-looking demon slayer. The media, desperate for a scoop that isn't depressing, makes reports for when he hasn't been seen in a while and tends to downplay the collateral damage that happens as a result of his battles.
• Would Hit a Girl: Denji is generally far more lenient to and considerate of women, but that doesn't stop him from doing his best to defend himself when a woman charges at him with intent to harm such as Power, Kobeni, Reze, Doll Woman, and Makima.
• Xanatos Gambit: Pulls off a rather impressive one for someone so seemingly unintelligent in the climax of Part 1, when he separates Pochita from his body and sends him out to fight Makima, then disguises himself as one of her slaves so he can sneak up and get the drop on her. If Makima had somehow caught him hiding amongst her slaves, then trying to kill Denji would leave her open to an attack from Pochita. If Makima defeats Pochita, then that's no biggie because she'll have worn herself out in the fighting and let her guard down long enough for him to deal a mortal wound to her - which is exactly what happens. If Pochita had won the fight with Makima, well...he'd have won the fight with Makima and Denji could put his real plan into action regardless.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Having been put through the wringer of having to kill his surrogate brother, his surrogate sister sacrificing herself for him, remembering that he killed his own father, and still loving a woman who's done nothing but hurt and manipulate him, Denji is shocked and driven to tears to discover from the news that the world at large loves him as Chainsaw Man.
• You Killed My Father: Tragically averted. In spite of how he avenges Aki, Power, and Reze (though she’s still alive) when he defeats Makima, he's unable to rightfully hate her for killing them.
• You Will Be Spared: An anti-hero variant. As thanks for Kishibe training him and Power, he promises to spare him should the Public Safety try to put him down. Along with hearing Kobeni's cry for help, this is also one of the reasons why Chainsaw Man didn't try to kill Kishibe.
• Younger Than They Look: Denji doesn't look especially aged for a sixteen-year-old, but his coworkers were all surprised he was a minor. In Part 2, however, this trait is more explicit, as he is only a year older but has a haggard, world-weary look that makes him look much older in comparison to his peers.
• Your Days Are Numbered: At the start of the series, he's inherited a lethal heart condition from his mother which he's very certain will kill him young. Fusing with Pochita cures him of it though.

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