YMMV / Chainsaw Man

The following have their own pages:

• Alternative Character Interpretation
• Ensemble Dark Horse
• Memetic Mutation

Other examples:

A-E

• Abandon Shipping:
  • A good number of fans found Denji and Power's eventual Like Brother and Sister dynamic to be so refreshing, especially in a Shōnen series, that those who previously shipped the two willingly threw in the towel in favor of keeping their relationship platonic.
  • Similarly, despite being the Stock Shōnen Rival who typically gets shipped with the Stock Shōnen Hero in most other fandoms, most fans don't ship Aki with either Denji or Power, stemming from a combination of the maturity gap between them being so wide that he comes across far more like an exhausted single dad struggling to chaperone his two bickering toddlers and because shipping him with Denji makes the way Aki dies even more unfathomably depressing.
  • While Denji/Makima wasn't exactly popular to begin with (despite Denji's one-sided crush on Makima), it collapsed completely by the final chapters of Part 1, where it becomes clear Makima never cared about Denji in the slightest and set the events of the entire story up (including the deaths of his best friends) to break his spirit for the sake of having Pochita all to herself. Besides that, the age gap and her more openly controlling behavior toward the end of the series tends to be viewed as either literal or metaphorical grooming.
• Accidental Innuendo:
  • In chapter 111, Asa sees Yuko has become a devil and asks if she wants to eat her, the reply being "A little bit." This led to a few reader jokes in English, as women "eating" each other is a common euphemism for oral sex. In Brazilian Portuguese, is even worse where the Portuguese verb for "to eat" coloquially means "to screw", so it sounds straight up like the former is asking if the latter wants to have sex.
  • The 6th ending of the anime prominently features a manga-accurate rendering of the bullet-shaped Gun Devil fragment the cast has been tracking through the hotel, however a number of fans online noted with amusement that compared to the original illustration, the 3D rendering revealed how oddly...veiny it looked.
  • The Latin American Spanish dub of the scene in the anime where Denji becomes angry upon learning that Power's pet cat has been kidnapped quickly gained memetic status for how... ahem... excited Power was made to sound in it.
  • It didn't take very long for the panel of the then-unnamed Nobana in Chapter 115 licking the glass of one of the aquarium tanks to start being edited into...less than wholesome context.
• Adorkable: Asa showing herself to be an absolute void of charisma during the aquarium date has paradoxically made the fanbase grow fonder of her.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: The prototypical chainsaw was originally envisioned as a surgical tool in the late 18th Century, so the Devil being associated with the device being on the side of humanity isn't that big of a stretch.
• Alternate Self Shipping: You'll barely have a hard time finding fanart of Asa and Yoru.
• Anti-Climax Boss: A few times, sometimes dramatically, sometimes humorously;
  • A nameless serial killer who's working with the Typhoon Devil is built up as the newest Arc Villain, especially with his penchant for mutilating his target's loved ones so they give up without a fight. He tries to do this with Denji's new friend and possible Love Interest Reze. She murders him with little trouble. Turns out, she's the Arc Villain.
  • The three brothers from the Assassins arc. The little brother is still green, but the other two are stone-cold killers who have been through the most unlikely situations and come back out alive. They murder three Public Safety officers and use their shapeshifting powers to impersonate them. The oldest brother successfully infiltrates the group protecting Denji, gets accidentally run over by Power driving Kobeni's car, and dies. Yes, just like that. And then the middle brother is found out and killed 30 seconds later.
• Applicability: Many fans have interpreted Denji and Makima's relationship as a metaphor for child grooming and abusive relationships, especially as a very rare and welcome aversion of Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male in shonen manga. This post [1] lays out much of the textual evidence in favor of this interpretation.
• Award Snub: Nominated for 25 awards at the 2024 Crunchyroll Anime Awards, but only won two, losing most of them to its sister series Jujutsu Kaisen. Many disgruntled CSM fans believed that it should have been allowed in the 2023 awards and that the timing deprived it of a chance to shine; CSM was no longer fresh in people's minds by 2024, while JJK had just gone through its acclaimed, high-octane Signature Series Arc in the anime and was almost guaranteed a sweep. That said, the CSM anime had only adapted the arcs before the manga really got good, so the best parts (such as the Reze Arc movie) still have a shot at future awards.
• Awesome Art:
  • The manga is overall well-drawn, but the scenes with its Devils (especially the fight scenes) are arguably its strongest, with much Gorn and gore to be shown off in its full glory, as well as some very impressive (and very creepy) designs.
  • Fujimoto damn well knows how to draw some impressive fight scenes, expressing motion incredibly well without sacrificing much of the detail work (in fact, it seems that he adds more to them). It's so awesome in fact, that many of these scenes have the panels popping out and crossing over with each other.
  • The sound effects are integrated seamlessly into the action and the layout, often even being the panel layouts themselves. It's not just the Japanese version; VIZ Media letterer and touch-up artist Sabrina Heep has been praised by many for their excellent translation of said sound effects and perfectly keeping it in Fujimoto's style.
  • The anime is no slouch either, from its fight scenes to its subtler moments, it's clear from the offset that MAPPA is putting their all into this with some of the most fluid and detailed animation seen in the genre. Even the use of 2D Visuals, 3D Effects is much better utilized than in many of their previous efforts.
• Awesome Ego: Power clearly thinks very highly of herself, always boasting about her presence and abilities like she's the strongest and most fearsome thing ever. Fans seem to agree, as she's a big favorite among them (winning the first popularity poll) and only gets more likable as the series goes on.
• Awesome Music:
  • The anime's first OP “KICK BACK” by Kenshi Yonezu, arranged by Daiki Tsuneta of King Gnu, uses electronica and grudge rock to create a dynamic opening that brilliantly conveys the complex insanity that is Chainsaw Man. If you want his unaltered singing voice, the live version of the song from Kenshi's 2022 tour is absolutely godly. See for yourself.
  • The anime has twelve endings nabbing some of the most popular musicians of the Japanese music scene, they are bound to be this.
    • "CHAINSAW BLOOD" by Vaundy sees the singer take on slimy grunge rock to absolute perfection, a vastly different style than most of his previous work.
    • "Zanki" ("Time Left") by Zutomayo is a fast-paced funk song that culminates into one helluva chorus, coinciding with Denji falling through the city in the ending animation.
    • "Hawatari 2-oku Centi" ("200 Million Centimeter Long Blades") by Maximum the Hormone is an eclectic metal song that perfectly captures the series' chaotic nature with its constant change of tone, accompanied by visuals that can get pretty trippy at times. This song also gets reused in the beginnings of episode 7 and 9 to hype you up for the carnage that Denji is about to wreak.
    • "Jozai" ("Tablet") by TOOBOE is a bouncy electronica-pop song that incorporates video game sounds to perfectly embody the chaotically fun personality of Power.
    • "In the Backroom" by syudou is a powerful electronic rock song that uses variety of instruments with bell-like tones to create a chaotic, yet eerie atmosphere that fits the ending's deranged visuals wonderfully.
    • "Chu, Tayousei" ("All Kinds of Kisses") by ano is a bubbly throwback to 90s city-pop that uses a lot of clever wordplay that relates back to Himeno's and Denji's infamous vomit kiss.
    • "first death" by TK from Ling toshite sigure is a chaotic progressive metal song that sees the singer flex his range from whispery to wailing in a heartbeat, all accompanied by his signature epic guitar riffs.
    • "Deep down" by Aimer is an emotional ballad that beautifully pays tribute to Himeno's love for Aki.
  • Kensuke Ushio's score for the first season is no slouch in this department either:
    • "edge of chainsaw" is a triumphant, unapologetically grimy piece blend of grunge rock and breakcore - perfectly befitting the first time we see Denji transform into Chainsaw Man.
    • "sweet dreams" is a bittersweet lo-fi track that manages to perfectly encapsulate the heartbreak, tenderness and yearning at the series core. Used to great effect in episode 1 in the wake of Pochita's sacrifice and later used as a leitmotif for Himeno's sacrifice in episodes 7, 8 & 12.
    • "kick ass" is a gnarly, rollicking piece of electronica that captures the series irreverent sense of fun.
• Awesomeness Withdrawal: Part 2 has the distinction of Fujimoto deciding to take sporadic breaks throughout its run, in high contrast to how he didn't take any non-holiday related time off in Part 1. This has since resulted in readers lamenting the "Biweekly Devil" interrupting the pacing and escalation of certain arcs, and has lead to several memes about how Fujimoto's breaks easily drive fans insane with anticipation.
• Badass Decay: Public Safety as a whole comes off as far more cowardly and inept than they were in Part 1. Multiple Devil Hunters in Part 1 fought to the bitter end, even if they were at a severe disadvantage. Devil Hunters in Part 2 are more likely to run away or abandon their duties, and struggle to even deal with human threats.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Denji has become a significant one among readers, with a lot of the series divisive nature being tied back to him. A lot of readers love him for being a more realistic take on the Stock Shōnen Hero archetype so common to battle manga, his incredibly out-there demeanor and occasional moments of Hidden Depths, along with Ryan Colt Levy's very charismatic performance as him in the English anime dub.^note The latter even won a Crunchyroll Anime Award for Best English Dub Performance in a year otherwise dominated by Jujutsu Kaisen. Others find him an incredibly one-note protagonist whose only characterization is to be vulgar or weird - though, this specific complaint had lessened during the later parts of Part 1, where the tragic aspects of his character are played up and the stuff that happens to him makes him a more appreciated character.
  • Widespread consensus on the Big Bad of Part 1, Makima AKA the Control Devil, is that they're an excellently written despicable piece of work who you can't help but root against. The split comes from those who find her to be a badass, admirable and stylish Magnificent Bitch in spite of her horrendous actions, and those who find that said actions cause her to cross the line into being unapologetically worthy of the reader's hate. To elaborate, she caused the deaths of many innocents and of a considerable amount of beloved characters (including Aki) and emotionally manipulated and abused Denji, such as coldly murdering Power in front of him and awakening the memory that he killed his father to further break him. This isn't helped by the fact that Makima's abuse of Denji is frighteningly realistic, which adds fuel to the "well-written but utterly detestable" bit. As such, some of their fans actively welcome and accept the hate and claim that it's the entire point of the character, providing a rare case where their fans and haters can get along — although there are cases of Makima haters going the Moral Myopia route and claiming that anyone who likes them is just as bad as they are.
  • Power is widely considered the breakout star of the series, with many fans adoring her for her Crazy Is Cool Chuunibyou tendencies and her character development. However, some fans can't stand her for embodying and exaggerating the worst traits of the Asuka Langley archetype, and find her to be unpleasant, annoying, and gross; for instance, one of her first interactions with Denji is to try to get him killed (even if it was to get Meowy back), and she is also shown early on to have disgusting hygiene. It says something that one base-breaking issue surrounding her is whether or not she kicks said habits for the sake of her roommates.
• Broken Base:
  • The question of whether Denji or Power's relationship is romantic or platonic has a tendency to split the fanbase clean in half. Detractors tend to point to the "male and female protagonist automatically hook up" dynamic being very overdone in Shonen, Makima outright calling her Denji's "bratty little sister", the two of them forming a three-sibling dynamic with Aki, and Denji himself notes in later chapters that he doesn't find anything hot when he's naked with her in non-sexual situations later in the manga (bathing and sleeping together.) Supporters tend to counter with the heavy amounts of Ship Tease in their relationship - her begging him to not leave her alone even for short periods of time after they escape from Hell, her uncharacteristically blushing after seeing Denji with a bouquet of flowers that she thinks are for her^noteHe actually bought them for Reze. The bartender cheers him up by saying that Denji's true love will one day walk into his life, and Power barges right in immediately afterwards, the scene where she drinks his blood in a highly provocative and sexually charged manner, and her sacrificing herself for him. Her death in Chapter 91 likely means that, at least for the time being, the question will not be definitively answered one way or another.
  • The subject of Part 1 characters returning in Part 2 is a very contentious one. While some fans are happy that the series abandoned its previous cast (except for Denji and Yoshida) and was able to move forward and start anew, giving its new characters enough focus and development without overshadowing them, other fans have become increasingly annoyed at the extended absence of many fan-favorite characters and the fact that they're only briefly alluded to in the vaguest terms possible. To say nothing of Kishibe and Kobeni, who are very much alive and could easily reappear in Part 2, but don't. And then the subject of dead characters possibly coming Back from the Dead fractures the fanbase even more, with one camp believing that Aki, Power and others need to stay dead forever to preserve the emotional impact of their deaths, and others insisting that many of Part 1's main characters are far too iconic to ditch forever, and that there are ways to bring them back and make it still work as hinted by Power herself. Some even make a case for Makima coming back a la Ansem, which comes with its own can of worms given the implications for Nayuta and the nature of the character in general. A group of characters that frequently get brought up in such discussions are the hybrids, particularly Reze, a major fan favorite, mostly because they're confirmed to still be alive. Intially, the first hybrids to return were Flamethrower, Sword, Whip, and Spear but given that they were effectively mooks in Part 1, they may as well be new characters entirely. Then Quanxi and Samurai Sword return back-to-back in chapters 143 and 144 respectively, making them the first major Part 1 characters besides Denji to return and making it very likely Reze will return as well, since she is the only hybrid who hasn't returned. Furthermore, Makima is directly mentioned multiple times and her legacy has a notable influence on the plot, regarding both Nayuta and the Chainsaw Man Church, turning her into a full-blown Posthumous Character in Part 2.
  • The quality of the Church of Chainsaw Man arc tends to be a point of debate. Key points of criticism include a noticeable decline in the manga's art quality, Denji being perceived as regressing as a character, as well as turning into a full-blown Butt-Monkey, Asa/Yoru being Out of Focus for a very significant chunk of time, an unfocused plot that introduces and immediately drops plotlines repeatedly until it stumbles onto the real plot of the arc, and even then, some find it to be far too mean-spirited and cruel (even by Chainsaw Man standards) to find enjoyable or interesting, and an increased amount of focus on side characters who aren't particularly engaging (with Fumiko Mifune being a particularly cited example). Though, it's generally agreed that it picks back up with Chapter 146, though the bleakness of Denji's situation and Asa remaining out of focus presents a different problem in itself.
• Captain Obvious Reveal: Makima being the true villain of Part 1. Almost everything they do for Denji is clearly meant to manipulate him emotionally from the very first conversation they have with him, they rarely displays any moral standards or concern for the value of human life, and they're rather eerily calm at all times even when killing people in droves, so it's really not all that surprising when they turn out to be the Control Devil.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After he killed off Himeno along with many other members of the Public Safety Devil Hunters because of his hypocritical vendetta against Denji, seeing Katana Man suffer multiple kicks to the crotch as part of a game devised by Denji to Pay Evil unto Evil is as satisfying as it is hilarious. Even better is Aki, of all people, getting in on it and finally bonding with Denji by competing over who can make him cry the loudest.
  • It's incredibly satisfying to watch Chainsaw Man completely and repeatedly curb-stomp Makima after she makes Denji cross the Despair Event Horizon. Granted, every time he does so they just transfer the damage to another innocent person and come back fine, but still. The catharsis continues in Chapter 90, where Power returns as a full Devil and impales the shit out of Makima with her own blood while chanting "Makima is trash! Makima is a nobody!"
  • Chapter 96 is this incarnate. After being beat down by Makima both mentally and physically, Denji finally gets to pull one over them by tricking them into thinking that they killed him. While they're caressing Pochita, Denji sneaks up behind them and slices them up with a chainsaw made out of Power's blood, allowing him to finish Makima once and for all. Bonus, he actually consumes them (though it's revealed one chapter later that it has far less awesome connotations).
• Character Perception Evolution: Samurai Sword started as a Base-Breaking Character; while he certainly had his fans for his badass, menacing design and giving Denji his first really cool fight, an equal number of readers despised him for his hypocritical motivations for hating Denji and for helping to kill one of the Western fanbase's most memorable and beloved characters (Himeno). However, as time went on, the Anyone Can Die nature of the series became more apparent, making Samurai's murder of Himeno look like small potatoes in retrospect while a different character (Makima) caught some heat for killing multiple even more important and beloved characters and abusing Denji, becoming one of the series' most despised characters (for the right reasons). Years later and after his arc was adapted to anime, Samurai Sword made a surprise cameo appearance in Part 2 as an enemy of the Chainsaw Man Church to many fans' pleasure, given that Denji had been the only major character from Part 1 to reappear up to that arc. Later on during the prison break arc, Katana Man returns but, rather being a one-off antagonist like many expected, he ends up being an ally and turns out to have surprisingly fun chemistry with Asa, Yoru, and his new partner Nail, showing off a more humorous side and garnering more praise for his character. There's also the fact that the guy is so obsessed with hating Denji that he betrays the government and becomes a fugitive just to fight him again, leading many fans to enjoy him for being this much of a hater.
• Complete Monster: The Doll Woman, also known as Santa Claus, is an assassin out to seize the powers of the Devils. With their power to turn humans into dolls while erasing their minds and personalities, the Doll Woman converts countless people over the world into their puppets while utilizing an old man to adopt orphans so she can raise one as a perfect puppet and sacrifice the others for a Devil contract. Coming to Japan, they convert many people to dolls to attack hero Denji and gleefully attempts to plunge others into hell for a new Devil contract.
• Crack Ship:
  • A few fans have paired the Falling Devil with the Darkness Devil, of all things, thanks to both being Primal Fears.
  • Some fans ship Makima and Kishibe; while some of this comes from having a dynamic akin to equal and opposite rivals despite Makima appearing much younger than Kishibe, it got a surge when their actors for Chainsaw Man: The Stage announced that they were getting married.
• Crazy Is Cool: Kishibe claims that you can't really be a Devil Hunter without having a few screws loose, and two of the series' most popular characters embody this claim.
  • Denji definitely doesn't have his head on straight, and is one of the most lovable and badass protagonists in anime and manga. His motivations are constantly bouncing around all over the place, from shallow (mostly sexually-driven) to somewhat meaningful. He also keeps coming up with wacky and morbid ways to defeat his foes, such as lighting himself on fire to cancel out Santa Claus' Darkness Devil powers, eating Makima, and mutilating his own brain to counter the Falling Devil's psychological attacks.
  • Power is a Chuunibyou Wild Child who can be insufferable towards the other characters at times, being based on Eric Cartman of all people, and is a Blood Knight to the extreme. Fans love her for her attitude and badass feats, and also praise her character development throughout the series.
• Creator Worship: Tatsuki Fujimoto is highly acclaimed by fans for his off-kilter and unique writing of the series, with many considering him one of the best new gen mangaka. Fans also love him for his openly eccentric personality, with many calling him the Japanese equivalent of Quentin Tarantino.
• Creepy Awesome:
  • The Darkness Devil, which is such a bizarre, nightmarish abomination that fans couldn't help but love it. Even without being the main villain of its own arc, it got praise for just how weird it was.
  • Makima is a disturbing yet powerful figure, who from the very beginning is Ambiguously Evil and only gets worse as the story goes on. With a menacing Control Freak nature, plenty of Dissonant Serenity, and horrific ruthlessness, it speaks volumes that most fans fear her more than they do any of the monsters and devils Denji fights.
  • The Gun Devil's terrifying power, badass design and jaw-dropping death toll make it hugely memorable and popular with fans despite rarely appearing in full.
• Creepy Cute: Bucky, the harmless Chicken Devil introduced in Part II, is a chubby bowtie-wearing chicken with a friendly personality. It's also missing its head, its severed neck is always bleeding, and it has very humanlike intestines.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Denji capturing Katana Man and handing him over to Aki so he can take his revenge for Himeno's death? Coldly satisfying, but not funny. Denji suggesting that instead of killing him, they take their revenge by staging a "tournament" to see who can make Katana Man scream the loudest by kicking him as hard in the balls as possible? Almost as satisfying, and equally funny. The grimly professional Aki actually taking Denji up on this offer and the two of them bonding over destroying the bastard's nuts? Utterly hilarious, and couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
  • Innocent restaraunt employees being violently murdered by Devils? Not funny. Them continuing to do their marketing jingle while being violently murdered by Devils? Kinda funny. Pochita, back as Chainsaw Man, ordering a burger like everything is normal, accidentally murdering more of the restaraunt's employees every time he turns his head after getting distracted (which happens multiple times because Kobeni keeps slipping on the increasingly wet floor), and then kidnapping her so they can go on a "date" that ends with her trying to get a perfect score on DanceDanceRevolution while sobbing in horror? Hysterical.
  • Himeno puking in Denji's mouth during their kiss was already one of the most disgusting moments in the whole manga, so how does the credits of episode 7 push it past merely crass into so wrong it's funny? Censoring the stream of vomit from Himeno's mouth into Denji's with a rainbow!
  • Santa Claus, an incredibly evil and terrifying Arc Villain, burns to death for her final defeat. But on top of this, Cosmo uses her powers on Santa, overloading her mind with all the knowledge in the universe and reducing her to Cosmo's Pokémon Speak in her final moments, adding a layer of dark humiliation to her death.
  Santa Claus: Hallow...een... Halloween... Halloween... Halloween... Halloween... Halloween...
  • The Big Bad is defeated because Denji has a massive crush on her and believes he can express his true love through cannibalism.
  • The Cockroach Devil taking civilian hostages is not funny. Denji letting innocent civilians die is not funny. Denji blowing straight past the Cockroach Devil's attempts to force a Sadistic Choice on him by ripping it to shreds in seconds so he can save an adorable, endangered Siamese cat that the Devil hadn't even noticed, letting all the civilians die in the process, is hysterical.
• Crossover Ship:
  • Denji is often shipped with Kei from act-age, thanks in no part to the fact that the two were often found beside each other on Shonen Jump covers when Act-age was running.
  • In part due to Friendly Fandoms, there is fanart aplenty of Makima with Satoru Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen due to their similar power levels and terrifying presences. Likewise for Arataka Reigen from Mob Psycho 100.
  • Power is often jokingly paired together with Vergil from the Devil May Cry series, due to Vergil's memetic obsession with wanting and/or needing more power.
• Diagnosed by the Audience:
  • Many fans have semi-seriously interpreted Asa's behavior in chapters 113-116 as showing many signs of autism. This includes her insistence on maintaning a very strict schedule after she made plans, and her deep interest and knowledge in marine biology. Her aversion to eating fish can be interpreted as avoidant-restrictive food intake disorder, a condition common in autistic individuals that makes them physically unable to eat specific foods, causing uncontrollable gagging due to revulsion at the textures or flavors in some cases. This would also explain some of her other more odd interpersonal behaviors, as her abysmal social skills, general frustration with other people's emotions, emotional attachment to physical objects, and feeling more at ease with animals than with people are also common symptoms of being on the spectrum.
  • A number of fans have argued that Denji's behavior in Part 2 shows serious signs of clinical depression, given his generally low-energy demeanor compared to Part 1 and appearing visibly exhausted constantly, thanks to the stress of not only escaping an abusive relationship with a woman who murdered all his friends but also having to be a single father in high school caring for a 10-year-old child, 8 dogs, and a cat. Some fans have suggested based on the way he responds to Asa accidentally slamming his Trauma Button hard, that he's suffering from PTSD as a result of Makima's abuse.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Even after Chapters 81 and 82, there is still a number of fans who find Makima's actions and murder of various characters to be justified, especially since she tries to make herself out as a Well-Intentioned Extremist. A lot of them are the ones who find her attractive.
• Epileptic Trees: A theory that has gathered steam since Part 2 started and the War Devil was introduced is the theory that Kobeni is contracted to the Hunger Devil, one of the Four Horsemen. Because the conflict in Part 1 ended up centering on someone who is implied to be the Horseman of Conquest and another one was introduced in the following Part, many fans came to believe that the Myth Arc would involve neutralizing the threat of the horsemen. Kobeni having a subtle food motif (examples include one of her favorite things being the flavor of ice cream, something she can't eat much, her weapon being a kitchen knife, her Burger Fool job, and her hobby being eating tasty things) and never having her devil revealed made this continuously more popular of a theory.
• Evil Is Cool: Most of the series' villains are well-written and awe-inspiring, making them just as admirable as they are despicable.
  • Despite being the epitome of Moral Myopia and Stupid Evil, Samurai Sword is well-liked by fans for his cool design and being a dark mirror of Chainsaw Man, providing him with his first real enemy. His return in Part 2 as an enemy of the Chainsaw Man Church was a treat for many readers.
  • The Darkness Devil left one hell of an impression due to its mysterious presence and design, resulting in this.
  • Bomb Woman (Reze) was well-received by fans due to her humanized nature and badass displays of power.
  • Makima is, from the start, a very sinister woman, but she's also exceptionally smart and powerful, which has a number of displays. For many, her nefarious nature only amplifies her quality as a character. She ranked Number 2 in both popularity polls^note forming the top 3 with Power and Aki both times, though in different orders and only got more powerful from there. She's firmly cemented herself as a heinous villain by the end of Part 1, but many fans agree that she's so well-written, sexy, cool and stylish that you can't help but admire her while also rooting for her downfall. Her nature as a Big Bad Friend who was there since the very first chapter and Part 1's primary Ms. Fanservice has made her the most iconic out of Denji's rogues gallery.
  • It didn't take long for readers to fall in love with Yoru/War Devil as soon as she turned Mr. Tanaka's spinal cord into a sword.

F-J

• Fan-Disliked Explanation:
  • When the official Twitter revealed the Violence Fiend's color scheme through Twitter icons, reactions were... mixed to say the least. Some found the colors (which are based on a parrot) to be too garish and preferred the Fanon depictions of Violence with a red/gold or black mask. MAPPA seems to agree, as the anime version of Violence goes with a black mask.
  • The 2023 Chainsaw Man exhibit in Shibuya confirmed the characters' canon heights in the anime, among them Makima at 168 cm (5'6"). While not short as a few fans believed her to be, other fans were disappointed that she wasn't the 173 cm Statuesque Stunner that she was marked as in concept art for the manga (which was the only official indicator of her height for a long time). Given that proof of characters' final heights at the exhibit is very difficult to find, some people consider character heights to still be ambiguous, and DEATH BATTLE! went with the 5'8" figure for her.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Calling Denji a sexual harasser or comparing him to one (ie Mineta). While undeniably perverted, Denji is generally kind to women and respectful of consent. Additionally he himself is viewed as a grooming victim.
• Fandom-Specific Plot:
  • Putting the characters into a High School AU to live out Romantic Comedy shenanigans is particularly popular amongst fans who were heartbroken by Reze's lamentation that neither she or Denji ever got to go to school and live normal lives. The first popularity poll, ending 4 of the anime (where Power wears her school uniform again), and Part 2 seemed to only encourage this by providing artists with school uniforms.
  • Scenarios where Aki and Power somehow survive and they and Denji live on to be a family is common to think about among fans. Bonus points if Aki also retained having powers of the Gun Devil to fight alongside Denji and Power.
  • Fans of the Hayakawa Family of Choice dynamic often have Himeno survive Katana Man's attack so she can become a full member of the family and a mother figure for Denji and Power to go along with Aki's role as their surrogate father. Alternatively, if it's an Aki/Angel fic, Angel's portrayed as a secondary father figure.
  • Going along with the above, many stories have been written exploring what would happen if Reze actually took Denji up on his offer for the two of them to run away together.
  • In combination with the above three points, fanart of Denji and Reze sometimes depict how the artists believe Power and Aki would react to them dating.
  • Before Part 2 began serialization, fanart continuations of the series in the form of Denji and Nayuta engaged in Slice of Life situations were rampant. It's often expanded by including other characters in helping Denji to raise Nayuta and fill in roles that complete the family dynamic (i.e., Reze as the mother, Yoshida as the uncle, Kobeni as the aunt, and Kishibe as the grandpa).
• Fan Nickname: A lot of characters, even some major ones, still have No Name Given to this day. Even the official popularity polls don't reveal their real names and list them by their job or function, so it's up to the fans to fill the blanks.
  • "Dennis" is a common nickname for Denji in the West, especially on Reddit, in part due to many phone users' devices autocorrecting "Denji" to "Dennis". Following suit as Part 2's (current) protagonist, Asa is sometimes nicknamed as "Ashley".
  • Himeno is widely and only half-jokingly called "Eyepatch Mommy" for rather obvious reasons.
  • Similarly, "Dadakawa" is a common nickname for Hayakawa in reference to his role as the long-suffering Cloud Cuckoolanders Minder Team Dad having to chaperone Denji and Power despite their constant bickering.
  • Samurai Sword is commonly referred to as "Katana Man" among the fandom, as a means to make him a more direct counterpart to the title character. Sometimes he's also called Shädman in the West, due to his outfit's resemblance to artist Shadman's profile pic.
  • Reze is sometimes jokingly referred to as "Febreze" by American fans unsure of how her actual name is pronounced.
  • The three American assassin brothers are commonly referred to by the fans as the Pasta Bros. simply because that was what they were eating when they first appeared, which also lead to jokes that it is their Trademark Favorite Food. Two of them were eventually given names (Joey and Aldo) but the eldest remains unnamed.
  • Quanxi's fiend companions are usually called Eel, Stitch, Halloween, and Black Power before their actual names were revealed.
  • Quanxi herself has been awarded the title "Quanchad" by Reddit, owing to being both a huge badass and having somehow gotten not one, not two, but four Devil girlfriends.
  • After the Gun Devil took over Aki's body to turn him into the Gun Fiend, fans started referring to him as Aki-47, a pun on AK-47.
  • The Brazilian fandom likes to call Aki "Cebolinha", as his hair is similar to Cebolinha/Jimmy Five from Monica's Gang.
  • Kishibe gets called Mads Mikkelsen due to his resemblance to the actor. Considering Fujimoto's love of movies, it's not a reach to think it might be intentional Comic-Book Fantasy Casting.
  • The Weapon Devils as a group are sometimes referred to as a whole as the "Seven Deadly Simps" due to the fact that all of them are completely dedicated to Makima after being brought under her control.
  • The seldom seen Tendo is affectionately referred to by many as their "Tall-fu".
  • Denji, Power, and Aki are christened the "Hayakawa family" in reference to their Family of Choice dynamic in later chapters and Aki's surname being the only one between them. It later became something of Ascended Fanon when the second popularity poll also referred to the trio as such.
  • Thanks to his situation at the end of Part 1, many fans have jokingly christened Denji as "Chainsaw Dad". "Dadji", or "Single Dad Devil" thanks to him essentially adopting Nayuta as his surrogate daughter.
  • The second Chainsaw Man that appeared in Ch. 111 was immediately dubbed "Fakesaw Man" or the "Impostor Devil" for obvious reasons.
  • Before being officially named and being a confirmed relative of Kobeni, Nobana has been referred to as "Brobeni."
  • The Falling Devil has been referred to as "Cookie", due to her Evil Chef design and characteristics.
  • Before Fumiko Mifune's name was revealed, she had been nicknamed "Sexual Harassment-chan" or "Molestina" due to her inappropriately touching Denji's groin without his consent.
  • Sword Man was nicknamed "Kevin Nguyen" before his name was revealed to be Miri Sugo.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Despite it being made clear that Kurose already has a girlfriend, fans are more likely to ship him with Tendo than even acknowledge said girlfriend's existence.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • A small one with DARLING in the FRANXX due to Power's resemblance to Zero Two, who the Chainsaw Man fandom is more than happy to take the piss out of to declare their preference for Power.
  • Has a Friendly Rivalry one with Bocchi the Rock!! due to the fierce competition they had with each other during the Fall 2022 season, the opposing philosophies of their directors, and the status of Bocchi as an underdog compared to the mainstream status held by Chainsaw Man.
  • While Chainsaw Man and Jujutsu Kaisen generally benefit from Friendly Fandoms, there is a bit of rivalry as well thanks to their anime adaptations. This mostly comes from people who want to see CSM succeed and that, given the mixed reception and underwhelming sales of its anime in Japan, feel that it's hopelessly overshadowed by JJK and doesn't get as much recognition as it deserves — especially considering that CSM was more successful than JJK before their respective anime were released. While the anime is a strong case of Germans Love David Hasselhoff, the 2024 Crunchyroll Anime Awards didn't help matters by pitting CSM^note which was over a year old at that point and would have been better suited to the 2023 show against the beloved second season of JJK,^note which adapted what is widely considered the best part of the manga, as opposed to the first season of CSM consisting of material pre-Growing the Beard which proceeded to sweep the awards and deprive CSM of a chance at Western prestige.
• Fanon:
  • Denji's blonde hair has led to many assuming that he has mixed-race parentage and one or both of his parents was not ethnically Japanese.
  • A popular fan theory is that the Violence Fiend's host body is that of Hirokazu Arai, based on their similar physical appearances, partnerships with Kobeni, and the fact that he only appears after the spoilered character dies. The opening of the anime added further fuel to the fire since all the Division 4 Fiends/Devils are present in the movie theater shots except for Violence - while Arai is there. The anime's behind-the-scenes material also doesn't help matters due to Violence's character model looking suspiciously like just Arai's but slightly altered... and yet MAPPA confirmed the two have different voice actors. The ending for the 11th episode takes it further, with Violence conspicuously in place of Arai along the human members of the division.
  • It's commonly theorized that Quanxi was seduced by Makima much like Denji was, and Makima was very likely a Closet Key that drove Quanxi to adopt her Ignorance Is Bliss mantra.
  • Reze is commonly assumed to be bisexual, even though the only evidence for her liking girls is her being attracted to Makima while under her control.
  • Fanart likes to portray Pochita as a Shipper on Deck for Denji and Reze.
  • It's almost universally assumed by the fandom that, given how it's clearly too big for him, wouldn't have another easily available, and is never seen wearing one up to that point, the Public Safety Uniform Denji wears to disguise himself as one of Makima's slaves is Aki's old uniform.
  • Kishibe and Yoshida barely interacted in Part 1, but many are already theorizing or at least enjoy portraying Yoshida as Kishibe's direct apprentice. The fact that Kishibe when he was younger looked suspiciously similar to Yoshida has prompted some fans to even suggest they may be Ambiguously Related. Some suggest that the reason why Quanxi didn’t immediately kill Yoshida when she had him at knifepoint was because she recognized Kishibe in him. Yoshida's appearance in Chapter 145 wearing Public Safety clothes makes him almost a dead ringer for a younger Kishibe, adding more fuel to the fire.
  • Because of how quickly she reincarnated after her defeat, many fans like to believe that the reason the Control Devil was discovered on Earth so soon was because either the Darkness Devil alone, or all the other Devils who she'd killed throughout the story, led by the Angel Devil, ambushed her upon her arrival in Hell and furiously ripped her to pieces. It's also a common assumption that this encounter happened while she was still in the form of Makima, despite there being no evidence for such.
  • Some fans believe Denji to be bisexual, but deeply in the closet due to past trauma. Most of this is based on his aversion to any sort of physical contact with other men and his admitted attraction to the Angel Devil until remembering he was male (the scene in question has him picturing several women and Angel in lingerie, up until reminding himself that Angel is male). There's also some fans that see him as being asexual but is hypersexual due to his traumatic childhood that led to him believing that Sex Equals Love. This is based on Denji being very keen on the idea of sexual intimacy but either chickens out or feels no sexual attraction when presented with the actual thing (i.e him not feeling anything towards Power bathing with him).
  • Some fans infer that the Ensemble Dark Horse female news reporter that appears throughout Part 2 is the same reporter that Quanxi monologues about in her Ignorance Is Bliss speech.
  • Given that the only previously stated male sibling of Kobeni was an older brother and his short stature, Nobana’s been interpreted to be a recently transitioned transmale brother, despite the setting the manga takes place in (1990s Japan) not being particularly tolerant towards transgender people.
• First Installment Wins: While Part 2 has been well-received so far, Part 1 is the series to many fans and its cast and setting are usually what come to mind when someone mentions Chainsaw Man. Part 2 separating itself by ditching almost every named character except Denji and Yoshida — even characters that survived the events of Part 1 — only reinforces this sentiment.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • There seems to be an unspoken rule that if another Shōnen manga is also edited by Shihei "Rin-san" Lin and/or created by one of Fujimoto's former assistants, comradery between fandoms will be inevitable:
    • There is a huge overlap between the Chainsaw Man and SPY×FAMILY fandoms which solely started on the same editor thing, and eventually ballooned once it was discovered that Tatsuya Endo worked as an assistant on Fire Punch. They're even on the same platform (at least when Chainsaw Man moves to Shonen Jump+ for Part 2 of the series)!
    • There's a large overlap of Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku fans with Chainsaw Man fans, thanks to the mangas' more mature, dark tones for Shōnen. It definitely helps that Yūji Kaku, the author of Jigokuraku, is yet another former assistant of Fujimoto, and each of them did an interview discussing each others' manga.
    • Dandadan, made by Yukinobu Tatsu who is yet another former Fujimoto assistant, has also gotten its readership getting friendly with Chainsaw Man fans due to similar tones and irreverent senses of humor, as well as the mangaka's aforementioned professional history with Fujimoto.
  • Because of their similar tones, the way human/devil hybrids activate their powers (something one could call a "devil trigger"), and a Chainsaw Man character literally being named "Power", Devil May Cry / Vergil jokes and references are numerous between fans.
  • A strong one with Jujutsu Kaisen, thanks to their similar premises, their respective authors' expressed admiration and respect for each others' works, and eventually the fact that they are being adapted by the same studio. Fujimoto has even said that it was an honor for his manga to be animated by the same studio who did Jujutsu Kaisen as well as Dorohedoro. While it's hard to find a fan of one series who doesn't enjoy the other, a bit of Fandom Rivalry began to creep in thanks to the mixed reception and underwhelming performance of the CSM anime in Japan, which caused some people to see the series as being stuck in the shadow of its big brother.
  • Also with Death Note, as both series skew towards the darker and more cynical side of Shonen Jump series and feature a Crapsack World where humans make deals with demons. Both series also feature an auburn-ish-haired, very attractive and sharp-dressed Badass Bookworm villain as one of their main characters who manipulates the world and events of their respective series to achieve their delusions of godhood through various atrocities. This was only enhanced when Aya Hirano, the voice of Misa Amane in Death Note, was announced to be playing Makima in Chainsaw Man The Stage.
  • Another big one with Dorohedoro, owing to the similarities between their settings, constantly shifting tones, and surreal, often horrific artwork.
  • With Choujin X, although a more one-sided example due to Choujin X being far less mainstream. In a somewhat unusual case, the overlap is specifically with Part 2 of Chainsaw Man, due to both series running concurrently and having a similar slow-burn style of storytelling and emphasis on more grounded character interactions as opposed to the fast-paced action that characterized Part 1. Many have also pointed out that there are some very notable parallels in the overarching plots of both stories, in which everything is revealed to center around an apocalypse prophecy (in turn inspired by the real-life Y2K craze) with different factions butting heads on how to stop it. It helps that the authors are actually friends in real life.
  • With fans of Attack on Titan, as both are Shōnen with tons of highly detailed and violent action. It helps that Chainsaw Man started gaining popularity around the time that the Attack on Titan manga was starting to wind down.
  • With fans of Doom, thanks to Denji ripping and tearing through devils Doomguy-style.
  • There's also good relations with the Mob Psycho 100 fandom as a common Fandom-Specific Plot involved Reigen Arataka being the one to find Denji and essentially become his loving guardian. For potential drama, Makima finds Mob and is left to raise and/or traumatize him to her heart's content. Much like Choujin X above, Mob Psycho 100's creator ONE. is also friends with Fujimoto.
  • Chainsaw Man also enjoys a friendly fandom with Cyberpunk: Edgerunners; both for reasons similar to Dorohedoro's, and because both anime are subject to frequent crossover fanart.
  • Many fans of Chainsaw Man are also fans of NieR: Automata, likely thanks to both stories alternating between fast-paced over-the-top violent action and tragic love stories powered by absolute truckloads of angst. Fittingly, both franchises appear with Guest Fighters in Goddess of Victory: NIKKE.
  • Tatsuki Fujimoto has openly admitted to being a fan of Adventure Time, citing Finn and Jake's friendship as the main inspiration for Denji and Pochita. The friendliness between fans was pretty low-key at first, but very quickly skyrocketed when OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes creator and former Adventure Time storyboard artist Ian Jones-Quartey drew fanart of Princess Bubblegum as Makima and Finn as Denji, having admitted to also loving Chainsaw Man.
  • A weird one with Breaking Bad (similar to the crossover between Dragon Ball Z and Shrek fans), as many fans enjoy both series and many crossover memes between them exist, even down to cosplays and fanart of the characters (especially Kobeni) in Los Pollos Hermanos uniforms. One particularly legendary incident was when a fan took a photo◊ of Giancarlo Esposito holding a Pochita plushie, solidifying the friendship.
  • A rather sudden one formed with The Amazing Digital Circus, primarily because of protagonist Pomni's resemblance to Kobeni in both appearance and personality. As a result you'll find no shortage of crossover fanart where one is dressed like the other and vice versa. Some have even joked that Pomni is in fact Kobeni herself, trapped in the Digital Circus. This only intensified when Fujimoto rather randomly tweeted out that he's watched and enjoyed it.
• Fountain of Memes:
  • The entire duology of Chapters 85 and 86 has become prime for in-jokes and memes among the fandom, from Kobeni working as a Burger Fool, to Chainsaw Man demanding a "VAM VAVAVAA", to him killing Family Burger employees, to him "going on a date" with Kobeni, just the complete Mood Whiplash from the previous Wham Episode chapters, and last but not least, Kobeni dancing as if her life depended on it in DanceDanceRevolution.
  • Kobeni herself is subject to all kinds of memes thanks to her incredible bad luck allowing for her to be put into any situation or scenario and make them automatically hilarious.
  • Makima is also a major source of memes due to a perfect storm of factors, including being the show's main Ms. Fanservice, her dominating attitude towards and dog-like treatment of Denji, and her being the outrageously evil twist villain Big Bad of Part 1. All these factors have made her one of the series' most memeable characters, and she is often considered its most qualified candidate for "Tumblr sexy(wo)man"-hood.
  • Thanks to a combination of acclaim, popularity, and hype garnered by Part 1 and its anime adaptation, it seems that every subsequent chapter of Part 2 can't go published without something in them becoming a meme.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • Himeno is extremely divisive in Japan, beating out Makima, a character with some of the most horrendous acts in the series, for the most disliked character in the franchise in a fan ranking. Reasons include her promiscuity and drunken advances towards Denji (a minor), the infamous "vomit kiss", her devotion to Aki, and her comparatively masculine character design. In the West, however, she's far more popular, being one of the most beloved characters in the series due to Western audiences' more lax attitude towards the issues mentioned (aside from her advances towards Denji). Western fans overlook her various flaws and generally view her as a cool, badass mentor figure who died way too soon, giving her the nickname of "Eyepatch Mommy".
  • The anime adaptation of Chainsaw Man has a divisive reputation in Japan despite the franchise's worldwide popularity. It drew backlash from Japanese viewers for being "too western" among other factors, including its "cinematic" animation style, various changes from the manga, and the use of inexperienced voice actors. Fans even started a petition to reboot the anime with a new director. The show also did very poorly in its first week of home video sales, to the point where it only sold 325 Blu-ray copies in its second week. However, given the series' popularity elsewhere, this is just a bump in the road. In the West, the Chainsaw Man anime is an absolute phenomenon and is more universally well-received, quickly becoming the "new big thing" in the Occidental Otaku fanbase, generating a huge Newbie Boom for the franchise as a whole, and spawning massive numbers of homages, fanart and cosplay, much like how its fellow Shonen Jump alumnus Death Note became an all-time classic in the West despite its modest popularity in Japan. In particular, the "cinematic" style, a huge point of criticism among Japanese fans, is considered one of the show's selling points among Western fans. Lower fluency in Japanese means fewer complaints about the original voice actors' performances, and for English-speaking fans, the English dub is largely considered a Superlative Dubbing. Chainsaw Man was also the second-most pirated TV show of 2022 in the US, only behind the more mainstream House of the Dragon, and if the sheer number of reviews is anything to go by, it's the fourth most popular anime on Crunchyroll.^note The three series that beat it out — One Piece, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, and Jujutsu Kaisen — are just as popular in their home country and do not fall under this trope, making the feat more impressive.
  • Canada is one Western country where Chainsaw Man is highly successful. Local anime stores regularly sell out of Chainsaw Man merchandise, more than any other series, and Toronto Comicon held dedicated Chainsaw Man photoshoots each day of the con in 2023, which is a privilege only afforded to very few other anime series (not even Spy X Family or Jujutsu Kaisen, which are more popular in Japan). The Canadian group D20 Live even did an entire campaign based on Chainsaw Man at Anime North, another Toronto convention.
  • The original Japanese voice cast (particularly Denji's and Makima's VA's) has drawn some criticism from Japanese fans, but has been more warmly received in the West. While there are some fans who consider the English dub (or their native dub in general) to be a Superlative Dubbing, criticism of the original cast's performance is far less common than in their home country.
• Growing the Beard: The amount of attention Reze has from the fandom as well as her overall impact on the story indicates that the Bomb Devil arc is where people truly came to realize that there was more to the manga underneath all the extreme violence and perverted humor.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • Every instance of a hug throughout Part 1 becomes this after Pochita reveals his dream of getting one and the power such a simple but meaningful gesture has. Reread the manga and you'll notice just how much at peace Pochita looks when Denji holds him.
  • With The Reveal that Pochita was always apparently conscious the whole time he had fused with Denji, the volume illustrations of him reenacting moments from the preceding chapter becomes this if one interprets them as Pochita being by Denji's side throughout the entire series.
• He's Just Hiding:
  • The immortal nature of Hybrids has led to fans holding out hope that Reze and Quanxi are still alive, held captive by Makima for her unknown plans. They were right. Though it happened again with the ending as it is unknown if Chainsaw Man managed to truly kill them in the final battle or if they revived after Makima's death and are in the wind currently as we never actually see them truly "die". With the surprise return of Sword Man, hopes have skyrocketed, culminating in Quanxi's return in Chapter 143.
  • Downplayed with Fiends like Beam, Violence, and Power. While their bodies can be killed, Devils are established to be immortal and fans hope that they are simply Put on a Bus and will eventually return with new bodies. In fact, Power's final request to Denji before the permanent death of her current incarnation is to find her when she revives as the Blood Devil, befriend her and turn her back into Power, which can very easily be read as a tease for bringing back a fan-favorite character. The same goes for the Angel Devil and Prinzi, who, being full Devils and not Fiends, can theoretically return exactly as they used to be.
  • There are also some who believe that Makima will eventually reincarnate from Nayuta in some way, either as a recurring antagonist or to go through a redemption arc that would undoubtedly be influenced by Nayuta's experiences and memories; regardless, the idea of Denji's former abuser being reborn from his loving, surrogate sister can be used to throw readers for a loop again. The technicalities of Nayuta's "birth" and inconsistencies with how other Devils reincarnate, along with the possibility of the Four Horsemen never losing their memories, only add fuel to the fire. Then Chapter 119 hits, and reveals that, while the implications and extent are unknown, there's still too much of Makima within Nayuta for anyone's own good, adding more fuel to the fire.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Every joke about the Gun Devil being Juzo Inui from No Guns Life ended up being accurate, as when the Gun Devil appears, it indeed has a pistol gun barrel for a head.
  • Fire Punch easter eggs littered throughout the manga had fans half-seriously theorize about possible connections, only for it to turn out that it's another of Fujimoto's work that is connected to Chainsaw Man after all. To a degree anyways.
  • A running joke in the fandom throughout the earlier part of Part Two was that Fami was only doing what she did because she just wanted to keep eating human food. When that turned out to be exactly the case, people fell in love with her even more.
  • Masashi Tanaguchi and Aya Hirano, the stage play actors for Kishibe and Makima respectively, are now married. With that knowledge, just try watching their interactions without snickering at some point.
• Ho Yay:
  • Aki Hayakawa and the Angel Devil:
    • One of the first interactions the two have is Angel asking for a handkerchief from Aki, who displays no fear approaching him and even points out that contact through cloth should be fine. There are many shippers who eagerly take the confirmation of a safe way for Aki to touch Angel and roll with it.
    • Despite Aki declaring that he could never be friends with a devil, Aki and Angel quickly go from mutual disdain to sharing meals and having deep conversations about the nature of devils. This has earned Angel the nickname "exposition Angel" from a few fans.
    • Angel, a Lazy Bum Straw Nihilist, shows up without Aki at one point to help Makima kill Reze despite Makima's orders to bring him. After the job is done, it is revealed that Angel didn't tell Aki about the job because he didn't want Aki to have to kill a girl.
    • In hell, Angel sticks by Aki's side through everything, and Darkness seems unusually intrigued by the two of them.
    • Aki saves Angel's life. ^explanation He sacrifices a few months of his own already short lifespan by grabbing Angel's hand when he is about to be blown away by the Typhoon Devil. When Angel expresses that he wishes to die, Aki says he's sick of people dying on him. Aki then holds him in a careful Rescue Hug until Typhoon is killed.
  • Beam gets clingy enough to Denji that it prompts the latter to yell that he isn't into guys.
  • Denji and Yoshida:
    • Denji likens pretty boy Yoshida to a stalker, and the fact that Yoshida essentially takes Denji out for dinner and pays him to sit on him in back-to-back chapters encouraged the growing ship between them.
    • Chapter 132 has Yoshida kidnap Denji for his own safety... while also having stripped him down. Denji offers to kiss Yoshida's asshole if he lets him go, and while Yoshida refuses, he doesn't exactly discount the idea of taking the offer outside of a bribe.
• Hype Backlash: As many people were singing the manga's and later the anime's praises and declaring it to be the best thing since sliced bread, this understandably turned some people off, some of which found the series to be too "edgy" for their liking. However, this trope was most pronounced in Japan with the anime adaptation; while it was very highly anticipated due to the prestige of the manga, many Japanese fans disliked the style of the anime and various creative/casting choices that were made, causing Chainsaw Man to underperform in its home country and play second fiddle to Jujutsu Kaisen, a series that it outsold before either one was adapted to anime. One wouldn't know this from looking at the Western fandom, which has enjoyed and accepted the anime for the most part.
• I Knew It!:
  • Several people managed to remember that Hybrids were functionally immortal and correctly guessed that Quanxi and Reze weren't completely dead.
  • The exact nature of Kishibe and Quanxi's relationship was vague and only hinted at We Used to Be Friends within the actual manga. Fans rolled with the implications and fanart of the two portrayed them as partners serving in Public Safety back in the day. Eventually, an extra chapter briefly expanded on their history and confirmed that the two were indeed partners.
  • Before it was confirmed to be intentional and significant in Chapter 83, several readers connected dots. They noticed that some of the Fiends' names are variations of the angelic hierarchy classes.
  • Many correctly assumed that Part 2 would have Denji and Yoshida as classmates.
  • The mysterious madwoman with ringed eyes and calls Yoru her little sister, was thought of to be Famine. Which was confirmed on Chapter 113.
  • Assuming that the Ascended Fanon nods in the anime are soft confirmations, the anime has all but explicitly stated that Violence is born out of Arai’s body.
• It Was His Sled:
  • Reze's popularity has pretty much given away that she is a hybrid of the Bomb Devil.
  • Come Part 2, Makima being the Control Devil will inevitably be a Late-Arrival Spoiler.
  • It's rare to find a discussion of Aki online that doesn't mention his incredibly brutal fate and tragic end.

L-P

• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Is there a character in Part 1? Do they have a name, dialogue, and a personality? Chances are they've already been shipped with Kobeni, no matter how little interaction they've already had with one another.
• LGBT Fanbase:
  • The manga is quite popular with lesbian and bisexual women, especially for a shonen series, due to its plethora of extremely badass women in fairly butch clothing who are attractive without being drawn in an overtly lecherous manner, especially Quanxi and Makima. The former is especially popular for being a proud and open lesbian whose sexuality is never treated as abnormal — especially considering the '90s Japan setting the manga takes place in — and for being in an explicitly polyamorous relationship with her four Fiend girlfriends that's actually one of the most openly loving and healthy relationships in the whole story.
  • Many of the female characters (especially Makima) are also popular among transgender female cosplayers not just for being attractive, but also for the gender-neutral nature of outfits such as the Public Safety uniform and the fact that most of them are quite tall,^note Makima is one of the shorter main characters, for instance, but is still 5'6" in the end, making them easy for many trans women (and AMAB people in general) to cosplay.
  • Amusingly, numerous queer women online have noted their appreciation for Denji as a protagonist because he's the rare shonen hero who, despite being a straight boy who's constantly horny, is never anything but respectful of the women he's attracted to and does nothing without their explicit consent. Others have even half-jokingly admitted to sympathizing with his willingness to put himself in mortal danger just to get permission to touch a woman's boobs. Many young transgender men are also drawn to Denji, appreciating him for similar reasons but also relating to his sexual drive (often claiming Makima as their own "waifu") and aspiring to his more positive and quirky traits.
  • Whilst much of the discourse around Yoshida's sexuality was initially done jokingly (such as how he flat-out rejected Yoru's advances), he isn't opposed to the idea of Denji coming into him sexually, which only ignited more discussion and shipping between the two. Keep in mind that Denji only offered to do so out of desperation to save Nayuta, and he definitely did not enjoy the fact that Yoshida teased him with his remark about tonguing. In a tamer note, Denji was the only person so far to get a strong reaction from Yoshida, which happened when he threatened the former to never transform again. This implies he does genuinely care about Denji, and the antagonism is there only because of his job as a Public Safety hunter.
  • Due to how his name is a girl's name, and the fact the only brother Kobeni had that was previously mentioned was older than her, some people believe that Nobana is either a crossdresser or ftm trans.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • No one actually thought Yoru would be able to kill-weaponize Denji.
  • While the series hasn't shied away from Anyone Can Die, very few people buy that Nayuta was killed by the angry mob after her and Denji's apartment burned down, if only due to her character arc only really just starting by that point.
• Love to Hate:
  • Makima has gained this reputation among the fandom due to her increasingly nefarious actions against the characters as well as her faux-affable persona. This has increased substantially ever since The Reveal that she was the Big Bad, along with her proving herself to be a The Chessmaster.
  • In a similar vein, and rather fittingly since he's seems to be something of a successor to Makima, Barem Bridge has quickly become a fan-favorite character in Part 2 for being an unapologetic and completely batshit insane Faux Affably Evil psychopath with very eccentric mannerisms. Although the Chainsaw Man Church arc overall is somewhat divisive, Barem is widely agreed to steal the show whenever he's onscreen.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Makima is the brilliant head of the Devil Hunters' fourth division, and secretly the devious Control Devil. Recruiting the young Denji to her side for his bond with the Chainsaw Devil and offering him all he pleases, Makima begins an elaborate plot to harness the Chainsaw Devil's power. Thwarting multiple attempts to assassinate Division 4 and capture Denji, Makima successfully builds Denji a new life only to viciously tear it down and psychologically break him to claim control of the Chainsaw Devil, defeating the incredibly powerful Gun Devil through cunning tactics and unleashing Chainsaw Man against Kishibe's rebellion, proving content to be eaten by Chainsaw Man due to the loveless life she's led. Cruel to achieve her vision and matching her lust for control with genuine intent to fix the world's ills, Makima manipulates everyone she can to achieve either complete control of the world with her power over Chainsaw Man, or the eternal death of the human fear of control at his hand. Only foiled due to the unorthodox ingenuity of Denji despite all her measures, Makima ultimately reincarnates into the innocent Nayuta as a second chance at life.
  • Kishibe is an incredibly intelligent Devil Hunter and the sole intellectual rival of Makima. Kishibe introduces himself having been tasked to train Denji and Power in unorthodox methods, proving his skill by repeatedly attacking and terrorizing Denji and Power, each much stronger than him, during their daily lives. Fighting off the allies of the assassin Quanxi, Kishibe deduces that Makima has nefarious plans for mankind, and plots against her, even trying to recruit outright assassins and enemies such as Quanxi. Organizing an "Anti-Makima" squad with a number of Devil Hunters and analyzing the powers that give her invulnerability, Kishibe recruits the Hell Devil to send Makima directly to hell and bypass them, even using sacrifice to empower its abilities. While it fails to defeat Makima due to her using exceptional means, Kishibe later helps Denji get back on his feet, eventually leading to Makima's defeat, and prevails in his goals.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Madoka, the Devil Hunter who survived the massacre of Division 4. Realizing that Makima had a hand in the plot, he immediately quit Public Safety on the spot, thus becoming one of the few characters from Part 1 to survive unambiguously. For this, fans declared him one of the strongest characters out of the cast just for being smart enough to get out of dodge.
  • Kobeni, despite her Memetic Loser status, is noticeably portrayed as extremely competent in whatever non-fast food customer service activity or job fanartists put her in despite bawling her eyes out or having a Freak Out. Considering her perfect score on DanceDanceRevolution while under (supposed) threat of death by Chainsaw Man, this technically has basis in canon.
  • In a rather strange case of this similar to Kobeni, but with even less textual evidence, Arai has recently gotten this reputation after the anime aired despite, or maybe even because of, the fact that he dies very quickly and does almost nothing of significance. A common joke among fan artists is to attribute incredible feats of strength or charisma to him, like beating the Darkness Devil, resisting Makima's Compelling Voice, or successfully seducing Quanxi, with the argument that since we never got to see him attempt any of these things, there's no proof that he couldn't if he tried.
  • Any fan will tell you that Power's pet cat Meowy/Nyako is the craziest motherfucker you will ever meet, not only surviving getting swallowed by the Bat Devil without seeming to even give a rat's ass, but is also personally trained by Kishibe himself while the Hayakawa family were on vacation. When it seems like she had been killed by Barem in Chapter 150, fans coped by half-jokingly predicting that Meowy is going to appear alive in the next chapter ready to kick Barem's ass for destroying her home.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Denji himself is a big one, and a lot of his divisive status boils down to this. No amount of character development can make the fandom stop joking about Denji, often about his poverty, weird behavior and women problems. This gets worse with Part II, which drops the Sympathetic P.O.V. and shows that, from most people's perspective, Denji comes across as a weird and dimwitted Jerkass, not to mention his inability to convince others he is Chainsaw Man and less-than-ideal position as Nayuta's caretaker. Of course, considering the type of story this is, this is likely by design.
  • Kobeni, which got to the point where her car ranked higher than her in an official popularity poll!
  • Katana Man got his balls kicked so hard that the fan artists began drawing him as a pathetic wannabe who is a major crybaby over his grandpa's death. Ship art between him and Sawatari especially portrays him as her personal doormat. Ironically, he's one of the very few Part 1 characters to survive into Part 2.
  • Asa, following the scene where "she" (actually Yoru) gets rejected by Yoshida. Many fans have, especially on reddit, started to refer to her as a "femcel". This reputation immediately worsened with chapter 113, where she goes on a date with Denji and somehow succeeds at alienating him of all people.
  • Much like the girl hosting her, Yoru also has this reputation online, thanks to her abominable interpersonal skills and habit of throwing childish tantrums anytime things don't go her way. Fanart of the horsemen often depicts her getting bullied by her sisters, including Famine, Makima or even Nayuta. This only intensified after Chapter 118, when she makes a complete fool of herself by attempting to turn Denji into a weapon, only for absolutely nothing to happen.
  • Reze of all people has started getting this reputation recently as Part 2 has progressed. The fact that Denji never seems to figure out what actually happened to her and the strong emphasis recent chapters have placed on Denji and Asa's budding romance has led to many jokingly calling her a "cuck" or even drawing her as other sexually unsuccessful characters like the infamous "ten years at least" scene.
  • Fumiko Mifune. While she certainly made an impression with her crazy introduction, as time has gone on fans have increasingly been making jokes at her expense. It mostly comes from her very poor track record of doing her job as Denji's body guard, to wit: she was distracted singing karaoke when Denji got jumped by a group of attackers and didn't start fighting until most of them were taken out, let Denji go to the Chainsaw Man Church unattended, needed to be saved by Quanxi from Barem's Chainsaw Man devils, and finally needed to be saved from Nayuta by the guy she's supposed to be protecting.
• Memetic Molester:
  • Due to being quite The Tease, Makima is constantly shown groping or molesting various characters in fanart, mostly female ones like Power or Quanxi. After The Reveal, a lot of the harassment is instead targeted onto Pochita, usually depicted in dog form for comedy's sake. It also somewhat helps that after being revealed to be a villain, she reads as an abuser, with many likening her treatment of Denji to be grooming.
  • Himeno. In canon, she was horrified to learn that Denji and Aki were both minors after she flirted with them and immediately backed off after learning this, but the fanbase likes to joke about her being a cradle-robber and child groomer with a calendar marked for Aki and Denji's 18th birthdays.
  • Yoshida got this in Part 2 thanks to his Ambiguously Evil behavior, omnipresent smile not unlike Makima. Him following Denji around everywhere he goes - the actual explanation for this is because he's been assigned to keep Denji from blowing his cover - doesn't help. Fans like to joke that he's a Stalker with a Crush. The fact that his Devil Contract is with the Octopus Devil also doesn't help matters.
  • Yoru has earned this reputation after chapter 119 had her suddenly hijack Asa's body to kiss Denji. Though it was done to stop Asa from performing a Break His Heart to Save Him ploy, it makes her look like a massive tsundere that can't control herself, not helped by how she's blushing in the following panels. Considering Asa can't stop her from taking control of her body and the fact that Denji didn't get to say anything on the matter either only adds to how the fanbase perceives Yoru.
  • Fumiko Mifune in chapter 136 immediately became this with her first onscreen action being her suddenly groping Denji’s crotch against his will while sporting a Slasher Smile. She is even referred to by fans as the Sexual Assault Devil. Her singing a song commonly interpreted to be about sexual assault in the following chapter doesn't help. Chapter 138 revealing that she's 22 takes it further.
• Memetic Psychopath:
  • Yuko immediately got labeled with this when she casually revealed to Asa that she killed her neighbor and advises her to not go to school tomorrow, leading to immediate comparisons to school shooters.
  • Many fanworks, particularly from Latin American parts of the fanbase, frequently depict Pochita as a misogynistic alcoholic in an abusive marriage with Makima. Why this is a thing is anyone's guess.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • While most Makima fans praise her as an effective villain who serves her narrative purpose well, many people like her or defend her actions just because she's hot. In other words, they fell into the same trap as Denji. There are also many instances of people cosplaying Makima or shipping her with Denji without reading/watching the series, and then being horrified when they find out what kind of character she really is, although this is at least partly justified for anime-only watchers because of the anime being so far behind the manga. A few fans consider it acceptable to spoil to new readers/watchers that Makima is the Big Bad and a very scary villain (without further context), merely to help steel them for the emotional devastation of the Control Devil arc.
  • Many people relate to Denji because of his desire to touch a boob and his love for Makima, which ties into the above. Besides his desires stem from a more general want for intimacy, his love for Makima is generally viewed as an abusive relationship outside of people who see it as admirable.
• Moe:
  • Pochita is a Ridiculously Cute Critter and textbook Precious Puppy with Undying Loyalty towards Denji. When he emerges in his terrifying "Hero of Hell" form in the Control Devil arc, he's still the same loyal companion inside, and the Black Comedy ensuing from his Obliviously Evil nature only makes him more endearing.
  • Kobeni. Her petite stature, timid nature, awful luck and harsh situation make her very sympathetic and huggable to many fans.
  • Cosmo, despite being actually infinitely more intelligent inside her own mind, is a cute Monster Girl who dwells in Pokémon Speak by saying only "Halloween". Although she can put other people into only saying "Halloween" and putting them in a Fate Worse than Death, she is still rather cute.
  • In spite of all that her predecessor had done, fans quickly grew fond of Nayuta because of her cuteness and wholesome relationship with Denji. Her subsequent appearances in Part 2 only sealed the deal, where she showed more of her personality as a frighteningly powerful but ultimately well-meaning surrogate sister.
  • While Makima herself is designed to be a very cute woman, she avoids this trope most of the time because of her menacing aura and sinister deeds, especially after the full extent of her evil is revealed in the Control Devil arc. However, some fans have cited her as having some endearing "gap moe" moments,^note "Gap moe" refers to moe stemming from a character doing things that go against their usual manner and personality, notably any moments where she acts naive,^note such as her moment early on where she inquisitively repeats "Boobs?" to Denji, which is woolseyized in the English manga and anime dub as Denji exclaiming "Melons!" and Makima replying "As in the fruit?" as well as later on where she starts to show how evil she truly is and yet she playfully introduces her adorable Big Friendly Dogs to Denji and even speaks for them like a ventriloquist. Various pieces of art that depict her in different cute/sexy costumes, such as her promotional Hospital Hottie, Playboy Bunny and Sailor Fuku outfits,^note all of which were also given to Power, add to this "gap moe" appeal.
    Makima: Can you say "I ruff you?" (as her dog) "I ruff you!"
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Akane Sawatari and Katana Man cross it with their open terrorist attack on the protagonists, which leads to the deaths of Himeno and many innocent bystanders. Akane further rubs salt in the wound during her and Aki's second fight; killing his mentor figure was bad enough, but summoning Himeno's Ghost Devil and attempting to choke the life out of her former pupil is where she just flat-out shows herself to be a heartless sadist.
  • Makima killing Power in chapter 81 out of nowhere cemented Makima's villainy for possibly the rest of the story. Chapter 82 reinforces it even more where she openly admits her plan from the start was to break Denji's contract with Pochita by giving him real happiness and people he cared about, only to take them away from him to break him. To top it all off, she reveals that Denji killed his own father in self-defense and tries to emotionally manipulate him implying that he should feel guilty about it. Then it turned out she crossed even before the story even began when she found the Angel Devil living peacefully among humans in a coastal village and forced him to murder everyone in the village, including the woman he was in love with, just so she could see what his powers did. While she at the very least claims to have altruistic goals for taking Denji's powers, there's zero justification for what she did to the Angel - she just did it because she could.
  • The Yakuza crosses it in the beginning of the series by forcing a recently orphaned Denji into paying off his father's debt under the threat that he'll be chopped into pieces and sold off to the black market if he fails to do so. Even when Denji starts killing devils for them, they still exploit him and his earnings, leaving the boy barely enough money to sustain himself. This culminates in them making him sell his body parts just so he can pay off his debt. It also doesn't help that they gleefully betray him to the Zombie Devil just so they can get more power, with the leader even admitting that he always hated Denji in spite of him risking his life to pay them back. What makes them stand out from previous examples is the fact that their explotation of Denji had nothing to do with the Devils inhabiting the world.
  • Barem Bridge crosses it in Chapter 150, with the revelation that he burnt down Denji and Nayuta's apartment with their dogs and Meowy still inside, even cruelly bragging about it to Denji after preventing him from running in to save them. Any ambiguity regarding the necessary evil of enacting Fami's plan is thrown out the window after he commits such a horrific and cruel act.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Pochita's barks in the anime as provided by Shiori Izawa and Lindsay Seidel. He's just so friggin' adorable.
  • A lot of Reze fans were more than happy with Reina Ueda's and Alexis Tipton's soothing line delivery in The Stinger of Season 1.
• Narm Charm:
  • When Makima asks Denji if he believes he deserves a happy life, he responds with a simple "Nuh-uh." Some people view it as silly and childish... but it perfectly captures the fact that at his core, Denji is an abused child, and the simple proclamation is him openly giving up on himself.
  • Denji's "No More Holding Back" Speech is mainly comprised of him crying about wanting to continue to be Chainsaw Man so he can have great food to eat and many girls to sleep with. On its own, it's ludicrous and pretty right up the alley of the series' quirky Black Comedy. However, the road to Denji making this declaration was filled with such misery and loss that you can't blame him for embracing just wanting to be happy and loved. All of this had been preceded by Denji discovering that his off-handed heroic deeds had earned him the overall world's love and adoration, showing him that even though he feels he's at the lowest point of his life, there are many people out there who in some way care about him. This continues in Part 2, where he caps off a You Are Better Than You Think You Are speech to Asa by saying the thing in life that keeps him going despite all his trauma and pain is... his desire to have sex. It works as a bit of Mood Whiplash, but at the same time a lot of readers sympathized considering just how much Denji's been through, and the idea of clinging to a single selfish pleasure as a coping mechanism is surprisingly resonant to many.
  • The manga includes "don't come to school tomorrow" as a line of dialogue said by a character that's planning a massacre at a high school. Said line has been turned memetic for a while now and generally used for Black Comedy in regards to school shootings, which you'd think would make the unironic usage of it unintentionally humorous. But to actually hear a prospective mass murderer say it... well, a lot of readers had admitted to being horrified when Yuko said it to Asa.
• Nausea Fuel: Himeno vomits in Denji's mouth while attempting to give him a french kiss, made worse by Denji attempting to swallow it afterward. Even Denji is disgusted by the event and desperately attempts to throw it up afterward into the toilet.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Chances are that if you're aware of the series but never read it, you'd assume that all of Denji's character revolves around wanting to touch breasts in the same way Naruto wants to be the next Hokage or Monkey D. Luffy wants to be the King of the Pirates. In the actual series, that specific goal gets resolved not too far in and he winds up aiming for a more concrete goal of finding love.
  • Ever since an omake revealed his history and infatuation with Quanxi, Kishibe has been drawn in both young and present form desperately trying to woo her by any means necessary in fanart, even though it's implied he mostly gave up after she came out to him.
  • Himeno getting characterized as a pedophile due to her treatment of Denji. In the actual context of the series, it mostly consists of her teasing, with her most intimate acts (such as the kiss and sex offer) being due to her heavy intoxication.
• Nightmare Retardant: Yoru can be quite creepy, but it becomes somewhat difficult to take her seriously when she first appeared to Asa in the form of a goddamn Potoo
• No Yay: From the get go Denji and Makima always started off as an Unequal Pairing, with Makima becoming his defacto lifeline and theatening to put him down if he ever stepped out of line. However, it became increasingly apparent that despite all the flirting she indulges with Denji, Makima views the boy purely as a tool to further her ambitions and cares nothing about him as an actual person. Her ruthless murder of Reze can even be read as retribution for trying to “steal” what belongs to her.
• Older Than They Think: War, Famine, and Death are all traditional Horsemen of the Apocalypse, not so much Control. Typically that role is taken by Pestilence, or sometimes something more modern like Pollution or Nuclear Holocaust, but in the Book of Revelation from which the concept of the horsemen originates, that horseman is Conquest, i.e. the forcible subjugation and control of others.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Madoka is a really minor Devil Hunter who is the only one besides the main characters to survive the assault on the Public Safety special divisions, who's been declared to be a Memetic Badass for surviving, being smart enough to cut his losses and quit, and being the first character to openly question Makima.
  • The Darkness Devil is a small part of an arc where it isn't even a main villain, but its bizarre "fight" is one of the most memorable parts of Part 1.
• One True Threesome:
  • Fans who enjoy both Asa and Reze often bypass the shipping wars.
  • Those who manage to remember that Kurose has a girlfriend can often be found compromising by insinuating that Kurose, the girlfriend, and Tendo are a threesome.
• Periphery Demographic:
  • Although the primary demographic for the series is teenage boys and its main character is a horny, vulgar slob, it also has a very strong female demographic. One reason for this is the series' female cast, which is considered to be very well-written and developed even by the usual standards of shonen series; Power and Makima almost always find themselves within the top 3 most popular Chainsaw Man characters, with Reze and Asa/Yoru also enjoying praise and popularity from the female side of the fandom.
  • Despite being inappropriate for young children (being marketed towards teens at the youngest), the series is enjoyed by some younger kids, a few of which have gotten attention (and concern) at conventions and online by cosplaying as Chainsaw Man. Much like how kids love adult cartoons such as South Park, Rick and Morty and Hazbin Hotel, Denji appeals to children who enjoy "edgy" and "mature" things above their age demographic that their parents usually disapprove of, because of his cool-looking Devil transformation, his frequent swearing, and the gratuitous violence he gets involved in with copious amounts of blood.

R-Z

• Realism-Induced Horror:
  • In a series full of supernatural horror, a more downplayed one is Makima's relationship toward Denji, which many have taken to be a representation of abusive relationships and grooming, which becomes more pronounced as Part 1 went on. Makima ordering Denji to strip as she opens up his trauma can even be seen as analogous to rape.
  • Another would have to be the Yakuza, a criminal organization exploiting an orphaned child whose deceased father owed them a large debt. Like with many real life criminal organizations with similar practices, the treatment they force Denji to go through in early his childhood, making him live in hellish conditions stands out as being monstrously cruel and exploitative, showing no regard for his well-being and outright contempt towards him despite everything he has done for them.
• Recurring Fanon Character:
  • The Sloppy Blowjob Devil is a fanmade devil who fans joke Kobeni has a contract with, as her canon devil contract is unknown. There are many memes from fans about the Sloppy Blowjob Devil and Kobeni's contract with it.
  • "Boomchita", a Pochita-like form given to the Bomb Devil, often appears in art relating to Denji and Reze, either encouraging Reze to pursue Denji much like Pochita urged him to live out his dreams or courting Pochita himself as a metaphor for their respective hosts' romance.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: While Kobeni is well-liked by readers of the manga, many fans only familiar with the anime adaptation were heavily annoyed by her, comparing her to notoriously useless anime characters.^note At the time, the anime had yet to adapt Kobeni's later appearances showing off her friendship with Violence and persistent status as the Butt-Monkey and The Woobie, including her most iconic moments such as Power crashing her car and her terrifying "date" with Chainsaw Man. This was mainly due to her constant crying making her more irritating than sympathetic, and her constant attempts to kill Denji to appease the Infinity Devil, resulting in her accidentally stabbing Aki and denying blame. Some even expressed a desire for Kobeni to be killed by the team or the devil to either shut her up for good, or to ensure that the Infinity Devil wouldn't feed off her endless fear. Their opinions changed on Kobeni in her subsequent appearances in which she was either a Cute Clumsy Girl, or a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, although some still find her annoying.
• Self-Fanservice:
  • While Makima is by no means unattractive, her figure is plain and her Public Safety outfit is conservative and loose-fitting, with one of her most prominent outfits being a coat that's almost too big for her. Fan artists, however, love to give her a much more prominent bust and lower body, to the point that when the anime rolled out, fans who largely knew Makima through fan art were surprised that she was nowhere near as curvaceous. A few people also draw her as taller than other characters, in keeping with her originally planned height of 5'8" and to emphasize her dominating personality.
  • Power is often drawn as enormously stacked by artists who only know of her through fanart, much to the amusement of those who remember that she canonically pads her bra.
  • Thanks in part due to her being one of the only women in the series who wears shorts instead of a business suit, many fan artists love to emphasize Sawatari's thighs even though she's not especially voluptuous in canon.
  • The Falling Devil is shown without her clothes to be a mismash of body parts from several corpses that don't exactly fit together. Many fan artists just go off of the silhouette her clothes give off and draw her as a more normal-looking woman that's holding a severed head.
• Ships That Pass in the Night:
  • Katana Man and Sawatari have some fanart dedicated to them as a pair, even though as far as the actual story was concerned their relationship had nothing going on beyond their shared goals.
    • With his return in Part 2, there's an interest in shipping him and his new partner, the Nail Fiend.
  • Tendo and Kurose are Platonic Life-Partners in canon, not to mention Kurose explicitly already having a girlfriend. This doesn't stop fans of Tendo putting her into intimate situations with him, even sidestepping the girlfriend issue by sometimes implying a threesome.
  • Kobeni and Power are a fairly popular pairing despite the fact that the only time the two of them are alone together is Power crashing Kobeni's car.
  • As soon as Kobeni held a knife to Sawatari's neck, it didn't take long for fanartists to draw them as a pair. Some artwork outright have the aforementioned moment as their Meet Cute.
  • Despite their limited interactions together, pairing Himeno with Kobeni is relatively popular thanks to Himeno getting very handsy with her and the contrast between Himeno's sex appeal and self-confidence and Kobeni's panicked demeanor. Pairing Kobeni with Makima or even Quanxi is equally as popular for much the same reasons.
  • Before Part 2 started serialization, there was a reasonable amount of fanart pairing Kobeni (sensing a pattern here?) with Denji despite them only briefly interacting in canon, mostly thanks to the fact that at the end of Part 1 they and Kishibe are the only main characters still alive.
  • Yoru supposedly hates Chainsaw Man/Pochita with a passion and throws a massive tantrum at having been personally rescued by Denji. With further evidence that she's becoming just as attracted to Denji as Asa is thanks to their Synchronization, it eventually became common to headcanon that Yoru has an intense Tsundere crush on Pochita much like how Makima was in love with him, leading to fans shipping the two as Ship Mates for the Denji/Asa pairing.
  • As of this writing, there has been little to no interaction between Asa and Reze (or any new appearance by Reze for that matter), but the idea of the two getting together in the same way Reze fell for Denji gained steam as soon as someone put the idea out there.
  • As soon as Sword Man and by extension the other Hybrids returned to the story, ship art between him and Whip Woman were immediately being posted. Though after it's revealed that Whip was in her 80s, that largely shifted to shipping her and Spear Man.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: The more it seemed likely that Asa and Denji would end up together in the Part 2, the more Reze and Denji shippers began fighting back. Those who had been hoping and waiting with anticipation for her return were decidedly not pleased with the notion of another girl getting signs of being touted as Denji's new, more primary Love Interest. The subreddits dedicated to the manga have even made memes worrying about a repeat with what happened with Attack on Titan's own ship wars.
• Signature Scene:
  • The panel with the praying astronauts cut in half◊ during the introduction of the Darkness Devil, which serves as a great example of how creative and downright bizarre much of the manga's imagery could get.
  • Kobeni breakdancing perfectly while sobbing hysterically, widely considered one of the funniest moments in the entire manga and the perfect encapsulation of its pitch-black sense of humor, especially given how the scene in question comes right in the middle of one of the darkest episodes of the entire series.
• Spiritual Successor: To Devilman. Chainsaw Man clearly takes some inspirations from Go Nagai's classic, what with the entire premise of a war between humans and demons while the main character is a fusion of both. However, the inspirations get a lot more blatant in the later chapters of Part 2, in particular the entire plotline of society breaking down as people start turning into devils and Nayuta's apparent offscreen death at the hands of an angry mob being exactly how Miki infamously died.
• Superlative Dubbing: Crunchyroll's English dub of the series is fantastic, with strong performances from the entire cast and colorful translation choices that make the characters feel even more alive and expressive to the anglophone ear. Most notably, Ryan Colt Levy's swearing as Denji is much more visceral than the subtitles for the Japanese version make it out to be. Suzie Yeung's Makima in particular keeps the creepy and sultry tone of Tomori Kusunoki's Japanese original while also being a slightly deeper contralto, addressing fans' concerns about Kusunoki's performance being too soft and ethereal. Bryn Apprill's Kobeni, especially notable in Episode 7, goes from being a hilariously narmy and memetic Butt-Monkey in the original audio, to being either genuinely sympathetic when she's terrified and crying or quite chilling when she screams and yells as she loses her mind in the episode.
  Denji: You put the "dick" in "predictable"... and went for my head like a DIPSHIT!
• Tainted by the Preview: The anime trailer in August 2022 was received extremely well, with the sole exception of the reveal of Makima's voice. Tomori Kusunoki's performance attracted a variety of negative reactions (most commonly seen in the Japanese fandom), specifically regarding what was seen as Vocal Dissonance between Makima's character as a whole, and her (in the trailer) soft voice tone, which many fans didn't find fitting for Makima. Some fans argued that she will probably switch her tone once the anime airs, while others argued that the soft voice is possibly setting up the later twists and the reveal of Makima's true personality and motives.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The American logo for the volume releases features radically different text compared to the ones in other international releases—instead of a font similar to the one used for the Japanese release, they instad opt for a stylized logo in the shape of a chainsaw. When the volumes were previewed, some were split on it being a clever artistic decision or that the logo looked too childish for such a gritty series. The anime goes back to a more normal font that fits the series even better than the non-English international manga logos, to fans' praise.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Twofold with Himeno, who's a very complex character hiding a lot of unresolved issues, of the most experienced Devil Hunters in the whole story, Aki's only and longest-lasting friend with whom she has a very complicated relationship to boot, and has a very cool powerset to boot. Sadly, she gets killed off very early in the story before her relationship with Aki is explored in much depth, and we never actually get to see her using the Ghost Devil's powers in a proper fight scene.
  • Though he maintains an overall relevant role in the story as one of the main anti-Makima forces, despite his reputation as the best Devil Hunter, Kishibe doesn't have the chance to have a proper serious fight to show his skills, with his only fights during the manga consisting in easily defeating Denji and Power multiple times during their "training" and then handling two of Quanxi's Fiends in an off-screen fight without sweating. Even when he directly confronts Makima in the last arc, he relies in numbers and summoning the Hell Devil rather than fight himself, robbing the audience of a character that could have provided more badass action. Of course, given that Kishibe is one of the few characters to survive the first saga, this may change in the second Part.
  • Tendo and Kurose, two rather mysterious characters who appear to serve as Makima's close lieutenants and potentially one of the only people she trusts, who appear to share a rather close bond and a mysteriously scarred appearance that suggests there's more to them than first appears. They get gunned down by the American brothers in their third appearance before they do anything of significance or we learn anything about them personally. Tendo is hit with this even moreso, because while Kurose gets character depth via Aldo impersonating him and learning about his past, Tendo is left as a Flat Character - a popular one, but undeniably flat.
  • Despite the initial hype for Nayuta in Part 2, she ended up suffering from this trope especially compared to her previous self Makima, as most of her appearances lacked any sort of lasting impact on the plot and characters and for a long time didn't do much to develop her as a character either. Despite being the Control Devil, she doesn't play as central of a role in the story as many hoped. With that being said, the chapters focused on Nayuta at the end of the Chainsaw Man Church arc were welcomed by many as much-needed moments of development and humanization for her character.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Many felt that it was a big wasted opportunity that the story completely skips over Asa's experiences in the Chainsaw Man Church. The first few arcs of Part 2 spent a lot of time fleshing out her day-to-day life, but when she becomes a celebrity idolized by everyone around her, the consequences it has on her and her social life are completely glossed over. Given how much her character development was emphasized early on in Part 2, many fans found it rather frustrating that Asa and Yoru immediately became so Out of Focus right when they went through such a potentially interesting development. Although it is somewhat understandable as the Chainsaw Man Church arc was more centered on Denji's development, many still do feel like Asa's situation throughout the arc was significant enough for her character that it warranted at least one or two chapters of focus.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Some fans have started to feel this way regarding the "Chainsaw Man Church" arc, largely due to Denji continually being subjected to cruel mistreatment with little reprieve, ranging from being forced to give up being Chainsaw Man, losing his dogs and Meowy to Barem, and Nayuta possibly dying saving him. It's further exacerbated by the lack of likable characters during the arc, as Asa/Yoru is left Out of Focus, multiple Hate Sink characters are given the spotlight (Barem, Whip, Spear, and Fumiko), Yoshida and Miri's morally grey behavior easily coming across as Unintentionally Unsympathetic, and Public Safety on the whole becoming considerably more ineffectual yet more openly callous and cruel towards Denji and Nayuta, culminating in their brutally punishing him for "breaking his promise" by imprisoning and dissecting him. As a result, many feel that the only characters left worth actually rooting for are Denji, Asa, and maybe Yoshida, Miri, and Quanxi.
• Too Cool to Live:
  • Himeno. A confident, cheerful Devil Hunter with an extremely powerful and useful Devil Contract who's an incredibly close friend and trusted partner to Aki - and possibly more than that - and an effective mentor to the rookies under her command, who apologizes to Denji after nearly taking advantage of him and even offers to help set him up with Makima. She's the first major character in the series to be killed off and sacrifices herself to save Aki after only about 10 chapters of the manga (4 episodes in the anime.)
  • Reze. A beautiful and dangerous Russian spy who gives Denji one of his toughest fights in the whole series and, while initially only seeking his heart, later seems to have genuinely fallen in love with him. She's brutally murdered by Makima to cement her control over Denji, and while she does come back under Makima's control, it's still unclear whether she'll ever return after Denji killed Makima.
• Tough Act to Follow: The Control Devil, the Big Bad of Part 1, is generally viewed as a very well-written, effective and scary villain that is simultaneously very admirable and monstrously despicable. The fact that they were the beloved Makima all along only adds to this, as she adds a touch of class and fanservice to the role, and it's consistent with the very shady and morally dodgy behavior she'd been known for. As such, some fans are concerned about whether subsequent Big Bads will live up to the original, and whether Makima's Heel–Face Reincarnation Nayuta will be as interesting as a character. Part 2's Heavy, The Famine Devil, has been thus far well received, but Nayuta's role is a point of contention, as detailed in They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character above.
• Ugly Cute: Denji isn't too ugly-looking, but he's regularly covered in blood and horrible wounds, looks extremely sleep-deprived, and has disgusting eating habits that has shown him eating garbage, stale food, scabs, and even vomit. That said, Denji can be really adorable if he wanted to, with many noting how he's a joy to watch when he's happy and energetic, almost comparable to a big loveable dog in the form of a teenage boy. Even Asa In-Universe notes how precious he looks when he's smiling.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Fumiko choosing to ditch Denji and Nayuta at the end of the Church arc is framed as a major Kick the Dog moment but, considering the circumstances leading up to it, it's definitely understandable. Notably, Fumiko explained very clearly to both of them that returning to their apartment and turning into Chainsaw Man were extremely bad ideas. They disregard her warnings, only for her to be proven completely correct a few moments later, with Denji getting into a fight with Barem's hybrids and nearly getting killed by an angry mob. While Fumiko choosing to ditch him and Nayuta can come off as cowardly, on closer inspection Fumiko really didn't have any moral or personal obligation to throw her life away to save someone she barely knew from a situation that he got himself into by disregarding her advice. Although Fumiko brushing off the pets' deaths to Nayuta was definitely cruel, given that Nayuta tried to murder her for correctly doing her job a few moments prior, one could argue that Fumiko being bitchy is, at the very least, pretty understandable.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: While Reze's backstory and death was indeed a major Tear Jerker, some readers found it not quite enough to forgive her destructive and murderous actions in her pursuit of Denji in the previous few chapters. It doesn't help for those who believed that her time with Denji was nothing more than an act to get at his heart.
• Viewer Gender Confusion:
  • The Fox Devil is female, but many manga readers missed this before it appeared with a woman's voice in the anime.
  • The Angel's delicate, androgynous beauty and small stature had many readers mistaking him for a girl at first. It doesn't help that most of the actual female characters in the manga wear the exact same black business suit as he does. Even Denji was confused for a bit.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: The series is targeted at older teenage boys, but it's still unusually gory, violent and explicit even by the standards of that demographic. It also first ran in Weekly Shonen Jump, a magazine which is also aimed at preteens and younger teenagers; despite this, the manga pulls absolutely zero punches when it comes to depicting violence and sexual content, and that's before considering the extremely cynical tone and frequent instances of Black Comedy. It only escalates as the series goes on, to the point of one chapter cover being an on page lesbian orgy. The final chapter cover even has a montage of Denji’s creations in consuming Makima. In North America, the series' content wouldn't slide for a typical "teen-friendly" anime/manga localization like with My Hero Academia and so it's marketed exclusively to adults, with the subtitles and English dub for the anime containing powerful language up to and including "fuck".
• Woolseyism: At the climax of Part 1 during his final confrontation with Makima, Chainsaw Man asks her if there are still going to be "bad movies" in the world she's going to create, to which she responds, a little shaken, that she plans to erase all bad movies from existence, and Chainsaw Man finally decides there's no reasoning with her if she's going to destroy anything she doesn't personally enjoy. In the Brazilian translation, she instead replies that she thinks the world would be a better place if there were no more Adam Sandler movies. Not only is this rather hysterically mean, but it's also thematically appropriate for both of the characters in question: While he's most famous for precisely the kind of lowbrow comedies that someone like Denji would love, Sandler has repeatedly demonstrated himself to be a talented dramatic actor in films like Punch-Drunk Love, Reign Over Me, and Uncut Gems, which ties in with the theme of Makima's Fatal Flaw being her inability to see the potential in anyone other than herself even if it is someone with a track record as wildly inconsistent as his.
• The Woobie:
  • Poor, poor Aki. The man lost his family, loses his mentor/Implied Love Interest, loses literally years off his lifespan, loses his arm, realized that his lifelong quest for revenge was All for Nothing, learns that he will die at the hands of someone he loves like a little brother, loses his best friend to Makima, loses his free will to Makima, loses his body to the Gun Devil, and finally loses his life to Denji.
  • Kobeni never catches a break. She's The Unfavorite in her family, and is forced to work so that her parents can have enough money to send her brother to University, even though Kobeni herself wants to study. As a Devil Hunter, she's treated as a Butt-Monkey, and the repeated traumas she experiences in the Agency eventually drives her to resign, after which she is stuck to work as a Burger Fool in an abusive fast food restaurant chain. This is all Played for Laughs. Very ironically though, she’s the only teammate Denji has worked with who survives to the end (of the first part).
  • Denji. From killing his dad in self-defense, leading him to a life of poverty and debt to the yakuza. His poverty was bad enough that eating bread with jam is enough of a luxury. Worse is when he's forced to kill Aki after he becomes the Gun Fiend. This follows up with him leading to Power's own death just because he opened the door for her on his own birthday. All because he swore loyalty to Makima, who promises to ruin any happiness in his life.

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