CHAINSAW MAN: Bleakness Is Easy, Toast Is Hard (Patreon)

CW: Depression

Despair isn’t showy… Often, it’s unspeakably quiet.

Sure, maybe the initial stages of despair can make us want to throw our hands up and shout pleas for help. But soon the lack of meaningful help gives rise to a hesitance to reach out. And that hesitance soon turns into a drowning wave, sucking you under… all before finally drifting you into that quiet, ever-pressing, all-consuming ocean of despair. The one that feels like it has no surface, no bottom, and no distinction. It just is everywhere. And you are in it. Within that space, you don’t just develop a 1000 yard stare that many can spot on sight. Instead, you get an infinite light-year stare. The kind where you can stare into the great cosmos if you like, or even zoom right down into the fabric of the universe. All the places that could feel so full of wonder in another person’s circumstances… But you’re numb to them. Because you are so lacking in the most necessary of physical and emotional needs that come first. There is no time to marvel at the amazing and terrible things, especially about the various devils of the world that are trying to end you (literal ones in this case). There is only putting one foot in front of the other, dreaming of something slightly balming, or welcoming the sweet release of death itself.

I know that sounds morbid, but, well, that’s depression, and that’s the emotional place that so many of the characters in this show operate from. Heck, when we first met Denji in the first episode (which I wrote about as being a proper old school pilot that told his tale before throwing us into the larger world) he was at his seeming end, before getting the seeming “gift” of his chainsaw abilities and job with Public Security. But for all the boons, that same despair has not subsided. In many ways, that numb feeling still fuels him through the ups and downs of those dreams he dared to have. But really, all the despair-ridden characters of Chainsaw Man are trying to find some small modicum of something to live for. A piece of toast. A fresh beer. A long sought revenge. And to indulge the crass side of things, an eagerly-touched boob. These are all parts of the things we bargain for. And in the end, I'm hard pressed to think of a show that somehow balanced utter bleakness, absurdity, youthful idiocy, soul-sucking malaise, genuine horror, and quiet moments of empathy quite like this one.

But let’s start with the idiocy! Because after the sensitive darkness of the pilot the show then shifted to some very crass horny objectives for a few episodes and I was a little… taken aback? Like is this the show!? I was more worried that the show world somehow reflect Denji’s dumb young brain, but it turns out the show understood the abruptness of it, too. And much of it became quick fodder for Denji to realize how many of his infantile and fleeting those horny dreams really are. And that the people attached to them are far more complicated, human, and terrifying in terms of their own wants and capacities. This is true even for Power, whose own base wants are even more sociopathic than his own. Luckily for him (and us), it turns out Power is just as much of a stone cold idiot as he is. And I really have to say, this ongoing trope of Anime protagonists being stone cold idiots has become one of my favorite things about the form. Because it often unburdens the main character’s story from the rest of the story, freeing a narrative from the often crushing myopia of their viewpoint. Better yet, it lets their idiocy play for laughs. Like how they put on glasses to do “cerebral warfare.” Or how the show often builds up tension in location x before cutting to Denji’s uncaring yawns. Or how Denji continues up the elevator gag as Power attacks her foes, which is an all-timer. In the end, their disinterest, innocence, and complete lack of awareness makes them terrifically endearing. But it’s also what lets the sudden poignant moments of characterization with others stick out by comparison.

To wit, I did not expect this to become the story of how much I cared for Aki - a damned soul who is willing to give up so much of his own life to take out the devil being that erased his family. It’s a revenge story we’ve seen time and time and time again. But rarely has it felt so quiet and meek. He’s at once assured, but also pained by the continued sacrifice of what he’s doing. It’s something so clearly invoked in his crying over the lost recruits in his stead, especially the ones who drive him the most nuts. With that, I also did not expect this to become the story of how much I cared for Himeno, whose circular flirtations are revealed just to be her own series of internal bargains, all leading to a place of emotional vulnerability that was totally unexpected. And right when we thought we’re going to get the rom-com worker romance, instead we realized it was set up for a gut punch - and that she was someone who desperately needed Aki to care for her, in the smallest of ways… even if it meant crying for her when she was gone.

But it’s not just for show. No, Himeno’s heartbreaking disappearing act plays substantially into the show’s overall season structure. At the exact moment you’re getting comfortable with the dynamics, it’s episode 8’s “Gunfire” that radically shifts both the tone and stakes. It’s not just that you realize how quickly any of these characters can die, it’s that you understand how quickly the ground beneath them can shift. How at any point, someone with seemingly god-like powers can enter and wreak havoc. And how - perhaps more terrifyingly - their boss Ms. Makima can then correct the situation at an equally horrific cost. I must say, there is something about Makima that shakes me to my core. It’s that ultimate poker face perhaps, whose only emotional slips feel more like mona lisa smiles draped by further bargains. It’s so unnerving and you can feel the whole division tip-toe-ing around the edge of it. And I have to say, by the time I got to the finale I’ve NEVER felt so uneasy while watching a television show. But that’s because it’s NOT operating from the predictable-in-its-cruelty Game of Thrones playbook. It’s much more organic in its unnerving flow. We transfer from scene to scene with utter lack of assurance in how the tension and reliefs will shift. It’s vaguely Lynchian, or like Miike, or even the best of Tarantino (whose work is clearly invoked in the show’s look). But in a way it’s also like none of those things. It is like itself.

To that, one of the things I most appreciate about Chainsaw Man is for all the extreme expressions of its violence, it feels wonderfully lacking in indulgence. Yes, we’ll see the characters indulge themselves, but the show always seems to pull back in some crucial way of observation. Which matters because sometimes you’ll watch violent shows like this one and you’ll get this insidious feeling that they’re getting off on that which is being dramatized. But the show doesn’t. Nor do the other characters at play, leaving Denji and Power to often reflect (or roll over) their own extreme disconnect. Because for the many other human-ish people in the special division (Aki especially) their powers are driven by curses. The very bargains that damn them to hell. Like the most heart-wrench X-Men stories, these aren’t “gifts.” Everyone hates what they can do. But they are there. And often, they are a means to an end. And one that feels thematically appropriate to the times at hand.

I always feel weird invoking a piece of art as being some kind of “harbinger” of the times we live in. Because all art comes at its own time. The perceived lateness or ahead-ness is often purely our own reaction, for we missed all the things bubbling up in the artist at hand. Thus, I will simply say that Chainsaw Man’s 1000 yard-to-light-year stare really seems to reflect how much I feel - along with just how much despair I see in young people, comic or otherwise. Maybe I’m projecting. Maybe it’s just my tik tok algorithm. Maybe even saying all this is a reductive way of talking about a deeper societal system. But the last seven years and especially the pandemic broke something irrevocable. Yes, it was likely already broken. But now that the false promises of capitalism are laid bare, they live in a world full of devils and pressure and the complete inability to strive for anything more than seeming survival set against that question of “why even bother?” It’s the FEELING of all this that seems on display in their worlds and also within the show itself. It reflects that bleak, soul-sucking malaise and the moments of absurdity and earnestness that seem to pop in. And like any good piece of art, it asks that essential question…

“What can we do in the face of it?”

In the finale, Aki receives a cigarette from Himeno beyond promising “easy revenge,” which is a phrasing that I can’t stop thinking about. In the show, Aki is utterly driven for revenge against the gun devil, but he takes up smoking because he’s already contracted years off his life. There is this sense of doom and inevitability, so, why not? For all that is an assured vice, it is the reminder that the cigarette is a way of being gentle on oneself. A little bit of release in a completely mad world. An easy revenge on the pains surrounding. A quieter handshake with doom as opposed to the blood and pains of, well, hard revenge. But what’s telling is how much the thought of “easy revenge” feels like it’s hanging about the entire world of the show. For all the destruction, it rarely feels aggrieved, or even that angst ridden. It’s a world swallowed by depression, with that rage and sadness and want focused inward. Any everyone is trying to figure out what to do with it.

Denji started the season with a well-earned win. After a lifetime of loss and struggle, he got to know the joy that is jam on toast. A prize that is valued beyond all, for in this world, bleakness is easy, but toast is hard. But the most fascinating thing to me is that, after one season, Denji doesn’t even quite know what to do with his new position, nor his newfound victories, which all seem to have become part of newfound disillusions. The mysterious voice of his new dream asks him whether he is a city or country and devil or even whether he’s really anywhere. For all that he’s gained, there is still a part of him still drowned in the quiet ocean, still disconnected - all represented by the much loved puppy Pochita that is literally locked in his own heart - one that he can no longer touch, even in his dreams… Which is probably why the food and drink on the table becomes even more of a much needed anchor. The easy revenge. The one thing of solace as they all tread water in the quiet of the ocean… as if merely trying to drown out the constant ticking of the clock. But as always happens…

We’ll see with the Future Devil holds.

<3HULK