Name: Chainsaw Man episode 1
Director: Ryū Nakayama
Released: 2022-10-11T21:30:00

The highly anticipated anime Chainsaw Man kicks off with a gory bloodbath of a premiere that sees protagonist Denji contend with death, resurrection, and a chance at a second life as a Devil Hunter.

Recap

Denji is a teen living in shabby conditions with his dog that has a chainsaw protruding out of his forehead. Denji narrates his concurrent life conditions in the opening scenes.

Denji owes an enormous debt to the Yakuza which exceeds over 38 million yen. To pay it off, Denji has resorted to selling his body parts many times; his lack of a left eye, one kidney, and even one testicle is tragic proof of his condition.

However, selling body parts hasn’t been enough to pay off even a considerable fraction of the total debt. What’s even more tragic is that this debt is not Denji’s to begin with; his father was the one who accumulated such a huge debt before his death.

Meanwhile, he also works as a Devil Hunter for the Yakuza, slashing down monsters with his Chainsaw devil pet dog named Pochita. Despite selling body parts and his dangerous job, Denji remains a poor man.

In his shoddy hut, he lives with Pochita, barely making ends meet and delighting in the few slices of bread he can afford. Denji dreams of one day being able to eat bread and jam, and being embraced by a girl who loves and cares for him.

However, the dream is far too distant right now, as he’s little time to even spend on himself before jumping back to slay some more devils.

His boss calls him for another job and takes him to an empty warehouse. Denji is curious and confused, wondering and asking his boss where the devil is.

The boss leads him into the warehouse for a considerable distance before stopping and his suspicious quiet is abrupted by a truly chilling revelation.

Denji’s boss and the other Yakuzas under him as it turns out had made a deal with a Zombie devil. To have more power, they would kill Devil Hunters (due to Zombie devil’s extreme hatred of the hunters).

However, with more power, they also got turned into zombies, and one such zombie snuck up to Denji, impaling him and Pochita from behind. Denji tries to escape but to no avail.

A sight of true horror ensues and Denji’s body is incapacitated into several pieces and thrown into the trash can.

From a flashback to when the Yakuza first rolled up to Denji and warned him to pay his father’s huge debt, it’s known that devils can heal upon consuming a human’s blood.

Chainsaw Man cuts to the present day, and a drop from Denji’s severed head rolls down into Pochita’s mouth. The pet devil ends up giving his heart to Denji, in turn, he wishes to see Denji living his dream.

Up from the trash pile rises Deji, with the life and powers that Pochita gave him, as the Chainsaw ~~Man~~ Devil.

Enraged at all these mindless zombies who wouldn’t stop even after having so much, Denji slashes them all like a knife through warm butter.

After killing all the zombies and the big Zombie Devil, Denji remains standing, quasi-conscious, until three hunters arrive. They take him to be a remaining Devil at the site where all others lay dead.

However, the leader of this group is a red-haired woman named Makima, who approaches Denji and introduces herself as a Public Safety Devil Hunter.

Denji’s consciousness begins to fade entirely as he asks Makima to hug him, which she does, resulting in him turning back into his human form.

Denji lies with his head on Makima’s lap, tired but lightheaded as this girl seems kind of close to his dream coming to completion.

Makima offers him a breakfast that includes bread with jam, salad, coffee, and dessert as an option should he choose to remain human under her care; should he choose to stay devil, she’ll kill him.

Denji accepts the dream that is the former option. Thus ends the first episode of Chainsaw ~~Devil~~ Man, beginning the origins of the protagonist and introducing his love interest.

Review

Chainsaw Man delivers on all the things the fans anticipated it to ever since the anime adaptation was announced.
The Chainsaw Man premiere isn’t wholly focused on the high-octane action, though, which enables it to have some decent chunk devoted to the protagonist’s core personality, values, and dreams.
There’s a decent amount of gory action going on but it can feel like a miss sometimes.
The beats of Chainsaw Man’s grisly onslaught aren’t conveyed as impactfully at times, especially in the scene where Denji keeps cutting the lunging zombies in half like he’s playing Fruit Ninja.
That said, Chainsaw Man has kicked off the season with a satisfactory premiere, promising quite a lot with the premise and the tease that episode 1 is.