My favourite manga that has been released in the past five years is finally back after a near two year hiatus. The genius known as Tatsuki Fujimoto has come out of his slumber to deliver us new chapters of his critically acclaimed series – Chainsaw Man. Now I understand that most of you reading this, aren’t subscribed to my blog or familiar with manga or anime but just know this – Tatsuki Fujimoto is a genius and he is going to be recognized as the GOAT in the next two decades. As the chapters have been coming out on an irregular weekly cadence, no matter the wait, the chapters have been worth it. The man literally wrote an entire chapter (chapter 98, the first chapter back from hiatus) filled it with nothing but new characters and made the reader (well, me) care about these strangers within like 50 pages. There was not one familiar or beloved character from the previous 97 chapters yet it still felt like a Chainsaw Man chapter.
I get it that maybe I’m overhyping this series but as someone who’s read a lot of manga in his lifetime, especially a lot in the Shounen Jump catalog, Chainsaw Man is something that is just so different and the vibe just be hitting different. The series is a thriller, slasher, comedy, parody of horror, action, coming of age – it’s like everything and nothing ever created before at the same time. I don’t know how to describe it to you beyond that. If any of that sounded enticing to you, watch the anime this Fall. Doesn’t even matter if you are a newbie to anime, this series is the only anime series that you will need to watch this coming year.
It’s really the type of series that you have to get into before you realize what it is exactly. All I can say is that I am pretty damn sure that the physical manga volumes are going to outsell everything this year and next year. Do yourself a favour, pay the two or three bucks a month for the Shonen Jump app and read the entirety of Chainsaw Man. We are talking about a literary masterpiece that you can read for around three bucks. People will forget about Attack on Titan and once the dust settles on this part of Chainsaw Man, we’ll be talking about Fujimoto in the same light as we talk about Miura, Inoue, and Urawa.
