Chainsaw Man Episode 1 Review: Dog & Chainsaw

One of the most hyped anime of this fall season is Chainsaw Man with Action, Gore, Mystery, Devils, and Adventure. The first episode aired on October 11, 2022. Here’s the explanation and review of the first episode. Note: This review contains Spoilers.

If you’re a manga reader then you already know Chainsaw Man is an anime based on action, gore, violence, and supernatural power. But, what is out of expectation to most anime lovers is the illustration of its anime version by none other than Studio Mappa. Which is well known for its illustrations of super popular anime like Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, etc.

Main Characters in Chainsaw Man First Episode

• Denji
• Pochita
• The Old Man – Debt Collector & Member of Yakuza which sells Devils
• Makima – Head of Public Safety Devil Hunter
• Zombie Devil

Chainsaw Man Episode 1 Review

The Chainsaw Man episode starts with a dream of Denji where he’s running and searching for a door and when he found that the moment he wanted to open the door, he awakes. Then, we came to know little about Denji from none other than himself. And here that is.

Denji is a guy full of debt as his father took a lot of loans and after thinking he can’t be able to pay the loan, he decided to end his life. Thus, all the loans Denji’s father took came to Denji’s shoulder.

And as a teen boy, he didn’t get any sympathy from the loan dweller, as on the day of his father’s funeral those people warned him to pay all his father’s loans to them within the next day. Thus, the miserable life of teen Denji started.

Another sudden thing happened on that funeral day. When Denji was crying about this sudden disaster of his life, he found a strange dog with a chainsaw in its body looking angrily at him right beside a tree. Denji understood that it was a devil dog, so without any more thinking, he just said to kill him.

But, when the dog came near to him, he found a wound in that dog’s body. Denji felt sympathy for the dog and as it was a devil dog, Denji knew blood can heal the wound, so he offered his blood to the dog, but with the condition that both of them save each other’s life. And this is how the dog which Denji named Pochita became his one and only friend and companion in his lonely terrible life.

But, his personal life didn’t change much since then. In fact, it became horrible. He had to sell his one kidney for 1.2 million yen, his right eye for 300,000 yen, and even his one testicle for 100,000 just to pay that huge amount of debt.

Even then, when he calculated the amount still left to pay was huge like 38,040,000 yen. He was thinking of other ways to earn money somehow like cutting trees for 60,000/month or killing devils that trouble citizens in the town for 300,000 – 400,000 yen.

Anyhow, after recalling his unfortunate life, Denji was going to kill a Tomato devil which he just saw in the city as he walked by to get some money as usual. It’s because he requested the man whom he owed the money to recruit him for devil hunting after he found Pochita in his life.

Denji doesn’t get enough money to eat or live his life normally as he wished to be like a common person. All the money he got goes to paying debts, and the little remaining he had to manage somehow to survive with Pochita.

Denji shares his dream with Pochita which was to eat bread with jam with Pochita, then he wants to flirt with a girl and play video gives with her, and later fall asleep hugging each other. This tells us as a viewer how simple-minded he was.

Anyhow, after finishing his daily work of killing devils when he was at his little home at night, he suddenly got called by that old man to come with him to kill a devil. Denji was surprised at first but didn’t mind after as he thought of getting extra money for it.

When they reached the destination which was an old factory, Denji asked the old man if there is really any devil in this place. As he was guessing it was not possible and just when he was talking a sudden sword attacked him from behind which wounded badly him and pochita.

Actually, the organization for which Denji was working: Yakuza, wanted to make more money & get demonic powers so all its members made a contract with a Zombie Devil in exchange for their souls and became the devil’s slaves as zombies.

Now, the zombie devil wants to kill all devil hunters. The zombie devil ordered all its slaves to kill Denji and screaming & thinking of his never-ending miserable life, Denji got unconscious.

A flashback was shown, where on a certain day, Denji was feeding Pochita and talking about how he could die any day during this deadly devil-hunting work. And he was worried about Pochita being starved to death or killed by other devil hunters.

Denji told Pochita to take over his body in case he dies someday and then live a normal life out of that town. Denji found himself alive in his unconscious mind while Pochita was on his chest looking at him, so he asked him if he really took his body as he said before.

Then, Pochita talked the first time to Denji that he always liked hearing his dreams. So now Pochita will give his heart to Denji and in exchange, Denji will show Pochita his dreams. And that’s when Denji suddenly woke up screaming about Pochita and found he was not hurt at all.

After seeing Denji not dead, the zombie devil was surprised and ordered his slaves to eat Denji. For a moment, Denji thought there are so many slaves of this zombie devil still he’s not satisfied and when there was Pochita in Denji’s life he still was not fully satisfied and dreamed about many things.

In a way, they both doing the same thing. But, without thinking much Denji understood Pochita is with him so with aggression he pulled the chain that was on his chest after Pochita gave his heart to Denji, and vowed to kill all those devils. A new transformation happened with Denji when he pulled the chain, he got all of Pochita’s power.

Next, He killed all those devil slaves and the main zombie devil. After that, a lady with two men was shown to enter that factory. She somehow understood Denji was not a devil or fully human. Then She asked if it was Denji who killed all these devils. Denji just asked her to hug him before getting fainted.

The lady hugged him without any question and Denji got back to his human form surprisingly. The lady introduced herself as a devil hunter under Public Safety. And offered him either to be killed like a devil or work with her as a human.

Denji just asked what’s for breakfast if he works with her. And She replied bread with jam, salad, coffee, dessert, etc., and the dream that Denji once saw remembered, and without anything more to ask agreed to join her.

Conclusion

In its first episode, Chainsaw Man came in a surprisingly unique way with an interesting & engaging storyline, which is unique in Anime. The animation looks very promising. Overall, we give this episode 4.8 out of 5.