Nudity and 18+ content in Chainsaw Man; an essay by Roufail R. Roufaillilious Rouf I.
Within media there is often content that we would describe as 18+. That content includes gore, excessive violence and most importantly for the sake of this analysis; nudity.
Anime and manga are two mediums that are no strangers to nudity, to the point that there are entire separate terms to describe specific instances of nudity in these two. Most of the time, nudity is included for the purpose of sexually arousing the viewer and/or grabbing their attention, however, there are numerous instances where nudity is used either tastefully and/or with the explicit purpose of getting a specific message across. Chainsaw Man does the latter.
Chainsaw Man is a weekly manga published in Shonen Jump and created by Tatsuki Fujimoto in 2018. In the first part it follows the story of Denji, a 16 year old orphan who has been living in extreme poverty for the last 10 years, killing devil alongside his pet devil Pochita as a way to repay his Father's massive debts to the mafia. One day, he gets set up by the people he worked for, and just when it seemed like he was about to die, he makes a last second Contract with Pochita where he could harvest his power, in return, Pochita would live inside Denji's soul and see him accomplish his dreams, which he used to talk to him about all the time. Soon after that, Denji is taken in by a mysterious woman named Makima and becomes an official Devil Hunter, with his main motivation being to get closer to Makima in a romantic way, but it becomes very clear that he's generally just really desperate for human intimacy. He becomes part of Special Division 5, and lives in an apartment with two of his partners; Power, a Fiend with the philosophy that nobody's life matters, not even her own due to the life she's led up to this point as a devil Fiend, and Aki, who initially appears to be a complete antithesis to Denji, however we eventually realize they're much more simular than we would assume initially. Aki's initial introduction shows his house and entire family having been destroyed and killed by the Gun Devil, the most powerful devil on earth, so his goal is to take out the Gun Devil as revenge. Aki keeps his distance from Denji initially, so the main duos we spend time with is Denji & Makima and Denji & Power.
I'm not gonna sugarcoat it, Makima straight up grooms Denji. He is 16 and she is in her 20's and she uses promises of an intimate relationship as a way to keep him under her thumb. Denji, being Denji, is completely oblivious to the fact that he is being manipulated, so he just eats up everything Makima offers him, literally barking for her whenever she asks for him to. This will be analyzed in excruciating depth soon.
Power and Denji have a much more platonic relationship. Initially, Power sells out Denji to a devil who had taken her cat hostage (would do the same in her position tbh), but after the devil double crosses her, she teams up with Denji to take the devil out and safely retrieve the cat. The cat's name is Meowey. He is perfect and has absolutely no flaw whatsoever. Meowey is life, we stan Meowey.
Denji gropes Power's tits as part of their deal, although that is the first and last sexually charged interaction they ever have.
Fun fact: In the "About Power" section in Chainsaw Man Volume 3, Power is noted to literally be racist. Moving on,
Denji and Power's relationship after that point is a lot like that of two best friends or siblings, with Power coming to the realization near the end of her character arc that Denji was her first ever friend.
The story continues and we are introduced to more of Denji's coworkers, more importantly, we're introduced to *gulp* Himeno. Himeno is a self-destructive impulsive dumb bitch with a really cool eyepatch. She also almost has sex with Denji despite her being about 23 years old.
It is very easy to render Himeno as a horrible person due to her actions without analyzing her depth, and while she is a bad person in a literal term, she does have a background that provides reasoning to her actions.
Having been a devil hunter for several years, she's seen all her partners up to this point die horrific deaths. As a result, she has become a raging alcoholic and superbly self destructive.
Himeno is only alive for one volume, so she serves as the first character we can fully analyze.
Himeno is established to be doing her job in order to support her sick father and struggling family. Upon partnering with Aki ( about 1 year prior to the events of the main story) she takes a liking to him and tries to get him to switch to a safer sector of Devil Hunting, but Aki turns down her suggestion in favor of pursuing the Gun Devil. Himeno reluctantly goes along with his decision and remains friends with him up until her death, where she sacrificed herself in an attempt to save Division 5 from a particularly grim situation.
Through those actions and with the added context, we can conclude that Himeno is at heart a good person who has been messed up (for luck of a better term) after years of working an absolutely dreadful job, leading to her committing some genuinely morally reprehensible actions (like acting extremely intimate with Denji) despite her good hearted nature. In short, Himeno is a victim to her circumstances, a theme that we will soon associate with a lot of other characters.
Moving on from Himeno and progressing in the story we arrive at Denji's first date with Makima, where they go to a movie marathon.
This date is the most important factor in Makima's character that completely re-contextualizes the entire story... Which is why we will not talk about it for now! Just remember, at the end of the marathon, during a scene depicting a mother reuniting with her son, Makima cries legitimate tears of sorrow.
We will for now move on and focus on how this date influenced Denji. After the stuff with Himeno, Denji decided to save himself for Makima. He however instantly backtracks on that decision upon meeting Reze not even one full chapter later.
We are now in the Reze or Bomb Girl arc. Denji's inability to choose between Makima and literally any other woman he comes across is a focal point of the arc, with him at some point asking Pochita "Which one would you choose?".
Initially, Reze is extremely friendly torwards Denji, and after just meeting up a few times, she kisses him and asks of him to escape to the countryside with her.
However, it is later revealed that Reze was only pretending to love Denji, because as it turns out, she is a Russian Spy who was employed to retrieve Chainsaw Man's heart. Denji is heavily affected by that revelation, to the point that he clings onto hope that her feelings were legitimate all along even as she's actively trying to murder him.
In the end, Denji defeats Reze, but not before risking his life to save her from drowning. This renders Reze conflicted, as she is genuinely surprised as to why he'd do such a selfless thing to her. However, soon after that, she is killed by Makima.
Reze is a very peculiar character, she is all and all one huge question mark as she has no backstory, we never know what she's thinking and nothing she's said regarding her emotions can really be trusted. It did become clear even shortly before her death that something about everything she went through with Denji stuck with her. Upon finding out that he works under Makima, she admits that even if they did escape to the country side it would be pointless, and while at first glance this may look as just a way for Fujimoto to further build up Makima's mystery, it should be noted that the context under which she said that made it look like she was disappointed upon arriving at that conclusion, not just because her mission was destined to fail, but maybe because she has caught legitimate feelings for Denji at some point. Ultimately this is mere speculation, as Reze remains a very mysterious character with less than 2 volumes worth of screentime.
After the Bomb Girl arc, we move on to the Hunt Denji Down Arc, where after his fight with Reze made the news, Denji is now hunted by 4 groups of assasins from around the globe.
The arc starts off with Denji contemplating whether or not he'll ever be able to love someone again after everything he went through with Reze. All those thoughts disappear literally the moment Makima walks in the room, further establishing Denji's obsession with her.
The 4 (technically 3)assassin groups that go after Denji are very interesting characters, but for the sake of this analysis, we will focus only on Quanxi.
Quanxi is a Chinese Devil hunter with a lesbian harem comprised of Fiends. She is the only assassin, and one of the only characters in the entire series, whose motivations are almost completely selfless, as she only wants her girlfriends to be safe and live a good life.
Quanxi's main philosophy is that "ignorance is bliss", a saying she repeats to Kishibe when he tries to recruit her in the fight against Makima, and to Denji when he asks whether Santa Claus' dolls are still living humans or not.
Despite her cold attitude, she still allows herself to get attacked by her girlfriends-turned-dolls. That could be interpreted as her not when wanting to entertain the idea of hurting them, even if for all she knows they may be already dead.
In the end of the arc, Quanxi is killed by Makima, Beam and Violence Fiend die to the Darkness devil, Angel Devil loses both of his arms, Aki loses one arm and Power is left horribly traumatized after coming face to face with the Darkness Devil.
Denji begins taking care of Power in a series of events that build up their relationship, with him helping her operate in her day to day love while steadily overcoming her trauma... Meanwhile.
Aki and Angel Devil go meet up with Makima to discuss the plan to take down the Gun Devil.
I have avoided talking in depth about Angel Devil up to this point because I think his character makes the most sense and can be appreciated best after the reveal that Makima used her powers on him, made him murder the first people who ever accepted him, deleted his memories and made him work under her.
In a sexually deprived and corrupt world, Angel serves as the sole exception to the rule, having an ability that makes it impossible for him to even touch another person less he drains their live span, while Makima's memory erasure also made him forget everything he may have learned about human relationships during his time with those people.
At this point Aki is revealed to have also fallen victim to Makima's manipulation, as he admits that he too has a crush on her simular to Denji.
Upon meeting up with them, Makima uses her powers, being the Control Devil, on them, while she also defeats the Gun Devil, turns Aki into the Gun Fiend, and sends him to be killed by Denji in a battle that was the first step to Denji's complete mental breakdown later on.
Being forced to kill Aki absolutely demolishes Denji, leaving him depressed and in a state of self hatred for murdering one of his only ever friends.
Once again, Makima arrives to take advantage of his bad mental state, and after making him promise to be her dog forever, murders Power right in front of him. After that, she reveals to him that she had carefully set up everything to make sure that he had a perfect life, only to strip it all away in order to turn him into the most powerful form of Chainsaw Man there is, a mindless, chaotic, barbaric Chainsaw Man with the power to delete devil names from existence.
And just as she planned, Denji eventually takes on that form and rampages firstly in Hell and then on earth against her and her Hybrids.
Eventually, Denji is saved both literally and metaphorically by a momentarily resurrected full devil form Power, who makes him snap out of the Black Chainsaw Man form.
The following chapters serve two roles
1.Pay off of the Makima and Denji character duo
2.Set up for Denji's struggles in Part 2.
We will focus on the latter in the Part 2 analysis, for now, we must analyze the former.
Denji's mother died before he could make any memories with her, while Makima reveals to him that he killed his own father as an act of self protection and his brain sealed away that memory as a self defense mechanism.
Makima grew up in a government facility, never having felt even slightest resemblance of unconditional lobe or bonding.
That is why, when Pochita reveals that the Control Devil eternally yearns for a family, every. Single. Thing. Changes.
Makima is not a villain, she's a victim. Just like every single person in this story, she was forced to grow up in a corrupt, sexually depraved world where your life could be taken at a moment's notice. The difference is, Makima has an inate desire for a family, a true family. The way she was brought up only solidified that she'd never learn how to form a family, which is why she wants Chainsaw Man's devil deletion abilities, she wants to use his powers to delete any devil that poses a serious harm to humanity, that way she can make everyone love her. She had no malice, she had good intentions, but just like most other characters in Chainsaw Man, she fell victim to her circumstances. Remember when she cried at that movie? The reason she cried was because she knew that what she was looking at was something she has never ever experienced, no matter how much she had yearned for it up until this point.
In that sense, Denji and Makima tragically complete each other.
Denji has no idea how to act, having grown up essentially by himself, doing whatever he's told to do by someone else, and so he lives according to his most primal desires.
Similarly, Makima was also raised to take orders from higher ups (in her case, the government), however she has a very specific desire, that just so happens to be one of the most primal desires amongst humans; the desire to form meaningful bonds with other people.
Denji had no mother figure, Makima was looking to be a mother figure, they both depended on each other, and Denji himself realizes that when he admits that he still has not gotten over her before, not because she wants to kill her, but because he wants to become one with her.
In conclusion; Chainsaw Man is a complex story that takes place in a sexually depraved world and follows the lives of people who are forced to live within that world. That, is the meaning of the nudity in Chainsaw Man, that was everything that went behind every single sexually charged scene or character interaction, Chainsaw Man doesn't necessarily have bad people, it had people living in a bad world.
At the end of part 1, Denji takes in Makima's resurrection; Nayuta to raise as if she was his little sister, because he, Kishibe and Pochita believed that she didn't deserve to go through the same stuff and end up being the same as Makima.
That leads us into Part 2 of Chainsaw Man, and if you thought the themes in Part 1 were deep, then trust me, you have not seen anything yet.