As one of the more recent anime series, Chainsaw Man (based on the manga of the same name) aired on Oct. 12, 2022. Consisting of 12 episodes and only one season, the anime finished in December of the same year, and the people who hated it have been very vocal about it. In general, most viewers thought the Chainsaw Man anime — for the most part — was pretty good, but all the negative voices have drastically overpowered the positive ones, so the general consensus is that the anime was a disappointment. It’s not an opinion that everyone shares, but it’s the loudest voice in the fandom.
There’s the common belief that the manga is superior, so in the same way as a novel receiving a live-action adaptation, there are a lot of fans who are precious over the source material. In the opening week of Chainsaw Man‘s DVD and Blu-ray sales, the anime only sold 1,735 copies, which isn’t as many as a like-minded adaptation. Out there in the wild, there exists a pornographic parody of Chainsaw Man called “D*ldo-Man” that has reportedly surpassed 8,600 Blu-ray sales, which significantly leaves the original anime in the dust.
That says a whole lot about the Chainsaw Man fandom and a lot less about the creators of the anime, which include director Ryū Nakayama and screenwriter Hiroshi Seko, who also penned the screenplays for Attack on Titan, Mob Psycho 100, Dorohedoro, Summer Time Rendering, and Jujutsu Kaisen. Even though there’s a talented crew behind Chainsaw Man, there must have been a spanner in the works that prevented the anime from reaching its true potential.
If there’s a pornographic adaptation of an anime that’s performing better commercially than the original, that’s a glaringly obvious sign that there’s a problem. On a lighter note, it’s absolutely hilarious. Explicit content isn’t foreign to Japan, which is proven to be a society that severely sexualizes women, especially underaged girls. In hindsight, are we really that shocked by this news?