https://blacknerdproblems.com/the-beginners-primer-to-the-upcoming-chainsaw-man-anime/
Perhaps, you’re like me and you keep seeing the teasers and different trailers for the latest shonen glorious creation titled Chainsaw Man, and you keep doing the surprised Pikachu face in real life–because just what is this glorious, bloody mess and how can you figure out what it’s all about?! BNP got you! Here’s a mostly spoiler free guide for anyone who wants to know the 411 of one of the most anticipated anime coming this Fall!
Broke young man + chainsaw demon = Chainsaw Man!
Tatsuki Fujimoto. He’s a manga creator who won an Honorable Mention in the November 2013 Shueisha Crown Newcomers’ Awards for his debut one-shot story “Love is Blind.” His very first series Fire Punch ran for eight volumes. Chainsaw Man began serialization in 2018 in Weekly Shonen Jump. Now, with over over 15 million volumes sold, the anime adaptation will release later this year.
Denji is a teenage boy living with a Chainsaw Devil named Pochita. Due to the debt his father left behind, he has been living a rock-bottom life while repaying his debt by harvesting devil corpses with Pochita.
One day, Denji is betrayed and killed. As his consciousness fades, he makes a contract with Pochita and gets revived as “Chainsaw Man”–a man with a devil’s heart.
The Chainsaw Man PV we've been waiting for
Watch it on Crunchyroll this October!
MORE: https://t.co/9aTPmMwvBd pic.twitter.com/B1W8ACqrpY
— Crunchyroll (@Crunchyroll) August 5, 2022
Sure, if your kids are “children of Rihanna born in the fires of chaos.” In all seriousness, Chainsaw Man is NOT for the little ones. Chainsaw Man is NOT your kid brother or kid sister’s anime demographic. Please DON’T make this mistake.
The manga is labeled as “TEEN PLUS”. On the Viz website, Teen Plus “may be suitable for older teens and adults. For example, may contain intense and/or gory violence, sexual content, frequent strong language, alcohol, tobacco, and/or other substance use.” So steer the younger readers and anime watchers away from this one! You are welcome! TL:DR: Wu-tang is for the children, Chainsaw Man is not.
(Side note for parents, guardians and educators: the Common Sense Media website does have some anime and Japanese animated related entries and follow-up articles. For example, see what they have on their site for Spirited Away (2002) here, here, and here.)
You can read on the Shonen jump app, like I am. If you want physical copies, volumes one through eleven (with eleven being the final volume) available now at most places that sell books like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Bookshop.org, RightStuf, Walmart and even some comic book stores.
As reported by Crunchyroll last year: Chainsaw Man received the award for Best Manga by the Harvey Awards during the live stream at New York Comic-Con. Shout-out to Deb Aoki for tweeting about it while attending! The Harvey Awards, a staple award of the US comics industry that recognizes the best work of the industry in multiple categories since 1988, announced that Chainsaw Man won in a list of nominees that include fan favorite Spy x Family.
Denji, our main character. This guy has been on the struggle bus for a long, long time. After basically being abandoned by his dad as a kid and forced to take on his enormous debt, his life has been in the pits. THE PITS. By chance, he met Pochita a devil who has been at his side ever since. His life is going to forever change, For the better? Absolutely. For the worse? Absolutely.
Pochita, a little Chainsaw devil who was saved by Denji and has been at his side since his childhood. He’s a mix of weird and cute that can only come out of the realms of manga and anime. Standing somewhere between beloved pet, contract buddy, and the closest thing he has to family–he’s important not just to our main character but to the plot as well. There’s nowhere he doesn’t go without his main man, Denji, and this little creature plays a greater role as time passes.
Makina, someone Denji sees as a savior whom he meets after the events of his revival. She’s quick with a smile or a kind word for him and helps introduce him to the new world that he needs to navigate as he’s an official devil hunter. Think of her as a big name in the chain of command of this new organization that Denji finds himself working for that works to kill devils that prey on society. There’s obviously more to her than what meets the eye for Denji and us to find out about.
Aki, if this were school, he’d be Denji’s upperclassman who doesn’t like him and suffers no fools. So, off the bat you know that they aren’t besto friendos. Aki is stuck with Denji and continues to be amazed, baffled, and disgusted by just how much the newbie doesn’t know about the world, the world of devils, and how they’ve affected the country that they call home. If you love a certain animal that’s popular in anime and Japanese folklore and mythology, you’ll really dig how he uses devils in fights.
To keep this primer major spoiler free, I’d say that you want to consider Denji and what and who he becomes at the forefront when you start reading the manga and/or watch the anime adaption when it premieres. He’s a young man who has had a rough go at life, and he’s gone without so much: a loving family, a decent upbringing, friends, basic schooling apparently, and so much more. The world he lives in is not a normal one. Devils, who are dangerous creatures of all shapes, sizes, and strengths, have been terrorizing the world over, and Japan has an organization created to deal with them.
Everyone has a price, don’t they? Everyone has motivations and expectations as they venture out into the world. Everyone has a code, or set of principles that differs from the next person. Denji’s revival means he’s brought back to the world and into one where his life is always on the line, but he’s never felt more alive now. Who is to say that he’s doing this thing called life, wrong, per say?
With over 15 million copies sold, it is safe to say that this is a beloved and well-read series within its native country and globally. Most importantly, I believe that most people, fans and those working hard on this adaption, the promotion, and more, want to see Chainsaw Man adapted right. Honoring the source material via the manga, the creator, and the incredible story that so many people have loved. Fingers crossed but also on a first look by just the teasers and trailers that have been released, they NAILED the look and energy so far.
I am just a few volumes of the series in, and I love the world-building of this universe. Tie in the really explicit tragedy of terror and damage done by devils and the really, really important one that shouldn’t be underestimated makes for a thrilling story. Denji is a young man, who isn’t quite a human anymore, and isn’t quite a devil is a guy whose existence and survival is against all odds. Following him get mixed up with a bunch of folks who run the gauntlet of shady to terrifying to hilarious is intriguing and totally something that I now, can’t wait to be adapted into anime.
Crunchyroll will stream the anime in over 200 countries and territories around the world. The company will stream the anime in Japanese with English subtitles, and with an English dub. The anime will also get Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, and German dubs.
While Chainsaw Man won’t be for everyone (especially, not children! I’ve already warned you!), here’s hoping that this primer guide is insightful enough to clue you in why the anime community is hyped, and why this series is so hotly anticipated! I’m set on finishing the manga and joining the fandom with all their end of series theories! See you in October when the show premieres!
The highly-anticipated anime series Chainsaw Man, coming to Crunchyroll this October from MAPPA, based on the original manga written and illustrated by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Read more about it here.
Cover Image via Crunchyroll
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The post The Beginner’s Primer to the Upcoming ‘Chainsaw Man’ Anime appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Perhaps, you’re like me and you keep seeing the teasers and different trailers for the latest shonen glorious creation titled Chainsaw Man, and you keep doing the surprised Pikachu face in real life–because just what is this glorious, bloody mess and how can you figure out what it’s all about?! BNP got you! Here’s a mostly spoiler free guide for anyone who wants to know the 411 of one of the most anticipated anime coming this Fall!
Broke young man + chainsaw demon = Chainsaw Man!
Tatsuki Fujimoto. He’s a manga creator who won an Honorable Mention in the November 2013 Shueisha Crown Newcomers’ Awards for his debut one-shot story “Love is Blind.” His very first series Fire Punch ran for eight volumes. Chainsaw Man began serialization in 2018 in Weekly Shonen Jump. Now, with over over 15 million volumes sold, the anime adaptation will release later this year.
Denji is a teenage boy living with a Chainsaw Devil named Pochita. Due to the debt his father left behind, he has been living a rock-bottom life while repaying his debt by harvesting devil corpses with Pochita.
One day, Denji is betrayed and killed. As his consciousness fades, he makes a contract with Pochita and gets revived as “Chainsaw Man”–a man with a devil’s heart.
The Chainsaw Man PV we've been waiting for
— Crunchyroll (@Crunchyroll) August 5, 2022
Sure, if your kids are “children of Rihanna born in the fires of chaos.” In all seriousness, Chainsaw Man is NOT for the little ones. Chainsaw Man is NOT your kid brother or kid sister’s anime demographic. Please DON’T make this mistake.
The manga is labeled as “TEEN PLUS”. On the Viz website, Teen Plus “may be suitable for older teens and adults. For example, may contain intense and/or gory violence, sexual content, frequent strong language, alcohol, tobacco, and/or other substance use.” So steer the younger readers and anime watchers away from this one! You are welcome! TL:DR: Wu-tang is for the children, Chainsaw Man is not.
(Side note for parents, guardians and educators: the Common Sense Media website does have some anime and Japanese animated related entries and follow-up articles. For example, see what they have on their site for Spirited Away (2002) here, here, and here.)
You can read on the Shonen jump app, like I am. If you want physical copies, volumes one through eleven (with eleven being the final volume) available now at most places that sell books like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, Bookshop.org, RightStuf, Walmart and even some comic book stores.
As reported by Crunchyroll last year: Chainsaw Man received the award for Best Manga by the Harvey Awards during the live stream at New York Comic-Con. Shout-out to Deb Aoki for tweeting about it while attending! The Harvey Awards, a staple award of the US comics industry that recognizes the best work of the industry in multiple categories since 1988, announced that Chainsaw Man won in a list of nominees that include fan favorite Spy x Family.
Denji, our main character. This guy has been on the struggle bus for a long, long time. After basically being abandoned by his dad as a kid and forced to take on his enormous debt, his life has been in the pits. THE PITS. By chance, he met Pochita a devil who has been at his side ever since. His life is going to forever change, For the better? Absolutely. For the worse? Absolutely.
Pochita, a little Chainsaw devil who was saved by Denji and has been at his side since his childhood. He’s a mix of weird and cute that can only come out of the realms of manga and anime. Standing somewhere between beloved pet, contract buddy, and the closest thing he has to family–he’s important not just to our main character but to the plot as well. There’s nowhere he doesn’t go without his main man, Denji, and this little creature plays a greater role as time passes.
Makina, someone Denji sees as a savior whom he meets after the events of his revival. She’s quick with a smile or a kind word for him and helps introduce him to the new world that he needs to navigate as he’s an official devil hunter. Think of her as a big name in the chain of command of this new organization that Denji finds himself working for that works to kill devils that prey on society. There’s obviously more to her than what meets the eye for Denji and us to find out about.
Aki, if this were school, he’d be Denji’s upperclassman who doesn’t like him and suffers no fools. So, off the bat you know that they aren’t besto friendos. Aki is stuck with Denji and continues to be amazed, baffled, and disgusted by just how much the newbie doesn’t know about the world, the world of devils, and how they’ve affected the country that they call home. If you love a certain animal that’s popular in anime and Japanese folklore and mythology, you’ll really dig how he uses devils in fights.
To keep this primer major spoiler free, I’d say that you want to consider Denji and what and who he becomes at the forefront when you start reading the manga and/or watch the anime adaption when it premieres. He’s a young man who has had a rough go at life, and he’s gone without so much: a loving family, a decent upbringing, friends, basic schooling apparently, and so much more. The world he lives in is not a normal one. Devils, who are dangerous creatures of all shapes, sizes, and strengths, have been terrorizing the world over, and Japan has an organization created to deal with them.
Everyone has a price, don’t they? Everyone has motivations and expectations as they venture out into the world. Everyone has a code, or set of principles that differs from the next person. Denji’s revival means he’s brought back to the world and into one where his life is always on the line, but he’s never felt more alive now. Who is to say that he’s doing this thing called life, wrong, per say?
With over 15 million copies sold, it is safe to say that this is a beloved and well-read series within its native country and globally. Most importantly, I believe that most people, fans and those working hard on this adaption, the promotion, and more, want to see Chainsaw Man adapted right. Honoring the source material via the manga, the creator, and the incredible story that so many people have loved. Fingers crossed but also on a first look by just the teasers and trailers that have been released, they NAILED the look and energy so far.
I am just a few volumes of the series in, and I love the world-building of this universe. Tie in the really explicit tragedy of terror and damage done by devils and the really, really important one that shouldn’t be underestimated makes for a thrilling story. Denji is a young man, who isn’t quite a human anymore, and isn’t quite a devil is a guy whose existence and survival is against all odds. Following him get mixed up with a bunch of folks who run the gauntlet of shady to terrifying to hilarious is intriguing and totally something that I now, can’t wait to be adapted into anime.
Crunchyroll will stream the anime in over 200 countries and territories around the world. The company will stream the anime in Japanese with English subtitles, and with an English dub. The anime will also get Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, and German dubs.
While Chainsaw Man won’t be for everyone (especially, not children! I’ve already warned you!), here’s hoping that this primer guide is insightful enough to clue you in why the anime community is hyped, and why this series is so hotly anticipated! I’m set on finishing the manga and joining the fandom with all their end of series theories! See you in October when the show premieres!
The highly-anticipated anime series Chainsaw Man, coming to Crunchyroll this October from MAPPA, based on the original manga written and illustrated by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Read more about it here.
Cover Image via Crunchyroll
Want to get Black Nerd Problems updates sent directly to you? Sign up here! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram!
The post The Beginner’s Primer to the Upcoming ‘Chainsaw Man’ Anime appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Top Gun: Maverick is for all intents and purposes a good movie. It doesn’t glorify the military but instead teamwork and doing things for the love of it and not the glory. There are still military recruiters posting up outside of showings of it. When coupled with Tom Cruise’s many roles, it begs the question: is his cultural impact really that he is a plant for the military-industrial complex?
There can’t be anything to say about Top Gun: Maverick without reaching back to discuss the first Top Gun. This will be so referential that it’ll have the feel of those Levi’s ‘Buddy Lee’ commercials. “Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise, in…Top Gun 2! Executive Produced by Tom Cruise.”
Either way, the 80s gave us a new archetype that echoed all throughout the films of the time: the ‘hero’ as the wild card. The nerds in Nerds, the rascals in The Goonies, the motley crews of John Cusack’s many early movies, Naked Gun and all of John Hughes’ movies. So on and so on. But who knew that Top Gun would blow the roof off the idea and cement a new action archetype? Every marketing department on Earth, that’s who. Tom Cruise’s ‘Maverick’ would inspire writers for decades. Making the story’s hero a reckless, devil-may-care type that audiences can rock with and deal with little to none of the consequences of their actions was just what the 80s needed. That was sarcasm, the out-of-control capitalism, and warmongering of the 80s didn’t need any encouragement, but lo and behold Top Gun.
Top Gun is the first ever film to use actual combat-ready planes (but not the first to use real planes), a mighty mean Cold War flex if I’ve ever seen one. Despite that moment of authenticity, the combat cinematography was terrible! You can’t tell which direction pilots are flying, they’re looking everywhere around the cockpit, and you NEVER know if this whole thing is a simulation or not! Not to mention the highly questionable if not borderline illegal student/teacher relationship. At that time, the real-life Cold War was on a high simmer. Things were tense on the geopolitical landscape. It was a stroke of narrative genius to use that tension in the movie. The non-descript ‘Soviet’ planes gave the whole thing an over-the-top realism to match the rate of sweating every pilot did in that movie.
Do you know those memes that reference when someone went too hard in the studio for the soundtrack? Phil Collins for Disney’s Tarzan, Tevin Campbell in A Goofy Movie, Adele in Skyfall, etc. I humbly submit for the culture’s approval Kenny “fucking” Loggins to the mix. Bast dammit, that man put hot sauce all over “Danger Zone.” Who knows where the danger zone even is? Does it matter? All we need to know is that there’s a highway that goes right to it. Not for nothing, but Kenny Loggins MADE this movie go. I would posit that the music of Top Gun contributed greatly to its cultural impact. If you ever need to find your way to a quintessential 80s piece of media, just fire up your GPS and catch the nearest entrance onto the *signing way off key* HIGHWAY TO THE DANGER ZONE! (sorry, not sorry)
Another touchstone in OG Top Gun is that it was shockingly under-melanated. Nary a negro in the movie save for small and silver screen vet Clarence Gilyard Jr. So, bless the representation gods that he’s even there. Wait. What was his callsign? Oh yeah, Sundown. The only Black pilot is named Sundown?!?! Wow. Well, let that speak to what happens when not enough creators of color are in front of or behind the camera. To say that Top Gun was very white is a gross understatement. Mind you, I absolutely love this movie, but my goodness it aged awkwardly.
Top Gun: Maverick is giving ‘Tom Cruise is, Maverick in…Top Gun 2: Does He Still Have It?‘ The awkward part is, that I was going into it expecting a well-made but bad movie. I spent weeks leading into seeing it talking smack about it with friends, knowing good and well I was going to see it. In my mind, there was no way this wouldn’t be a slightly mindless military propaganda flick with little more to offer than a couple of cool dogfights. I can admit that I was pretty damn wrong.
Top Gun: Maverick is a darn good movie. Somehow, we center on an aging Maverick, who in his older age is still flying planes. Only now, he has the added dimension of bucking the military-industrial complex that made him by piloting experimental planes in the hopes of space exploration. He literally traded in his reckless f-boy attitude and desire to be the best of the best for the desire to be an explorer for SpaceX! You can’t write that kind of a character arc! Oh wait, you can! Like most of the movie, it’s surprising how much depth there is in each individual element. Cruise delivers a nuanced performance that gives Maverick multitudes. More than the character deserves. They find a way to make this guy likable and that is an achievement in itself, because I recall him throwing his best friend’s dog tags into the ocean when last we saw him. The growth?!
Unlike its predecessor, the flight cinematography is stellar. It gives the illusion of true speed and makes the science of fighter piloting accessible. With the exception of Starbuck shooting while flying backward like Diddy reversing the whip in the “Hypnotized” video – I haven’t seen anything this good. The dogfights, whether simulations or otherwise, are mean, lean, and pushed the story forward. There’s something to be said about using combat as storytelling, and Maverick pushes the needle forward in that regard. The need for speed is on full display, and I can’t knock a second of it.
Let’s call it what it was, Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis’ teacher-loves-student in the original Top Gun was looking wild inappropriate. Top Gun: Maverick raises the bar by raising the age. Somehow in the midst of all the mild political intrigue, callbacks, and redos, Maverick delivers a very layered and nuanced age-appropriate relationship for the aged hot shot. The maturity and wholesomeness of this are almost enough to make you forget the whole IRL Scientology quasi-cult thing. Who else could hold that leading lady vibe alongside the titular icon but the real-life Highlander herself, Jennifer Connely? Their chemistry isn’t the random smashed-together thing of Top Gun past. No, these two really make you feel something real – it’s a genuine accomplishment and isn’t very common in mainstream movies.
There are a few clever modernizations to the house that Tom Cruise built. All are very socially aware and referential of the present day. One is a callback and an update at the same time: the US is still beefing with Russia! The resurgence of Cold War tensions with high-tech and economic espionage is front-page news and barbershop gossip once again. Maverick does some very cool things with it storywise, but it borders on offering an opinion about how the US can run up in any country and blow shit up. Those moments struck me as very World Police.
Another sign of modernization in this franchise is that all of a sudden, more than one Black person knows how to fly a fighter jet! With women! Then type B personalities! Plus AAPI folks?! DEI meters were shattering from the sheer pressure of the representation. It was progressive politics mayhem. Imagine the Stone Cold Steve Austin entrance, but the shattering glass is a glass ceiling.
It was all very nice to see all these people from different walks of this country come together under one roof with the goal of blowing things up outside of the military’s jurisdiction. I knew something was gonna go sideways with this movie since Tom Cruise is lowkey the foremost spokesperson for the military-industrial complex. Like if the armed forces were a person and that person became a really successful used car salesman – you’d have Tom Cruise.
This brings me to an idea more comical and insidious; that Tom Cruise is the military industrial complex. Hear me out: after Top Gun and Born on the Fourth of July in 1986 and 1989, respectively, Cruise plays soldiers or military-adjacent characters. A whopping 22 credits spanning 30 plus years. Narrowing it down to just the Mission: Impossible movies, the amount of real-life military tech used in those films is mind-boggling. Add to that, Cruise has a license for almost all of the vehicles on Bast’s green Earth. Obviously all the ones his characters use. Let me be clear, there’s a man out there in the world with no armed forces experience and more access to those things than any civilian should have.
Why does this even matter? Didn’t I say Top Gun: Maverick was the bees knees? Well, while the numbers have gone up and down over the years, the 1986 ‘Top Gun inspired a five-hundred percent Navy recruitment spike’ has been debunked. In reality, the bump in recruitment for the US Navy was only around eight percent in ‘85-’86. But that was still a difference of seven-thousand people who joined a branch of military service because they were inspired by Goose hitting his head on the canopy and dying (spoiler?) trying to support Maverick’s hot-headed choices. And if a movie that simplistic can have had an impact of on geopolitics, what does it say about the way the Navy is depending on this movie to boost its ranks? How duplicitous does it feel to know that Paramount and the US Navy are partnered along with the Department of Defense’s ‘Entertainment Media Offices’ to make this movie? How dystopian that recruiters set up tables outside of the individual theaters playing Top Gun: Maverick? Not good over here.
I remember when the Army pulled up to my high school in humvees tricked out with TV screens and consoles with Call of Duty for students to play. It felt wack then, still feels wack to see it play out as an adult. Especially when so much of our countries culture and decision making derives directly from our media consumption of said culture. So yeah, Top Gun: Maverick was a cool movie, but at what cost? There is something continually troubling about the relationship between the armed forces, state-sanctioned violence, and mainstream media. As fate would have it, you can measure the intensity of that relationship by following Tom Cruise’s lengthy acting career.
Cover image via Amazon.com
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The post ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Delivers, but is Tom Cruise the Military Industrial Complex? appeared first on Black Nerd Problems.
Afronerd Radio can now be heard LIVE courtesy of Apple Music/Itunes
Good Evening, citizens! It's time once again for the latest installment of Afronerd Radio's Grindhouse broadcast airing every Sunday at 6 p.m. eastern on BTalk 100. The topics up for grabs are: the first two episodes of Marvel-Disney+'s She-Hulk streaming series were released and we give you our impressions; more upheaval at Warner Media/Discovery-including shunted projects, job losses, and canceled shows at HBO Max; and speaking of Warner, purportedly troubled actor, Ezra Miller had a sit down with WM executives concerning his future as the Flash; a King Kong series is under development for Disney+; as The Marvels movie is slated for a 2023 release, one of the film's three protagonists, Photon (also at one time called Captain Marvel), is priming for a solo comic book series; music mogul and artist, Sean P-Diddy Combs, appears to have caused an internet uproar over his comments about the state of R & B music (but his former protegee, Usher, disagrees); the Batman: Killing Time comic book series introduces a new (but unpronounceable villain) and Marvel fans are starting to complain about dropped plot threads in movies and films.
One thing that Dburt is doing (finally) is investing in cryptocurrency, courtesy of Roundlyx. We would implore our followers to investigate, discern and then explore by using our referral code: afro-87A4BF
Call us LIVE at 508-645-0100. AFTER CLICKING ON THE HIGHLIGHTED LINK, GO DIRECTLY TO AFRONERD RADIO!!!
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