Trivia / Chainsaw Man

• All-Star Cast: The staff of the actual anime are made up of veterans in the industry who have worked on anime such as Black Clover, DEVILMAN crybaby, Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation, and much more.
• Approval of God: Editor Shihei Rin occasionally likes and replies to fanmade media on Twitter. Eyebrows were especially raised when some fans discovered Denji x Yoshida fanart in his Twitter likes.
• Ascended Fanon:
  • Several of the anime's ending animations contain references to popular fanart of the show's characters, either through their poses or costumes. These include several costumes that Power wears in the fourth ending, and the pose Makima was shown in during the 7th ending.
  • The anime has included several nods to the popular fan theory that the host corpse of the Violence Fiend is Hirokazu Arai. In the opening, all the major characters of the series can be seen in a movie theater, including the spoilered character but not Violence, and the 11th ending prominently features three of the four human Devil Hunters that got trapped by the Eternity Devil, but with Violence standing where Arai would logically be.
  • Fans tend to call the individual Weapon Humans "[Devil's name] (Wo)man", but Denji was long the only one it applied to officially (and the name "Chainsaw Man" applied to Pochita before he merged with Denji). The Bomb and Crossbow Devil contractors are always called by their actual names (barring one time when the former is called "Bomb Girl"), the Katana Devil contractor is referred to as "Samurai Sword" (the Reporting Name Kishibe uses), and the minor ones are labelled in the popularity poll "Weapon Human: [Devil's name]". Come Part 2, the guy the fandom has been calling Sword Man for a few years is then fully introduced as such in-universe. Later, "Samurai Sword" is also called "Katana" by Public Safety, softly confirming that the Fan Nickname stuck, and some Western merchandise starts outright using the name "Katana Man" for him.
• Awesome, Dear Boy: Many of the staff members at MAPPA have expressed to being huge fans of the manga already, with the studio having actively sought out the license to adapt into an anime series and with the expressed intent to be as faithful to the source material as possible. They've even claimed that this will be their first project without any committee oversight.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!:
  • Makima might've commanded Denji to respond to her with either "Yes" or "Woof" when she tells him to do something but contrary to any memes you might've seen, Makima has never actually told anyone "bark for me."
  • A very memed and popular page is one where Yoru asks Yoshida "How big's that dick, boy?" to which Yoshida replies "Small, leave me alone."... Except of course this exchange never happened, it was a joke edit that was spread enough for people to believe it was actually in the manga. The actual line she says is "Shall I make you my boyfriend?" to which Yoshida replies with a stoic "No thanks".
• Channel Hop: Originally ran in Weekly Shonen Jump for about two years, but the followup has been digitally published in sister-magazine Jump+ (where the mangaka previously serialized Fire Punch).
• Colbert Bump: Chapter 137 of the manga, which prominently features a character singing the Maximum the Hormone song Chu Chu Lovely, helped significantly popularise the previously obscure song in the West. Looking at any Youtube upload of the song will reveal entirely English comments referencing the manga.
• Creator-Driven Successor: The end of Part 1 reveals that the manga is more or less a reimagining of Fujimoto's previous one-shot Nayuta of the Prophecy, with the introduction of the similarly-named Nayuta who ends up in a similar role as her namesake as an Apocalypse Maiden whose nature is tempered by her love for her brother.
• Creator's Favorite:
  • When asked who his favorite character is in an interview, Fujimoto chose Reze. Though he also noted Denji as his favorite in the second popularity poll results.
  • MAPPA's CEO has expressed fondness for Power.
• Crossdressing Voices:
  • In Japanese, Pochita, young Denji and Angel Devil, who are male, are voiced by Shiori Izawa, Marina Inoue and Maaya Uchida.
  • In the English dub, Pochita is likewise voiced by Lindsay Seidel. Angel, for his part, is voiced by the non-binary Casey Mongillo.
• Dark Horse Casting: Out of the main cast, which is made up of well-known names and rising stars, Kikunosuke Toya (Denji) and Shogo Sakata (Aki) stand out for being relative unknowns, with both of them only having voiced minor characters before being cast. Considering that Fujimoto had a hand in casting, this was probably deliberate.
• Demand Overload: The premiere of the anime, as well as the third episode, crashed Crunchyroll because of too many people trying to watch it.
• Development Gag: In concept art, Denji was shown to have gone through iterations where he had black hair instead of blonde. Miri Sugo looks like Denji with a similar tuff of messy hair but colored black, and several schoolgirls who see him observe that he looks a bit like Denji.
• God Never Said That: No, Fujimoto never said that Makima owned a strap-on. And no, he also never reacted to the "barking" meme by telling those kinds of fans to "never touch any of [his] manga."◊
• Inspiration for the Work: An interview with Fujimoto had him admit that he created Chainsaw Man as a darker version of FLCL, with Makima explained to be a direct Expy of Haruko Haruhara.
• Kids' Meal Toy: A variation geared more towards teens and adults. In early 2023, bubble tea chain The Alley ran a Chainsaw Man promotion in North America and Europe, featuring two new drink flavors that came with sticker sheets, Pochita cup holders, and cardboard Denji ornaments for straws. Multiple locations (particularly in Canada) also encouraged fans to come in cosplay, offering a special discount if they did.
• Life Imitates Art: On November 2022, Fujimoto's Twitter account got banned for being under the age limit of qualifying for an account, due to Fujimoto masquerading as a nonexistent younger sister who tweeted about her "brother's" work. Fujimoto was forced to create a new account with no more pretentions and went as far as to post old concept art to prove it's him, a situation many fans have compared to Denji's desperation in trying to prove that he's Chainsaw Man in Part 2.
• Meaningful Release Date:
  • Chapter 120 was released on (depending on time zone) Valentine's Day or the day after, and deals with Asa's love life. Specifically, Nayuta forces Denji to stop dating her and pretend he stood her up, then the chapter ends with what Asa thinks is Yoshida making a move on her.
  • Chapter 142 released on September 12th and it references Denji killing Aki as the Gun Fiend, which happened on that day in-universe.
• Meme Acknowledgment:
  • After she was announced as Makima's dub voice, Suzie Yeung playfully asked for all the Makima simps to tone down the barking.
  • Bryn Apprill apparently autographed Kobeni fanart along with a reference to the "Sloppy Blowjob Devil" meme.
• Missing Trailer Scene: Which is a bit due to the first PV more or less being a sizzle reel for what the anime could look like before any animation or shots are finalized. The two most glaring ones are Denji, Power and Kobeni playing at the beach (a brief adaptation of an omake), and Aki and Himeno in the aftermath of coitus (which isn't directly based on any manga material at all).
• Playing Against Type:
  • Big time for Tomori Kusunoki whose main forte are cute, short girls who are either nice or Tsundere at worst. Makima is neither of that.
  • Ditto for Suzie Yeung in the English version, whose main forte is playing cute, perky Genki Girl characters such as Yuffie in Final Fantasy VII Remake. Just like her Japanese counterpart, the stoic, manipulative Makima is a break from her usual fare.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, and while not the first time he had played such roles, Emilio Treviño's role as Denji is quite a departure on his forte on voicing really nice guys or kid roles. Likewise, Erika Langarica (Power) is normally associated with voicing the Only Sane Woman and also nice, cute girls. Power isn't exactly the most sanest person.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • MAPPA's producers had made it clear throughout multiple promotions that they are huge fans of Tatsuki Fujimoto's work, and had wanted to adapt Chainsaw Man since its first volume. They've even gone on record as saying that if they could they would adapt all of Fujimoto's body of work into anime.
  • Tomori Kusunoki apparently has a framed picture of Makima that she frequently prayed to until she got the part.
  • Much of the guest musicians were also big fans of the source material.
    Kenshi Yonezu: When I read the comic, I’d often think about what kind of theme I’d write for it if they made an anime adaptation. When it was actually decided that I’d be the one creating the theme for the show, I was overjoyed. I’d been thinking about what kind of song I’d write before anyone had even brought up the possibility of my actually writing it. In the comic, demons are constantly hurting people in grotesque ways. The world it depicts is a very serious one, but the central character, Denji, is, how should I say this…just an idiot. Denji’s presence turns this negative environment and serious story into a comedy. That makes it really fun. It’s about a guy with no education working really diligently and seriously and just making a total mess of things. I’d never seen anything like that before, and it’s just delightful.
• Referenced by...:
  • Denji makes a cameo in Chapter 259 of My Hero Academia, though he gets replaced by an Expy in the anime.
  • The mangaka of Me & Roboco seems to be a big fan of the manga, as their own series regularly shows the main characters reading it and commenting on developments that occurred that week.
  • Renoir from Shy cosplays as Makima—ahem, Akima from "Sawblade Man" in Chapter 81.
  • Bite Sized Archie had a strip that had posters in the background parodying various anime and manga, including Chainsaw Man.
  • The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You:
    • When Hahari discovers that Rentarou is wearing a chastity belt in Chapter 47, she demands that someone call for Chainsaw Man.
    • Rin's doll sprouts mini chainsaws from their arms and head in Chapter 121, exactly like Denji.
  • "Chainsaw-san" is seen as a trending topic on Twitter in Oshi no Ko. Artist Mengo Yokoyari is a noted huge fangirl of Chainsaw Man.
  • Shidou from Blue Lock states that Chainsaw Man is his favourite manga in his profile, and it's a fairly recent work in the setting of the manga.
  • In Issue #1 of his 2024 series, Deadpool mimics Aki's "kon" to kill a mook with his pet symbiote Princess.
• Same Voice Their Entire Life: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Emilio Treviño voice Denji both as a teen and as a kid; it helps a lot in this case that his main modus operandi is voicing both kind of characters.
• Similarly Named Works: With The Chainsaw Man, a 2004 horror novel by Lama Milkweed L. Augustine.
• Sleeper Hit: While starting out fairly modestly, the manga quickly gained popularity both domestically and internationally for its themes, storytelling, artwork, and overall unique appeal compared to most Shōnen manga in recent years, selling around 5 million copies by the time the final chapter of Part 1 published. Along with its impressive sales, the manga has made its way to some lofty spots on manga popularity polls (even scoring #1 on the Kono Manga ga Sugoi poll of 2021 among male readers) and has gotten nominated for awards on the shonen category during its short tenure in Weekly Shonen Jump. This was all achieved before an anime adaptation was announced, much less aired.
• Trolling Creator: When Fujimoto was at a point where he wanted to spare either Kobeni or the Angel Devil while killing the other, his editor, Shihei Lin, picked Angel to be the one to spare. So Fujimoto instead decided to kill him and spare Kobeni.
• The Walrus Was Paul: Fujimoto had stated that some of the more Mind Screw-y imagery of the manga, like Hell's landscape or some of the designs of the Devils, are meant to have no explanation in order to convey the feeling of unknowable horror with seemingly no reason for these things to look the way they do.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Earlier versions of the story had Aki as Himeno's older brother and a more "Gothic" look to his design. Himeno would've also lived longer in the original plans.
  • Kobeni was originally designed with multiple ear piercings.
  • Aki was originally scarred on a side of his face and had lip piercings, and Power's Red Right Hand was originally some kind of pet snake that wrapped around her neck.
  • Initial concept art◊ reveals that Makima and Aki were supposed to be slightly taller, at 173 cm and 190 cm respectively. The 2023 Chainsaw Man exhibit pegged their final canon heights as a more mundane 168 cm and 182 cm, respectively (at least in the anime). However, given that these were the only official records of their heights for a long time (almost 5 years) and that Makima's design went nearly unchanged from the concept art, it's unclear whether their heights were simply changed for the anime to be more in line with the norm.
  • Kobeni was originally intended to fight Katana Man and Akane's gunman by using Arai as a human shield, instead of Arai Taking the Bullet for her. It was changed due to a lack of time and "consistency issues"; depending on if Kobeni would have been responsible for Arai's death, the latter may refer to her being too selfish for the audience to care about.
  • Fujimoto eventually reached a crossroads where he couldn't decide who he wanted to spare: Kobeni or the Angel Devil. When his editor Shihei Lin chose Angel, Fujimoto promptly killed him off.
• Word of Dante: For a long while, it was common to color the Violence Fiend's mask with a red and yellow or silver color scheme, despite there being no official colored depiction of him until some official Twitter icons were unveiled and showed that the mask was patterned after a parrot.
• Word of God:
  • After much speculation as to his fate in the manga, Fujimoto confirmed during Jump Festa 2022 that the Angel Devil had indeed died.
  • When the anime aired the scene from the Eternity arc where Aki is angry over a prank Power and Denji pulled that morning, Fujimoto posted that he knew what they did, but didn't include it in the series proper. They shoved poop up his nose.
  • Fujimoto regularly refers to Makima as a maternal figure to Denji rather than a straightforward Love Interest, all but confirming that their relationship has Oedipal undertones.
• Write Who You Know: During an interview with Fujimoto, Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku creator Yuji Kaku mentions that Denji is written to talk much like how Fujimoto does in real life. The infamous goldfish anecdote Fujimoto confessed to in the foreword to Tatsuki Fujimoto Before Chainsaw Man: 22-26 (where his failure to properly bury his pet goldfish resulted in him impulsively eating it) is also noted to sound very much like something Denji would do.

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