Tag: Tatsuya Yoshihara

Chainsaw Man Episode 10, Bruised & Battered Review: A Brutal Training Arc.

After the two chaotic battle episodes, Episode 10 of Chainsaw Man, “Bruised & Battered” picks up in the aftermath.
Directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara, “Bruised & Battered” begins with Aki waking up in the hostpital to see Denji and Power fighting over an apple at his bedside, with Denji refusing to give her one because she skedaddled during their fight with Katana Man.
Aki interrupts this humorous fight with the somber question of how many others in Division 4 are still alive.
Denji tells him that only Kobeni and Madoka are, although Madoka quit.
After telling him this, Denji and Power leave to meet with Makima but Denji decides to leave Aki an apple, in a parallel to an earlier scene where Aki too gave Denji an apple in the hostpital.
Now alone, Aki takes out his nail sword and asked the Curse Devil how long he has left.
In the manga we only see the Curse’s mouth as it tells Aki he has two years left to live.
This was updated in the anime to have the Curse Devil actually appear over Aki’s shoulder, which was a nice and creepy change.
Having recieved this terrible news, Aki decides to have a cigarette, only for this to remind him of Himeno, which finally causes him to break down crying, something which Himeno admired him for and wanted him to do for her.
Denji is outside Aki’s room when this happens, since he planned to go back to get his dropped manga, but feels awkward about entering.
This leads to him realizing that he does not really feel all that sad about Himeno dying, even though they became friends right before it happened.
Realizing he would not feel bad for long even if Makima died, Denji begins to question his own humanity, only to comedically brush it off and go with Power to meet Makima at the Devil Hunter graveyard.
Upon arriving, she introduces them to Kishibe, Himeno’s mentor and the strongest Devil Hunter there is.
Kishibe asks them three questions, what did they feel when their comrades died, do they want revenge, and are they on the side of the humans or the devils?
Denji and Power’s following answers are both comedic and would raise serious questions for other Devil Hunters about their loyalty.
Not Kishibe.
No, instead he sees two trainees with a couple of screws loose, the perfect quality for a Devil Hunter according to him.
And since they are Devils themselves, this means he can go all out on them, which he proceeds to do when he sends Makima away, before breaking both Denji and Power’s necks.
He then revives them using blood and explains how their training will work.
Since they are mostly immortal, and he is the best Devil Hunter there is, he will continue to hunt both of them down until they can defeat him, eventually turning them into “serious badasses.”
Well, it will probably take a long time for that last step to happen because Denji and Power get absolutley destroyed by Kishibe in their first fight, in a bloody and well-animated fashion.
Since this was a smaller fight in the manga, I did not expect it to be so great to look at in the anime.
Yet, it was.
I think I just need to expect everything in the Chainsaw Man adaptation is going to have amazing animation at this rate.
Mappa just seem to be that dedicated to getting it right.
While Denji and Power’s brutal tortu-I mean training is happening, Aki is recieving coaching from Kurose and Tendo, who reveal to him that the Fox Devil will no longer work with him because he angered it by trying to feed it Katana Man.
They give him two options.
Either quit and enjoy the time he has left or stay and sacrifice more of his life with Devil contracts.
Aki decides to stay, still determined to avenge his family and now Himeno as well.
Speaking of Himeno, Aki is then visited by her little sister.
Thankfully, this meeting goes much better than Himeno’s with the families of her dead partners.
Himeno’s sister simply gives Aki a letter which gives both him and us as the audience insight into her life.
It also reveals to Aki that she was hoping to convince him to quit so he would live.
Unfortunately, Himeno’s death has only pushed Aki further down the path he is on.
Later that night, Kishibe calls an end to the days training with Denji and Power, leaving the two to recover.
And by recover, I mean Power bashing Denji’s head in until he comes back to himself.
Once restored, the two begin to walk home, dismayed over how much worse Kishibe’s extreme training will make their lives.
Suddenly, Power comes up with a genius plan to defeat Kishibe.
They will just use their brains!
Yep, with all two of their shared brain cells.
Impressive right?
We see this plan come to fruition the next day, as Denji and Power put on glasses to become smart and then initiate their attack on Kishibe when he arrives at their apartment.
It goes as well as you would expect.
First, Kishibe dodges and destroys Power’s blood spears with no effort, making her anemic from using too much blood.
Second, he kicks Denji to the ground after he sees his shadow when he leaps down to strike him a hatchet.
Regardless, Kishibe is impressed by their effort so he gives them the day off training.
Or that is what he tells them at least because, after Denji joyfully tells Power they have the day off, Kishibe throws a knife into his skull declaring, “Beasts shouldn’t trust anything a hunter says.”
All of Kishibe’s scenes in this episode were great, being perfectly animated.
And, I will say it again, Kenjiro Tsudya is just fantastic as Kishibe.
I honestly don’t think anyone better could have been cast.
After Kishibe’s final scene, the episode then ends on one of Aki’s as Kurose and Tendo take him to make a contract with the Future Devil.
Two other people have contracts with it.
One gave up half of their lifespan, the other his eyes, sense of smell and taste.
So things are not looking good for Aki with this contract.
The dread deepens as Aki enters the cell with the Future Devil and sees its eye peering out at him from the darkness, ending the episode on another cliffhanger, before transitioning to the tenth ED, “Dogland” by People 1.
“Bruised and Battered” is a solid Chainsaw Man episode.
While not as exciting as the previous two episodes, it is a good set up episode, and does a fantastic job of adapting Kishibe.


Manga Spoilers:
The episode ends right before we see the Future Devils form and personality so I am interested to see how many anime only viewers will react to that, along with it prophecising Aki dying in “the worst way imagineable.”
Along with this, I am also curious about where exactly the adaptation will end.
There is only supposed to be twelve episodes after all.
I originally thought it would end with Denji’s nightmare about the door after defeating Katana Man, bookending this part the way it began.
However, there may not be enough content for this, unless some scenes get cut.
No matter what gets adapted and what does not, though, I have full faith in Mappa to adapt the following chapters as excellently as they have the previous ones.
The future rules indeed.

Chainsaw Man Episode Four, Rescue Review: Meet the Gang.

Just like Episode Three of Chainsaw Man ended with an incredibly animated action scene, Episode Four, “Rescue”, begins with an incredibly animated action scene.
Directed by Tatsuya Yoshihara, the episode begins with an anime original scene of Power grossly killing and consuming various animals before coming across Meowy, leading into the Bat Devil taking them hostage.
We see how desperate Power was to save Meowy, running so fast that she trips up, as she reflects on how wanting to save Meowy is foolish.
This ties back into her relationship with Denji in the present as, after her and Meowy are rescued by him, she questions why he would save them, only for Denji to point at her breasts and then do a fondling motion with his hand.
Much like how Power concluded running to save Meowy was a “foolish reason”, she also concludes Denji saving them to cop a feel is also a “foolish reason.”
Nevertheless, she agrees to honour her part of the deal, to which Denji celebrates, only to have his hand cut off by the Leech Devil mid-cheer.
The Leech Devil was the girlfriend of the Bat Devil and is wanting to kill Power and Meowy in revenge but is willing to let Denji go since she considers him cute.
Determined to cop his feel, Denji refuses.
The big fight of the episode then begins, and it is just as excellently animated as Denji’s fight with the Bat Devil in the previous episode.
It is also well adapted from the manga, with various new moments to the fight, like Denji hiding under the Bat Devil’s guts to launch a surprise attack.
In the end, though, the result is the same, with Denji being impaled with the Leech Devil’s tongue, ending their “dream battle.”
Thankfully, Aki shows up as uses his contract with the Fox Devil to save Denji.
“Kon” he says, forming a fox symbol with his hand, causing the Fox Devil to appear from nowhere and bite the Leech Devil’s head off.
It is in the aftermath of this fight where we get a brief look at the gang of Division Four.
We of course have Aki, then the eye patched Himeno (Mariya Ise), and new recruits Kobeni (Karin Takahashi) and Arai (Taku Yashiro).
Their introduction is brief, we do not even hear the recruit’s names, but the introduction shot of them does highlight their future importance.
On a side note, I will also say that I do really like Karin Takahashi as Kobeni so far.
I know she only said one word but she displayed it so timidly that it really sounded like Kobeni to me.
In any case, Aki then takes over the battle scene, helping an injured Denji to his feet and sending Meowy off to a veternarian for a checkup.
Later on, Denji awakens in the hostpital with his arm reattached.
Aki arrives with an apple for Denji and provides us with another lore dump, explaining that Devil Hunters make contracts with devils in order to fight them.
Aki is contracted with the Fox Devil, which eats a bit of his skin in exchange for him using its power.
As for Aki himself, he is still conflicted by Denji, shown by him holding off on giving Denji the apple pieces when he attempts to cover for Power, despite Denji reaching out for them.
But then Aki remembers all of the conflicting reports he heard about Denji from his fight with the Bat Devil.
Among those were the woman he yelled at to run if she did not want to get eaten, and the man who Denji injured by throwing his car at the Bat Devil with him in it.
Along with these, is the father and daughter who Denji saved.
Like I said in my Episode Three review, these two are actually from Chapter Two of the manga, where Denji saved the girl from the Muscle Devil.
This was cut from the anime but the father and daughter characters were kept and moved to the Bat Devil fight for Denji to save.
This was a good way to remove the Muscle Devil scene, yet retain its impact because the father and daughter still come to talk to Aki about Denji helping them.
In the end, Aki decides to work with Denji if he follows his every order, to which Denji does agree.
Aki then leaves Denji’s room and has Power freed, much to Himeno’s concern.
Following this, we get an anime original scene of Aki reporting to Makima.
Before he knocks on her door, however; he stops and then checks himself in the window, showing his crush on her.
While speaking with Makima, Aki also curiously mentions something about both the Bat and Leech Devils having “no traces of Gun flesh.”
After he finishs his report, Makima is rightly suspicious of how convenient Denji and Power’s side of the story is.
Aki covers for them by chalking it down to them being “unbelievably stupid”, which, to be fair to him, is not exactly wrong.
Makima also calls out how flexible Aki is being with the rules, correctly deducing Denji’s influence, to which Aki denies.
The anime original scenes continue, with the next one being Aki’s morning routine which, again, is extremely well animated.
Mappa really is going above and beyond with this adaptation, putting so much effort into the smallest of details.
Aki and Denji’s simple morning is quickly interrupted by the chaotic arrival of Power, whom Makima has assigned to live with them.
Aki protests until Makima compliments him, to which he ascends.
He probably quickly regrets this, though, because what follows is a comedic segment, of Power refusing to eat vegetables, refusing to flush the toilet, and refusing to bathe, things which are even too much for Denji to suffer through.
However, although Aki is suffering under the chaos his new roomate is causing, things are looking up for Denji because Power corners him in the bathroom to follow through on their deal, allowing him to touch her breasts three times.
Once for saving Meowy, a second time for killing the Bat Devil, and a third for lying about her to Aki.
This causes Denji to internally declare her an angel, bringing a comedic end to the episode.
This is followed by the ED “Jouzai” by TOOBEE; another fun ED with a lot of fun visuals of Power.
“Rescue” is another great episode of Chainsaw Man. 
Like Episode Three it has an incredibly animated fight scene, the quality of which also extends to the quieter moments.


Manga Spoilers Section:
“Rescue” had a lot of great hints towards the future of the story, most of them concerning Makima.
First, there is her interest in Denji influencing Aki, which is shown in the anime original scene.
This is a great addition because it subtly hints at her trying to create a family unit between them, just so she can rip it away from Denji to make Chainsaw Man hers.
Her having complete control over Aki is also foreshadowed by him immediately agreeing to house Power when Makima compliments him.
It is a funny moment now but it will become much more sinister when Makima is revealed to be the Control Devil.
The anime original scene also gives us an earlier mention of the Gun Devil, which will add to the reveal of what it is in the next episode, along with Aki’s backstory, which I am excited to see.