small chainsaw man analysis
Chainsaw man will never be able to be correctly made into an anime because its art style fundamentally doesn't work animated. so much of the chainsaw man characterization and humor comes from fujimotos ability to draw exaggerated expressions and poses. And animation frankly can't capture it in the same exact way, it's too fast paced, too nuanced. The art style is much harder to translate to animation too, and ends up with these sort of results:
Kobeni ends up being much more round, with a fatter neck and rounder cheeks, thicker fuller less greasy hair, less disheveled, less.... everything that makes kobeni kobeni. and it's not exactly the animes fault, despite them making some choices i don't exactly understand. Her hair for example is much easier to look greasy and stringy if you're using hard blacks, but if you're coloring and shading with extremely thin lines, like the anime decided to, it's much harder to get that "stringy" look across withoiut it being deemed 'too unattractive' and there for not removed entirely. Heres another example
The expressions just don't translate. They've been too cutsie-ified, likely because a lot of the expressions in chainsaw man are hard to read, unpleasant to look at, and not very relatable, and they're fucking hard to animate i'm sure! But i think it deeply deeply damages the entire tone of the story; Chainsaw man is dramatic, it is, it's serious and dark, but the anime, likely due to the art direction, takes its self so so so seriously. I couldn't put a finger on why, but it's because they removed all of the vocal jokes, anything that would come off as goofy or non serious, Denji says in this very shadow the hedgehoggy weird serious boy voice. And I thought, thats okay, there isn't TOO much of that in the manga, and Denji frankly is a very sad character, i could dig this interpretation of him. Less silly, more serious, like he is at the end of the first series and the begining of the continuation.... but then I realized they removed ALL of the comedy, or at least a big chunk of it, and I couldn't figure out why? Why would they do that?
And then I realized it's the art style. There's no more silly expressions, or physical humor. The scene with Kobeni being called a monkey?
It's a joke. It's physical comedy, like a cartoon, it's absurdist humor because of Kobenis facial expressions, her generally disinterested and failgirl posture, the fact that the Kobeni we've known up until then was fucking pathetic as shit. And then she starts pulling this out of nowhere? That's the joke. That's what makes the monkey comment funny. But the issue is, the scene is so serious. It's so fast paced to try and get the effect the comic is going for, but i think it falls flat on its face. That was supposed to be a small comedic relief moment in a relatively serious scene, but without that physical humor, and with the line read of the "what is she, a monkey?!" line, he says it so seriously, there isn't any shock in his voice. It's more of a statement than anything. And without any of that- added without any of the verbal humor (other than power, but I have things to say about her in a different post) the entire anime feels so empty compared to the manga.
They're changing the chainsaw man director, for presumably, what I assume are these issues, especially the fact that a lot of the humor is just seemingly absent from the series. But I think an anime of chainsaw man is doomed to always be inferior, due to the fact that it is simply just not a series that works well for animation. The end bumpers are BEAUTIFUL, i think they perfectly encapture the feeling of chainsaw man, but i think thats the most you can do with animation. I don't think you can TELL the story of chainsaw man without Fujimotos art style, specifically his physical comedy and gags.
