The Worst Anime Adaptation Award goes to...Chainsaw Man

You would think there isn't much to adapting a manga - visual medium - to anime - another visual medium.

A book, I understand. The page is long; writers get bored and scribble in unnecessary details. Then there is the issue of something sounding cool on the leaf, but not on sight - like, say, Odysseus shooting an arrow through axes - and vice versa - Charles Foster Kane's speech-giving, for example, would be just the speech.

But adapting a manga to an anime, while not an easy task, is relatively inexpensive to do. Some manga have a style that is not amenable to animation, "Komi Can't Communicate" being an excellent example. A 4-panel comic strip ("4-koma"), the emphasized punchline is sometimes sacrificed for the fluidity of the scene. That may be why "K-On!" exceeds: it goes beyond the story of the original gag comic, often composed of entirely unique scenarios. In any case, we know what a joke is, so even if the delivery of "Komi" fails we understand what was intended; the show moves so briskly it is a bouillabaisse of jokes where one is sure to amuse.

No one is going to say this season's "Bleach: Thousand Year Blood War" is a paragon of adaptation, but I think it ought to be taught in school. The dialogue and cadence of "Bleach" manga are highly predictable, but Kubo knows how to retain his audience through issues of Weekly Shonen Jump: a pinch of drama, some action, some portending for things to come. "Blood War" smooths out the creases of the weekly chapters, cutting out unnecessary exposition and overdrawn, dramatic reactions to bad guys doing bad stuff. Because of the miracle of hindsight, the production team can figure out which panels and plot developments to emphasize and synthesize all these interesting bits into this unusual little concoction called a "script". You can literally see chapters efficiently done in the span of five minutes right before your eyes. There's no dwelling or plodding on a single development. It performs like a high-octane action show should. I assume Kubo is bestowing quite a bit of love on his former series.

The worst adaptation I have ever seen for an anime also comes from this season. It is plodding and slow. It does not care at all for character development, preferring to linger on a window or desk over the character's face as they are talking and literally trying to come into being. It prefers to replace character developing scenes with ten minute action scenes of ragdoll 3DCG models being thrown at other 3DCG models. It prefers to insert two minutes of a character making coffee over resolving a character arc.

Yes, I am talking about the "Chainsaw Man" adaptation. I have never seen an adaptation so indifferent to the original matter so as to make it absolutely trivial in favor of ambient art.

Well, perhaps the worst adaptation in the world is the English dub of "Ghost Stories" - from the perspective of the children's novels. From the audience's perspective, perhaps not so.

"Chainsaw Man" is a delightful read. It probably functions better as a comedy than a drama. Fujimoto is not particularly concerned about Denji's survival; he may be worried about the fate of innocents, but Denji, our foul-mouthed, sexually excited chainsaw-transforming teenager is someone he seems to be more interested in puppeteering from one moment to the next. Everyone immediately becomes an associate to Denji's unusualness. He is more Fonzie than Naruto.

This is in hindsight; I didn't quite understand Denji's character as I was reading it. We'll be using the word "hindsight" frequently here, because the "Chainsaw Man" adaptation was given the gift of two years of hindsight.

After watching the anime adaptation, I realized the story is better framed as a comedy than a typical fighting shonen manga. There is almost nothing personal in its "fights". In a typical fighting manga, the fights are how the characters develop. Two characters enter into a room screaming at each other; they leave the room un-screaming, one possibly dead. In contrast, fights resolve nothing in "Chainsaw Man"; there must always be some other gesture to end the conflict.

A fighting manga organizes everything around fights. It sets up future fights, complicates the personal feelings involved in a fight, and then paces itself so that the most tense/character-developing fights are placed at the end. "Chainsaw Man" is organized around Denji's attempts to get laid. The action part is a little bit icing on the cake and a little bit a way to make Denji not completely irredeemable.

The misunderstanding baffled me and MAPPA, apparently. The "Chainsaw Man" adaptation is not funny. The adaptation seems embarrassed by the comedy.

Let us talk about Denji, the cynosure of the story. The voice actor for Denji, Kikunosuke Toya, is entirely green. No one is sure if Denji's flat, even delivery through action scenes and comedic scenes is Toya's fault or the director's fault. Even the voice actresses of "K-On!" and Mayumi Shintani of "FLCL" had roles prior.

It doesn't help that Denji is imposed over flat, urban backgrounds. It especially doesn't help that the animators and the score do not assist Denji through jokes. Certain sequences like Denji's arrival as Aki's new roommate ought to have been helped by, say, Henry Mancini's "Baby Elephant Walk", some lingering on Aki's expression, and maybe deliberate cartoon effects.

The only one who actually belongs in the cast is Ai Farouz playing Power, famous for acting as Jolyne-fucking-Cujoh in the Netflix "Stone Ocean" adaptation, and even then Farouz, VERY well-equipped in loud deliveries and exaggerated comedic acting, is in a near whisper as the Blood Devil.

The first episode is clearly off. The first 30 seconds is of an unknown man heaving and panting down a dirty corridor, ominously stopping before a door. (Yes, I understand this is foreshadowing, but for people new to the series there is no context to foreshadow off of - because that is what drives foreshadowing.) Next 30 seconds is a wide shot of his room, then a wide shot of the highway and the nearby town. Then the next minute is Denji talking, talking, talking in a deadpan tone all his debts before stopping at a Tomato Devil.

Here's my take: before cutting to the opening, Denji should have jumped over the Devil, swinging his half-dog half-chainsaw over his head and laughing, then cutting down, covering himself in tomato juice. THEN the opening sequence. How do you get the audience fucking invested otherwise?

Lingering shot, lingering shot, wide shot; lingering shot on small town landscape; lingering shot on road; lingering shot on car dashboard, lingering shot on grey house. The backgrounds distract the audience from the characters' faces, which they need to look at so they can see how much the characters care about the dialogue.

The most important element of visual narrative is dialogue. People will say a picture is worth a thousand words and all kinds of aphorisms but logic is communicated through words. Making the audience watch footage of a car driving down a road or a panoramic shot of a city is like making them watch a pot boil. Dialogue is king in anime. I will make this bold claim: an animator's job is to make sure the audience is not distracted and focused on the dialogue, so they are consequently focused on the plot. You can have all the moments of quiet after pacing your dialogue because they work in contrast. The job then is to make interesting dialogue. That job was already done by Tatsuki Fujimoto.

The infamous fourth episode

The anime's worst episode so far has been the fourth episode, whose first ten minutes is a rubber-looking 3DCG Denji fist-fighting a no-name Leech Devil. To then add insult to injury, Aki and Power's character arcs, of devils and humans integrating (somewhat), are nearly entirely glossed over, and Denji's character arc, of feeling a woman's breasts, is cut short so someone could animate Aki making coffee.

I've never drawn anything to save my life, but here's a slapdash attempt at redoing that episode. Narratively, the only purpose of the fight is to show that Denji has a few screws loose. He is the opposite of a typical shonen protagonist in that he cares little about life beyond getting some. In 5 minutes, max, we establish Denji is tired, contrast the Leech Devil's concern for the Bat Devil with Denji's un-concern for anything but female life (and that, for one, err, two reasons only), have Denji fight a little bit before being pierced by the Leech Devil and then saved by Aki. It's so easy to cut that sequence in half.

Denji is in the hospital. Aki is cutting off the skin from apples for him. They have a big brother/little brother dynamic, constantly fighting with one another (considering Aki's history and their shared attraction to Makima, after all). Denji throughout this scene is trying to grab the apples and lying through his teeth about Power. Again: comedy.

Aki recalls the several people who have come to the Public Safety Bureau to comment on Denji. The anime mirrors the manga in that it shows the little girl and her father stopping by, even though the anime cuts those two characters out from the second episode completely. If you're going to cut material, you should stick to the decision and commit to it.

When you get to the man in the car Denji threw, the music shouldn't change, but there should be comedic markers - that is the joke. The joke has two set ups: two positive reviews of Denji, culminating in the pay-off of someone, a man, complaining vociferously about him.

Aki acquires some respect for Denji. He steps out and decides to free Power, but gets in her face and says in a dramatic way that he will never get familiar with her. Set up.

Aki wakes up in bed. He heads to the kitchen. Denji has made a mess of the place. Again: This happens under a minute or less.

Pay off. Power kicks the door open - not fiddle with the lock, not knock on the door, she kicks the door in immediately because this is the joke.

Aki runs to the phone and calls Makima, who answers immediately (another joke - Makima expected this phone call). She Jedi-mind-tricks him into accepting Power, smirking that Power promised to be good. Set up. Pay off: Power throws food around. Power doesn't take baths. Power doesn't flush. This is all the funnier because Denji is experiencing a role reversal of being the worst roommate.

The scene where Denji touches Power's breasts. As far as timing goes: we are halfway through the episode now. The battle with the Leech Devil was 3-5 minutes. We have 7-9 minutes, with most of the time taken by the hospital scene - as that is the more emotional scene, Aki reconciling with Denji - and the scenario in the apartment taking 3-4 minutes. Of course it is difficult to achieve such diamond-cut precision, but then again, that is our job.

Power is being characteristically Power: she is lying out of her teeth and appearing dominant in this situation, even when it is revealed she covered her breasts with pads. We have 12 minutes left (making a 24-minute episode); I allow this scene to go up to at most 5 minutes, directing the voice actors to really exaggerate Denji and Power's reactions. Lingering shot of Denji feeling empty after touching her breasts. Hard cut to Power laughing, ignoring Denji's plight with comedic background effects. 1-2 minutes straight of Denji feeling empty in his bed, eating food, walking around empty, finally getting to Makima's office.

Then, we reserve the last 4 minutes - 5 would be better, because this scene should take its time - for that amazing sequence with Makima. Her voice actress needs to deepen her voice, even if just for this scene, so she fits better the "seductress" role. If ever we need to be incredibly anal on artistic detail, the way the sweat pours off of Denji's hands, the way he touches her ear, and Makima's sudden descent onto Denji's thumb should be perfect. This sensuality requires the utmost artistic detail, not the light over a desk. This is a characteristically Fujimoto scene, of intense intimacy.

The episode ends with Makima's mentioning the Gun Devil. We have fit around 3 chapters into one episode.

As a reminder, Isao Takahata ("Grave of the Fireflies", "Only Yesterday"), who had no animating background, is one of the most famous directors in animation, ever. The one quality a director should have is that he is able to make things right. (Some people will say the one quality ought to be, S/he is able to make money. Fair enough.) Not wanting to point fingers, I ought to mention Ryu Nakayama is also relatively green, though the episode he directed for "Rising of the Shield Hero" is almost all dialogue. It's very bizarre.

My fear is that the series is aimed at TikTok-perusing Zoomers. Well, obviously - they're within the age range of the series' ideal demographic. But my fear is that the producers cynically thought Zoomers would want a "chill", "quirky", "comfy" show, lavishing details on cityscapes and interior decorations rather than paying attention to the urgency behind what the characters are talking about. Yet every generation has something called common sense.

On the incredible power of insight. Toei Animation has been adapting "One Piece" for 20 years. The adapters of "Fullmetal Alcheist" were forced to diverge from Arakawa's direction. "Dragon Ball Z" is considered an exemplar of the anime genre. All of these adaptations have issues: of lacking a central artistic vision and, particularly of the latter, of scenes dragging out. But they work. They show the mangaka's unique powers. Lest we forget, an anime acts substantially as an advertisement for the manga. The adaptations of "Stardust Crusaders" and "Hunter x Hunter" are renowned, because they have the miraculous power of hindsight. (However, for "Hunter x Hunter", you can feel the Chimera Ant arc dragging out because they were just catching up with Togashi.)

So, not to be too negative with MAPPA, I have to say that there really isn't an excuse. That being said, I understand the approach of going with fresh talent. And I am also admitting that "Chainsaw Man" perplexed me too. A good chunk of adaptation is knowing what the appeal of the material is. And I think everyone, possibly including Fujimoto, is baffled by Denji's ragged charisma.