The manga and anime industry is undeniably populated mostly with men. From big publisher CEOs down to the actual creators who make these stories a reality, it’s famously quite a boy’s club. This often means that when female characters are included,they have a reputationfor being undercooked compared to their male co-stars. Especially within the shonen genre.
Women in anime and manga remain quite controversial to this day, with mangaka like Kohei Horikoshi who were once seen as treating their female characters well, soon having that praise stripped away from them. Others like Masashi Kishimoto never even got the praise to begin with. It’s this climate that makes Tatsuki Fujimoto’s female characters stand out, specifically within his most popular series;Chainsaw Man.
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Why They’re Different
The criticisms leveled againstfemale anime charactersis often that they have little agency in the story, don’t contribute to it in as meaningful a way as the men, and only exist as eye candy for the audience and other characters. Clearing these 3 hurdles is necessary for having an acceptably well-written woman in the modern age.
The aforementioned Horikoshi and Kishimoto are often criticized for not giving them enough agency. Eichiro Oda often receives flak for making his women too sexualised, and practically the whole of Shonen Jump prioritizes showing off male characters over female ones.
InChainsaw Man, however, the female characters clear the first two hurdles easily, while slightly tripping over the last. The manga is after all very voyeuristic, especially due to its protagonist, the famously horny Denji. However, there is an extra layer withCM’s women that makes them unique, despite not fully clearing the aforementioned barriers.
They Really Are The Worst
There are roughly 4 major female characters who Denji works with at thePublic Safety Devil Huntersorganization; Himeno, Kobeni, Power, and Makima. All 4 of them at some point attempt to harm Denji in a serious way. Himenopukes in his mouthand attempts to sexually assault him, Kobeni tries to kill him for the Eternity Devil, Power tries to feed him to the Bat Devil, andMakimacauses him all kinds of emotional and physical harm.
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In the case of the former 3, these actions don’t necessarily make them bad people, and they all eventually reconcile with Denji. However, for a boy as already downtrodden as Denji is, these events are nothing short of traumatic. And that doesn’t even count female villains likeReze or Quanxi, the former of which manipulates Denji with romance before attempting to kill him.
Chainsaw Man’s women are consistently presented as unhinged and deeply flawed, which actually makes them feel more human and likable. Even a series likeJujutsu Kaisenwhich bears a lot of similarities toCMdoesn’t allow its women to be as outwardly messed up, even if they are still a little loony.
How This Affects Denji
Superficially making a series’ female characters more unhinged is already a novel idea, but it must also be mentioned how this also helps guide the arc of the series’ protagonist.Denjiis a young boy completely downtrodden by life itself, having spent around 10 years in abject poverty, paying off his dead father’s debts. His life had no comfort whatsoever, so when the series begins he yearns for only 2 things; bread with jam on it, and a girlfriend.
These are more than understandable in his position, but broken down, they represent something much more basic; pleasure, and comfort. Denji is thus an easy target for abuse. Himeno takes advantage of this when she sneaks him home after a night of drinking and almost sleeps with him, andPowerdoes it by luring him into a trap on the promise of letting him touch her chest. He craves comfort, and combined with his pubescent mind, this means he is putty in the hands of any woman who so much as smiles at him. From Makima to Reze, they can - and do - use his own desires against him repeatedly.
Once, the thought of a pretty girl was like heaven to Denji, but he’s soon taught to take off those rose-tinted glasses. He learns that women can be just as disgusting and threatening as men, and this eventually dulls his horniness somewhat. When he first met Power all he could think about was touching her chest, but soon enough he got his wish and realised it wasn’t that life changing, and eventually could bathe with Power without feeling any sexual feelings towards her.
Denji remains a horny teenage boy of course, but the women he meets on his journey help him to see a much wider range of what relationships with women can be for him. And even without considering their effect on Denji, they’re just very fun characters.
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