I don’t know how I missed the news, but somehow I wasn’t aware that Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man manga wasn’t over. Thus it was a completely unexpected yet totally welcome surprise to learn a brand new issue, launching the comic’s “School Arc,” has premiered today. And whatever you might be expecting from the manga about a man who made a pact with a devil to be able to turn all his limbs into chainsaws, I sincerely doubt you’re expecting this.
In my defence, I only read Chainsaw Man several months after the final issue of its initial “Public Safety Arc” came out in December of 2020, along with news that the second arc was coming eventually. So if I had seen it, I wouldn’t have had any reason to care about or remember it. But now I care so much! The incredibly unique, unbelievably bloodsoaked story of Denji, a semi-deceased teen ordered to hunt down superpowered devils for a very shady organisation, has become one of the Shonen Jump manga anthology’s best and most popular series. Hell, earlier today it was announced that the 11th volume was BookScan’s #1 entry for the bestselling 20 adult graphic novels list for June. And the series won best shonen series in the Shogakukan Manga Awards and the Harvel Award for best manga in 2021. Chainsaw Man is loved by fans and praised by critics, and justifiably so.
I won’t spoil the new issue for anybody, but Fujimoto said it would be different from anything seen in the manga so far, and he absolutely wasn’t lying… except for all the violence and gore. (I honestly can’t stress that enough.) You can read it for free, as well as the series’ first three issues, at Shueisha’s Manga Plus website. But you can also read all 96 issues on Viz’s Shonen Jump site and app, which is an unbelievable steal at $US2 ($3) a month. Meanwhile, the long-anticipated Chainsaw Man anime is set to premiere on Crunchyroll sometime later this year.
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