Aside from the human characters Aki and Denji, it's hard to relate to the other characters in the story. Most of the other characters are either devils or are just not fleshed out enough.
The personalities of the devils are not anything like that which would be found in a real human being. I'm not saying this facetiously. The devils in this story, including Power and the other ones that are later introduced / revealed, do not act like a human would. Their personalities are...I would use the word inconsistent, but that might only apply to humans. The devils seem think and behave according to a different set of rules than real life people do, so it's quite hard to understand and relate to them. Again, I'm not trying to be funny, this is just how it feels. You can't use words like "sociopath" or "psychopath" to describe devils, because those are terms used to describe human mentalities and the mentalities of the devils are completely alien.
A major problem with this story is that it's too fast-paced. Things happen too fast and there is not enough explanation. One manifestation of this problem is that the methods that that Denji uses defeats his enemies come out of the blue without any foreshadowing. At times it feels asspulling but then you think about it and it kind of makes sense, though it still feels asspullish. Especially the fight that ended at chapter 97. Even though Denji explained it, it still felt like an asspull.
So in terms of fighting and action, Chainsaw Man (CSM) is not top-tier at all. I would say, even a typical, generic xianxia like Magic Emperor has fight scenes that make more sense than the ones in CSM. And of course CSM cannot hold a candle to a masterpiece like Ajin. CSM is just too chaotic.
I would say that the mangaka is focusing more on emotional impact rather than clarity of fighting. This can be seen in the fight scene between Denji and
Aki
with the snowballs. The juxtaposition of throwing snowballs with the actual action increased the emotional impact but at the same time reduced the clarity of the action. So there is a tradeoff here, and the author chose emotional impact, but I would have preferred more clarity.
From everything so far, I would say that the strength of CSM is in the characterization. In particular Denji's characterization is simply top notch. CSM is at a tier waaay above most shounen battle series when it comes to characterization. But in terms of storytelling and action I think it falls short of greatness. Main problem is it's just too fast-paced and chaotic and does not take time to explain or clarify anything. So it feels very rough and unpolished and this shows in the art style too.
I will wait until it's finished before giving it a rating. As of chapter 97 I would give it an 8/10.
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