Chainsaw Man, a character named Denji, half demon half human has different sets of perspectives than a normal human. The series “Chainsaw Man” shows a human and his twisted transformative journey to such an entity in some of its parts.
Who is Denji?
Denji is a 16-year-old orphan. In Denji’s much younger days, his father committed suicide.
The cause of his father’s suicide was his inability to pay the debt he had taken from a gang.
After his father’s death, he had to shoulder that debt his father had left, to protect his own life.
Child Denji was about to throw in the towel, not being able to find any solution to pay the debt his father left.
In such a perilous situation, he found a badly wounded devil.
To save its life he made a blood contract with the devil and in the process found a way to save his own, by hunting other devils with its help and earning money.
As most of his money were spent in repayment of debt, he had to even sell some of his body parts in order to get by. Even after all this, his living condition was below the poverty level.
Denji and Pochita
The devil Denji signed a contract with was in the form of a dog with a chainsaw sticking out of its head.
He named it Pochita.
As Denji had only Pochita as his friend and family, they shared a strong bond.
He even had a wish, that is after his death, he wanted Pochita to take over his body and live a normal human life and after that have a normal death.
To him, Pochita was the only one he could share his dream with.
Such unique partnership made them nearly inseparable.
Lifestyle and dreams
Denji being dirt poor never had a lack of any dreams.
As he literally lived in shambles, his lifestyle was of extremely poor quality.
He could barely afford electricity and water bills and had to make do with a single slice of bread sharing with Pochita a day.
Living in a shack, he dreamt of a normal livelihood. He dreamt of a proper breakfast of bread with butter and jam, a girlfriend, and playing video games with her.
Such small dreams being out of reach were big enough for him.
Betrayal
Denji’s devil hunting contracts were being managed by the very gang he was indebted to.
They informed him of any possible devil appearance nearby and he go hunt and sell the corps to the gang, this is how the business worked.
In one such commission, after being called, Denji and Pochita were stabbed from behind by the gang’s member.
The reason for such an action was, that gang members also made a contract with a devil(devil of zombie) who hated devil hunters and demanded Denji’s death. Gang members became zombie in process.
Being betrayed, he struggled to survive with Pochita while zombies chased them, even after being gravely injured. But end results were disheartening.
He and Pochita were dismembered by the gang members who were now turned into zombies.
After that, they were thrown into dumpster.
Metamorphosis
On its last breath after drinking a drop of blood, Pochita regained some of its own senses.
After communicating with him in the mental world he let him know that in exchange for being shown his beautiful dreams, it will give its own heart to him.
In reality, Pochita fused own heart with Denji’s, in result turning him into half devil and half human.
After this physical metamorphosis, he began his twisted transformative journey toward being a full-fledged “Chainsaw Man”.
In the following episodes, his mind also started to transform little by little.
He started losing some basic human emotions, like compassion, and fear of uncertainty.
His sense of comradery also was different from others. Whereas other devil hunters despised devils he not entirely hated them from guts.
Only one thing remains unchanged, his dreams, which he shared with Pochita.
Conclusion
The twisted transformative journey that Denji was on was not only of his body but much more.
His mind was much more affected than his body.
Denji’s simple child-like mentalities somehow become an unhinged madman’s.
His dreams may had remained same but his means entirely changed.
If you are interested in mecha anime, check out my Blog Post on Code Geass Season 1 and Code Geass Season 2.
