Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man is possibly one of the best and most popular shonen manga series right now. That is why, fans are taken aback by the sudden confirmation that the manga series is ending after giving us one more chapter.
Chainsaw Man follows the story of Denji, an impoverished teenager who makes a contract that fuses his body with that of Pochita, the dog-like Chainsaw Devil, granting him the ability to transform parts of his body into chainsaws. Denji eventually joins the Public Safety Devil Hunters, a government agency focused on combating Devils whenever they become a threat to Japan.
The series is set in the late 1990s, in an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union still exists. In this world, Devils (悪魔, Akuma) are born from the collective fears of humanity, and grow more powerful as those fears grow more prevalent. Specialized operatives known as Devil Hunters (デビルハンター, Debiru Hantā) are tasked with eliminating them and often form contracts with them to gain their abilities or powers in return. A Devil possessing a human body (usually deceased) is known as a Fiend (魔人, Majin), while certain individuals can become hybrids via merging with Devils. Devils are capable of reincarnation, cycling between Hell and Earth: when one dies on Earth, it reappears in Hell, and when killed there, it returns to Earth. A unique exception to this cycle is the Chainsaw Devil, whose consumption of another Devil permanently erases the concept that Devil represented from both existence and human memory.
Denji, a teenager living in poverty, works as a Devil Hunter to pay off his deceased father's debt to the yakuza, aided by Pochita, his canine companion and the Chainsaw Devil. After the yakuza betray and kill Denji in a deal with the Zombie Devil, Pochita merges with Denji, reviving him as a hybrid on the condition that he live a humble, ordinary life. Denji is subsequently recruited by the government-run Public Safety Division, a unit of professional Devil Hunters led by Makima, who assigns him to hunt the Gun Devil. Denji is partnered with Aki Hayakawa, an experienced Devil Hunter, and Power, a Fiend created from the Blood Devil.
Makima is later revealed to be the Control Devil, whose true goal is to dominate Pochita, as his ability to consume Devils allows him to erase the fears and concepts they embody from existence. The Gun Devil is deployed by the United States to eliminate Makima, but she defeats it and forces it to possess Aki as the Gun Fiend; Denji is forced to kill him in self-defense. Makima also later kills Power in front of Denji, rendering him catatonic and forcing Pochita to take over his body.
Asa Mitaka, a socially withdrawn high school student, forms a contract with the War Devil, Yoru, after being killed by a classmate who made a contract with the Justice Devil. Now a Fiend with Yoru inhabiting her body, Asa seeks to break their pact, while Yoru secretly plans to revive the Nuclear Weapons Devil and seek revenge against Chainsaw Man for her near-destruction. Meanwhile, Denji balances his life as a student and as Chainsaw Man while caring for Nayuta.
Fami, a girl claiming to be the Famine Devil, manipulates events to delay the Death Devil's arrival. After Barem Bridge-the second-in-command of the cult-like project Chainsaw Man Church, secretly controlled by Fami-destroys Denji's home and kills his pets, Nayuta seemingly sacrifices herself. Empowered by humanity's growing fear of war, Yoru offers Denji a new deal: defeat the Death Devil and earn Asa's affection or be transformed. The pair clash with the Falling Devil, and Yoru defeats it after America reinvents the nuclear bomb. Denji is left for dead but is saved by Fami, who turns out to be the Death Devil, Li'l D. Li'l D explains that Yoru intends to cause an infinite war by having Pochita erase death. Some time later, Barem appears and an enraged Denji gives Pochita control to devour him. Afterwards, Pochita duels Yoru while Denji and Asa meet in a separate dimension. Asa decides to sacrifice herself to allow Denji to kill Yoru. Pochita instead devours Li'l D. The erasure of death causes insect-based Devils to become more powerful, bringing about a global apocalypse.
After becoming a devil’s snack, Denji and Pochita arrive in some sort of hell where all dead devils go. There, Pochita tells Denji that the boy was happier when he wasn’t Chainsaw Man. In fact, becoming a Chainsaw Man has only brought misery to the boy. So, Pochita rips out his heart and eats it. Why? It’s simple, Pochita wants to erase Chainsaw Devil from existence, so Denji can start over.
In the final page, we see Denji’s cabin, where this whole story started off in the first place. It suggests that Pochita’s sacrifice will somehow reverse time, giving Denji a chance to start over.
After being devoured by a Devil, Denji and Pochita find themselves in an open field. Pochita realizes that becoming Denji's heart caused his trauma. After saying goodbye, Pochita devours his own heart, erasing himself. In a new reality, Denji wakes up alone in a shack. The yakuza take him to an abandoned warehouse where they are about to kill him when Power arrives and saves him. Shortly afterwards, Nayuta, now working for Public Safety, recruits Denji and Power as Devil Hunters. They are sent to kill a Devil at a school where Denji meets Asa, who is no longer possessed by Yoru. She thanks Denji, calling him Chainsaw Man-triggering a remnant of Pochita that still resides in him-before returning to her classmates.
Chainsaw Man refers to a page from chapter 232 of the Chainsaw Man manga series, the final chapter, in which the character Asa thanks Denji (Chainsaw Man) after he saves her from losing her balance and tripping, with Denji showing confusion as to why she called him "Chainsaw Man." The page went viral after the chapter's March 24th, 2026, release, as people edited it to create parodies, which insert other popular characters into the scene and have someone call the protagonist of the given series by the name of their series.
Some fans are gushing over how Fujimoto pulled the rug from under their feet. However, a large portion of the fandom is just angry that the series is ending this way. The ending doesn’t feature anything on the Death Devil or the prophecy. In fact, Part 2 of CSM leaves Reze out of the picture from start to finish. So, fans think that if Chainsaw Man ends now, it will be an incomplete story.
All being said, we still have one more chapter of Chainsaw Man, which is scheduled to release on March 24. Also, while every hint indicates that this is the end of the series, there’s a chance that only Part 2 of Chainsaw Man is coming to an end. If that’s the case and Fujimoto plans on writing a Part 3, CSM fans might actually get an ending that they want.
Despite the series' violent content and dark humor, Tatsuki Fujimoto always intended to serialize in Weekly Shōnen Jump. However, he believed his work would be overlooked if he created a conventional "Jump-like manga", so he consciously preserved his individual style while adopting the magazine's typical narrative structure and character archetypes. Fujimoto was inspired by the 1974 film The Texas Chain Saw Massacre to create the series. Following the series' success, Fujimoto chose to publish the second part of Chainsaw Man on Shōnen Jump+ to explore a completely different direction. Fujimoto drew inspiration from various sources. He intentionally left various concepts vague and open-ended to facilitate the narrative expansion in the second part. In an interview with the magazine Da Vinci, when asked what readers could expect from the second part, he cited the 1998 film The Big Lebowski, saying that it left him questioning the ending and feeling like it was all for nothing. He noted, however, that the protagonist and story had developed.
Chainsaw Man (Japanese: チェンソーマン, Hepburn: Chensō Man) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tatsuki Fujimoto. In North America, the manga is licensed in English by Viz Media, for both print and digital release, and it is also published by Shueisha on the Manga Plus online platform. An anime television series adaptation, produced by MAPPA, was broadcast from October to December 2022. An anime film, titled Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc, premiered in September 2025. By January 2026, the manga had over 35 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. In 2021, it won the 66th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category and won the Harvey Award in the Best Manga category from 2021 to 2023.
The series' first part, "Public Safety Arc" (公安編, Kōan-hen), ran in Shueisha's shōnen manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump from December 3, 2018, to December 14, 2020; following the series' conclusion in Weekly Shōnen Jump, a second part was announced to start on Shueisha's Shōnen Jump+ online magazine. On December 19, 2020, it was announced that the second part, "School Arc" (学校編, Gakkō-hen), would feature Denji going to school. The second part was serialized from July 13, 2022, to March 25, 2026. Shueisha has collected its chapters into individual tankōbon volumes.
On December 29, 2022, it was announced that the series would receive a stage play adaptation, directed and written by Fumiya Matsuzaki, music composed by Shunsuke Wada and choreographed by Hidali. Titled Chainsaw Man The Stage (『チェンソーマン』ザ・ステージ, Chensō Man za Sutēji), it ran in Tokyo from September 16 to October 1 at The Galaxy Theatre, and in Kyoto from October 6-9, 2023, at the Kyoto Theater. A second stage play, adapting the Reze Arc, titled Chainsaw Man The Stage: Reze Arc (『チェンソーマン』ザ・ステージ レゼ篇, Chensōman za Sutēji Reze-hen), is set to run in Tokyo and Kyoto from July to August 2026.
A browser game commemorating the release of the manga's fifteenth volume was released for free on August 4, 2023. From September 6 to November 4, 2024, Universal Studios Japan hosted the "Chainsaw Man × Hollywood Dream - The Ride (Kick Back)" attraction based on the series, as part of the Halloween Horror Nights event. A crossover collaboration with the mobile video game BanG Dream! Girls Band Party!, ran from December 15-25, 2024.
Chainsaw Man ranked fourth on Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list of best manga of 2020 for male readers, and topped the 2021 list. On Freestyle magazine's The Best Manga 2020 Kono Manga wo Yome! Chainsaw Man has been overall well-received by critics. James Beckett of Anime News Network awarded the first volume a B+, praising its eccentric blend of humor, violence, and emotional depth. Fujimoto's artwork garnered particular praise. Critics noted that Chainsaw Man employed graphic violence and gore in ways that enhanced its narrative.
The weapon making with guilt empowerment coming from her fusion with Yoru as the War Devil are super cool and its cute how early on Asa would add on "super" to her weapon names like that'd make it stronger lol. she's also lost her arm recently and things def have the capacity to get worse though maybe because Asa with Yoru as half of her brain is kind of a Fiend she could grow it back through blood shenanigans?
Fami/Kiga terrifies me, maybe just because of her constant blank stares or how she has a primal fear, possibly multiple if Fire counts just at her disposal, or her relation to Makima after all of the stuff that happened in late part 1, or how even with the reveal of her plot to defeat her older sister Death we still don't know how she's going to go about all of it and it's insanely hard to read whether she's feeding us lies or not. as the brains of the csm church she would be responsible for the transformation and possible initial deaths of hundreds of thousands of followers which is terrifying, and it likely will not end here. if her "pawns" are reusable she has some insane destructive power on her side to call on whenever and could probably only be stopped by pochita or yoru when they're fully pumped with that sweet sweet human fear.
The Death Devil has been a character i've been looking forward to seeing for a long while and her reveal as the ultimate terror predicted by nostradamus was super hype but also scary; so much destruction and chaos has been caused by Fami in an attempt to kill her off as her arrival on Earth would probably have devastating consequences, but Earth might still be fucked by the time Fami preps Pochita and Yoru because of everything she's doing to prepare them for the fight in the first place.
Nayuta is a gremlin as expected from being raised by Denji, i hope she can stay safe cuz being raised a different way seems to result in a gooder Control Devil though still mischievous.
Katana Man coming back and on PS's side was unforeseen but kinda cool too, ik a rematch between him and Denji would be cool af but possibly for another arc as their hands are full fighting separate fights.
I loved Yoshida in part 1 as he was smart about his fights, badass and i like his design/octos design! he's mostly the same in part 2 but after his threats to Denji and Nayuta my opinion on him has lowered quite a bit.
I would LOVE to see a part 2 anime as i'm really enjoying it rn and the fight sequences in the anime, while not translating some cool panelling tricks as well are still pretty well done.
i am indecisive and so i have like 17 favorite characters lmao. if i had to narrow it down tho it'd probably be Kobeni. cute and she's just like me fr!! relatable in being an absolute nervous wreck most of the time.
Oh, you like chainsaw man? dennis...
Really just prove Fujimoto can't be trusted with a series. Really just prove Fujimoto can't be trusted with a series. At the very least, stick to one-shots or shorter series. Though I do think some editorial fuckery happened. The quality takes a notable nosedive once Denji returns in Part 2. It's possible Fujimoto wanted to focus on Asa and Yoru while Denji was off in the background being Chainsaw Man. But the editors said "no" and...
Think what makes this meme for me is that a ton of the edits are absurdly detailed compared to the actual panel. Really? Guess he got bored again?
I liked the ending, but I was not as invested about CSM as other people and it always seemed like a lot of shit thrown together to look cool.
just wait till they really need a chainsaw, man. and he gives in to a sudden urge to pull it. give it five years. chainsaw man could be back.
What you don't realize is these memes are part 3. If Fujimoto is smart. Think what makes this meme for me is that a ton of the edits are absurdly detailed compared to the actual panel. Holy shit, there's a Limbus Company one.
I hope he gets on with finding the Blood Devil in hell cuz this mans needs some more friends after part 1, Miri might also be possible homie material but they have conflicting views atm (Miri being fed csm church beliefs and Denji thinking they're nutjobs) it seems so idk. Yoshida i like a bit but is creepy and threatened him with the csm or family thing in the first place so i need Denji to get a restraining order on him fast.
🦈🌪️ DENJI es CANON en DANDADAN 💥 CROSSOVER EPICO 🌌 DANDADAN X CHAINSAW MAN MANGA EXTRA 23
