Welcome to This Week in Shonen Jump, our weekly check in on Viz’s various Shonen Jump series. Viz has recently changed their release format, but our format will mostly remain the same. We will still review the newest chapters of one title a week, now with even more options at our disposal. The big change for our readers is that, even without a Shonen Jump subscription, you can read these most recent chapters for free at Viz.com or using their app.
This week, Ken checks in with “Chainsaw Man.” If you have thoughts on these or any other current Shonen Jump titles, please let us know in the comments!
Chainsaw Man Chapter 97
Written & Illustrated by Tatsuki Fujimoto
Reviewed by Ken Godberson III
Disclaimer: Due to this being the end of the series for now, this review will contain spoilers
For ninety-seven chapters, I have had kind of an overlying thought on “Chainsaw Man” as I burned through it during this, the Year of Hell: “How was this allowed into Shonen Jump?” That’s not an indictment of the quality of the book (Spoiler Alert: This review is going to be very positive and “Chainsaw Man” is my Comic of the Year). In a year that saw the ends of “Demon Slayer,” “Haikyuu” and “The Promised Neverland” this felt like the biggest loss when the rumors of its end was coming around. It only turned into elation when it was revealed this is only the end of Part One and this final chapter has set us on the course for a new paradigm for Denji.
After an intense, both physically and mentally, final fight against Makima, Chapter 97 is the ultimate cool-off and resolution to this part of Denji’s story. For all the talk I said about this book getting away with the level of violence and… well… horniness, the series has really been about relationships, in particular healthy and unhealthy ones. Denji’s life is not great and the sparse few people he had positive relationships with are dead. This chapter goes a bit to highlight the parallels of loneliness and inability to form attachments that Denji and Makima shared. It goes to highlight what Denji is going to have to do with Nayuta, the Control Devil reincarnated, and help her not become another Makima.
If there is one flaw in this chapter that you could make it’s there is a sense of telling and not showing with regards to finding out Makima’s hidden desires to form relationships. It is literally Pochita telling Denji all this. It’s a bit exposition dumping to get to the end of the chapter that maybe needed a few extra pages. However, I would argue that there was enough subtext in Makima’s actions and words that I’m more willing to forgive some flaws like that.
Fujimoto’s artwork has earned a rep in this series to get pretty violent and meticulous in its action. However, never let it be said that he doesn’t have range with this final chapter being devoid of all combat and big stupid action pieces. This very quiet and calm chapter got to emphasize emotions on a more subtle visual side. To put it simply: Fujimoto does an incredible job depicting just how tired Denji is. But it’s not just a mental drain that is depicted oh so well; the final scene with Denji and Nayuta curled up together is so heartwarming and surprisingly hopeful for a pretty bleak series.
“Chainsaw Man” is a series unlike any in Shonen Jump for a long while and this finale to Part One so well. It’s a series that reveles in its emotions and I would be a liar if I said I didn’t understand if it turned a deal of people off in the beginning. It could be crass as hell in many ways I see done worse in other shonen series. However, when I started it, I binged through about fifty chapters in about three days. I don’t do that with many books. Chapter 97 could be the end of the series altogether and I could be perfectly content, so I am very curious to see where Fujimoto takes it going into Part Two.
Continued belowChainsaw Man is Dead.
Long Live Chainsaw Man.
Final Verdict: 9.5- Part One of Fujimoto’s masterpiece ends on a quiet and, more importantly, earned final beat.
