Chainsaw Man Episode 10 Review: Power and Aki And Deals With The Aftermath Of The Attack On Public Safety
Cast: Kikunosuke Toya, Shiori Izawa, Tomori Kusunoki
Director: Hiroshi Seko
Streaming Platform: Crunchyroll
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
Chainsaw Man Episode 10 The series created by Studio MAPPA, available for viewing on the Crunchyroll streaming platform, has repeatedly shown its peculiar aesthetics, cinematic staging, and direction of rare workmanship. A unicum in the panorama of shonen anime and capable of covering the work of Tatsuki Fujimoto with greater intimacy, of making the most of the often choked but vivid and manifest emotionality, ultimately better communicated here than in the paper counterpart. Let’s analyze episode 10 of Chainsaw Man, therefore, referring you (if you haven’t already read it) to the review of Chainsaw Man Episode 8 and Episode 9.
This episode deals with the aftermath of the last episode while introducing new elements. Our protagonist takes a break, but only for a short time. Episode 10 follows the deaths of several characters, including the likable Himeno, so of course, you take a moment to dwell on the grieving, not for too long though, which seems to match the tone of the entire series: people die, but we go on. The show cares to mention this, however, when Denji, who can’t cry at the thought of losing the people he works with, wonders if becoming a demon has destroyed his heart in more ways than one. It is a coldness that gives an edge to our protagonist, distinguishing him from others of his kind.
Chainsaw Man Episode 10 Review: The Story Plot
Choked emotions, obstructed those of an Aki mourning the death of Himeno, still processing and metabolizing a chilling departure in times and ways. Power and Denji are in the hospital room where Aki is receiving his treatment. They wait for their partner to wake up, worried but without admitting it (or rather without understanding it), unable to console him when their words about the events act as tremendous confirmation. While, having left the room, Denji wonders about the nature and rightness of feelings to try in such a tragic and delicate situation, Aki discovers that due to the use of the katana that evokes the Devil’s Curse he has only two years left to live. The episode then follows the painful training of Denji and Power under the “custody” of Kishibe, focusing on the unorthodox methods used by the “strongest devil hunter of all” and going back to illustrating the fate of an Aki ready to make a pact with a new demon: the Future Devil.
In Aki’s personal and touching farewell to his true companion, of adventures and drinking, work and life, Chainsaw Man still gives his best. It does so by replicating the marvels already shown in the previous episodes (the sensual scene starring Himeno and Denji and Aki’s daily life punctuated by the beautiful sequence of the fourth episode are probably the “highest” examples in this sense), adding that emotionality already mentioned of which the animated version of the work has the exclusive.
Let me be clear: it is not an addition, in terms of plot, of actually new situations, but a complement that is not reduced to the obvious and natural “emotional amplification” resulting from the transition from a “silent”, exclusively graphic medium to the suggestion and evocative nature of the audiovisual, but it resides in a precise authorial desire translated and masterfully expressed through an astonishing direction. It is unexpected because it is unusual, both homage and expression of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s declared cinephilia, both an ennobling and elevating tool only the aesthetic side but also the depth of the contents. Expressive close-ups, overhead shots and plongéesthat narrate loneliness and loss (those of Aki in the bed of the hospital room, abandoned to his suffering), changes of focus that exude cinema, more mirror games, more “external” observation points that express the distance of the viewer, circumscribe the pain.
Chainsaw Man Episode 10 Review and Analysis
In short, Chainsaw Man is, in purely visual terms, the most cinematographic anime of recent years, a product that is directorially valid as well as conceptually original. Episode 10 is yet another confirmation, perhaps the greatest, certainly the most incisive. Furthermore, it confirms an animation that continues to prove to be of a higher level, here almost devoid of CGI because it is not involved in the creation of devils or transformations (Denji remains in human form throughout the episode), but almost exclusively dedicated to fights melee with a reduced dose of “inhuman” components, extremely fluid in the part of the ambush that Denji and Power set up (without results) in Kishibe, generally cured and qualitatively constant throughout the episode, this time without any drop.
The episode then takes care of carrying on the story by proposing the most classic of Shonenian topos, the training of the protagonists, but in an almost parodistic sauce in the overturning of the conventions of the circumstance in question: a “teacher” who is, in fact, an anti-mentor in the violence and cruelty of his methods, in the crazy model he represents, however useful right from the start to increase the harmony of the Denji-Power duo, united in adversity who now has a name and a manager: Kishibe.
Two madmen like Denji and Power, apparently insensitive and indolent, apathetic and corporal are opposed to a thoughtful and sentimental Aki, their simple and insipid (actually primitive) motivations contrast the serious and ominous reasons that move Hayakawa. In short, a part with comic tones that acts as a counterpoint to the sequences with a funereal and deadly atmosphere that sees Aki sink more and more into the abyss of loss, read letters written by Himeno, get to know his will, rediscover her still protective of him, abandon himself definitively to the only reason for living left to him: revenge at any cost.
The episode also focuses a lot on Aki, we see him in difficulty, albeit in a more emotional sense. After losing his partner and her demonic power, Aki is forced to stay in the hospital with the weight of everything she has lost. We see him reading painful letters, crying and forcing himself to carry on, albeit in a not-quite-healthy way. He’s curious how the most stoic character in the series is also the emotional center right now. The animation is eerily fluid in many of its scenes, which is a bit out of place, but maybe it’s intentional.
The episode just ends with Aki who, in an effectively disturbing scene, goes to create a contract with the Demon of the Future, which will undoubtedly come at a high cost. The demon is hidden away in a dark cell, and the music that accompanies her reveal is probably the most impactful finale the series has had so far. Chainsaw Man Episode 10 is another great episode that manages to expand the world of the series while still focusing on the intimate bonds between our main characters. Studio MAPPA has managed to carry on the task of bringing bombastic action by turns, horror in profusion, and still landing emotion through the events.
Chainsaw Man Episode 10 Review: The Last Words
Chainsaw Man Episode 10 confirms an impeccable directorial work, even one of a kind due to a cinematographic staging that has rarely been seen in a shonen. To the taste for the conventions of the film, the medium added an animation that here gives its best in the clash-training with Denji and Power as protagonists, minimizing the use of CGI and resulting in excellent for the entire duration of the episode. Chainsaw Man may be considered a great shonen because of the action animation, but it’s a stellar anime because of the way relationships are built and showcased in the small moments.
