 Hello everyone! Welcome back to another Illumilani video essay! The topic of this video is about something I've found to be somewhat controversial on the topic of Chainsaw Man, which I was actually kind of surprised to see, but it's something I feel very passionately about. Denji has worked his way up to being my absolute favorite Shonen Animanga protagonist, and though he seems like just another hormone-fueled male in the spotlight, I think the reason I find him so likable is because his character goes much deeper than that. From what I've seen online, this is a weirdly contentious take, as people only want to see Denji as some raunchy, boob-obsessed main character, and like, wait, let me clarify here, he... he kind of is. But I think what those people are missing are some pretty key story details that do a ton of humanizing for this poor orphan kid. In this video, I want to explain these details, and dive into what about his character makes him so endearing for me. Admittedly, some of this is going to be personal opinion, but as usual, spoiler warning for the manga, and let's begin! So this isn't the biggest detail ever, but when it comes to anime, I think a big reason I was so receptive to Denji as a character is due to his Japanese voice actors' work. As some of you may know, I watched the anime before I read the manga, and while I feel like the manga is better than the anime, the anime gave me a fantastic introduction to Denji as a character that I might have been less apt to enjoy without it. His Japanese voice actor does a fantastic job at playing up a poor teenage boy with trauma without ever making him too annoying to dislike. His English voice actor is kind of a different story. But the Japanese VA really helps out the character, and from what I can tell, this is the voice actor's first role. I couldn't find anything on him prior to Chainsaw Man, just one more show that actually came out this year called Unite Up. I think his voice work in Chainsaw Man fits Denji better than the character he plays in Unite, but he's really not bad in either. And listen, I'm by no means an expert in the field in the slightest. I am only speaking on this from the perspective of a casual viewer, but my opinion from that point is that the work that went into his voice acting made him actually endearing. But, okay, this alone isn't enough to make Denji a likeable character. Of course, the most important, absolutely syphian task of taking Denji, the boy who made his entire goal touching the fun pillows of his fellow comrades, and making him a likeable character? Well, that, my viewers, that was no easy feat. A lot of Denji's motives are backed and softened by his shitty childhood. Lots of story writers and directors will make their attempt at giving characters a tragic enough backstory to give them motives, but honestly, few of them succeed. Many times it can come off as contrived, like, oh my God! Killed my mother, so now I hate them! And now we're just expected to feel empathy for this guy when, in reality, all it does is make us go... It's dumb. However, with Denji, his backstory does a ton of explaining into the person he currently is in ways that give backing to almost everything he does. His entire character is written around his trauma, essentially. And it shows in ways that even Denji is unaware of. Side note, but I think this is why people miss these aspects of his character a lot. Fujimoto never says anything in overt, bold text, and prefers to rely pretty heavily on subtext and symbolism. Denji is a very emotionally-scented kid, something I'll get more into later, but if he doesn't know it about himself, the viewers might not catch onto it either, including me for some of the other details. There's a lot of really good Denji analysis out there, but I want to piece together what I've seen and what I've personally picked up firsthand. First, and I think most obviously, Denji was never treated well by men as he grew up. His dad was an abusive, violent bastard that he had to kill in order to survive, something he feels immense and pretty undue guilt over. The Yakuza leader exploited him and paid him pennies to survive, knowing he was only a child and that it wasn't enough to live, so by the time he meets Makima and she offers him a place to live, he's understandably smitten. It's the first time anyone has ever treated him properly that we've seen so far, and it's also the first time in many years that he's ever had a proper meal. He's a starving, socially isolated child that's excited for affection and food. Something really cool and important to note here is something I saw this TikTok mention. Denji was never taught the difference between maternal and romantic love, something he actually conflates with Makima. After he meets Riz and gets a taste of what actual romantic love looks like, he stops viewing Makima in a sexual light. I won't go into how Makima represents a mother figure in the manga, since I think it's a topic that deserves its own video, but I think it's worth pointing out to illustrate why Denji is the way he is. And pause for a second. He absolutely is a lustful teenage boy driven by his hormonal impulses, which is completely natural for his age group, but he's also just a socially sensitive teenager with a lot of unresolved trauma. Denji knows as little as a normal teenage boy would, so while he thinks all he wants is to touch boobs, it's heavily implied that he just wants somebody to love him. In what I consider one of the most heartbreaking lines during the fight with Riz. Denji laments that every girl he's met so far has tried to kill him and asks why everyone wants the chainsaw heart and not his heart. I get it, it can kind of come off as a silly line, but also Denji doesn't have a lot of emotional vocabulary to fully express. I'm hurt that no one actually loves me for me in the heat of battle. There was also the panel from that fight where after Denji captures Riz and takes her to the bottom of the ocean, he remembers the time they spent together when she taught him how to swim. And very, very importantly here, he's not remembering her in the nude or thinking about her in a sexual pose, he's thinking about a moment they shared an emotional connection. These scenes prove that while Denji might think he wanted s*** or b***, emotional connection is extremely important to him. I think this also makes Machimo's betrayal to him at the end of part one that much more gut-wrenching. She's made this child discover that he values connection and his intimacy, only to rip his heart out in a fashion that he's expressed this may over. All this to say, all of the things that might feel scummy about him come from a place of extreme trauma, with snippets of the way he really feels coming out in his more personal moments with other characters. There's a couple characters that I want to mention here that pulled out a lot of these revelations about Denji and do a great job at illustrating how Denji deals with his own trauma. One of them is, of course, bit of a z***. But since I mentioned her already, I want to get into the dynamic he has with Aki in power, especially their deaths. These scenes were incredibly hard to keep reading, not because they were bad, but really the opposite as a lot of readers will tell you. These chapters had some of the most heartbreaking panels in dialogue, but they were incredibly important to revealing Denji's actual core values. His fight with Aki and him getting a good bye with power made him go back on something he had questioned about himself before early in the manga. He asked himself if he would ever cry for Aki or power if they died and tells himself that he doesn't think they would. At this point, Denji has yet to become close with them and doesn't even think he's very emotional in general. But for the first time in his fight with Aki, he's crying his eyes out. And when he absorbs power, he cries for her too as she's made him continue living, something he didn't even really want after he was forced to have a hand in killing her. These moments also come back to Denji again after this fight with the falling devil. She dredges up his most painful memories, leading to Denji recalling the moments before he had to kill what was essentially his brother and sister. And a lot is said in these panels without outwardly saying much. First is that Denji is still grieving their loss. It doesn't seem like it's been much time since the last part, but he's still holding onto their memory. Second is that he's handling his grief better than the trauma of how he handled murdering his father and that his mind hasn't fully blocked it out, but he's still pushing away the hurt over fully processing it. He would rather chainsaw his own head than think about the friends that he lost. He still hasn't fully realized how to process his own grief, and while he's beginning to heal, he still has a long way to go, especially after all the added trauma that Makima caused. There was also the scene prior to all of this where both he and Aki had to take care of power after she was traumatized after the international assassins are. These scenes were extremely important, but there's a specific comment that I want to bring up here that I thought was really, really interesting. So, quick recap. Denji takes a bath with power and sleeps in her bed because she's terrified to be alone. She asks Denji to drink her blood because she feels bad for making him do all of this. And then we get this kind of suggestive panel. But this commenter pointed out that both Denji and power are very emotionally stunted people and are just barely learning to navigate humanity. And it may be the case that Denji and power do have romantic feelings for each other without even realizing. When he says that the situation doesn't feel naughty, it could be coming from more of a place of not feeling s*** in moments where the person you love needs you or is in need of emotional care. I don't completely and totally agree with this, mostly just because I'm happy seeing them be siblings and I think it still gets a great message across, but I think it does bring up some really good points. Namely that Denji and power were learning how to function as humans together. And that's why they arguably share the closest bond in the manga, regardless of whether or not it's romantic. And it also shows how far Denji has come from Part 1. I think these two characters, Zemreze, are what allowed Denji to be aware enough of his traumas to be able to become the decent brother figure he is in Part 2. Alternatively, he's taken what he's learned with power, Aki and Reze, and providing Naoto what he had to learn the hard way. Denji's relationship with Naoto isn't something we've seen a ton so far, but just like other details in the manga, a lot is said in the little panel time we get with them. A lot of it actually comes from moments or dialogue with Asa, interestingly enough. Asa saw Denji doing the condemnable action of selling used cigarettes to homeless people only to find out later that it was for the sake of Naoto's future education. But it does go even deeper than that. Denji's childhood was obviously far from the best, and as a result there were a lot of things he was never able to have and missed out on. He didn't have a stable home. He didn't have a family to take care of him. He also never went to school. However, when a child was essentially just dropped on his lap, and he was told to take care of her, he actively makes sure that she gets what he never had. He stepped up. They have an apartment together where this sign exists, which, funny as it is, tells me that this is a long-term home where Naoto is able to have a brother figure that jokes around with her and cares about her. In Chapter 131, Naoto tells Fami that she can't help in her efforts to stop the prophecy, simply because she has to go to school. This, coupled with the line where Denji states that she's smart and wants to send her to college, shows that Denji's actively encouraging her education, and maybe even making it a priority, something that was never really done for him. And he's willing to do whatever it takes to secure that for her, even if that means scamming people is how he makes the money for it. He is actively trying to break the cycle of abuse and abandonment that he was taught, even if he doesn't know how to do it the right way, so to speak. All of this shows a couple things. One is that the trauma actually affects him far more than he ever lets onto the people around him, and he's taking steps to correct it. Two is that he has a lot of love in his heart that extends past the last he wanted to believe was his only goal at the beginning of the manga. And speaking of which, the way he handles his lust throughout the story is also a big reason I like Denji more than the other characters of similar composition. First and foremost, an important reason why Denji works as a character in comparison to other pervert characters, is that he's very respectful with the situations he gets in. A lot of this is because the women in his life allowed him to, and take the initiative, something extremely important to make him not a creep. However, there are some women in the manga who don't allow him to, which the story keeps consistent in that he never views them sexually. He's not chomping at the bit to see Kobani or Quanchi naked, he's never pushing them to let him touch them, and even though he was allowed to touch the other girls or see them naked, he doesn't even push them either. In fact, power had to remind him that this was his reward for saving money, and he hasn't asked Asa at all in the time that he's been with her. It's actually kind of funny how Denji's able to be such a hormone-fueled character without objectifying the women around him. I mean, yeah, it's kinda sad that this is where the bar is for Shonen in general, but Chainsaw Man seems like it's doing nothing if not pushing the genre forward. Of course, there's also some really good anime slash manga out there right now that have done and continue to do a great job with their women and main characters, but I really love that Denji was given a trait that's usually controversial, and yet it's written in a way that both makes sense, and also doesn't make him a worse person for it. I actually think there's something to be said about how Chainsaw Man handle sexuality as a whole, as not something to completely shy away from, but something with a lot of nuance, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. I also like that Denji's actions aren't perfect either. This might be something a lot of people disagree with, but I'm extremely tired of main characters who are just perfect people with not an evil or controversial bone in their body. Warning, this is something people really aren't going to like. I'm about to rag on a kind of popular anime here, but this is why I dislike Tanjiro so much. He messes up in fights sometimes, sure, but there's nothing really interesting about him, at least to me. There's nothing about him that I can relate to, because he isn't very flawed as a character, and just wants what's best for as many people as possible, but real people in real life are biased. Real people become hateful and traumatized. Real people will sometimes show anger or sadness in a way that's problematic for other people. I do think these overly kind main characters have their place. Don't get me wrong. Young boys actually benefit greatly from having role models like Tanjiro, but I think, especially with Shounen, this kind of character has become so common that it can get kind of boring. I think if characters like Denji became the norm, they also get boring too, and that's kind of just the way the lack of variety works, but as of right now, Denji's new and a refreshing character for the Shounen genre. He messes up, he can be stupid, he gets angry and has biases that can hurt other people, but at the end of the day, he dislikes the things he thinks he's done wrong and tries to go from his past mistakes. Denji has cemented a place in my heart as one of my favorite male protagonists to date, and seeing how misunderstood he could be across the fandom was honestly, it was kind of interesting. I definitely get why, but I think a lot of people miss the subtext around him. He's a very consistent, well thought out, and even tragic character that I'm really just excited to see keep on growing. Hopefully, if you disliked him, you might have more of a background on why others enjoy him even if you don't, and if you liked him, hopefully this video makes you feel a little more validated in your stance, but let me know what you guys think in the comments. If you liked Denji, if you disliked Denji, what are your reasons for it? Also, sorry this is a bit of a short video and thanks a lot for being gracious about the new schedule. School has been intense, but definitely worth doing making videos for you guys. Anyways, thank you guys for coming to this video, and I hope you guys have a nice rest of your day. Bye!