To those of you who don’t know, four days ago we got the very final installment of Chainsaw Man: Chapter 232. And it’s somewhat controversial.

Chainsaw Man is a very popular manga about a boy who can turn into the titular Chainsaw Man, using this power to take down various monsters and learning about his place in the world. Fairly standard setup, but it’s executed very well, making it an incredibly popular story.

The story’s split into two main parts: Part 1, aka “The Public Safety Saga”, and Part 2, “The Academy Saga.” The first part focuses on Denji’s story working under the Public Safety division, while the second focuses on a new protagonist named Asa, trying to live a normal highschool life while dealing with a devil who took residence in her body.

If these plotlines sound interesting to you, I recommend you go out and read the manga (or watch the very-well animated show!), because I’m going to go into spoiler territory here.

SPOILERS FOR ALL OF CHAINSAW MAN ABOUND.

TURN BACK NOW IF THAT MATTERS TO YOU!

Part 2 of CSM has gotten… mixed reception, to say the least. While the start of part 2 was sincerely excellent and still works as a (mostly) standalone story, there is some point where the story starts going downhill. Depending on who you ask you’ll get different answers for when that was, but around the 3rd or 4th arc, the focus of the narrative shifts.

Initially Asa was our protagonist, a new perspective with a whole character arc to complete and absolutely loathing towards other humans (which I found to be hilarious), but as we continue, Denji is our protagonist once more as she gets kinda tossed and forgotten about. The first two arcs are small-scale and entertaining on their own, while implying greater things yet to come, but from chapter 3 onwards the implication is everything we get. We get implications of what will happen, and how that future payoff may be interesting, but we don’t get quite as much interesting stuff in the then and now. Everything focuses on what will happen later, on this great prophecy, on mysteries, on building up arcs rather than resolving them…

On promising something thrilling later. On promising that juuust around the corner is the big reveal that will tie everything together.

So of course, when the ending arrived, and the payoff didn’t, people lost it. People said that this ending is atrocious, that it spat in the face of everything the fans wanted, but in reality it was just the moment where fans were forced to accept all the dissapointment they’ve already been fed under the promise of later reward.

And honestly? I’m glad it’s over. Hell I wish it ended earlier. Because it’s clear the author fucking hated writing this.

As the story goes along the artstyle (penned by the guy who also wrote the story) gets worse and worse. Panels become indecipherable and action becomes hard to follow. That coincides with characters getting increasingly flatter and relying on their old characterization. Atleast for me, it really felt like Tatsuki Fujimoto (the author) was done with this story many moons ago and just kept going for the paycheck.

I kept following this story even when I was down with it with the sliver of hope that he really did have some greater plan or payoff at the end of the road for us to reach. And now that we’re here, I’m glad this story is over. I’m glad that I can know with certainty that part 2 isn’t worth reading through, rather than wondering whether I need to tell friends to just “power through” the shit in the middle. I’m glad that the author can take a break and start something new.

I still think that the first two arcs of Part 2 are really good and worth reading (the ones with Asa in the protagonist seat), but beyond that?

Denji’s been euthanized, and I couldn’t be happier for him.