u/GodKira04

Denji in Part 1 was actually a fairly easy character to understand: he’s an ignorant kid who never knew his mother, who died, and grew up with an abusive father whom he was forced to kill and whose astronomical debts he then had to pay off for the Yakuza, or else he would be killed. He never really had a normal life.

Just from his backstory, we can understand why he is the way he is: he’s starved for affection because he spent most of his life without it, without the love and care of a father or mother, or even a friend besides his little devil dog, Pochita. He probably developed a very high sex drive because of his lack of education and because he was exposed to things like pornographic magazines and similar stuff at a very young age. And although that part is more of a theory, the really important point is that he sees sex as a form of connection, something he had very little of in his life. Eventually, he would discover that having sex just for the sake of having sex wasn’t a way to connect with someone (although he would practically forget this later on, but we’ll get to that).

Even so, his sexual desire didn’t define him as a character. He was still capable of forming connections with people that had nothing to do with sex, as we can see with his friendships with Pochita and Aki. Even with female characters, he was capable of forming genuine bonds with them without sex being involved:

Even though he was initially attracted to Power because of her appearance and even wanted to touch her breasts, he eventually started seeing her more as a friend and a sister than as someone he could derive sexual pleasure from. When he actually touched her breasts, he felt no pleasure, and even when they became closer and did things like sleeping in the same bed and taking baths together, he felt nothing sexual.

Even when Himeno offered to have sex with him, he refused because he wanted his first time to be special and with someone he genuinely liked. He still formed a brief friendship with her.

Even though he was in love with Reze and sexually attracted to her, and even though she was naked with him in a pool, his biggest concern was simply swimming and having innocent fun with her. When she suggested that they run away together, he was hesitant because he valued his friendship with Aki and Power. And yes, even when he eventually genuinely wanted to run away with Reze, that only shows how much he valued her, considering that Makima had promised to grant him any wish he wanted if he killed the Gun Devil. Not long before that, he had wanted to use that opportunity to make Makima his girlfriend and, presumably, have sex with her. Even so, he prioritized Reze.

Even when Makima offered to take him on a trip, he chose to take care of Power, who was terrified after encountering the Darkness Devil.

In short: Denji does have a high libido, yes, but it’s not as though his entire character can be reduced to that. He’s someone who is capable of thinking rationally and thinking about the people he values, despite his hormones.

Denji’s journey in Part 1 ends with him killing Makima, the Devil who represented the concept of Control and the one who ruined his life and treated him like a dog. It ends with him leaving Public Safety, it ends with him going to school, it ends with him promising to find “Power” again, and it ends with him finding a new family in Nayuta, who essentially became his little sister.

Apparently, everything was clear: Denji was freer. Yes, he had developed a desire to become a hero in order to get attention from people (especially women), but he had still escaped almost all of the chains that had bound him until then. He was no longer a dog of the state, and he had certainly learned a lot from everything he had gone through, right?

Well... no.

This is where Part 2 Denji comes in. Take everything I said about Denji not being limited to sex and throw it in the trash, because in Part 2, Denji REALLY prioritizes his sexual desires to a point that becomes sickening and embarrassing. He simply can’t interact with a female character anymore without his libido taking over and making him want to fuck her.

When he met Fumiko and she was very clearly sexually harassing and manipulating him, he simply didn’t care and sucked on a Devil’s tentacle just because she asked him to and because she said she would have sex with him.

When Nayuta went missing, instead of being more concerned about finding her, he wanted to go to a brothel to satisfy his libido first.

Even after having a conversation with Asa where she explained how much she hated being Yoru’s host, and after Denji said he would kill Yoru, he simply gave up on trying to save Asa because he remembered that Yoru had promised to have sex with him. In other words, he was willing to have sex with Yoru while she was in Asa’s body, despite knowing how horrible Yoru was to Asa and despite having just told Asa that he would kill Yoru. I don’t think I even need to point out that Asa obviously didn’t actually consent, and that Denji would unknowingly have been sexually assaulting her because he believed Yoru’s claim that Asa had consented.

Denji’s character in Part 2 feels like a parody of his Part 1 character. I saw plenty of comments back during Part 1 saying that Denji was a shallow character who only thought about sex, and it almost feels like Fujimoto read those comments and decided to prove them right for some reason.

And even if Fujimoto’s intention was to deliberately make Denji this way because he wanted to give him a “negative character arc,” taking one characteristic of a character and exaggerating it to the point where it feels like a parody of that character is a terrible example of a negative arc. In fact, that’s closer to flanderization.

One thing I deliberately left out is that, at the end of Part 1, Denji broke down and said that he wanted to have sex like crazy, even though he had already learned very early in the story that doing sexual things just for the sake of doing them didn’t actually feel good. At the time, I thought this was just Denji venting because he was emotionally broken over Makima and because he had just lost Aki and Power. But no. Maybe this really was the direction Fujimoto wanted the character to take: someone obsessed with sex who makes it the reason he lives. Which, again, is basically how a Chainsaw Man hater would describe Denji.

And honestly, I’ve come to hate that moment because that’s where Part 2 Denji was born.

The cherry on top is that Denji’s character conclusion boils down to him having a “peaceful” ending where he’s Power’s “pet” and Public Safety’s dog again, even though the story had repeatedly told us that this was a bad thing. This is after he spent more than half of the story acting like a horny, selfish moron. He simply learned nothing from his mistakes (mistakes he himself acknowledged, but kept making over and over again) and was rewarded with a “happy ending.” Are you kidding me?

And, like, even the good things, such as his friendship with Aki or the romance he had with Reze, simply disappeared from his mind, all so he could become the ignorant and obedient dog he had always been.

But hey, at least he’s Power’s pet, and the Control Devil is Nayuta instead of Makima, so yayyyyy, HAPPY ENDING!!!!

Anyway, Denji is a terrible character, and it hurts me to say that because I genuinely thought he was a great character in Part 1 and one of the best protagonists of the new generation.

It’s genuinely tragic...