Who is Denji In ‘Chainsaw Man’?

He’s Pochita‘s favorite, that’s who!

Alright so here’s the thing about Denji, he’s a young lad who gets a little in over his head with the yakuza. You know, like you do. I’ve been there. I’m sure you’ve been there. Who hasn’t been there? At this point it’s basically a coming of age prerequisite.

Unlike my experience with the yakuza, it wasn’t Denji’s fault that he bit off a little more than he could chew. A note to my readers, never cheat at cards in a casino in Roppopongi. But poor, sweet Denji DIDN’T cheat at cards. His only sin against that yakuza was that he just happened to be the SON of a guy who owed them a lotta money. So it sounds like it should be his dad’s problem, right?

Well, it was for a while, but then his dad had the nerve to die and pass all his debt onto his son.

Denji barely gets any time to grieve, as the yakuza aren’t too keen on their debtors taking “time off.” However, while he is mourning at his father’s tombstone, he meets a cute lil’ devil dog named Pochita. Pochita isn’t looking too hot after battling all the most powerful devils in hell. It’s a long story, but basically Pochita is “weakest form” of the fearsome Chainsaw Devil. The devils in hell weren’t exactly keen on the Chainsaw Devil, so they tried to kill him/it. It didn’t quite work, but the Chainsaw Devil/Pochita was severely roughed up from the fight. Denji helped the little devil out in the only way you can, by giving the lil fella some his blood to drink. Again, like you do.

After Pochita healed frrom drinking Denji’s blood, the little guy practically fell in love with Denji, and the two decided to team up and kill devils together in order to help Denji pay off his debts.

That also didn’t go as planned.

Denji and Pochita ended up in a life or death scuffle with the nasty Zombie Devil, who zombified all of the yakuza guys and used them to mortally wound Denji. As Denji lay dying, Pochita (good lil’ guy that he is) offered to become Denji’s heart in order to help him survive. When I say “become Denji’s heart” I don’t mean it in a romantic, metaphorical sense. I mean it quite literally. Pochita actually crawled inside Denji’s chest and became his actual heart.

This came with some serious perks.

With Pochita’s latent Chainsaw Devil power, all Denji has to do is pull a convenient little rip cord on his chest and he’s able to transform into the part man/part devil Chainsaw Man! Yay for Denji!

So now he has to kill devils. A lot of them. But at least he’s out of debt, right?

(Featured Image: MAPPA)