Who is Chainsaw Man? Is it Pochita or Denji?

Chainsaw Man is huge in the manga world and created hype when its anime adaptation was finally announced. The first episode of the anime was released on 11 October 2022 and has been trending ever since.

The anime has had a solid start with its character introduction and what it wants to convey. We have seen Denji, our main character whose dreams are as simple as tasting jam, as he only ever had a plain slice of bread.

His tragic life is set into turmoil when he is sliced up by zombies and is fused with Pochita giving him a humanoid chainsaw appearance, making him Chainsaw Man.

Denji is the Chainsaw Man. After being killed and sliced up by zombie devils, Pochita fuses with Denji’s body and works as his heart. Pochita also heals all his wounds and revives the organs he sold.

Ending of Chainsaw Man Episode 1

Denji is betrayed by his boss to obtain powers through a devil contract. He is sliced up along with Pochita who forms another contract with Denji, which allows him to live and in return Pochita gets to witness his dreams.

Denji, our protagonist, has a total of 30 million in debt to a Yakuza member and has been working since he was a child to resolve it. He has sold his eye, a kidney and a testicle and still it amounts to nothing.

The debt originally belongs to his father and he works as a devil hunter for him and doesn’t get paid enough under the pretence of various hidden fees, interest and so on.

He can work as a devil hunter, as he has the aid of Pochita, whom he saved by offering his blood and forming a contract with this mini-chainsaw devil.

His dreams are simple and small, he wants to live a normal life, get to know what bread tastes like with jam and share it with Pochita, flirt with a girl and so on.

His dreams are interrupted by his shitty employer who takes him to an isolated place and stabs him along with Pochita, all so he could get some dumb zombie powers.

Apparently the dude formed a contract with a zombie devil who promised to give him some of the devil’s powers in exchange for killing all the devil hunters.

The zombie powers turn the debtors and his minions into zombies who eventually tear every part of Denji’s body apart. His sad life comes to an end.

Luckily, a drop of blood spills into Pochita’s mouth, and we are taken into a flashback where Denji tells Pochita to take over his body when he dies, so Pochita won’t be hunted down by other devil hunters and can have a normal life.

We take a look at Denji’s inner world, where he asks Pochita if he successfully took over the body, to which Pochita actually ‘replies’ by saying that he will function as Denji’s heart and in exchange Denji has to live his dreams.

When he comes back to life, we see that all his injuries are healed and the organs that he sold are revived. His heart has Pochita’s tail coming out.

He pulls the tail and transforms into a humanoid hybrid who has chainsaws replacing his head and hands.

He brutally kills all the zombies, I mean it was well deserved, wasn’t it and also the zombie devil. After Pochita has healed and fused with him, he has become the Chainsaw Man.

The Mystery of Chainsaw Devil

The original Chainsaw Man was Pochita himself. He was much stronger and looked like Denji in his transformed state with 4 limbs and a head that resembles a chainsaw. He was much feared by all the devils.

We have not yet seen this in anime, but in the manga, we find out that the cute little canine form of Pochita is just a weakened state and his original form is much more similar to Denji when he is transformed.

Pochita was the Chainsaw Man himself and was much feared by all the Devils as the existence of devils killed by Pochita was completely erased. He was known as the ” Devil of Devils”.

We are yet to find out what caused him to weaken and change into a dog form later on in the manga.

About Chainsaw Man

Chainsaw Man is a manga series by Tatsuki Fujimoto that was serialized from December 2018-2020 and returned in July 2022 with a second part. The series also received an anime series by MAPPA.

The manga’s plot revolves around Denji, an orphaned boy who has to work as a devil hunter to make a living and pay off his father’s debt.

However, his pet devil, Pochita is killed on a mission. Denji wakes up to realize he and Pochita have become a single being, Chainsaw Man. If he does not want to get killed, he has to join the government and continue hunting demons.