Chainsaw Man Gets Studio Ghibli’s Approval

The R-rated ultraviolence of Chainsaw Man might be the last thing you'd associate with Studio Ghibli, but whoever's running Ghibli's Twitter account happens to be a fan of Tatsuki Fujimoto's Shonen Jump manga.

The Twitter account @nagayama_koharu, which claims to belong to "third-year middle school student" who likes Fujimoto's series Fire Punch and Chainsaw Man but is alleged to be connected to Fujimoto himself, tweeted about Goro Miyazaki's film Earwig and the Witch in a message that roughly translates to "I saw Earwig and the Witch today. It was so fun, I wanted it to keep going for another 40 minutes." Studio Ghibli's account quote-tweeted this message with a response translating to, "Thank you, Koharu-chan, and please give our regards to your older brother as well. Chainsaw Man was very good."

It's rare for Studio Ghibli to comment on anime and manga properties outside of its own. The studio's two living co-founders, the director Hayao Miyazaki and producer Toshio Suzuki, will sometimes discuss anime from other major auteurs they've collaborated with, such as Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii and Neon Genesis Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno, but in general, both men have been upfront about not keeping up with modern anime trends. In fact, Hayao Miyazaki's broad dismissals of the state of the anime industry have become something of a meme. In that context, Studio Ghibli giving out an endorsement of Chainsaw Man, which is set to receive an anime adaptation from studio MAPPA, is a big deal.

Chainsaw Man tells the story of Denji, a poor teenager who hunts devils for the yakuza to scrape by. To save his own life, he fuses with his devil dog Denji to become the half-devil Chainsaw Man and is subsequently recruited by the government's Public Safety Devil Hunters. The manga has been praised for its incredible artwork, and MAPPA looks to be aiming for the highest-quality adaptation possible, even going so far as to promise better pay and benefits for the series' animators following several controversies about the working conditions on other MAPPA anime. Part 1 of the manga was completed last December, with Part 2 currently in the works for Shonen Jump+.

Earwig and the Witch is Studio Ghibli's first CG-animated film and its first feature-length film since 2014's When Marnie Was There. Directed by Goro Miyazaki and based on the book by Diana Wynne Jones, the movie received mostly negative reviews but has found defenders within the anime industry, including Hayao Miyazaki himself.

No release date has been announced yet for the Chainsaw Man anime. Earwig and the Witch is now available streaming on HBO Max.

Source: Twitter, via Anime News Network