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Only five years after the manga first started, Chainsaw Man just continues to get better. The series — now also an anime adapted by MAPPA — was created by Tatuski Fujimoto, a talented manga artist known for his works like Fire Punch, and a growing number of excellent one-shots.
Chainsaw Man definitely falls within the shonen category, following the reliable guide map that’s made other titles like Naruto and Demon Slayer so popular; our protagonist has something about him that makes him extraordinary in his universe (in Denji’s case, the powers of the Chainsaw Devil), he is associated with a special organization that can help him achieve his goals, he makes close companions throughout his journey, etc. The formula exists for a reason, but most fans will agree the best shonen series find ways to play around with these guidelines and subvert the formula.
While in many ways Denji is a quintessential shonen hero, he’s also not one at all. Denji, unlike protagonists like Naruto and Tanjiro, doesn’t have a noble goal like saving the world or becoming the strongest; his goals are simple. He really just wants to have sex with a pretty girl (queue the many Chainsaw Man Readers commenting on the Viz website, “he’s just like me for real!”) and live a comfortable life. Denji’s simple-mindedness makes a lot of sense when you realize just how young the main character of Chainsaw Man really is.
Denji’s age in Chainsaw Man, explained
During the Public Safety saga, Denji reveals he’s 16 years old. Once Denji is recruited as one of Public Safety’s devil hunters, he goes out to a restaurant that serves alcohol with his coworkers. While most of his coworkers have drinks with their food, Denji lets them know he’s too young to drink, shocking some of his companions with how young he actually is.
In some ways, Denji gives off an air of being an adult because of how self-reliant he became during his rough upbringing but in other ways (read: how horny he is), he really is just a teenager. There’s some debate over his age because he mentions that he “thinks” he’s 16, but there’s no reason to believe he’s not that age; if anything, the way he talks about age just emphasizes how hard his life with Pochita was. Denji was too busy trying to pay off his father’s debt and stay alive to even go to school, let alone pay attention to his birthday.
While the anime has only adapted the first four arcs of the Public Safety Saga, Denji has aged slightly in the manga. It acknowledges Denji’s birthday toward the end of the Public Safety Saga, so he is now 17 years old as of the Academy Saga. His 17th birthday was, uh, not the best (Power fans will agree it can’t get much worse) so hopefully his 18th fares better. After all, Pochita knows that he deserves a break for once.