Chainsaw Man Author Reveals The Inspiration Behind Denji And Reze’s Relationship

The announcement for the upcoming Chainsaw Man Reze arc movie caused quite a stir amongst the fandom. The series was trending on Twitter, with impressions never seen before since the Season 1 announcement.

But manga readers would know how popular Denji X Reze really is. As a die-hard fan of the series myself, It’s hard to forget the build up for the ship, with Denji visiting Reze at her store, going to school in the night, swimming naked, etc. etc.

And then came the shock. The moment when Denji realized he could not trust any girl just like that.

https://twitter.com/sentibeni/status/1248064718205530118?s=20

Manga author Tatsuki Fujimoto revealed in Jump Festa 2024, that the relationship between Denji and Reze was based on Kazuki Fuse and Kei Amemiya, the two main characters of the 1999 anime movie Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade.

 (Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade movie poster)

In this film, the heroine, Kei Amemiya, is actually a suicide bomber, and the mission of the MC is to prevent her from bombing a certain place.

This parallels Reze being a bomb devil and Denji preventing her from causing damage to society.

In Jin-Roh, the MC was caught up in a web of government conspiracies that have the power to determine the future of all of Japan. Similarly There’s a whole political drama in Chainsaw Man, with several countries trying to get a part of the Gun Devil. Denji was caught in Makima’s web and her mission to summon the Gun Devil, which killed so many Americans and folks around the world.

About Chainsaw Man:

Chainsaw Man is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Its first arc was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump from December 2018 to December 2020; its second arc began serialization in Shueisha’s Shōnen Jump+ online magazine in July 2022. Its chapters have been collected in 15 tankōbon volumes as of August 2023.

Season 1 of the anime, produced by MAPPA, was broadcast from October to December 2022.

Crunchyroll describes the overall plot of Chainsaw Man as follows:

Denji is a young boy who works as a Devil Hunter with the “Chainsaw Devil” Pochita. One day, as he was living his miserable life trying to pay off the debt he inherited from his parents, he got betrayed and killed. As he was losing his consciousness, he made a deal with Pochita, and got resurrected as the “Chainsaw Man”: the owner of the Devil’s heart.

Source: Twitter