JuJutsu Kaisen vs Chainsaw Man: A Thematic Comparison

 As any anime fan will tell you, JuJutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man are two of the hottest new anime of the last decade. Both took the world by storm with their fast-paced, kinetic action sequences, addicting soundtracks, fantastic opening sequences, hilarious character dialogue, subversion of Shonen tropes, and gripping combination of horror with action. 

Both series exist in what I’ve previously referred to as the “third generation” of Shonen. This generation—which liberally mixes horror with action on an unprecedented level and tends to have more mature subject matter—was created in response to the “Big Three” and their peers, which themselves were created in response to Dragon Ball, Fist of the North Star and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. 

This third generation has been host to a massive number of phenomenal manga, each of which have taken the world by storm in their own ways. Demon Slayer dominated the industry with an unprecedented level of success. My Hero became the most well-known “gateway anime” in the west, sliding perfectly into our superhero-obsessed pop culture. Black Clover, despite the criticism it's dub received, has been met with critical acclaim for its breakneck pace. Promised Neverland and Dr. Stone both completely revolutionized what a manga running in Shonen Jump can even be about. 

Any of those could have been the subject of their own videos, but I chose JuJutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man for one simple reason: they are ridiculously, almost stupidly similar in their core stories and setting. Both focus on humans fighting against supernatural beings powered by humanity’s negative emotions in the modern day, with the main characters using the same techniques as the monsters they fight to protect humanity. However, as both series evolve, their stories shift and become more about the conspiring superpowered human forces working against one-another. More than any other pair of Shonen manga, they feel like spiritual brothers, telling two stories with the same fundamental premise. 

In this essay, I’d like to explore what those similarities are, and how they could be used in the context of a crossover between the two franchises. 

Similarities and Thematic Parallels:

First, let’s begin by making a list of what characters parallel one-another 

• Yuji parallels Denji. Both are young men whose major arc comes from the relationship between living their best life, their moral compass, and a lack of choice. Denji’s ambitions for life start so low that the Public Safety Bureau feels like a dream, which makes it easy for him to accept that he’s essentially Makima’s slave, and he gives into this role completely when he kills Aki and is forced to remember killing his father. He only shoots higher and frees himself from Makima once it becomes clear she only ever cared for Pochita. Yuji wants to live a life surrounded by others and use his superhuman abilities to help people, which makes him oddly nonchalant with being executed as long as he gets to spend his remaining time helping people. However, this desire is constantly balanced out by the harm that Sukuna inflicts when he takes over, making Yuji’s life a constant tightrope. 

• Along the same lines, Sukuna parallels Pochita. Both are immensely powerful, ancient beings who are feared by their modern communities and who possess a young teenage boy, instilling him with powers beyond mortal comprehension. But whereas Sukuna is a malicious being to his core, and by all accounts is emerging as the ultimate antagonist of JJK; Pochita is a hero amidst a species of monsters, and he’s unambiguously a protector of humanity in the world of CSM. 

• Sukuna also parallels the Gun Devil. Both are feared beings whose power has been split into many smaller pieces (Gun Devil fragments and Sukuna’s twenty fingers), and each of the antagonists (Kenjaku and Makima) seek to control them. The difference is that whereas the Gun Devil is a fakeout antagonist who set in motion several major events of the story but is easily killed upon arriving; Sukuna genuinely is a major threat, being set up as the final antagonist of the entire series. 

• Gojo parallels Makima. Both are extremely powerful morally-gray mentors with a god complex who act as the power ceiling for this universe, and both series are written around this immensely powerful character, with their presence creating a equilibrium that keeps all other groups in-line, but everyone is gunning for a chance to take them out, even though the supposed “good guys.” This equilibrium starts stable, but gradually gets worse and worse as the story goes on, with all hell breaking loose in the arcs directly before and during their defeat/capture. Whereas Gojo is distrusted by the JuJutsu Elders because he’s a crass, rebellious guy who’s more interested in making the world a genuinely better place than kissing their asses and conforming to tradition; Makima is a genuine threat who sees humanity as lesser children that need to be coddled, controlled and disciplined. Both characters are also the only thing keeping their respective protagonists in-line, but again, for different reasons. Denji is ultimately a good guy with ridiculous potential, which he’s completely unaware of because he’s emotionally manipulated and gaslighted (gaslit?) by Makima into subservience. Meanwhile, Yuji’s own potential for destruction is constantly mitigated by Gojo being on standby 24/7. 

• Kenjaku also parallels Makima, to an extent. Both are ancient beings who see humanity as less than them, and both have the ability to control others. Makima can control anyone (Devil, human, Fiend or Hybrid), whereas Kenjaku using Suguru’s Cursed Technique can control other Curses. 

• Megumi parallels Aki. Both are young, serious men with long, dark hair who fight by summoning canine familiars, and after initial distrust, they come to trust the main characters and care for them like brothers. Both are also disciples of their respective power ceiling, with Makima implied to have ordered Aki to fall in love with her so she can command him easier, and Megumi having been effectively raised by Gojo. 

• Nobara parallels Power. Both are volatile, crass, unempathetic, loud-mouthed teenage girls whose signature moves involve hammers. Though they’re both pretty self-centered from start to finish, Power does learn some empathy and care for Denji and Aki, and Nobara does the same with Yuji, Megumi and Maki. 

• Toji parallels Quanxi. Both are superhuman assassins who (seemingly) lack any real powers but make up for it with speed and strength. One can also argue that Maki parallels Quanxi after the Perfect Preparation arc for a lot of the same reasons, with Maki explicitly getting compared to Toji in-universe on several occasions. Whichever way you slice it, the parallel is slightly lessened with the reveal that Quanxi is the Crossbow Hybrid, which would explain some of her powers. 

• The casts of both series live in the shadow of a great tragedy that occurred 12-13 years ago. Gojo lives with the guilt of letting the Star Plasma Vessel Rika die and Geto turning to the dark side, while Aki lives with the rage of watching the Gun Devil murder his family. 

Stipulations:

I keep thinking about how the events of both series would be altered if their cast was merged together, and if Curses and Devils were just made into the same thing. In the Chainsaw Man universe, Devils and Devil Hunters are known to the public, and the story is explicitly in an alternate universe. While JuJutsu Kaisen isn’t quite to that level, starting with the Shibuya arc, there has been less and less of an attempt to hide Cursed Energy from civilians. I believe that this would result in the general public knowing about Devils/Curses but not knowing what Cursed Energy is. 

If Devils and Curses were made into the same thing, it’s also not a stretch to have significant overlap between JuJutsu Society and the Public Safety Bureau, but whereas the latter is a public governmental organization, the former is a secret mystical group operating independently of any government. Thus, the two work together, with the Safety Bureau giving JuJutsu Society some credibility; many Devil Hunters are also JuJutsu Sorcerers, but it is not required. 

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The thought of a JuJutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man crossover is fascinating, in part due to how both series handle the strength of their characters. If we think about motivations logically, I think we can figure out how the power dynamics of this universe would work, particularly as they pertain to Gojo, Yuji, Makima, Denji and Kenjaku. 

• Makima makes clear in the Katana Man arc that she believes the world has no need for “necessary evils,” and that’s exactly what Yuji is: his death sentence has already been signed, he’s just trying to do as much good as possible before he expires. Considering the circumstances, she would almost certainly be siding with the JuJutsu Elders and trying to kill Yuji, and she only stops because of Gojo. 

• On the other hand, I think Gojo will be fascinated by Denji and want to keep the kid around. By the rules that we established earlier, Curses and Devils are the same thing, which would mean that Denji and Yuji are both hybrids. If Gojo took on Yuji as an apprentice, I think it’s safe to say that he would’ve wanted to take on Denji as well, but was unable to due to Makima exerting her influence and interfering. 

• Following that train of thought, that would mean that Makima would probably set her plans in motion and reveal herself as the Control Devil once Gojo is incapacitated during the Shibuya Incident. She’s not one to get her hands dirty, and in her quest to psychologically break Denji, she would probably send him to kill Yuji/Sukuna since he poses a major threat to her rule. However, even though she benefits from Gojo being imprisoned, she’s also fundamentally all about ending concepts like war, famine and hunger, so she almost certainly hates Kenjaku’s faction because of the concepts they represent—therefore, she will not side with him. 

• Gojo being incapacitated gives a major reason for the President of the United States to send the Gun Devil after Makima, like in canon, since the only man capable of stopping her was just imprisoned. 

• As someone who can manipulate and control other Curses (and Devils in this crossover), Kenjaku is a wild card. We saw how Geto was interested in controlling Rika during JuJutsu Kaisen 0, so I think it’s safe to say that he’ll want the exact same thing with the Gun Devil, and he can do so once the President unleashes it during the Gun Devil arc. He serves as a foil and counterpart to both Makima and Gojo, wanting to destroy whereas Makima wants to control and Gojo wants to teach. 

• International assassins and double-agents will probably be sent after Yuji once his vessel status is made public, which will happen after Shibuya. This will add even more new players to the Itadori Extermination arc, especially since it would make sense for Division 4 to be sent after him as another way for Makima to break Denji’s spirit. 

• The Culling Games will most likely be initiated just after Gojo’s imprisonment, but the only question is whether or not it will happen (or even can happen) before Makima’s defeat. This is a tough one, as Makima is crazy-powerful, but she’s also extremely slow-paced about this whole “take over the world thing” during CSM Part 1 since she doesn’t perceive anyone as a threat to her. This means that Kenjaku might still very well be able to use Mahito’s Soul Transfiguration on Master Tengen’s barrier and initiate the Culling Games, at which point I don’t know if she’ll be able to stop it. In any event, CSM Part 2 doesn’t seem to be set too long after Part 1 and it takes place in Tokyo, so that means that Denji, Yoshida, Yoru and Asa would probably get involved in the Culling Games as well. This works well because Part 2 has a major theme of analyzing how characters react when they acquire power (as ween with Asa and Yuko), and the Culling Games is all about awakening Cursed Techniques. 

So all in all, we’re starting to develop both a very specific power dynamic in this universe, as well as a general baseline for how the story will look. In this crossover universe, an unsettling equilibrium exists in Japan between Makima, Gojo, Kenjaku and the JuJutsu Elders / Japanese government. The Elders and government work alongside each other, but neither of them particularly like Gojo or Makima, while also acknowledging that each are a necessary evil to keep the other one in-line. Assassins and spies from other countries plot Gojo and Makima’s downfall, while Kenjaku operates within Japan with the intent of massacring humanity to advance their Cursed Energy potential. 

Both series will likely start independently of one-another and continue that way for a while; events like the Katana Man arc, Eternity Devil arc and Cursed Womb arc are short enough and small-scale enough that they can occur with no changes. 

But once the International Assassins arc of CSM occurs, I think the stakes become high enough that both casts of characters will be called in to help with various events. Knowing that Makima’s plan makes the most sense after Gojo’s imprisonment, we can construct a rough timeline of events: the International Assassins arc, the Shibuya arc, the Itadori Extermination arc, the Gun Devil arc, the Control Devil arc, the various concurrent Culling Games arcs, and the War Devil arc. 

The exact timeline of these events are open to be changed, but for the most part, that’s the logical order of events. I will say, plotting this out is very difficult because JuJutsu Kaisen is still ongoing and we have so little information about Denji’s abilities, Makima’s abilities or the nature of the Culling Game that it’s damn-near impossible to say for sure how the cast of CSM would act during the Culling Games. 

Gojo and Makima: Two Sides of the Same Coin:

In this crossover, Gojo and Makima will have a fascinating relationship. As the two strongest characters of this setting (sans entities like the Darkness Devil), their presence works as a constant form of checks-and-balances, and this also bleeds into their two proteges (Denji and Yuji), who are feared for their own power. Gojo keeps Makima in-line, while Makima keeps Gojo in-line. 

Gojo vs Makima is also one of the most hotly-debated anime matchups of the decade, seeing as the two both possess a massive assortment of powers and could only be defeated in their own series due to an extremely specific sequence of events that their opponent won’t have access to. (Makima doesn’t have access to the Prison Realm to defeat Gojo, and Gojo can’t beat Makima because he doesn’t love her and thus his attacks will still be registered as “attacks,” unlike Denji eating her.) This means that, in a potential brawl (which would probably happen if we crossed these universes over), the two would rely on sheer firepower and no gimmicks. 

When you put it like that, it’s very hard to tell who would win. Makima has a crazy amount of firepower due to possessing so many Devils and using the Angel Devil’s weaponry, all while regenerating infinitely after each death and being able to control anyone she deems inferior to her. Gojo has an impenetrable defense with Infinity, the ability to erase matter with Hollow Purple, an automatic Reverse Cursed Technique that heals everything thrown at him, and an Expansion Domain that floods the opponent’s brain with infinite knowledge. It’s a classic unstoppable force vs immovable object, where Gojo can almost never be hurt and Makima can get back up every time she’s hurt. The two were specifically designed to be unkillable in their home universes except for one specific condition, so when you remove those conditions and pit them against one-another, it’s bound to get chaotic. 

Makima is explicitly able to control people that she considers inferior to her (both humans and Devils, as well as Curses in this setting), and she considers all humans inferior by default, hence how she can control almost anyone. However, she might not be able to do this against Gojo. Considering how crazy strong he is, it’s very possible she can’t control him, and he’s the only person this applies to.