There is so much more to him.
Summary:
- Denji may seem perverted and annoying at first.
- He’s very different from typical anime perverts.
- Denji breaks a lot of shounen tropes.
When you first start watching Chainsaw Man, there are a lot of things that can put you off, and we have to admit that Denji is one of them.
He comes off as terribly perverted with his constant phrases about how much he’d like to touch boobs and see naked girls. It feels like Denji’s dream is just to have a girlfriend and do whatever he wants. But it’s not like that.
Denji is very respectful
Yes, he’s just as horny as a regular teenage boy, there’s no point in denying that. However, Denji is not like the most perverted anime characters. He understands what consent is and won’t even touch a girl unless she tells him or shows him that he can.
On top of that, Denji seems to be very loyal. He chose Makima as the target of his affections, and it was obvious that he didn’t care about anyone else the way he cared for her. Even if she was just playing him.
In one of the episodes, Denji says that dirty things only feel nice when you do them with someone you care about. And it shows that despite his horniness, Denji has a true romantic inside.
Trope breaking
Besides, Denji’s desires and personality are very unusual for a typical shounen anime protagonist. We see dozens of heroes trying to save the world and stop the big evil. But Denji is not like that. He’s ready to stop the bad guys if he has a chance to be praised and rewarded by Makima.
Fans think that there’s deep trauma behind Denji’s behavior. He’s been living a miserable life with little to no joy. He has experienced all types of horrid things.
Denji was alone, broken and broke, he never had nice things. His life taught him not to dream big and focus on something that’s actually manageable. We don’t know if he’d ever dreamed of greatness, but fans love to think that he did.
But then life kept punching him in the face and making him suffer. So Denji learned to know his place and submit. He decided that having a pretty girlfriend and eating tasty food is enough for him to be happy.
It’s not because he’s stupid or a pervert, it’s because he’s learned to adapt to the things happening around him. And it’s extremely heartbreaking that Denji had to become this way.