2025 is set to be a big year for Chainsaw Man, even with the brutal anime franchise not planning to release a second season anytime soon. Next month, the first film of the shonen series, Chainsaw Man The Movie: The Reze Arc, will arrive in North America on October 24th. Unfortunately, despite this major occurrence for Denji and his devil-hunting comrades, not everything is going well in the world created by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Chainsaw Man – The Compilation is a two-part movie summarizing the first season of the anime adaptation, and MAPPA made some big changes that one anime director isn’t too thrilled to see.
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Kazuomi Koga has been a big director in the anime world, having been a part of some major examples of the medium including, but not limited to, Pokemon, The Devil is a Part-Timer, Golden Kamuy, Fire Force, Re:Zero – Starting Life in Another World, and Kubo Won’t Let Me Be Invisible. In the recent Chainsaw Man compilation films, reportedly, series director Nakayama Ryu’s name wasn’t listed in the credits. While MAPPA hasn’t released a statement regarding why the name was absent, Koga was more than willing to share their thoughts on the matter via social media.
“In some compilation edition, the previous director’s name was neatly erased, and with cuts, re-recorded audio, and other modifications, it really means that animation directors of original anime works don’t have moral rights or the right to maintain integrity, right… Regardless of the TV version’s quality, even with single-company funding, doing that means that studio is a company that doesn’t protect its directors, so I wouldn’t want to work there. I think if this were a live-action foreign or Japanese film, it would be quite a big issue, but with anime, that kind of thing doesn’t happen, right? I also think not crediting the original TV staff in the credits shows a lack of respect, and overall, it’s pretty much over, isn’t it?”
Chainsaw Man’s Return
Studio MAPPA has produced some wildly controversial headlines in recent years, with the stories from animators on Jujutsu Kaisen season two sharing the harsh conditions they experienced in turning around the series in rapid succession. This practice has been a dire one in the anime industry, and many fans are still hoping that things will change for animators moving forward.
Earlier this year, we here at ComicBook.com had the opportunity to chat with MAPPA president Manabu Otsuka about the future of Chainsaw Man, who isn’t sure how the anime will move forward format-wise. “We don’t know if this is going to be the trend moving forward, that we don’t know. I think what we are going to do, like with did with Reze, is look at the next story and decide from there. If the next arc works better as a film or if it works better as a television season, we’ll decide on that but we haven’t reached that decision as of yet.”
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Image courtesy of Paramount+
