The following contains spoilers for the Chainsaw Man manga.
Chainsaw Man is a brutal, dark and fascinating anime/manga series that both follows and totally deconstructs the shonen formula. Instead of fighting demons with a hidden vulnerable side or pirates, protagonist Denji, aka Chainsaw Man, fights devils that embody humanity’s worst fears. These creatures are tightly linked to the human condition, which defines how they think and act.
Any devil’s appearance and supernatural ability will prey on one of humanity’s greatest fears, ranging from the shuffling undead to eternity itself and even darkness and war. This makes Chainsaw Man’s devils loosely similar to Pennywise the Dancing Clown from IT, another supernatural predator that draws inspiration from its victims’ darkest nightmares. However, the devils and Pennywise have markedly different approaches to this insidious strategy.
How Fear Becomes a Devil’s and Pennywise’s Best Weapon
By nature, many fictional villains inspire fear in their enemies and can easily intimidate them, from the towering cyborg Darth Vader to the eerie Nazgul to anime antagonists like the helmeted All For One or the body horror villain Orochimaru. Villains are scary because of their appearance, violence and evil intentions, but they rarely weaponize that fear. Exceptions include the Sternritter As Nodt in Bleach, but the devils of Chainsaw Man and Pennywise from IT take this strategy to a new level. They don’t just happen to be scary — they do it on purpose to mentally destabilize their victims before any physical acts are undertaken. A smart fighter will learn and exploit the enemy’s weaknesses, both mental and physical, and devils and Pennywise both do this with humanity’s worst fears.
Even the strongest or smartest enemy can be rendered helpless if a devil or Pennywise overwhelms them with terror, bringing their worst nightmares to life. Pennywise, a psychic shapeshifter, will learn a target’s worst fears and assume a form to match, while devils represent broad, general fears that most humans will at least find disturbing. Each devil represents a unique fear and acts accordingly, with some being more potent than others. The massive gun devil, for example, embodies the entire world’s intense fear of gun violence, and it has a huge, powerful body to match. The darkness devil, meanwhile, is a twisted horror that would terrify any devil hunter, and recent manga chapters even introduce humanoid devils based on war and famine. Those are things that any human might fear, even without any direct personal experience.
All this marks Chainsaw Man devils and Pennywise as apex predators that use cunning to get the edge before a battle even begins, and this is especially true of devils. They are not wild animals who belong to a natural food chain — they are creatures from Hell itself that live to prey on humans and make deals with them. Devils and humanity have an intertwined fate, with devils having the upper hand due to their fear factor and supernatural powers. The eternity devil exploited everyone’s fear of an infinite trap and endless hallways like the “backrooms” Internet phenomenon, and it worked. Pennywise, meanwhile, can only survive on human flesh, and it marinates that flesh with the succulent taste of intense fear. That terror also makes a victim much easier for Pennywise to stalk, corner and overpower.
How Pennywise and Devils Differ as Fear-Inducing Predators
Pennywise and Chainsaw Man devils both understand that their human prey is much easier to capture and devour when fear is used as an intangible but effective weapon to start the hunt. That said, these two parties differ somewhat in their methods, primarily driven by the narrative needs of both Chainsaw Man and IT. As a shonen anime series, Chainsaw Man borrows the “monster hunter” concept found in D.Gray-Man, Fire Force and Demon Slayer to give the story some structure, complete with official devil hunters and a cohesive combat system. There must be many devils to match, and they’d all be interchangeable and forgettable if they used fear the same way.
Each devil therefore represents just one of humanity’s worst fears and has just one form to match. This makes each fight scene easier to write and follow, and it allows Denji and the viewers to slowly explore the world one foe at a time. Viewers can think of humanity’s most obvious fears and hope to find a cool devil to match. Within Chainsaw Man’s universe, devils are dangerous since they are so numerous, but as a drawback, some of them can’t use fear effectively. For example, some devils represent very specific fears that would terrorize some humans but not bother others quite as much, such as the goofy tomato devil or the bat devil.
Inversely, Pennywise the Dancing Clown is just one creature acting alone, but it can become any fear whatsoever, making it a one-monster army. Pennywise doesn’t even have to guess anyone’s fears because it has psychic powers to understand a person’s fears, insecurities and more. That leads to a more intimate experience where Pennywise can prey on Billy’s grief about losing Georgie or Mike’s horrific memories of the Black Spot club getting burned down by a local hate group. The entire story of IT became nightmarishly personal and intimate as a result, pitting the Losers Club against not just Pennywise but also their own inner demons. By overcoming these, the Losers can also defeat their sole external demon, finally vanquishing fear from their lives.