Was Chainsaw Man A FLOP??

There was an annoucement a few weeks back. Apparently Mappa considers Chainsaw Man an "underwhelming success". In other words, it did less well than they expected it but it returned it's entire investment. Since it's pretty much a passion project, there will definitely be a season 2.

To answer the title:  No, it was not a flop. The CEO of MAPPA has confirmed it was a financial success. However, he went on to say it did not perform as well as they had expected. MAPPA was obviously hoping for it to reach the same popularity as JJK, but it failed to do so. That does not mean we're not getting a second season. It made money, and more importantly, the series is 100% funded by MAPPA. There is a thing called sunk cost. MAPPA has invested a lot into the series so far, and even if it didn't make as big of a profit as they'd hoped, it wouldn't make financial sense to drop the IP entirely. Instead, they'll likely make changes to the direction/style in season 2 in an effort to address the complaints and boost popularity.

Every time a popular anime doesn’t get a second season, it’s because it was sacrificed to an eldritch god to create a new generic isekai adaptation.

Yeah I think 12 episodes hurt CSM a lot, it would've been much better to do 24 episodes so it's airing for longer which will keep discussions going and keep the hype up. Hopefully the wait for S2 is not long.

It better get a season 2. Reze shows up and her arc is one of the best.

I'm with Connor, weekly updates are ultimately better. Anticipation builds, you feel like you're waiting for something great on a specific day, a reward after a shitty work day or something, something positive, and you KNOW will give you some joy. You feel more involved with the series emotionally and mentally, it is a much healthier model to follow than "release everything on day 1"

Chainsaw man doesnt really lend itself to being as stretched out as jjk, but its quality speaks for itself. I think the part that kinda hurts it is that it was only 12 episodes and the second half of part 1 is the best part and puts it over the top in terms of "this is one of the best shounen mangas up there" so when we get that second season undoubtedly well be seeing it reach the heights of popularity

Connors makes an actual good take and somehow hes the weird one of the 3?! 100% Jojo should have been weekly like it has always been

These are the 20 minutes where conner has displayed more intelligence then ever before in his life.

Junko Enoshima is such a fun character, with a great design and is indeed pretty popular. Junko literally won the guinness record to the most popular game character for cosplay in 2017.

Dropping an episode a week is the best for making a community of fans. You get to discuss each episode as they air, predict where they might go, etc. Dropping the whole series to binge not only makes getting spoiled easy, but it also leaves people with nothing to talk about except “is it getting a S2?” or “now we wait a year.”

Although I do hate waiting a week for the next episode, I do really enjoy the community aspect of it, like everybody's going at the same pace and watching it together

Long-time Shouen fans liked CSM because it was so different, but at the end of the day, the typical Shouen format sells more, especially in Japan.

CSM is definitely the more boundary pushing nasty freak sibling to JJK. I get the vibe that JJK is going to continue being popular with general audiences but CSM feels like the type of thing that inspires creatives and we're going to feel it's impact and influence on new anime in the years to come.

12 Episodes works for Slice of Life type shows generally, but for action-based shows or carefully written plots like Realist Hero it definitely needs more than 12 episodes

I have a hard time comprehending the hate for Chainsaw Man in Japan. CSM was praised in the west (except for a minority yelling about CG) but for some reason it seems that Japanese viewers saw it pretty negatively. From petitions to change the director and voice actors to complaints about it being too cinematic, I just don't get the complaints from the Japanese fans.

Damn Connor hit the nail on the head. I think it boils down to Jujutsu Kaisen just being better suited for a general audience. Aka people who only watch anime like Naruto and FMA.

I agree with Joey that waiting is painful but weekly model is SO much better from a business standpoint. Way more relevancy and popularity by doing so. I mean ffs, that's literally why One Piece and Boruto ran for so long when their pacing is dogshit. Because it keeps it relevant. Now imagine if it's a long running season but it's actually well animated and well paced from start to finish.

I went to a con like 2 months ago, and like 50% of the cosplays were Genshin lol (only 30% were from seasonal/ currently popular anime, about 10% were from 90s anime, and the rest 10% were Vocaloid or some random American movie/series stuff)

idk why it's trendy to hate on popular shows now, chainsaw man was very good and is incredibly popular, it will receive a season 2 and many more to come.