Chainsaw Man: Buddy Stories is a fun collection of short stories set in the Chainsaw Man universe and features characters from the series. If you enjoy the manga and anime, then this is a fun, short read that you're likely to enjoy. The translation is a little bit clunky, but overall it's an enjoyable read. Thank you to NetGalley and VIZ Media for the ARC!

Thank you to NetGalley, VIZ Media, VIZ Media LLC, Tatsuki Fujimoto (art), and Sakaku Rishikawa (story) for the opportunity to read Chainsaw Man: Buddy Stories in exchange for an honest review.

This is a light novel consisting of four short stories in the Chainsaw Man universe. I will be giving each story its own individual description, review, and rating, and averaging the ratings for an overall score. According to an early line in the book, these stories take place starting 10 days after Power and Denji move in to live with Aki.

"The Great Detective Power and Her Assistant Denji"
Rating: 3.5/5
In this short of about 60 pages, Power shares her obsession with a TV show in which a magician is also a detective. When called to look into a possible devil hunt related to a missing persons case, Power takes on the role of a magician detective, treating Denji as her assistant in the hunt.

I felt like this story had a lot of potential, but ended up being a mosh of dialogue that was all over the place. Getting a bit more of Power's characterization was nice, but the story fell a bit flat. The air of mystery revolving around the disappearing hunters does have its own intrigue though.

"Nine Years' Savor"
Rating: 3/5
This story features Kishibe (the older smoker dude) and Quanxi (the chick with the eye patch trying to steal Denji's heart). It touches on the relationship, though a bit rough, of Kishibe and Quanxi. They teach Minami how to hunt devil's with the classic advice of "don't" die." There is a strange mannequin aspect to some of the devils in this story, giving it a bit of a nice creep factor.

This story kind of didn't do much for me. I wasn't super invested, but somehow kept moving forward. I don't really care for these characters or what they are going through, but there is some merit to showing this as a back story or side story for characters we don't get much of that for in the show.

"The Day They Became Buddies"
Rating: 4/5
This story features Aki. While he is on a trip with Denji and Power to his family grave, he reminisces on when he became a devil hunter. We get a glimpse of his first hunt and how it was in a graveyard, the connection to his current musings as they are going to his family grave site. He dives into a part of his story where he and Himeno are trying to find a fiend targeting only the residents of a specific apartment complex.

This one had more attention and entertainment value than the other stories to this point. It actually felt like watching a side-story episode and didn't have the all-over-the-place feel that the other two stories had. A decent adventure of a read featuring Aki's past. I like seeing his early interactions with Himeno as well. Having her in the story was fun.

"Enoshima, Island of Dreams"
Rating: 4/5
This story features the main crew: Denji, Power, Aki, and Makima. Theya are on the way to Enoshima for a beach-side vacation (the fun R&R episode every anime must have for viewer enjoyment).

With ice cream escapades, sight-seeing, and jokes all around, this story makes for quite the comedic tale. Probably the best story of the four (except the end; you'll just have to see).

The franchise I didn't need it.

First of all, the translation was bad. and the story was a little bit cringey. Not really enjoy it at all.

I was expecting this to be a manga, but it's translated short stories set in the Chainsaw Man universe. The translation seemed kind of clunky. Not for me, unfortunately.

This was not quite what I was hoping for, though I think the translation may be to blame for a lot of my experience. It felt clunky at times and made it impossible to really get absorbed into these stories. It's fun enough, though, and diehard fans (especially younger ones) will probably love it.