Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man or Demon Slayer: Which to Read First

These three get recommended together so often that people assume they are interchangeable. They are not. They share demons and a body count and very little else.

Demon Slayer is the gentlest of the three

Koyoharu Gotouge’s series is a straight quest: a boy whose family is killed sets out to cure his sister. The emotional logic is simple and the fights are drawn beautifully. It runs 23 volumes and it is finished, which among long shonen is worth something on its own.

Start here if you are new to manga, or buying for a teenager. The complete box set is $143.98 for the whole run.

Jujutsu Kaisen is the most complicated

Gege Akutami built a magic system with rules, and then spends the series testing them. Characters who look important die. The power scaling is argued about online more than any other current series, which tells you how much of it is systems rather than sentiment.

It is also the hardest of the three to buy piecemeal, because the arcs do not line up neatly with the volume sets. Astrozon lists several ranges — Vol. 11–15 at $47.99 among them — so check which stretch you actually need before ordering.

Chainsaw Man is the strangest

Tatsuki Fujimoto writes like he is not sure the series will be renewed, which makes it unpredictable in a way the other two never are. The protagonist wants a normal life and bread with jam. The horror is genuinely horrible. The humour is genuinely funny. It does not resolve neatly.

Part 1 is self-contained across 11 volumes, and the complete collection through Vol. 19 is $175.99 if you want the run so far in one box.

Side by side

If you only pick one

Demon Slayer. Not because it is the best of the three — that argument has no end — but because it finishes, and a first manga that finishes teaches you whether you like the format before you commit to something running indefinitely.

All three sit on the Dark Fantasy Action shelf.