Chainsaw Man‘s manga might be over, but that doesn’t mean its hero can’t make a cheeky cameo in the manga of one of Tatsuki Fujimoto’s former assistants. Such is the case with the latest volume of Dandadan, wherein Yukinobu Tatsu drew Denji’s brief encounter with its resident alien, Vamola.
Shortly after Dandadan manga editor Shihei Lin issued a post on his official X/Twitter account about fans not wanting to miss out on the release of its 23rd volume, writing, “Don’t miss the bonus manga featuring an unexpected appearance by ‘that character!'” coupled with an emoji of a shark, fans thought they were in for a late April Fools joke when images of Denji in Yukinobu’s art style started to circulate online. Turns out it was no prank: Denji makes an appearance in the bonus chapter of Dandadan.
Dansaw Man!
Denji and Beam fight the Typhoon human in the Dandadan Volume 23 extra pic.twitter.com/YN3VzYvAna— ᑭᗩᖇᗩ? | HAIL TO THE KOUKI!! 🪰 (@Planktonism) April 2, 2026
The bonus chapter sees Denji and Beam make an appearance midway through their Sharknado-esque battle with the Bomb and the Typhoon Devil in Reze Arc. Coincidentally, a strong air current places them smack dab in the middle of Dandadan chapter 199, where the gang engages in a wild aerial battle inside a plane with a typhoon human, the Mongolian Death Worm, and airborne sharks. Translation: a perfect convergence of the two manga’s wild battles.
While Denji initially wants nothing to do with whatever the gang in Dandadan has going on, he quickly decides to get involved once he locks eyes with Vamola from the window of the airplane. Never change, Denji. The bonus chapter ends with Denji and Beam ending up in the ocean as a beautiful lifeguard helps them ashore.
Vamola isnt the friend Denji wants but the friend he needs. No agendas, no mental issues, jus fun vibes for the love of the game pic.twitter.com/FakaizRG5n
— 𝕍𝕁 ☆ (@VjDontMiss) April 3, 2026
The whole chapter came as a huge surprise to fans, prompting them to wish that Denji had become friends with the Dandadan crew. Unfortunately, while the bonus chapters of Dandadan are mostly canon, the two series meeting is a bit of an impossibility when you take into consideration how impossible it is. You see, Chainsaw Man takes place between the years 1997 and 1999. Dandadan, meanwhile, takes place somewhere in the 2010s. We know this because Okarun shows off a tabloid with Barack Obama on the cover. Still, that doesn’t mean this dream scenario isn’t any less special. If anything, Denji’s appearance in Chainsaw Man is a full-circle moment since Tatsu started off as an assistant on Fire Punch and Chainsaw Man. Now, fans get to see what Denji would look like if he were in Dandadan‘s equally wacky universe alongside Tatsu’s own fan art of Chainsaw Man Part 2’s Yoru.
The cameo was likely a proud moment for Fujimoto, who often treated his high-key impressive lineage team of assistants. Among them are:
- Hell’s Paradise mangaka Yuji Kaku, who was an assistant on Fire Punch
- Spy x Family mangaka Tatsuya Endo, who was an assistant on Chainsaw Man (and Attack on Titan)
- To Strip the Flesh mangaka Oto Toda, who was an illustrator for Fujimoto’s one-shot manga, Just Listen To The Song
- Centuria mangaka Tohru Kuramori, who was an assistant on Fujimoto’s one-shot manga Goodbye Eri, and a couple of chapters of Dandadan
- And, of course, Tatsu, who was an assistant on Fire Punch and Chainsaw Man
As IGN notes, what makes Fujimoto’s relationship with his assistants so special, despite it being a trend for mangaka to start out by helping out bigger, more established fish in the industry, is that he treated it as a mentor-mentee relationship. If anything, they were all pals who’d go out for beers and encourage each other to include their (very shared) type of women as the leading heroines in their respective series.
“Rather than feeling frustrated, I feel rushed. [Kaku and Tatsu] started the series when I was taking a break, and these stories are so interesting and the drawings are amazing,” Fujimoto told Rolling Stone Japan (according to a translation by Twitter user@kylescouter). “So I think, ‘Gah! I shouldn’t take a rest anymore. I liked [Hell’s Paradise] so much that I thought I had to draw as well as [Kaku] and create an interesting story. So I practice drawing a lot and watched movies I didn’t really like to get more input. Now I see Dandadan the same way I did [Hell’s Paradise] back then.”
This isn’t the first time Chainsaw Man has made a cameo in other manga. Famously, My Hero Academia mangaka Kohei Horikoshi drew Denji in a crowded hero shot in the manga’s 259th chapter during the series’ Paranormal Liberation War arc. Granted, Studio Bone’s anime adaptation of the panel took some creative liberties to reimagine Denji so as not to violate copyright by having him appear in an entirely different anime. Chainsaw Man would also make an appearance in the 106th chapter of Oshi no Ko‘s manga (as well as the seventh episode of the anime’s third season) as a trending topic on Twitter. This cameo comes in large part to the manga’s illustrator, Mengo Yokoyari, who is a huge fan of the series and posts fan art of Fujimoto’s characters on her X/Twitter account whenever she isn’t busy drawing new chapters for Aka Akasaka’s manga. It even got to the point that she took a brief hiatus to recover from the emotional damage of her favorite character’s death.
Chainsaw Man’s appearance in the bonus Dandadan is further proof that the manga’s influence will likely continue to be felt in the industry for years to come. That influence is also reverberating in Western comic books, too. Look no further than the already rad Absolute Batman, referencing the manga’s volume one cover art in a variant issue cover by artist Clay Mann. Whatever’s next for Fujimoto in his next work, the legacy he leaves behind with Chainsaw Man is already proving to have a long afterlife in pop culture. For now, fans can look forward to Mappa’s second season of the anime, which is now in production.
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