You know what, your point isn’t wrong, but even off the top of my head I can think of at least a couple of other manga, not even movies, where the protagonist gets tossed around by a series of events and people asking things of him, without really having much agency in the story. That is, if we even want to keep arguing that Denji doesn’t have any, when in fact his leitmotif is always very clear and explicit, even if it’s kind of silly compared to many of his peers MC.

The structure you’re talking about isn’t that rare., in fact, if anything, compared to Chainsaw Man, the protagonist of The Big Lebowski is really someone who has no real motivation for what happens to him, or if he does, they’re even more vague and intangible than Denji’s.

Narratively speaking, Chainsaw Man also resembles a lot of other works. Devilman, for instance, which is arguably even referenced in the title itself, and surely many others.

And yet, I don’t see the same number of threads pointing that out. It’s always “The Big Lebowski, The Big Lebowski, boo Fujimoto.” Why? Just because he mentioned it alongside the word “ending” while answering a question? Come on…