Chainsaw Man #53-61 (part one)

It's time for the next volume of "Chainsaw Man."

With Bomb Girl defused, the main plot is overdue to advance. The mass of Gun Devil material that Public Safety has accumulated has begun moving, and to all appearances it will lead them to the Gun Devil's own location (assuming that "its location" doesn't just turn out to be other masses gathered by other countries' devil-hunting agencies).

Even if it's not quite that, I'm pretty sure that other countries are going to be relevant in whatever happens next, one way or another. One of the things that the Bomb Girl arc did very effectively is inform the reader that the Japanese government isn't the only relevant one to this story, and that devil-hunting is tied up intricately with geopolitics. There's probably a reason the manga did this when it did.

As far as the characters go, things have been looking pretty grim. The circumstances of Reze's death have left Denji completely in the dark, without any closure or valuable insights, and more hopelessly under Makima's thumb than ever. Aki has been making some major breakthroughs and growing as a person through his relationships with Kobeni, Angel, and the others, but his remaining lifespan is so short that he might not get a chance to do much with that growth. Denji is being warned about a dark secret within him by Pochita. Aki has been warned of a truly dreadful fate ahead of him by his new patron, the Future Devil. Power is back from her prolonged fiend-maintenance session, so that's cool and all, and Beam will probably continue to be a delight, but as far as our leads go things are grim.

Overall, an ominous, uncomfortable feeling prevails as the conclusion of the Great Gunny Hunt draws near.


Heh, man. The very first page of #53, "In a Dream," hits on most of the exact same things I just mentioned.

The significance of Reze being associated with coffee - on account of her cover persona's employment - didn't occur to me until this page. Coffee was one of the meagre creature comforts that Denji once fantasized about back when he was having his bad fanfic origin story, and one of the perks of employment that Makima lured him with. Now it's going to evoke painful memories of loneliness and betrayal at best, and outright trigger him at worst. The cats that come with the City Mouse's territory, Meowy notwithstanding.

It doesn't stop with this page, either. While they do have some twists I wouldn't have expected, these next couple of issues pretty much go down the checklist of things I was hoping would be addressed.

One of those unexpected (but highly explanatory) curveballs is the timetable provided for Gunny.

However that bullet casing katamari of theirs is moving, it isn't moving fast. Figuring out its destination is expected to take at least a few months, assuming that said destination isn't a moving target itself. So, basically, Gunny can happen whenever the author feels like making it happen. Legit! I respect this, it's a rock solid in-universe justification for the author to move things at his desired pace without having to nail that pace down yet.

So, in the meantime, there's fallout from the Reze incident that needs cleaning up. Both personal, and political. The latter of which is already dovetailing into a new set of deadly struggles coming up for Denji. Makima suspects (and I'm inclined to believe her in this rare case) that Reze's decision to make her battle with Denji a big, attention-getting public rampage after she failed to grab him quickly was deliberate. We learn that Public Security has done a good job of minimizing Denji's news exposure in the past, even in cases where it proved difficult (like his battle with the Bat and Leech devils where he threw an occupied car at them). At long last however, Japanese J. Jonah Jameson has caught the scent.

If Reze couldn't recover the Powertool Puppy from Denji's chest, her secondary objective may have been to make the Chainsaw Man's existence known to the rest of the world. Thereby allowing other countries to send assassins and/or headhunters of their own. Of course, the REASON why the Soviet government would see that as a consolation prize is a lot murkier. In Makima's own words:

Now that right there is telling.

The Soviets would rather that any other country besides Japan have the Chainsaw Devil in their possession.

Well, maybe. Is there a second (third? fourth?) Russo-Japanese war on the horizon?

Or, was Makima being both honest and literal when she said that it was her, specifically, that the Soviets object to, rather than the Japanese government? She didn't say "as long as it's not Japan." She said "as long as it's not ME." That could be a deception, or just narcissism talking, but it could also be the truth.

Reze did seem to have been warned about Makima specifically, based on her reaction when Denji told her about his infatuation. It seems like a bunch of foreign intelligence agencies know things about Makima that the reader does not. And like this knowledge is a big enough deal that it actually effects their countries' diplomatic posture toward Japan, to at least some degree.

I'm actually getting the impression that the Cold War might not be a thing anymore in this timeline, despite the USSR still being around. Heck, the lack of a Cold War might be the reason why the USSR is still around. The devils' appearance on Earth seems to have given national governments more important things to worry about than which mode of production they're going to pursue, and the geopolitical chess players are divided by something else instead of capitalism vs. communism.

Well, we'll probably learn more soon, because this conversation is followed by a montage of magic-using assassins from all around the world being told about their new assignment from the respective governments.

The United States is sending - possibly along with others - a trio of goofy Asian-American brothers from New York City. These three have survived everything together, or so they claim, up to and including the Gun Devil destroying their family home and orphaning them in its infamous rampage. They're sure that compared to living through Gunny, nothing that this chainsaw person or his spooky boss can throw at them will be any sweat.

From the tribal hinterlands of...somewhere in inland Asia? I'm guessing USSR territory, but it could also be China or India's neighborhood...we have a psychopathic wilderness survivalist who sees no difference between hunting animals for their body parts and doing the same to humans.

Or perhaps not so psychopathic, given his apparent motive.

In just a few panels, we get the impression that these people really are desperate, and likely from a culture on the brink of annihilation by whichever government they're unfortunate enough to exist within the borders of. The assassin's devil-hunting family member or girlfriend or whatever apparently having a shortened lifespan similar to Aki's that he wants her to get to savor is just one more reason to not care about anyone outside of their monkeysphere.

On a similarly tragic note, China is sending an internationally infamous (Makima already knows this one by name and reputation; apparently, her powerset makes her the single most potent unarmed CQC fighter in the world) devil-hunter of its own for this job. She's a member of one persecuted minority, and in exchange for this job she's making the PRC extend human rights to another (arguably) persecuted (arguably) minority.

A lesbian warlock fighting for the rights of her polycule of fiends. I feel like this might be a commentary about the real life CCP's recent treatment of a certain influencer who was in a relationship with a member of a certain demonized ethnic group, but I'd have to check the dates to assess the likelihood.

I wonder if these fiends are actually as safe to be around as Quanxi thinks they are? Or, perhaps, she just keeps them away from the general public and would like the courtesy returned.

Anyway, let's hope Denji doesn't have to kill all of these poor schmucks. He probably will, but I hope he won't.

Granted, on the far opposite side of the sympathy spectrum, we also have an inbound assassin from Germany. Not East Germany or West Germany, notably, just Germany, which supports my interpretation that the Cold War got wiped away by the Devil Wars in this setting. Anyway, an old man known as "Santa Clause" seems to be feared even by Makima herself, on account of his unnamed devil patron being just that powerful. As for the man himself, well, when the German government reaches out to him...

I don't think there's much more that needs to be said there.

...

Well, I guess one thing that merits commenting on is how the comic is doubling down on its anti-government politics. The Japanese and Soviet authorities have already been vilified up to this point. This montage makes it clear that no other national government is any better, and some of them may be worse.

I also don't get the impression that the comic is only trying to comment on the fictional versions of these countries in its own timeline. In "Chainsaw Man's" opinion, this is what government is and what government does.

It's...not exactly wrong. At least in the majority of cases.

...

On a brighter note, I appreciate the author letting Kyomoto out of her room to draw this statue of liberty at the start of the assassin montage:

It's a good'un.

The heat on Denji leads to the department locking him down and having him keep a low profile in a secure location, insofar as there's any such thing as secure locations when powerful devils are involved. Most unfortunate, given that Denji had just been hoping to accompany Makima and some others on a little vacation trip. Well, probably for the best for him that he gets more time away from her, tbh. Still, with his recent trauma courtesy of Reze, confinement is the last thing Denji needs right now. Especially with those haunting dreams about the locked room and Pochita warning him to never open it also becoming more and more frequent.

This latest escalation in his hunted status, combined with the recent nighttime voiceovers from Pochita, gets Denji to sit down and start to really wonder.

Even if it's more a matter of not wanting Makima to have it than actually wanting it for themselves, the question remains. Makima's assertion that weapon devil symbiotes are very rare and valuable explains some of it, but I don't think it explains all of it. We had random crime syndicates and (seemingly) independent devils gunning for Pochita long before other countries seem to have learned about it.


And, well, we start to get something like an answer here. One that confirms an earlier suspicion of mine, but also raises a lot more questions. And, additionally, gives us some worldbuilding fundamentals that I've long thought were overdue.

In the wake of Aki's rescue of Angel (at the cost of some of his very limited remaining lifespan, due to Angel's involuntary life-draining touch). Aki and Angel start spending quality time together. It's a big milestone in Aki's development, and also a show of trust from Angel that he ends up telling him the things that he tells him. For instance, Angel lets Aki in on a fact of diabolical existence that he believes only a handful of humans are aware of. When a devil is killed on Earth, it returns to their home reality, a realm referred to - accurately or otherwise - as Hell. If a devil dies in Hell, meanwhile, it finds itself manifesting on Earth. It's a cycle of infinite reincarnation between two worlds.

He doesn't explain how fiends tie into this. Presumably we'll learn how they happen later. But regardless.

This means that - at least for the most part - the devils aren't choosing to come to Earth. It generally happens as a consequence of misfortune for the devil. This likely has a bearing on what we've seen of their behavior.

There are some more complicating nuances here. For instance, devils reincarnate back in Hell more quickly and comfortably if their associated concept has more fear, and a devil with no fear whatsoever might actually become mortal and not reincarnate at all. Thus, while they exist on Earth, it is in their interest to increase humanity's fear of their namesake concept. This also has some explanatory power with regards to their behavior. Another complicating detail is that devils manifesting on Earth experience near-complete amnesia. They only remember a few details about Hell. Whether they keep their memories of previous incarnations back there, well, Angel doesn't remember that state of being well enough to be sure.

One thing that virtually all devils on Earth can remember, though, is the last dying moment of their previous Hell lives. And here, Angel tells Aki something that he's pretty sure no other human has heard about.

Along with Angel himself, every devil that he's gotten a chance to talk to in Japanese government captivity remembers a common detail in that dying moment.

The sound of a chainsaw.

Whether this is true only of the devils in the Public Safety Directorate's pocket, or also of the wild ones causing chaos in the world and the ones enslaved by other human organizations, Angel doesn't know. He just knows that Pochita either killed them all, or was at least physically present at their deaths.

So. There definitely was a great war in Hell during Denji's adolescence. The Chainsaw Devil was indeed a major player in it, and may have even been a sole, rampaging aggressor. Many of the devils slain in this conflict showed up in Japan for some reason, including Chainsaw himself. Many of these new arrivals were subdued by Public Security's devil hunters (if Makima somehow knew when and where they'd be showing up, that would readily explain this).

Pochita's injuries when Denji found him could have been caused by one of his recently slain foes come back for revenge, if the two happened to manifest near each other and had dying memories of their fight to motivate them. Alternatively, Pochita too was targeted by Public Security's ambush measures, and was injured in the process of escaping. It's probably one of those two things.

Taking the Hell drama into account, and then looking back at the geopolitics, what I'm really wondering now is who is fighting a proxy war for whom? I don't think that the intra-human and intra-diabolical antagonisms we're learning about are coincidence. One is pulling the other's strings.


This is a lore-heavy volume so far, and I'm 100% here for it. These are the answers I've been wanting since at least volume 2 or 3, and they're intriguing answers at that. The character development for Angel, Aki, and Denji is also going in promising directions, and the assassin problems that are about to start popping up are sure to bring even more to the table.

I've liked this manga from the start, but I've never been as eager to keep reading it as I am now.