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"Know the kinda hunters a devil fears most? The ones with a few screws loose and no screwdriver."
Kishibe

This is a story of a boy who can turn his head into a chainsaw, written by Tatsuki Fujimoto of Fire Punch fame. You'd better believe it has some awesome moments.


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     Part 1: Public Safety 
  • Denji's first transformation into the titular Chainsaw Man: killed and cut to pieces by the Yakuza under the command of the Zombie Devil, Denji is revived by Pochita merging with his heart. The little guy not only sacrifices himself, but also gives Denji a hell of a Let's Get Dangerous! encouragement as he awakens back into the human world, finding himself surrounded by the undead with a cord protruding from his chest. One pull and he transforms for the first time, shredding zombies left and right like they're made of paper.
    • After spending so many years exploiting him for his own gain, and the whole first episode establishing himself as a thoroughly repugnant individual, it's incredibly cathartic to see the Yakuza Boss, now reduced to a mere zombie, mindlessly walk into the carnage as Denji procedes to reduce him and his entire gang to hamburger meat, while cackling like an absolute lunatic.
      Denji, as he rips the zombies to shreds: Oh yeah! Once you jerks are worm food, it's bye-bye debt! AHAHAHA! I WON'T OWE A DAMN THIIIING!!
  • Aki beats up Denji for not taking Devil hunting seriously enough in Chapter 3. Denji goes for the groin multiple times to prove his point to Aki: he may have become a Devil hunter for shallow reasons, but he's willing to die to keep living the good life. And then when Aki comes at him again, and thus has his guard up, Denji manages to score a crotch shot again.
  • In Chapter 4, Denji opts to cut off the head of the Fiend instead of ripping him a new one as Chainsaw Man. When Aki questions why he didn't use his Devil powers, Denji explains that he would've rather given the Fiend a painless death than have him go through the same thing he did back in the first chapter. Then it goes straight into Funny territory when Denji reveals that he simply didn't want to get blood on the porn magazine stash nearby.
  • Chapter 8 has Denji fight against the Bat Devil. Despite Bat using his size and strength to his advantage, Denji's sheer strength and speed manages to put him on even ground with Bat. Bat then uses his sonar abilities to blow Denji back, only for the attack to motivate Denji to slice up the Devil in a million little pieces without blinking an eye, all so he can cop a feel.
  • Chapter 10:
    • Even when he's running low on blood due to his fight with the Bat Devil, Denji tries his absolute hardest to fight against the Leech Devil anyways, using his impressive speed and what's left of his chainsaws to match the devil.
    • Aki coming in with the Fox Devil from seemingly nowhere, saving both Denji and Power's lives.
  • Chapter 19 has another CMOA courtesy of Denji. Cutting his way through the Eternity Devil, he has an "Eureka!" Moment that the Eternity Devil can repair itself limitlessly - but he can repair HIMSELF limitlessly just by drinking its blood. In Denji's own words, he's essentially created a perpetual motion machine of blood. And he does this for three days straight before the Eternity Devil finally reveals its heart and begs Denji for a Mercy Kill, which Denji gladly provides.
    • The English dub of the anime throws in a little extra Badass Boast from Denji at the start of the war of attrition:
    Eternity Devil: YOUR ENDEAVOR IS COMPLETELY MEANINGLESS!! You won't find my heart, no matter where you slice! YOU CAN'T KILL ME!!
    Denji: WATCH ME!!
  • When Makima is ambushed by assassins in Chapter 26, not only is she seemingly invulnerable, she annihilates them, turning them to smudges in a frightening display of power. She then follows it up by using convicts as conduits through which to methodically exterminate Katana Man's minions with mere twists of her hand.
  • Chapter 28 has a shining moment for Kobeni, who's been established as the series' resident Butt-Monkey: armed with nothing but a knife on her, she quickly dispatches Katana Man by slicing off his hand, grabbing his gun, and shooting him right in the back. Then she aims at his accomplice, who's about ready to shoot her. What does she do? Grab a lifeless Denji and use him as a body shield until the attackers leave helplessly. On top of all of this, she just witnessed Arai's murder at the hands of one of the assassins. A flashback shows the assassin lying by Arai with two gunshots in her head, with the implication that Kobeni grabbed her gun and killed her. The anime explicitly shows this, displaying that Kobeni ran behind the woman, grabbed her gun, and put it to her own chin before she could respond.
  • Kishibe's fight with Power and Denji in Chapter 30, if you can call it that. He quickly dispatches the two by snapping their necks, reviving them with blood to let them fight him again on even terms. When the two come at him, Kishibe quickly dispatches Denji by stabbing him in the back and in the head. Power doesn't get off easy either, having her throat slashed just before she was about to get a hit on him. Now that's the strongest Devil hunter alright.
  • In Chapter 31, Power and Denji draw up a plan to take on Kishibe, which is actually pretty impressive considering their level of intelligence. Power throws a spear at Kishibe's head, allowing him to easily catch it. Then she summons a couple of spears from bottles of blood hidden in the ceiling over Kishibe's head. This allows Denji to take advantage of the opening and try to take a swing at him. Keyword here is try. The two main flaws with this plan is that Power's left anemic because of the overuse of her abilities and Denji wasn't able to predict that Kishibe would be able to easily dispatch him with a simple kick to his legs. Just to add more fuel to the fire, Kishibe leaves Denji and Power to go drinking... only for him to throw a knife at Denji's head a couple moments later.
  • How Denji defeats Katana Man in Chapter 37: with both his arms cut off, Denji charges on, shouting that he still has the chainsaw on his head to use. Katana Man deflects it, even shattering it. But in the process, he is suddenly split in half because while he was busy countering Denji's head blade, Denji had grown blades from his legs as his ace in the hole. And this is all the result of Denji's training with Kishibe.
    Denji: You put the dick in predicktable... and went for my head like a diiiiiiiipSHIT! Didn't that rotten old geezer ever teach ya!? Beasts should know better than to trust what a hunter says! Should'a gone for the legs, sucka!!
  • Chapter 43 has a villainous one for Reze. Being cornered by a knife-wielding contractee of the Typhoon Devil, it looks like she's about to be done for good... then she quickly takes the dude from the back and easily kills him with a chokehold.
    • Also, consider how Reze's powers are later shown to be ineffective when drenched in water. Typhoon's powers allows it to have control over something that would negate Reze's explosions and yet she's already so intimidating that the much bigger and more horrific Typhoon Devil is talked into submission just from her killing its partner and recognizing it.
  • Chapter 49 sees Denji and his unconventional ways of thinking save the day once again when he uses Beam (in his full shark form) as a horse to fight Reze and Typhoon. To put it frankly, it works, despite Angel telling him that there are better ways to use his chains.
  • Chapter 50 has Aki grab on to Angel with all of his might, despite sacrificing more of his already-short lifespan. Even with Angel telling him to let go, Aki refuses, stating that he doesn't want anybody else to die in front of him.
  • Despite Reze blowing off his arms, Denji quickly takes back control by using his chains on his arms to tie her up with him. He then throws himself in the sea, knowing that Reze can't use her abilities tied up underwater.
  • Chapter 60-61:
    • Quanxi is a living, breathing moment of awesome. She quickly dives into the crowd of dolls and Devil Hunters and easily cuts off their heads with a disturbing amount of ease. Then she goes after Aki's group of Devil Hunters, instantly getting the upper hand despite Yoshida summoning the Octopus Devil to fight her off. It's only when Kishibe comes with two of her Fiends that she stops fighting the group, and even then it's not for long.
    • When Kishibe comes by the scene, Pingtsi quickly analyzes him, knowing what contracts he has with which Devils. However, she gets the impression that because he's old and his body apparently has nothing else to give to his contract; he's nothing special. Cut to a couple of scenes later, and Kishibe has gotten Pingtsi and Long in his grasp, using them as leverage against Quanxi. It's especially impressive considering what we know about Cosmo later on; in spite of her true nature, Kishibe had apparently managed to scare her off.
    • Yoshida manages to fight Quanxi to a standstill, even getting a hit in at one point. However, the most impressive part about the fight is how he was able to quickly deduce that her strength isn't human, foreshadowing to her status as a Hybrid.
  • Chapter 62: Absolutely terrifying as it may be, the Darkness Devil's debut is also horrifically awe-inspiring. As one of the oldest Devils representing a worldwide fear that every human has experienced from the beginning of mankind, the Darkness Devil is so far above every single hunter and Devil sent to Hell that they can't even understand its attacks, only interpreting them as frogs croaking while the Darkness Devil instantly disarms all of them simultaneously and uses their severed limbs to spell out "MAKIMA". There's a reason this brief appearance is one of the selling points of the entire storyline for fans.
  • Chapter 63: It's pretty easy to miss amidst the chaos, but when he goes for the Darkness Devil, Denji manages to get a hit in. Everyone else could barely touch it but Denji manages to make contact with his blades, with even Darkness seemingly being surprised based on all the screaming faces in the background. It gets better when you realize this is because Darkness likely just shat its pants coming way too close for comfort to getting hurt by Chainsaw Man, who could very well be the only thing in existence that can kill it and its ilk.
  • Chapter 68 and 69 has Denji pouring gasoline all over his body and then lighting himself on fire to fight the Darkness empowered Doll Woman. What follows is a burning Denji chainsawing, burning and eating his way through an army of puppet Mooks to finally do a Diving Kick with a burning chainsaw foot through Doll Woman, before picking up Kobeni's car, while still on fire, and smashing it on her head, at which point it explodes.
  • Chapter 70: Cosmo is the one to finally finish off the Doll Woman. How? By taking the latter's wish for forbidden knowledge to its absolute extreme: Cosmo reveals that she is the Cosmos Devil, containing all the secrets and information of the entire universe in her head, and inflicts a seismic My Skull Runneth Over on the now-terrified Doll Woman, causing every single one of her dolls around the world to go equally insane and ending her threat forever. Not bad for the least intimidating of Quanxi's harem, huh?
  • A villainous moment of awesome occurs in Chapter 76: Makima shrugs off a bullet to the head from resident Big Bad the Gun Devil (who just slaughtered thousands of innocent bystanders in under 7 seconds), invokes the contracts of five devils at once, and pulls an All Your Powers Combined to drop an Eldritch Abomination on her now sorry-looking assassin.
  • Chapter 83: Kishibe makes his move against Makima. He starts by having a rocket fired directly at her and sends multiple squads to fill her full of bullets. All this however is just a distraction for his real plan; 6 of his men slice their own throats to summon the Hell Devil and cast Makima into hell. However, none of this works as Makima controls Denji into saving her. After the men attacking her are killed, Denji pulls his cord and in a flash cuts the Hell Devil into ribbons with four chainsaw arms.
    Makima: Save me, Chainsaw Man.
  • Chapter 84:
    • Chainsaw Man fighting his way through hordes of Devils in his original "hero of Hell" form and successfully escaping from Hell on his own. Note that, by the standards of the setting (all previous entrances into and exits from Hell being facilitated solely by the Hell Devil), this shouldn't even be possible.
    • Chainsaw Man’s power and the reason Makima is so interested in Denji is finally revealed. When Chainsaw Man eats a Devil, said Devil and the fear they represent no longer exists, wiped from history entirely. Nazis, AIDS, nuclear weapons, and even more dangerous and destructive things like a star that broke children's minds disappeared thanks to Chainsaw Man eating their corresponding Devil.
  • In Chapter 87, Chainsaw Man proves himself to be the first person in the series to not give much of a shit about Makima, even yawning after she makes a big villain speech. The following Curb-Stomp Battle he gives to half of the Hybrids under her control even seems to be the wake up call for Makima to realize her belief that she even had a chance to win a fight against him was all for naught.
  • The Curb Stomp continues in Chapter 88, where despite Makima and her remaining Hybrids managing to launch him into orbit, Chainsaw Man just tosses his heart back into the stratosphere and completely regenerates himself in a matter of moments. He then proceeds to use the chains of his chainsaws as Combat Tentacles to wrap Makima and the last three Hybrids up before cleaving through all four of them at once.
  • Chapter 89. How does Makima finally get the upper hand on Chainsaw Man? By taking advantage of a Devil’s ability to grow stronger through fear and making it so the population of Earth reveres Chainsaw Man as a hero for killing the Gun Devil. With humans no longer fearing him or the fear he represents, Chainsaw Man is weakened and unable to stop Makima from attacking Kobeni, forcing him to jump in front of the spear instead.
  • Chapter 90-91: Power gets her moment when she revives as the Blood Devil and uses the full extent of her abilities to attack Makima. She even manages to defy Makima’s Compelling Voice with The Power of Friendship. While she still stood no chance against Makima, Power managed to escape from her and by sacrificing herself, managed to bring back Denji from the brink of despair.
  • Chapter 93: Denji manages to catch Makima off-guard with a simple question: "Will there still be crappy movies in your perfect world?" When she replies no, he responds "Hmmm... guess I gotta kill you after all then." Note that not too long before this, Makima broke Denji so hard that he was willing to become her obedient slave, and now he's gathered the resolve to kill her and her minions.
  • Chapter 94 shows how much Denji has grown as a fighter. Applying himself more like Reze had told him, Denji is now using his chains to tear out whole chunks of land to throw at Makima. And in spite of getting injured by the Hybrids, Denji still manages to incapacitate them all before collapsing from the damage. It's so impressive that Makima, who's revealed her contempt for him, decides to feed him her blood so he has more of a fair fight against her.
  • Chapter 95 has Denji and Makima finally fight. While it’s still a Curb-Stomp Battle in Makima’s favor, Denji puts up a good fight and cuts Makima apart several times. Yet, while both sides have an impressive showing, Makima is the clear winner, delivering an utter No-Holds-Barred Beatdown and tearing Denji in half. Though it turns out it was all part of Denji's plan, it's hard not to be convinced that Makima won.
    • Additionally, the fight choreography is stunning; it looks almost like a dance at certain points and somehow manages to be one of the most intense battles in the entire series, which is impressive considering it's little more than a fistfight between regenerators. Makima's finishing blow, where she rips out Pochita's core, is framed against the field of Devil Hunter cross graves in a beautiful shot.
  • Chapter 96 has so many for Denji. Denji finally gets one over Makima as he tricked her into thinking she killed him by creating a double from a piece of his heart that he vaguely remembered Pochita doing. Then while Makima is caressing Pochita and talking about how happy they’ll be together, Denji sneaks up on her and slices her open with a chainsaw made from Power's blood. Unable to comprehend just what happened and unable to heal thanks to Power’s blood messing with her Healing Factor, Makima is completely at Denji’s mercy as he gives Makima exactly what she wanted: to be consumed by Chainsaw Man.
    • For bonus points, the graveyard of this Final Battle is the same place Kishibe gave the page quote about Devils fearing Devil Hunters with a few screws loose. It's where he accepted Denji and Power as his newest pupils because he saw potential in them. Needless to say, his semi-cynical faith paid off in a big way.
      Kishibe: Don't you die, Denji. Out of all the Devil Hunters I've met up to now...you're the one most suited for the job.
    • Credit to Denji coming up with a successful plan that hinged on understanding the mysterious and enigmatic Makima and having the maturity to accept the harsh reality that the first person to show him kindness only sought to use him and never loved him at all, all on his own.
  • As Chapter 97 shows, Denji's plan worked. He killed Makima.

     Part 2: Academy 
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When only the Super Chainsaw Man Bike will do.
  • Chapter 98 introduces a new major player in peak Fujimoto fashion. As Asa lays dying after getting her head caved in, her eyes lock with an owl/Pootoo bird perched on a nearby walk sign. One contract later and the War Devil introduces itself by ripping the head off of Asa's teacher and using his spinal cord as a sword. It immediately dismembers the class president, turning her hand into a literal hand grenade before thrusting its sword into her, chucking the bomb, and walking away without looking back. Afterwards, it goes on to state that it's going after Chainsaw Man, wanting everything that he's Ret-Gone, all with a devilish smile.
    War Devil: Just you wait Chainsaw Man! I'll make you vomit nuclear weapons up!
  • Chapter 102 opens with quite a harrowing situation: the Bat Devil is chasing after Asa and Yuko, and Asa is refusing to use Yoru's powers to save herself, leading to both getting swallowed up... then the giant Cockroach Devil slams into them, freeing Asa and Yuko and killing Bat. And who else should Cockroach be fighting but Denji himself. Chainsaw Man is back.
  • Chapter 107 has a classic moment of Badass Bystander... when confronted by a vicious, murderous Devil, the only students standing strong are the Devil Hunter club! The club proceeds to put their money where their mouth is by drawing weapons and attacking the Justice Devil, proving once and for all their bravery and fortitude. Though it ultimately costs them their lives and they deal minimal damage, one can't deny the sheer guts it takes to prove their ambition to be Devil Hunters doesn't stop at ambition.
  • Chapter 109 has the previously dead Justice Devil revive stronger than before, easily demolishing a huge chunk of the school with a single swing of its tentacles, Asa is left defenseless on the ground and things are looking grim. And then Denji shows up and proceeds to demonstrate once again how much more stronger he has become, the "fight" barely lasts seven pages as Chainsaw Man smoothly slices through all her defenses and shrugs off her telepathy with his single-minded desire to finally show-off his big hero reveal. By the time Asa comes to, the once terrifying Justice Devil has been reduced to a pile of meat and gore on the ground.
  • While it's more understated than most the examples on this page, Denji's reaction to Asa telling him to not think during their date counts. Angered and probably reminded of what Makima had done to him, Denji outright refuses to follow along with Asa's plan and goes off on his own, demonstrating just how much he's grown and will not allow himself to get his individuality stolen from him ever again. You just want to cheer the boy for taking back control of his life after what he went through in Part 1.
  • Crosses over with funny moments, but it's both hilarious and awesome that Denji has grown so strong since the beginning of Part 1 that when he realizes he's been trapped by the Eternity Devil again, his only response is to simply moan "That pain in the ass is back from Hell again." That horrifying abomination that feeds on fear and mentally tormented an entire squad of experienced Devil Hunters, plus a Fiend, into insanity and nearly killing each other out of fear by turning an entire hotel floor into an Unnaturally Looping Location? Yeah, Denji reacts to that Devil coming back with the approximate level of fear as one would have if he just saw someone steal his parking space at work.
  • Asa's plan of buying the aquarium works and she creates an Aquarium Spear, which instantly frees everyone from the Eternity Devil's trap. Yoru then takes over and, with some assistance from Yoshida, annihilates the Devil in one hit, resulting in a splash page of the Eternity Devil’s guts spilling out its back along with a school of the aquariums’ fish.
    Yoru: One million isn’t enough you say? I’ve got the rest right here! Take it!!
    • The fact that Yoru was able to take over, despite the fact that she cannot take control if Asa is too frightened, means that Asa had no fear in confronting the Eternity Devil.
  • Nayuta's Establishing Character Moment in Chapters 119/120, wherein she effortlessly overpowers Yoru after she walks in on her trying to kiss Denji, by sending a chain through her head and re-writing her brain to that of a dog. Despite her young age, the new Control Devil is already just as powerful as her sister, if not more so.
  • After being basically unstoppable during her murder spree, the Falling Devil is finally surprised when Denji appears and the two rip each other apart. The Falling Devil even claims this is the first she ever experienced being on the menu.
    • Denji gets the first hit, but Falling quickly retaliates and slices him into pieces. However, Denji simply uses his head - literally - by having his decapitated torso hold his head like an actual chainsaw and thrust it into Falling's face, all while laughing maniacally. Denji can now remotely control his body by chaining his head to it, and it's fucking nuts.
    • In the following chapter, Denji manages to negate Falling Devil's telepathic Emotion Bomb powers in the most Denji way possible: by using his chainsaws to carve his own brain into pieces! And then he actually manages to incapacitate and (temporarily) devour Falling - a Primal Fear - all while effectively lobotomizing himself as he screams nonsensically about corn dogs.
    • That's not to imply that Falling is at a complete disadvantage, however. She manages to hold her own quite effectively, regenerating herself from every single attack Chainsaw Man dishes out, and actually manages to temporarily incapacitate him when her abilities force him to relive the trauma of Aki and Power's deaths (though, as stated before, Denji quickly finds a work-around for this). Not to mention, she actually wins their initial fight, despite being caught off-guard by Denji's... unorthodox fighting style. All she has to do is simply wait for Chainsaw Man to eat her, then regenerate herself entirely - effectively bisecting him as she explodes fully-formed out of his stomach.
  • Denji calmly walking through the darkness of Hell while carrying an unconscious Asa, protecting her from incoming devil attacks. He gets gutted and decapitated, and his only response is to put his head back on and pull his cord to heal himself.
    • In the same chapter, we have the explosive return of the Copycat Chainsaw Man. Who, much like Denji, comes back by ripping through the Falling Devil and turning her into a pile of gore. Oh, and one more thing: he's on Denji's side.
  • Four words: Super Chainsaw Man Motorcycle.
  • Nayuta ends up being the one to save Denji and Asa from the Falling Devil and the Devil chasing them. With her powers, she made humans taste like literal feces in the Devil's mouth, making it vomit them out in disgust and pissing off the Falling Devil to the point she immediately kills it.
  • Denji beating up all the guys with bats who jumped him at the karaoke. He didn't even need to turn into Chainsaw Man to kick all their asses, leaving the hallway littered with their unconscious and battered bodies.
  • Inspired by Chainsaw Man (and Asa), civilians have begun taking up arms against Devils more as seen in Chapter 141.
  • Quanxi returns, singlehandedly stopping the Weapon Hybrids the moment they were about to start their plan to massacre people until Chainsaw Man comes, ensuring not a single human lost their life because of them. And she doesn't even have to transform!
  • Not to be outdone, Samurai Sword makes a comeback appearance, easily cutting the "Justice" (actually Fire in disguise) Devil-enhanced Church leader to pieces even after he undergoes major Body Horror and becomes a grotesque abomination!
  • To show how far Asa has come from the Cowardly Lion she was before, when Public Safety comes knocking on her door for her connection to the Chainsaw Man Church, she reveals she came up with a plan in case anyone tried to attack her at home: turn her apartment into a weapon and give control to Yoru. Yoru is surprised by how wild and decisive Asa has become, which Asa blames on the violent life she's led since becoming Yoru's host.
    • Yoshida, meanwhile, shows the skill difference between a professional and amateur Devil Hunter as he cuts off Asa’s arm before her weapon materializes, not giving her a chance to even fight back.
  • Quanxi raises her arm and takes a bullet without even flinching to buy Denji, Nayuta, and Fumiko time to escape.
  • Turns out that Fami's master plan is working like a charm. Asa and Yoru are so powerful now that they cannot even control the force with which they use the Room 606 Sword to attack, let alone the speed and trajectory. Yoru buried herself in a wall with such a strong impact that Yoshida gets the heck out of dodge immediately. Yoshida is scared off by Asa and Yoru's enhanced abilities, and they're attacking while down to one arm!
    • He tries to slice through and remove Asa's other arm before she hands control to Yoru and he only manages to cut her very slightly with a full power swing - her skin is now way too tough!
      Asa: Ouch!
  • It's just as disturbing as it is cathartic to watch due to the backslide in Denji's mentality, but him finally becoming Chainsaw Man again and cutting the three hybrids to pieces in a minute flat is GLORIOUS, especially as he causes Whip to undergo a rapid Villainous Breakdown.
  • Nayuta proving that she is not Makima by selflessly rescuing Denji from the angry mob trying to kill him in Chapter 153.
    Nayuta: Run, Chainsaw Man!
  • Asa, Yoru and Fami team up to rescue Chainsaw Man from Public Safety in Chapter 157.
    • Despite the turrets being programmed to kill them, Asa simply "owns" them, and foils the turrets.

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