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Nightmare Fuel / Chainsaw Man

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There's a reason every human fears the dark...

In a World… where every single one of humanity's fears, from the absurd to the primal, are given life and form as monsters, you'd best prepare yourself to see a lot. Welcome to Tatsuki Fujimoto's Chainsaw Man.

WARNING: Unmarked spoilers for Chainsaw Man ahead! Proceed at your own risk!


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    Part 1: Public Safety 
  • The very start of the manga shows Denji being chopped into pieces by zombified Yakuza gangsters, followed by his body graphically stitching itself together as Pochita fuses with him after their deal. The anime takes the scene even further with an extended sequence of Denji desperately trying to escape the abandoned warehouse whilst struggling with his chest injury, hounded at all sides by the zombified Yakuza members and pitifully stumbling about for an escape route. He's eventually caught due to his lack of defense and is violently, slowly stabbed and hacked to literal pieces mere feet away from a visible exit sign.
  • Before the fantastical aspects of the world become apparent, Denji's situation with the Yakuza is plenty nightmarish. He "inherited" a mountain of debt from his father who passed away before paying it off, and the Yakuza leader bluntly makes it clear that Denji, a young child without any financial stability and resources, will pay off everything he owed them. He outright tells him to either rob people or prostitute himself to get their money however he can, and if his efforts aren't enough, they'll kill him and sell off his body parts to get their due. He additionally makes clear that they'll find Denji easily if he tries to run or go to the authorities, and will instantly kill him for doing so. Even when working the risky job of a Devil Hunter, Denji has still had to sell several of his organs to make the monthly rent, and coughs up blood at one point, whereupon he remembers that his mom had a fatal heart condition that he's likely inherited. He's left with so little money to support himself that he has to subsist on a single slice of bread for dinner, leading to further negative health impacts. Despite doing everything the Yakuza asked of him, they still gladly betray and horrifically butcher him the second it'll benefit them more than keeping him around. The Yakuza leader even makes it clear that despite all his service, he never really liked Denji since he was a "dog", and is happy to finally have him be killed. Were it not for Pochita's sacrifice, Denji's life would have been nothing but abject misery, exploited by cruel masters who cared nothing for him and then disposed of the second it became convenient for them, with such exploitation and mistreatment having absolutely nothing to do with the Devils inhabiting the world.
  • The Deal with the Devil aspect as portrayed in this series. While it’s expected for characters to pay hefty prices for a Devil’s powers, what isn’t is the fact that the deals don’t have to be made with the sacrifice’s free will. Anyone with authority over the person, such as a guardian or the leader of your country, can sacrifice your life to a Devil and there’s nothing you can do about it. And then there’s Makima and her ability to force others into accepting deals with her Compelling Voice.
  • The Bat Devil is quite frightening for what is essentially a Starter Villain for Denji's time as a Public Service Devil Hunter, being a massive bat creature that loves to feast on human blood. The first thing it does after recovering from its injuries is decide to eat some nearby students, just because Denji's blood left a bad taste in its mouth. It also states some of its favorite kinds of "food" (i.e. kinds of people it likes to eat) are children, old ladies, and pregnant women.
  • The Gun Devil. Introduced as the overarching threat behind the entire series, it is a monstrously powerful devil that represents humanity's collective fear of guns and gun violence. Its initial attack thirteen years prior to the events of the series had it rampage across the globe, annihilating entire cities and killing over a million people in total. All in just five minutes. There's a good reason why the Public Safety Devil Hunters are dead set on preventing its return.
  • The Eternity Devil. It has the ability to trap would-be victims in a space like an apartment complex, where you can only walk around that space in circles no matter how much you try and find an exit. Time is stopped within, contracted Devil Hunters are unable to summon Devils from outside, and worst yet is that you never see any indication of how its ability starts or that it's even there unless it chooses to show itself.
    • Its true form is a giant mass of human body parts fused together in unnatural ways (Like some of its faces having mouths for eyes). It speaking in several different voices doesn't help.
    • Rather than pick off Aki's group off one by one, it specifically leaves them for as long as possible to psychologically torture them. All to coerce them into making a contract with it; kill Denji for it and it will let them go. And it almost works.
    • Power's trollish antics for the sake of curing her boredom have been the main source of comedy through this part of the story. Her psychotic laughter as the rest of the group actually tries to stab Denji to death isn't comedic at all. She isn't afraid of the Eternity Devil; she just enjoys the other Devil Hunters' fear and desperation as much as it does.
    • All of this is to say nothing of how Denji finally manages to beat the Eternity Devil, by essentially torturing it until it commits suicide. An awesome moment for Denji, to be sure, but it can still be unsettling to see just how much of a Blood Knight our hero can become when he’s pushed to his limit.
  • Makima being seemingly killed out of nowhere by Gun Devil-contracted assassins on a train. Followed up next chapter by the seeming death of all of the Devil Hunters on Denji's unit in a simultaneous hit. Quite the tone-setter for the rest of the series.
    • Even more frightening is that Makima actually survives this. By the time we see her assailants next, they're all dead with massive gaping wounds, with Makima standing over their corpses completely unscathed. The entire scene is framed almost like a horror movie, with Makima's seeming invulnerability making out to be something utterly inhuman.
    • The anime somehow makes it even worse with one little detail: when the Yakuza turn and see the revived Makima, she's smiling, like the whole situation is vaguely amusing to her. And considering the sheer gulf in power between her and... well, pretty much everyone else, it is.
    • The reason for why she came out unharmed is revealed later on to be because of a contract she has with the Prime Minister of Japan. Any injury she incurs will be transferred to Japanese citizens as comparable illnesses or accidents. Hurting her or attempting to kill her just means some poor random Japanese citizen gets hurt or killed instead.
  • Following the scene mentioned above, Makima kills Katana Man's goons all the way from Kyoto, using convicts serving life-sentences as conduits. The goons don't just die, they explode, their bodies twisting and swelling until nothing's left of them but puddles of blood and gore. Even Sawatari is horrified by this display of power.
    • The anime makes this scene even worse, purely because the attack happens so fast, as each Yakuza member is ripped apart one by one in a matter of seconds. The voice actors’ terrified screams and Kensuke Ushio’s oppressive synth soundtrack really sell the panic of the situation - of seeing your partners turned into showers of gore by an enemy that you cannot see, and that you cannot escape from.
    • This is then one-upped by Makima casually and calmly intimidating the local Yakuza heads into providing the names of the Gun-Devil-contracted gangsters. How does she accomplish this? By showing up with a paper bag filled with the eyeballs of all the syndicate heads' loved ones.
    • One of the gangsters understandably tries to retaliate and punch Makima, who turns around and just... stares at him. Before he could even land the punch, he starts bleeding from the nose. Then he falls to his knees with more blood running out of it, along with his mouth and eyes.
  • The deaths of the Red Shirt officers. Sure, they didn't get much characterization, but they were brutally murdered by people pretending to be civilians. It caused one of them to resign from the agency.
  • Following the end of the Katana Man arc and the abrupt death of Himeno, Denji comes to the realization that he is slowly losing his ability to emotionally sympathize with his comrades. His transformation has led to Denji becoming pure id, living only in the moment and not dwelling on anything that should be impacting him. He even notes that if Makima, who he is hopelessly in love with, were to die he'd be able to rebound from it pretty quickly. However, this revelation is ultimately played for Black Comedy, as he rather quickly loses his train of thought and runs off to join Power.
  • The Ax-Crazy devil-killer assassin contracted by the Typhoon Devil. He boasts that his preferred method of killing his targets is to go after their loved ones, mail them pieces of their skin and other dismembered body parts, and wait for them to be driven mad by grief and let themselves be killed. And he was planning on doing this to Denji by targeting Reze, a seemingly innocent teenage girl. It's a good thing Reze is a lot more capable than she looks.
  • Speaking of Reze, the scene where she kisses Denji under the fireworks is framed as a beautiful and romantic moment, where Denji has finally found someone who loves him for who he is. Then the two pull back, and Reze reveals that she has bitten off Denji's tongue, presenting it to him with her smiling mouth open. Then she slits his throat, cuts his hand off before he can pull his cord, and stabs him in the back...before revealing herself as The Bomb Devil.
    • Said reveal is gory enough to rival Denji's own Transformation Sequence - Reze pulls the pin in her collar off and she detonates, blowing her head and part of her upper torso apart in a shower of blood, before revealing the monstrous missile-shaped skull of her Hybrid form.
  • The Bomb Devil's rampage in her pursuit of Denji leaves loads of corpses in her wake.
    • She follows Beam and Denji to Public Safety Division 2’s training facility, appearing in her human form and feigning distress to let their guard down. Only she’s still smiling.
    • Two Devil Hunters use their contracts to infect Reze’s insides with mold. She responds by decapitating herself with a small explosion. Then her headless body picks up and tosses the head into the facility, where it explodes and transforms into the Bomb Woman, who appears perched on the corner of a wall while holding up a Hunter by the arm with her jaws. Then the original body outside rushes towards and leaps onto the hunters outside and explodes.
    • The Bomb Woman’s massacre of the remaining Devil Hunters in the facility, including one image of her feasting on the blood of a bisected corpse.
    • At one point, she appears in front of Aki's getaway car and presents him with the decapitated heads of his fellow Devil Hunters. All just to show that even if she expresses a desire to not resort to just killing everyone, this is the least of what she is capable of.
  • Santa Claus. When we get presented to this guy, he requests four orphans in order to carry out an attack on the hunt for the Chainsaw Man, when he's asked why four orphans, he responds that he will use three for contracts, one for pleasure.
    • Due to the contract with the Doll Devil, Santa Claus can turn anyone he touches into a puppet, and when they are turned into a puppet, they are removed from their personality entirely, and will infect others to transform them into more puppets.
    • Then we get The Reveal that the old man isn't actually the so-called "Santa Claus", it was actually the master of Tolka, another one of the assassins after Denji, whom she reveals herself by arriving during the clash between the assassins, where she congratulates Tolka for having come so far, describing what makes a perfect puppet... and then transforms him into a puppet.
    • With Tolka's master (also called The Doll Woman), Tolka, and Santa Claus in sync with eachother, she makes the old man stab himself through the chest with his doll arm, and makes a contract with the Hell Devil. She offers the heart of the old man alongside the four orphans that she was given through the old man, and pledges that everyone inside the building be sent to Hell.
    • After the traumatic experience of getting sent to hell, the group immediately comes back to The Doll Woman, now having consumed a piece of The Darkness Devil, transforming herself into a freakish amalgamation of dolls, who now has the goal to defeat Makima once and for all.
  • The very concept of the Primal Fear Devils. Obscenely powerful demons formed from humanity's most ancient and ingrained fears, that dwarf even the Gun Devil in terms of raw strength. The very notion of fighting one of them terrifies everyone, even Power and Quanxi. Adding onto this is the fact that these Devils have never died; they're so powerful that none of their fellow denizens of Hell, much less any human, have ever succeeded in killing them. The Darkness Devil shows Public Safety why they're better off dropping everyone and running as far away as possible or at least pray their death comes quick.
    • We only see one of these devils in Part 1, the Darkness Devil, and it alone manages to be the most terrifying thing in the entire book. Its form is a stack of praying skeletal corpses wreathed in a cape of shadows. Its attacks are nigh-incomprehensible and utterly brutal. Within the first ten seconds of its appearance, it dismembers everyone who got sucked into Hell effortlessly, and then proceeds to kill Beam, Violence, Tamaki, Kusakabe, Tolka, and half of Quanxi's harem in the span of minutes. It even came frighteningly close to killing Makima!
    • Darkness's entrance itself: falling from the sky like a black raindrop, all of Hell suddenly goes pitch black. An unknown light source illuminates an aisle made from bisected astronauts who seem to be praying, with Darkness itself at the end of said aisle. One toad croak later, Darkness is suddenly behind all the characters, having cut off their arms in the blink of an eye.
      • If you look closely at the placement of everyone's dismembered limbs on the page, you might notice that they're arranged in a way that spells out the word "MAKIMA." It's entirely possible that the Darkness Devil was attempting to lure Makima back to Hell so it could kill her itself.
      • Those blotches of black in front of the astronauts? They're not shadows. They're entrails.
    • Seeing the once prideful and haughty Power reduced to a traumatized wreck in the wake of the Darkness Devil's attack who freaks out at the mere presence of shadows is both heartbreaking and deeply unsettling.
      Power: There's something in my mouth! 'Tis something in my mouth!!
    • There's an extra level of Fridge Horror in the reason why the Darkness Devil attacks Denji and the others in the first place. Tolka's master/The Doll Woman made a deal with it - in exchange for delivering the heart of the Chainsaw Devil to Hell, the Darkness Devil would grant her a fraction of its power so she would be strong enough to kill Makima. Not only does this show that even other demons have a vested interest in removing Makima from the mortal world, but it also implies that even the Primal Fears are frightened by the Chainsaw Devil. Just how strong is Pochita?
  • Cosmo, the goofy zombie member of Quanxi’s harem whose dialogue only consists of the word “Halloween,” is actually revealed to be the most potentially dangerous of the bunch if the way she defeats the Doll Woman is any indication. As it turns out, she’s the Cosmos Fiend, and her mind contains the sum total of all knowledge in the universe - which she can share telepathically with other people. The trouble with that is the fact that, well, the human mind just wasn’t built to process that much knowledge, and so anyone who Cosmo targets will inevitably have their mind collapse under the strain, until the only thing they can say until they die is just one word - “Halloween.”
    • The panel where we see the Doll Woman falling past the infinite bookshelves representing all of the knowledge in her mindscape really puts her fate into terrifying perspective. This is a woman who sacrificed her humanity in the pursuit of knowing everything there is - and now she’s gotten exactly what she wanted, only to be driven insane by it. And her consciousness is linked to her dolls across the globe, so even after her main body burns to death, her torment doesn’t end…
  • Makima's surreal entrance onto the battlefield once the Doll Woman is defeated, as well as the nonchalant way she kills Quanxi and her fiends even after they surrender is fairly unsettling. As well as the quasi-sadistic way she throws Pingtsi's own threat back at her before executing her:
  • The entire Gun Devil arc features some of the most nightmarish and upsetting imagery in the entire series, including but not limited to:
  • Makima bursting into laughter after her brutal murder of Power, before going on a cold and ruthlessly biting Motive Rant / Breaking Speech to Denji. She reveals that not only was she merely using him to gain control of Pochita the entire time, but she has also been behind every single bad thing that has ever happened to him since the beginning of the series. Giving Denji a found family with Aki and Power, showing him love and affection for the first time in his life, helping him be happy? All of that was just so she could brutally rip it all away from him, all for the sake of breaking his contract with Pochita and gaining control of the Chainsaw Devil for her own ends. And all the while, she can't help but convince the poor kid that it's all his fault that this is happening.
    • The scene is made infinitely worse given the subtext of the scene. Denji has always harbored some lingering sexual attraction towards Makima, and she has always taken advantage of that throughout the series to get him to do her bidding. But now, rather than being Played for Laughs, Makima's manipulation is recontextualized as cruel and emotionally abusive, as it's made clear that she never cared about Denji at all, and has been in fact actively hurting him. The scene even ends with Denji, shirtless and dazed, lying on Makima's couch, while she eats her breakfast nearby - and now, the sexual undertones of their relationship take on a much more sinister light.
  • After crossing the Despair Event Horizon, Denji completely gives up on the concept of living a normal life, exactly as per Makima's plan. This results in him becoming a listless Empty Shell who barely responds to anything happening around him. The only thing that rouses him from his stupor is Makima recovering enough from Kishibe's allied forces ambushing her apartment and subjecting her to concentrated gunfire to the face to make a request to Denji to 'save her'...and it quickly becomes clear that Denji's current state of mind has resulted in something going very wrong. Firstly, his intestines burst from his stomach and wrap around his neck like a scarf without him touching his ripcord. When the scene cuts back to the wreaked apartment, Denji is standing alone amidst the corpses of the entire assault team... completely untransformed, their bodies intact and no signs of his chainsaws having been activated, blood covering his hands. The disturbing implication being that Denji's body beat the strike team to death with his bare fists, in a rather frightening display of strength and ferocity atypical to Denji's usual fighting style. And then he pulls his ripcord... and instantly transforms into a four-armed, armoured version of his Chainsaw Man look, moving fast enough to bisect his enemy into beast chunks before they can take a step towards him. This enemy? The Hell Devil, as in the very being that proved to be a nigh-incomprehensible entity that rendered Denji helpless to avert his forceful transportation into its realm. And this enemy has just been defeated one-sidedly by the Devil all Devils fear, the original Chainsaw Devil, whose actions show he earned that reputation through sheer might. Nothing remains of the human Denji anymore, just overpowering and terrifying might condensed into a humanoid form, and now unleashed onto a warpath.
  • The Reveal of what, exactly, the Chainsaw Devil is, and why other devils are so terrified of it - because, according to Makima, Pochita has the ability to erase entire concepts from the fabric of reality by consuming the Devils that represent them. How does she know this? Because he’s already done it several times before, including erasing the entirety of World War II!
    • Among some of the other concepts and Devils the Chainsaw Man erased from existence were four outcomes that could happen to someone besides death. The Fridge Horror sets in when you realize the reason why they were Ret-Gone to begin with is because they were far, far more dangerous and frightening than death itself, necessitating the Chainsaw Man to step in to rid reality of them.
  • While it doubles as Awesome, it is still supremely messed up that Denji defeats Makima by cutting her up into pieces, cooking her, and eating her for dinner. And part of the reason why he’s doing this? It’s because Denji is still deeply in love with Makima and wants Makima to be with him forever as a part of him.
    Denji: So this is how you taste, Ms. Makima.
    • The fact that men and women are dying all over Japan thanks to Makima’s contract implies that even in this state, Makima is still alive and is trying to pull herself back together. No wonder Kishibe told Denji to hurry up and consume every last piece of Makima’s chopped up body as soon as possible.
    • One has to wonder exactly what is happening to all those people that are affected by Makima's contract during this, considering she's in several pieces and being eaten by Denji.
    • Denji is so dead inside by the end of Part 1 that his first reaction upon learning of Nayuta, the new incarnation of the Control Devil, is wondering if he needs to eat her too.
      Denji: I’m tired of meat right now...

    Part 2: Academy 

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  • The War Devil possesses Asa Mitaka's body and quickly demonstrates their power by ripping off Mr. Tanaka's head and turning it into a sword, which they use to kill the Class Prez / Justice Devil before making them explode in a display of guts and gore. The War Devil then declares that they are going to defeat Chainsaw Man and force him to vomit back nuclear weapons up, indicating that they remember all of the erased devils, something that was previously believed that only Makima knew about.
  • The War Devil reveals that they are in control of Mitaka and only chooses to let her live to make infiltrating the high school easier. If she refuses to work with them or tell anyone about their situation, they'll kill her. The War Devil also appears as a hallucination to Mitaka and can even read her thoughts, meaning that there's nothing she can do that is beneath the devil's notice. Mitaka is being coerced into potentially harming and killing innocent people and can't do a thing about it.
    • The War Devil also explains that they have the power to turn people that "belong to them" into weapons, and seek to turn as many people as they can into soldiers in their war against Chainsaw Man. They says so with the most empty look in their eyes as students walk behind them.
  • The Bat Devil makes his return, attacking Asa and Yuko on their way home from school and devouring several innocent bystanders. It's also noticeably more feral here than its previous incarnation, snarling and slobbering wildly as it rampages through the apartment complex, whereas in Part 1 it was intelligent enough to speak and manipulate Power into doing its bidding. Not only is this new behavior somewhat jarring, but it also has somewhat unsettling implications on the resurrection cycle of Devils.
    • Just before that, and in fact serving as a framework for the Bat Devil's return, a public speaker makes an announcement about a statistic that reveals just how horrible it is to live in the Chainsaw Man setting: out of the twenty people who stopped to listen, seven will statistically be killed by Devils. More than a third of all humans die from Devil attacks.
  • The Cockroach Devil not only looks unsettling, being a massive insectoid creatue formed from the fear of cockroaches, but it's also apparently a mean bastard by the way it tries to give Denji a Sadistic Choice - to choose to save either a single student or a car with five old people inside. Of course, Denji being Denji, he decides to rescue neither of them, and saves a nearby cat instead. It's a classic case of Fujimoto's Black Comedy in action, but it also somewhat gives a new level of understanding to Asa's hatred of the Chainsaw Man, due to his flippant disregard of civilian lives and seeming Blue-and-Orange Morality.
  • Yuko, Asa's new best friend and seeming Morality Pet, casually confessing to killing to her neighbor because he gambled too much. Oh, and that she also made a contract with the Justice Devil that allows her to read people's minds. Oh, and that she knows everything about Asa and Yoru's contract, isn't bothered by it in the slightest, and seemingly intends to use her powers to go on a murderous rampage against her fellow students. Mood Whiplash does not even begin to describe it.
  • Asa hopes she can talk her new friend Yuko out of her planned massacre of the bullies at their school but Yoru quickly puts a stop to that plan. She fully intends on either letting Yuko go on a rampage so Chainsaw Man comes out and kills her or Yoru kills her so they can enter the Devil Hunter club. Either way, Asa’s new friend Yuko will die and Yoru refuses to let Asa take back control until she does.
  • After the harrowing events of the school fight, Asa and Yuko finally make amends, and though Yuko does leave for fear of harming Asa in her new devil form, she promises to return someday. All's well that ends well- oh God, did Yuko just get beheaded?! By Chainsaw Man?! But wait a minute, we just saw Denji asleep with Nayuta in the last page...so who the hell is that?!?
  • Yoru’s smile when she hears Asa is ready to do almost anything to get rid of her, even turning a living human into a weapon. Looks like Yoru is succeeding at corrupting poor Asa.
  • The Eternity Devil is back, trapping Asa, Denji, and Yoshida in an aquarium along with members of their school's Devil Hunter Club. And true to form, the situation brings a sense of doom and foreboding, with the toilets unable to flush, the clocks stopping, and the fish dying and rotting in their tanks. No wonder the club members start losing their minds the same way Kobeni and Arai did before them.
  • Haruka, the president of the Devil Hunter Club at the school, was previously revealed to have a starter on his chest, misleading Asa and Yoru into thinking he was Chainsaw Man. When they both get trapped in the aquarium, Haruka tells Asa that the starter was actually a fake surgical implant, and was an expression of love for his hero. He then starts Laughing Mad and crying as he laments being unable to escape due to not actually being Chainsaw Man as he begs to be rescued.
  • Denji's new apartment has some odd rules for guests. For one, they can't try opening any of the other rooms in the building, despite the fact that Denji and Nayuta only live in one of them. Secondly, opening the fridge is forbidden. Lastly, visitors should not get too physically close to Denji while they are there. Also, the door to it has a bunch of strange holes punched through across its surface. After Yoru breaks the third rule, she and the reader find out how those holes were made when Nayuta (now sporting a distressingly familiar braid) returns from walking her pets and accuses her of being a thief. Then she fires a chain at Yoru and it punches a hole through her head.
    • In the same chapter, we're treated to a surprise close up large panel of Yoru with a small Slasher Smile. Several readers have admitted that the image was so unexpected that it was the first time they were Jump Scared by a manga. Considering that she immediately tries to forcibly kiss Denji afterward, it could essentially be viewed as a sexual assault.
    • Nayuta's initial disturbing resemblance to Makima is alleviated somewhat by the very next chapter, which establishes that she's still a well-meaning (if clingy) kid who is actually more similar to Power in terms of personality, due to being raised by Denji. That being said, she still displays some instances of Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour, reacting to walking in on Yoru kissing Denji by reducing the War Devil to a dog in mind for touching "[her] property" (though she also justifies it by claiming that she didn't want another girl to hurt Denji again). Nayuta's also a bit uncomfortably touchy with Yoru afterwards, casually reclining against and petting her as she sleeps if she were actually a large dog.
  • After Yoshida brutally shuts down Asa's fleeting hopes that he might be interested in her, Asa slides even worse into her depressed funk, listlessly shambling home and getting further and further depressed as she self-criticises herself for her recent string of failures in life and romance. What starts out as a Tearjerker seemlessly slides into this as Asa's self-loathing just keeps going, to the point that she openly wonders what the point is to her 'worthless' existence, and whether she should just end it all. It's to the point that Yoru actually expresses concern towards Asa's mental state and gets surprised at her admittance that she might be better off dead. Seconds after saying this, a sickening crunch draws Asa's attention to the side of a road, a badly-twisted human body having fallen from the apartments above. Yoru quickly assumes control to defend themselves, warning Asa to stay back with a nervous disposition, as the chapter ends on a bunch of random strangers lining the apartment floors, staring blankly down at them without a hint of reaction to the brutally mangled corpse before them all. Whatever is going on, it's implied that what's affecting them was also affecting Asa, and neither she nor Yoru noticed a thing amiss until Asa's negativity became too overpowering.
  • Yoshida and Fami's conversation brings a lot of disturbing new content onto the table. Ohh boy, where to start:
    • Yoshida treats Fami for a meal, knowing full well exactly who she is yet he threatens her to give “the devil treatment” if she doesn’t provide useful info. Yeah, you read that right: a high schooler is giving a death threat to one of the literal Horsemen. Fami doesn't appear to be fazed by this, but this does raise more questions on exactly who Yoshida is...
    • In the same meeting, Yoshida reveals a prophecy of Nostradamus has gain some attention with the prediction of the end of humanity in July 1999 and the arrival of a “great king of terror”. While most dismissed it, the Public Safety commissioned 30 convicts to make contracts with the Future Devil to ask when they are going to die. According to the devil, 23 of them will die in July 1999. Clearly, whatever is about to happen is not going to be pretty, especially considering how the other 7 are fated to die the very week they're talking about this.
    • We get to see the full extent of what's happining at the apartments, and it's not pretty. As expected, this is the work of a devil, but not just any devil: this particular individual is said by Fami to be the first of the Devils that will "shepherd the world to aforementioned "great king of terror". And this devil is compelling the apartments' tenants (and seemingly anyone who walks near the apartments) to commit suicide, as shown with a young couple - the man is talking about possibly receiving a promotion and wanting to buy a car as a gift to himself, which his girlfriend swiftly shuts down due to it costing too much compared to taking the train. Then the man casually asks her if she wants to die with him, which she accepts, and the pair then jump to their deaths from their balcony. And the next panel reveals that they aren't alone, as we see dozens of people (including some children) jumping off their balconies and landing around Yoru, with the following panels dedicated to showing the broken, mangled bodies. Then some sort of multi-limbed monstrosity arises from a pile of corpses, and Yoru runs away, sensing that she's outmatched. That's right: not even the War Devil can take on this thing, at least not yet.
      • It's also worth noting that, according to Fami, this Devil embodies the concept of a primal fear. We trust you remember the Darkness Devil and what it did to Denji and Public Safety back in Part 1?
  • The reveal the identity of the mysterious Primal Fear spoken of by Fami - it’s the Falling Devil, the embodiment of the fear of falling/heights, and its abilities employ that fear in terrifyingly creative fashion. Not only can it force people to relive their worst memories and traumas, causing them to metaphorically “fall” into despair, but it also causes its victims to literally fall upwards once they’ve succumbed to their fear, inverting gravity to send them tumbling endlessly into the sky above them. To make matters worse, we see one victim fall through a door that suddenly appears in the sky - and this, combined with the Falling Devil’s costume and demeanor being similar to that of a gourmet chef, implies that these victims are being sent to Hell to be devoured by the demons within! When Fami warned that the end was drawing near, she wasn’t kidding.
    • The manga usually plays Yoru's ineffectiveness as the War Devil for laughs, even having her get one-shotted by a weakened Control Devil, Nayuta. Here, it's played deadly serious. Yoru can only run for her life from the Falling Devil, and Asa can't help produce weapons either, being absolutely terrified by the Primal Fear. The Falling Devil, for her part, doesn't even acknowledge the War Devil at all. What makes it worse is Yoru realizing just how weak she is; had Pochita not partially eaten her, she might have stood a chance against Falling, and she knows it.
    • We get another flashback to Asa’s past this chapter (thanks to Falling Devil forcing her to relive her traumatic memories), this time to the days she spent in an orphanage after losing her parents. One day, the orphanage caretaker sees Asa brooding indoors with her pet cat Crambon instead of playing outside with the other kids, and gently attempts to coerce Asa into handing over her cat to her. The caretaker claims that Asa is forming an unhealthy attachment to her pet, clinging to her past instead of embracing the orphanage as a new found family, and that Crambon would be much happier at the caretaker’s friend’s house; Asa is reluctant at first, but ultimately complies for the sake of her cat’s happiness. Later that night, however, one of the other kids at the orphanage mentions to Asa that they went to play at the river earlier, and they found a cat that looked just like Crambon lying at the bottom. Then, when Asa asks the caretaker if Crambon is really okay, the caretaker just coldly replies that everyone else at the orphanage already lost their families, and that it wouldn’t be fair to them if Asa still had a family of her own left - not to mention, the last few panels in which the caretaker appears are framed with the upper part of her face in shadow, displaying only the cruel lines of her mouth, making the scene feel almost like a nightmare.
  • Fami reveals the prophecy of the coming Age of Devils to Nayuta, whose first reaction upon hearing about it was that it sounds fun. She reverses her position immediately afterward when Fami points out that the human world coming to an end means the end of foods like pizza, but it's still a stark reminder of Nayuta's general Lack of Empathy for people not connected to her. In this way, she's not too disimilar to her previous incarnation after all.
  • A Surprisingly Realistic Outcome puts the effects of the Falling Devil's actions on the world into perspective, showing that at least 2000 people either died or disappeared in a way evocative of the aftermath of a natural disaster.
    • The Falling Devil's very appearance triggered some kind of gravitational ripple effect that is still causing avalanches and other disasters all throughout the world. This is just reality for these poor people: A powerful devil incarnates for a few hours, and the damage they do is so extreme and long reaching that it'll be affecting people for years to come in one way or another.
    • Devil attacks are getting so bad that Japanese citizens are officially starting to abandon Tokyo en masse. But if the prophecy is anything to go by, the worst is still yet to come and Public Safety won't be able to stop it.
  • A man claiming to be Chainsaw Man appears during a discussion about the Chainsaw Man Church and tells the world he fights so that one day they can live in a world without Devils. Excluding the fact he’s obviously not Denji, seems alright so far, right? Except for one thing. This imposter reveals he got his Chainsaw Man powers from the Justice Devil!
  • Yoru is delighted by the aftereffects of Falling’s visit to the human world. Because of all the destruction caused by the random reversal of gravity across the world, Yoru knows many countries will have their economies shaken and when countries start to run out of money, they inevitably go to war. Which means the fear of war will once again be known across the world, empowering Yoru without the need to resurrect the Nuclear Weapons Devil.
  • One of Denji's conversations with Yoshida ends with a girl forcibly groping Denji while giving him a Slasher Smile. Unlike previous encounters Denji had with women that went south, Denji openly has no interest in the girl and expresses a desire to be alone, making the encounter a clear cut sexual assault. And while Denji's blushing, he's clearly shown to be distressed by her unwanted advances.
  • The next chapter features the return of Denji's Slasher Smile after a humongous brawl with a multitude of opponents. It's the most eager and happy he's looked since Aki's death, and rather than being from the romantic or parental aspects of his life, it's caused by hurting others.
    • The proceeding Honey Trap is also quite nasty were the target anybody other than Denji. The girl leads him into a karaoke booth and starts singing an incredibly lewd song at the top of her lungs, which apparently serves as the pre-agreed trigger for about 20 or so thugs to burst into the booth and attack Denji with metal bats, all with zero explanation or reason why they'd go so far to hurt Denji unprovoked. Because it's Denji, he easily beats them up without even needing to go Chainsaw Man, but the chapter ends with him facing off with the girl, having grabbed a bat herself and clearly intending to also attack him despite his showing and being covered in her compatriots' blood splatter. Her reason? It seems more fun to have a deathmatch with Denji than keeping the song going. Whatever the reason she's targeting him, it's clear that the girl is nuts.
    • Come the next chapter, and a lot of the tension is dissolved - it turns out that Fumiko Mifune (Denji's blind date) and Public Safety were not involved in the sudden ambush at the karaoke place at all, and that Mifune has in fact been assigned as Denji's personal bodyguard. She's still clearly not right in the head, however, treating the whole thing like it's a game and showing hints of a highly-unhealthy attraction towards Denji.
  • We see Denji’s first formal introduction to the Church of Chainsaw Man, and it’s… not particularly flattering. He’s initially on board with joining them, admittedly because their emissary Miri Sugo/Sword Man’s elevator pitch was essentially that there will be lots of girls there for Denji to have sex with. What Sugo neglected to mention, however, is that the Church actually has all of its new student members undergo this ceremony, as well as encouraging them to get married in their giant Chainsaw Man Chapel. In other words, the leaders of the CSM Church are effectively facilitating an underground child prostitution/marriage ring, a fact that immediately disgusts and horrifies Denji.
    • This chapter also introduces another representative of the Church, Barem - better known to keen-eyed readers as Flamethrower Man, one of the previously-unnamed Weapon Devils last seen seemingly under Makima’s thrall - and he’s somehow even creepier now that he’s no longer Brainwashed and Crazy. Besides being quite rude towards Denji - shoving his fingers up the poor boy’s nostrils seemingly in retaliation for Denji not returning his offer of a handshake - and displaying some casual misogyny in his comments about Asa being a “cute, dumb girl” who’s only good for publicity, Barem is oddly fixated on what it might take to bring Chainsaw Man back into the spotlight, making some ominous statements about whether unleashing a devil on Tokyo would lure him out of hiding. And when Denji mentions that Asa can fight devils just fine in his stead, Barem proceeds to not-so-subtly threaten to murder Asa in order to blackmail Denji into becoming Chainsaw Man again. Jeez.
    • To make matters worse, it’s revealed in Chapter 141 that the rest of the Weapon Hybrids are part of the Church as well - and, seemingly under Barem’s leadership, they’re planning to stage a false flag attack during the Church’s Day of Worship and massacre dozens, if not hundreds, of Public Safety and civilian Devil Hunters to lure Chainsaw Man out of hiding. Whatever happens next, it’s probably going to be bad for Denji and anyone he cares about.
    • While thankfully Quanxi stopped them before they could take a single human life, Spear Man told his fellow Weapon Hybrids to go for the limbs of their victims. Not only were they planning to take their lives, they were also planning on making their victim's last moments as nightmarish as possible, all for the goal of forcing Denji to become Chainsaw Man again.
  • We are introduced to the Nail Fiend, which at first seems like a very rare example of a reasonable, non violent fiend, as they restrain the Chainsaw Man Church members and then tell them that they shouldn't be out here using guns but should be learning. They ask one of the kids if they agree, and he does. But because he says it in an "not polite" manner, the Nail Fiend bludgeons him to death, with the lovely visual of his eyes bulging out of his head and his brain matter splattering on the walls.
  • In the next chapter, there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the threat of the Chainsaw Man Church has been successfully neutralized by Public Safety. The bad news is that they're now targeting Asa/Yoru due to her status as the Church's poster girl, even though Asa had no idea about the Church's sinister intentions at all. That, and it turns out that they knew all along that Asa was the War Devil, and it's implied that they actually wanted her to turn Denji/Chainsaw Man into a weapon in order to use them both for their own ends. And when they arrive at Asa's apartment to arrest her, she prepares to put up a fight by turning her apartment into a weapon...only for Yoshida to burst through the door and slice off her arm in the span of seconds.
    • We also get a subtler form of horror with The Reveal that the weird Devil fed and killed by the Falling Devil several chapters ago was, in fact...the Justice Devil, the one who had apparently been making contracts with people around Denji and Asa for an unknown purpose. What makes this ominous, as noted by the inspectors of its corpse, is that multiple members of the Chainsaw Man Church have claimed they made a contract with the Justice Devil - AFTER its death and return to Hell, which means that much like the fake Chainsaw Man, there's a Devil out there impersonating the Justice Devil instead of going by its true name/fear representation. So that begs the question: why on Earth would a Devil lie about its name and nature, multiple times over, and why the HELL is it targeting Denji and Asa like this?!
    • Barem is eerily calm as he's confronted by Public Safety, not even bothering to put up a fight as he's arrested and just singing a rendition of "Kumbaya, My Lord" as he's taken in. For someone who'd previously been portrayed as an Ax-Crazy maniac who had no qualms about starting a bloodbath if it furthered his goals, this sudden switch in demeanor feels incredibly ominous.
  • Come next chapter, Barem reveals exactly why he's so undisturbed by the Church's plans being foiled, because it turns out that their plans haven't been neutralized after all. He reveals that the Church secretly bound its members, as well as many random civilians, to a contract under the guise of the mass weddings that the Church liked to encourage, the terms of which graphically transform them into feral Chainsaw Man facsimiles that immediately start shredding everyone around them. Everything has fallen according to Fami's plans, or rather, everything would have fallen into place no matter what the outcome of Public Safety's conflict with the Chainsaw Man Church was. As from the beginning the whole point was simply to cause mass hysteria and terror surrounding the concepts of Chainsaw Man and War so as to strengthen them for the coming threat.
    • The “Justice” Devil’s true identity has been revealed to be the Fire Devil. And other than its implied power over flames, it also has the power to transform anyone who makes a contract with it into the form they desire. For Yuko and the Class President, they desired a form and power that allowed them to read minds in order to enact justice. And for the followers of the Chainsaw Man Church, they became copies of Chainsaw Man. Most cannot control the power the Fire Devil gives them and end up turning fully into Devils like Yuko. Also, the more contractors the Fire Devil has, the more powerful it becomes. And seeing how many were tricked into contracting with it, it’s unimaginable how powerful the Fire Devil must be right now.
    • Then there's the true nature of the coming threat: the King of Terror prophesized to descend upon the world at the end of 1999 is none other than the eldest sister of Makima/Nayuta, Fami, and Yoru - the Death Devil, outright stated to be the strongest Devil in existence. To put that into perspective, consider not only what the three other Horsemen have proven capable of (e.g. conflicts with and subjugation of Primal Fear Devils), but the insane level of power that the Darkness and Falling Devils displayed during their brief appearances in the storyline... and with the knowledge that all five of them are weaker than Death, you'll understand exactly why Barem and Fami are going this far just to stop her.
  • Nayuta seems to be teetering on the edge of becoming another Makima as her nature as a Devil gives her an instinctual desire to harm and kill humans. The only thing stopping her from going full Makima is the love she gets from Denji, only promising to not kill humans after Denji tells her he loves her more than Asa.
  • Denji and Nayuta reach their apartment, only to find it burned to the ground with none other than Barem in front of it. He remarks, with a large smile on his face, that he figured that killing Asa wouldn't hurt Denji that much, but killing his pets (essentially his family) would. He even notes that cats and dogs are "more flammable".
    • It can't be overstated just how horrifying this turn of events is, especially since Denji and Nayuta's pets seemed to be exempt from the Anyone Can Die nature of the series up until now. In one fell swoop, Barem has destroyed almost everything about the life Denji busted his ass to build up from the ashes of Makima's machinations; the dogs Denji inherited from her, the cat that Power left behind for him to take care of, and the apartment he bought with the money Aki set aside for him. Denji doesn't manage to do or even say anything before Public Safety arrives to take down Barem, but it's clear from how Fujimoto draws him with a shadowed, half-formed face as he wordlessly reaches for his starter that for the first time in his life, Denji is simultaneously pissed and at the lowest point he's ever been. One can only wonder if it will lead to horrors like when Makima broke him...
  • Denji finally transforms into Chainsaw Man again after a lengthy hiatus... but something is terribly, terribly wrong:
    Nayuta: Why are you laughing...?
    • Right before Denji pulls his starter, you can see that he has a very manic grin on his face.
    • After he changes, Denji faces off against Spear and Whip, who gleefully taunt him as they attack. But then Denji bisects himself and Spear at the waist, before turning around to decapitate Spear and cannibalize him for his blood. Unlike the previous instances of Denji willingly harming himself to beat his enemies, this is probably first instance where this is genuinely Played for Horror, as Spear is screaming in agony as Denji consumes his blood, which itself is framed like a zombie hungrily devouring a victim.
    • Understandably freaked out by Denji's barbarism, Whip tries to attack him, but is then overwhelmed and shredded by his chainsaws. Whip, who up until this point had a greatly confident and haughty demeanor, is screaming for Sugo's help as she's ripped apart by Denji.
    • When Denji and Sugo stab each other, Nayuta begs Denji to stop. Denji's response?
      Denji: The thing about massages is...! Too much force, and they hurt! But there's this sweet spot where the pain turns into pleasure! Y'know, Nayuta, maybe you shouldn't be around me anymore! Cuz for me...this is where it hurts just right, and damn do I feel good! GYA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!
  • Public Safety has been warning Denji not to turn into Chainsaw Man or they'll be consequences, but when he goes against their warnings to fight the Weapon Hybrids, and ends up captured by Public Safety, the full extent of said "consequences" is horrific. Denji is drugged into unconsciousness, strapped to an operating table, and dismembered, repeatedly—the readers seeing one of his legs has already been amputated and the other is in the process of being sawed off while marked as "Right Leg 26"—with Public Safety's ultimate intent to keep his limbless body imprisoned in the Tokyo Devil Detention Center. Even more disturbing than Yoshida condemning Denji to this fate is Fumiko asking to pluck some of Denji's hair or nails before his body becomes state property.
    Fumiko: Are they seriously going to dismember Denji Senpai?
    Yoshida: Yeah.
    Fumiko: In that case, can I pluck out some of his hairs or nails before it's too late?! His body's about to become property of the state! Gotta add to my collection!

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