Chainsaw Man #31-32: "The Future Rules" and "Over and Over Again"

Definitely a common theme in the titles of these two chapters. And really, it's one that's been built up in the last few as well. How much time is left for me? Where am I going in that time? Anxiety about the future has been an element of "Chainsaw Man" from the beginning, but the story has really been all about that since the Fireteam attack.

Text and subtext converge in "The Future Rules" when Aki is brought to a devil holding facility. Here, devils who have been captured alive by Public Security are pressured into making pacts with hunters as a consolation for not getting to hunt people anymore. Which...if this is how the vast majority of hunters get their patrons, then that does recontextualize them saying that devils are categorically hostile while still cooperating with them. If Ghost, Fox, and the rest are only making pacts because they've been forcibly prevented from getting human flesh and blood any other way, then...yeah, it makes Aki and the others' positions much more understandable. And it makes exceptions like Pochita (and even Power) much more *exceptional.*

...then again, it was also said that Fox "likes humans" and makes pacts with many of them for that reason. That doesn't make it sound like he's locked up and being forced to accept crumbs. Hmm. Well, we'll probably learn more about the details and nuances here soon enough.

For now, Aki is brought to the containment cell of the entity they want him to try replacing Fox with. He's only got a couple of years to live anyway, so if he really wants to use them to keep fighting then he might as well try to make a pact with this one. And, like I said, text and subtext converge.

The Future Devil. This has got to be one of the most powerful ones in existence, with every disaster and every symptom of a decaying society making it even stronger.

...the existence of this entity alone might actually lead to the internet not being a publically available thing in this world. Enough people doomscrolling could make it omnipotent.

I dig the Future Devil's design, also. Nice change of pace after the sort of repetitive blobs of bodyparts that the last few looked like.

The tree-as-symbol-of-time-passing iconography, combined with something like a crucifixion or a hanging Odin, plus the stick-antlers and the toothless gluttonizer as a cherry on top. It's a neat design, I like it.

The Future Devil has made very few pacts, on account of the steep prices it demands even restrained and desperate as it is. When it uses its magic chest-eyeball to see into Aki's future though, it does something incredibly, incredibly foreboding. It is willing to lend its power to Aki just in return for being able to see through his eyes. The reason being that Aki is going to witness such horrors before he dies, and his death itself will be so spectacularly awful, that the Future Devil can't bear the thought of missing it.

Future seems to have a major eye/vision motif with his pacts and powers. Makes sense, given that he's empowered by the fear of what's visible up ahead.

Anyway, real crossroads moment for Aki. Whether or not he makes this pact and continues his work with Public Security is going to determine pretty much everything about how he spends his final couple of years. Which in turn makes it pretty clear that the horrible fate the Future Devil sees for him can be avoided by not making the pact. How strong is Aki's pride? How desperate is he to believe that he believes that the small chance of him being able to hurt Gunny before his horrible end will make it worth it?

The transition to "Over and Over Again" reveals that his pride is pretty strong, and that he's pretty desperate to believe that he believes it.

Not that any reader would have expected something different.

Meanwhile, Denji and Power continue to struggle against Booze Van Helsing. Pitting their stupidity against his addledness and hoping the latter proves more debilitating.

They actually think that wearing glasses makes you smarter, don't they? Anyway, I dig Power's hairdo.​

They actually do something legitimately clever in the ambush they set in his office. And something that reveals an ability of Power's that we didn't know about before and that will almost certainly be important later. Specifically, that Power doesn't need to be touching her blood in order to control it; she just has to be nearby.

Yeah, if Power was smart enough to think of this kind of thing on her own she'd be really dangerous. Assuming that she was smarter as the Blood Devil than she is in her current state as per usual for fiends - perhaps even much smarter than most devils, as her fiendish form is much smarter than most fiends - well. The Blood Devil in its prime was not something you'd have wanted to mess with.

They'd probably have actually succeeded with this ambush, if Denji hadn't screwed up and been a little slow with the second stage of their one-two-shot.

You know, if he was going to swing something as deadly as an axe at the guy's head anyway, I'm not sure why Denji didn't just go chainsawmode. Only a slightly different degree of attempted murder-ness at that point.

Anyway, it's a failure, but they came close enough this time that Van Vodka feels the need to congratulate them on a noble effort. First time they've managed to get as much as that out of him. Though he still tells them they can take the rest of the day off from training only to suddenly put a knife through Denji's head and scolding him for trusting his enemy. But still. First positive thing he's ever said or even implied in their direction. After subsequent beatings, his grudging praise only gets less grudging.

Public Security thinks they've isolated the safehouse where Katanaman and Sawatari are laying low, and they don't want to take any chances with this raid. So, they're bringing all their remaining heavy-hitters. This will be the new Special Division 4's first field operation, which means its continued existence might depend on the outcome. Makima spent a lot of political capital on getting this authority, and a big screwup will cost her all of it.

Which isn't something the reader would be inclined to care about normally. However, if Makima goes, the state is unlikely to keep using her failed tactic of accepting devil agents into the fold. And, though he really shouldn't count as a devil any more than the warlocks do considering him being the one in control, Denji is being classed as such a devil.

Van Vodka has a meeting with Makima before the operation, in which we learn that the alcoholism might e a mechanism for drowning his conscious rather than drowning his pain. He went into this training assignment expect Denji and Power to be a pair of devils who he could have fun hunting over and over again, but...well, Denji is human, and Power is one of those devils that makes one wonder how sharp a distinction in personhood there really is between the two.

Makima, of course, has no visible reaction to this whatsoever. Something that Vodka even comments, less than approvingly, on. He also comes within inches of accusing Makima of knowing about the Fireteam attack in advance and letting it happen in order to further her own ambitions, but stops just short of it.

Well, Van Vodka is probably not surviving the next five issues. We'll see what impact his final acts will have on the story afterward.

...

Once again, making sensei the villain really does a lot for the typical shonen battle manga plotline.

Normally, mentor figures either need to die off early on, or they stay around showing up the protagonist forever and ruin the dramatic tension (though to be fair, in some cases the ostensible protagonist is female, and in these cases she obviously can't be allowed to save the day on her own. Obviously. But besides that). With Van Vodka starting to become less antagonistic to the protagonists, either his fate is sealed or the story's is. But, thanks to evil Makima, we can still keep the protagonists in a junior position since they're not ready to completely take control of their own story yet.

And Makima is even perfectly positioned to be Vodka's cause of death too.

...

Speaking of causes of death, we now jump over to the Fireteam safehouse that's about to be raided. Their inside source (Makima?) has tipped them off that an attack is inbound, but they've resolved to stand and fight instead of relocating. Their reason being that they're better positioned to finish off Section 4 now in this fortified position than they ever will be again, and at this rate it's only a matter of time before the state digs up their true names and pancakes them unless they wipe out its magical capabilities first. The higher-ups of this yakuza clan will be relocating, but Sawatari, Katanaman, and their other magic people will stay and fight.

Katanaman in particular has personal as well as strategic motivations for this.

Unsurprising. Sawatari had to practically drag him away when they had to withdraw without Denji's heart last time, even though it was obvious they wouldn't survive if they lingered. He's surely been chomping at the bit for a rematch ever since.

They know that Section 4 will be taking point in this raid, since they know the enemy has diabolical power that needs to be confronted with its own like. So, the plan will be to let the first wave of attackers in and then try to lock down the building to separate them from mundane backup and flood the interior with a secret weapon that Fireteam has been keeping up its sleeve.

Either the Zombie Devil never actually died to Denji's attack despite appearing to have, or its zombies are able to survive and proliferate even without their master. Anyway, it's still not clear what relationship this yakuza branch had with the Zombie Devil before it ended up eating their patriarch an not getting the blame for it, but whatever it was they seem to have had some of its zombies in their custody all along. And have been using debtors and rivals to grow the herd.

Granted, I'm not sure why they think zombies will be all that effective against devil-hunters. Mook swarms aren't exactly an outside context problem for them, and many of them have abilities that lend themselves well to handling such. But then, the zombies may just be one component of a more elaborate trap. We'll see next time.

On a final note: it's not clear if all of those final speech bubbles are Sawatari's or not. The one who refers to "Grandfather's parting gift" might be Katanaman cutting in, but it could also be Sawatari continuing her monologue. Which would imply that he was both of their grandfather, and that Sawatari and Katanaman are cousins or something. Or maybe for her he's a "grandfather" in the mob-family sense, rather than being her actual grandfather like he seems to be for Katanaman. Interesting possibility, though.


Next time, the raid.