Chainsaw Man #19-22

This review was commissioned by @toxinvictory


Where we last left off on Chainsaw Man, the section 4 team consisting of Denji, Power, Aki, Himeno, and the two newbies whose names I can't remember was trapped in an infinitely looping hotel floor by the Eternity Devil. The devil offered the rest of them their freedom in exchange for Denji; presumably, it has some sort of grudge against the Chainsaw-Devil that symbiotically inhabits Denji's chest cavity. After being trapped inside the hotel for nearly two days, most of the party started (some of them more than just "started") to be tempted to give Eternity what it wants. Any damage inflicted on Eternity just seems to make it grow larger.

However, Denji noticed that it still appeared to feel pain when it sustained these injuries, and thus enacted a plan of his own; dive into Eternity's mass and hope it gets tired of being sawed apart before he gets too exhausted to keep sawing.


Chapter #19, "Nobel Prize," starts several hours later. Denji has been ripping the Eternity Devil apart from the inside as it continually grows back around him for that entire time. At one point, his overuse of his abilities and need to regenerate his own accumulating injuries causes him to run low on blood. But spite allows him to persist in a situation where many other people wouldn't consider their lives worth the cost. Devil blood tastes disgusting to Denji, but consuming it still enables him to replace his own and keep the saws buzzing.

For a moment, we flash back to a memory of most-experienced-team-member Himeno. Back when she was a neophyte devil-hunter, she was told that most hunters die young. The ones who survive and make names for themselves are specifically the crazy ones. The ones who are too fucked in the head to be scared of the things that scare most people, and whose way of think differs enough from the human norm to keep the devils (with their connection to the human noosphere) confused. People like herself and Aki have the odds stacked against them. They're too normal.

Cut back to the present.

It has been over 12 hours since the battle started, and Denji is really, really excited to rub it in Power's face that he's getting a Nobel prize first.

The comic makes its point quite convincingly, heh.

After what seems to have been at least a full day of breaking the first law of thermodynamics, the Eternity Devil finally reaches its limit. Presenting the eye-studded infinity symbol that serves as its core to Denji, and begging him to just end the torment.

Three days or so in the hotel, all things taken into account. They're all hungry, battered, exhausted, and (even) less sane than they were going in. But they're out now, and Denji has just collected another bullet casing from Eternity's core. One step closer to reviving hunting down the notorious Gun Devil.

Or...actually, maybe it was three entire days of just Denji fighting Eternity, with another two days or so before that? The wording is ambiguous. Either way, Denji takes a well deserved rest by collapsing of exhaustion in the middle of the street. Everyone gets a nice hospital stay to unwind. The next chapter, "Drinking," picks up when they've all been released.

As the chapter title implies, this one has the team going to a restaurant and celebrating their hard-earned victory with drink. The two nooblets who lost their shit during the hotel stay - right, Arai and Kobeni, those were their names! - are saying they want to quit now. Partly because they're afraid of devils and ashamed of their performances against that one now, but also partly because of how easily they were turned against Denji, the guy who ultimately saved their sorry asses.

As Himeno and Aki discuss this development and how (and if) they should try to keep their new recruits onboard, we learn more details about just how completely fucked the Japanese devil response system is. Hunters who drop out of the public security directorate teams typically end up in the private sector, where they mostly hunt weaker devils that don't pose much threat and sell their body parts. However, unless Makima was lying to Denji and Power earlier (which, well, admittedly, there's a pretty good chance that she was lying there. The most compelling evidence for this being that her lips were moving at the time. But still, there's still a chance she wasn't), the government hunters are legally required to stay out of the private hunters' way and give them deference on the field.

On one hand, again, Makima is our source of information on this. On the other hand, if there's a market for devil parts with big money attached to it, then this is the kind of asinine self-destructive policy I could see a government being lobby-bullied into adopting.

We also learn that there are two Section 4 teams operating under Makima's command in this region. Aki's team, and another one of similar size led by a guy named Fushi. Turns out that those guys are available too, so this would be a nice opportunity for a departmental get-together. Aki is insistent on narrowing down the timeframe even further, for a very unfortunate reason.

Himeno looks distinctly worried about this. However, she also looks distinctly like she's tried and failed to discourage this enough times to have just given up on it.

...

You know, I wonder. Sex might not be Makima's only tool of control, but it's a major one. We know that Himeno is into guys. We've seen no indication of her being into girls. I wonder if this gives her somewhat better odds of seeing through Makima than the others have?

Well. If so, I suspect something is going to happen to her if she gives any signs of seeing through her too clearly.

...

Anyway. Makima ends up having to be late to their reservation, so the hunters have at least a little while to get to know each other before she can start poisoning things.

Apparently, Fushi's team also includes a fiend. It's apparently less humanlike in both appearance and behavior than Power - more of an attack dog than a team member - so he can't bring it to the restaurant with them, but it's still apparently a valuable asset to his squad. And also one more piece of evidence for just how weird and two-faced Aki's treatment of Denji and Power is...and really, how weird and two-faced the public perception of devils as a whole is. Apparently, tame fiends aren't so abnormal at all.

And it gets even weirder with the next little revelation. After having the first couple rounds, the hunters start sharing as much information about themselves and their MO's as they're each comfortable with. Arai, one of the nooblets who is thinking about quitting after their poor performance against Eternity, reveals that he has his pact with the Fox Devil.

The fact that a single devil can have contracts with multiple humans at the same time is an important bit of exposition, but I think the real rug-pull here is that friendly devils are already a known thing. All the edgy speeches about devils being evil to the last, inherently hostile to humankind, both from Aki in particular and from other characters to a lesser extent. And...nope. Nope, at least a few of them are apparently chill with people, and this is a known quantity.

That's not to say that entities like the Fox Devil are necessarily 100% safe to be around. We've seen that Aki's pact with it involves him losing some blood and/or skin whenever he uses its powers. But, if Fox is limiting its predation to small nibbles from consenting contractors, then like...it's proof that humans and devils can coexist peacefully even without it being a weird exception like the Denji-Chainsaw symbiosis. There's very active cognitive dissonance being employed by people like Aki to avoid accepting this conclusion.

...

I'm starting to suspect that there might also be some broader conspiracy pushing humans and devils into conflict, actually. I'll have to wait and see if there's any more evidence before I call this my working hypothesis, but for now it's at least occurring to me as a possibility.

...

Also, the fox devil will only make pacts with foxy people. Heh, cute. I'll take that to mean that Japanese has similar fox-themed idioms to the ones in English and Spanish.

Another conversation thread that starts up in the relaxed, Makima-less part of their meal concerns the deal that Himeno made with Aki. She owes him a kiss! She tells him that she'll do it when she's had a few more drinks and can loosen herself up properly to make it a really good one; he really pulled their asses out of the fire, after even Himeno herself was starting to lean toward wanting to sacrifice him, and she owes it to him to suck his face right off.

She may just be yanking his chain, but I don't think so. And, as she drinks and Denji waits, we get a remarkably non-toxic exhibition of hetero male lust. One of the other hunters whispers to Denji that Himeno is a floozy who's made out with every new recruit to sign on during her tenure at least once. And Denji's reaction to learning this information is like such:

It's kind of amazing, how rare and refreshing it is to see this attitude being normalized. Especially in a very popular Japanese work. Sluts make the world more enjoyable to live in, and should be celebrated rather than shamed. If you can, stop reading for a moment and thank the nearest slut to you right now. Are you, yourself, a slut? Awesome, you go girl!

Unfortunately, it's right at this moment, just in time to overhear this bit of whispered conversation, that Makima makes her entrance. Denji is afraid of Makima seeing him show interest in another woman. I don't think Makima could have known to time her entrance like this, but she does a very good job of seizing an opportunity to make things worse.

While Denji is scrambling and sort of retreating from the situation as he tries to figure out what he should be doing now, the topic of conversation turns back to recent work-related events. An awful lot of bullet casings have been showing up in a short period of time recently. And, with the Eternity Devil's interest in Denji fresh in everyone's minds, it occurs to Aki that the big spike in Gun-fragment finds started right around the time that Denji joined the team. The Eternity Devil being one of the fragment-bearers itself could be a coincidence, but it could also not be.

Aki and Himeno (the latter less politely) both tell Makima that they know she knows something about Denji that they don't, and that they'd appreciate it if she came clean. Makima, bringing in the start of #21 "The Taste of a Kiss," coyly replies that she'll tell them everything if they can beat her at a drinking contest.

-___-

They suspect that this information is connected to something that's imperilling their squad. In these circumstances, the only three acceptable answers from their superior are 1) "I see that you do need to know this after all, very well," 2) "I'm sorry, that information is strictly classified until further notice," or 3) "No I don't, what gave you that impression?"

Even if option 3 wouldn't be believable in these circumstances, it could still at least credibly be a cover for option 2.

Making a game out of sharing this critical, potentially life-saving-for-the-entire-squad piece of information, though? Essentially admitting that she doesn't have an important reason for not disclosing it other than not feeling like it? That's not a red flag. That's grounds for everyone else at the table to resign from her department immediately.

The fact that no one has much of a reaction to this, aside from Aki and Himeno agreeing to her terms and ordering the drinks, shows just how thoroughly Makima has brainfucked all of these poor kids.

Anyway, the outcome of the contest is predictable.

I guess if confronted about this, Makima could always say that she knew they'd never be able to beat her, and would have gone back on her word even if they somehow did. Even so though. Being that playful with how she keeps them from classified information should make everyone under her command immediately reconsider their life choices.

I suppose she makes sure to only let the mask slip around people who she already has eating out of her hand. Maybe Himeno, who seems to trust her less than the others do, would be more critical if she hadn't already been starting to slur her speech before the drinking contest was proposed.

Another (probable) bonus for Makima here is that Himeno had been juuuuust about ready to make out with Denji before this, and Denji's hesitation followed by Himeno passing out prevents it. Makima gets to keep him from seeing any reprieve from sexual starvation besides her for a bit longer yet.

Himeno does wake up again and try to give Denji his kiss, after a little while. But she's so sloshed at this point that she ends up throwing up in his mouth, aborting and completely ruining the experience.

At the very least, in the wake of this, Denji has a nice bonding moment with Arai, who follows him to the bathroom to help him get cleaned up.

More than just apologizing for how quickly he broke under pressure in the hotel adventure (Arai didn't even really turn on Denji the way that Kobeni did; iirc he'd just sealed himself up in one of the bathrooms before the Eternity Devil even made its ultimatum), Arai is fully aware that Denji saved his life. Even more than that, he is earnestly awed by the power of the Chainsaw Man, and the real reason he's considering quitting the section is because he doesn't think a person like himself is even worth having around for an organization with Denjis on its payroll.

Denji still feels pretty shitty after the vomit-kiss, but you can tell he really appreciates hearing this from Arai. It's some of the first honest, non-manipulative, non-doubled-edged praise he's ever received. He might not find Arai all that interesting as a person, or particularly want his friendship in any active sense, but the fact that he's being given it still touches him. Denji doesn't say anything to this effect, but there's definitely a sense of comeraderie established between the two of them now. Hopefully Arai will stick around after all; his presence will be good for Denji, provided he stops failing those panic checks on subsequent missions.

As the night winds down, Denji steps out to have a cigarette, and Makima takes the opportunity to give him a little heart-to-heart. And also offers him a little anti-nausea pop that she picked up at the nearby corner store while he and Arai were in the bathroom. As she cheers him up over how the taste of vomit might be a painful presence in his mind during subsequent kisses throughout his life but that still won't be enough to ruin it, she also puts the medicine-pop in her own mouth before handing it back to him. And says whatever the hell this is supposed to be:

Talk about a desperate save lol. She's really reaching.

Meanwhile, as all this drama was going on, Power has just been her delightful self in the background. Such as claiming that her ability to control her bloodlust better than most fiends is granted by her astonishingly high IQ.

Power can see nuances and complexities in Rick & Morty that no one else can perceive. May she never, ever change.

Chapter #22, "Cola-Flavored Chupa Chups," is precipitated by Denji helping the half-unconscious Himeno home to her apartment while Makima is distracted with something else. When Himeno regains semi-coherency a little while after their arrival, she seems to be trying to warn him away from pursuing Makima. In a way that suggests that even if she isn't on to all or even most to Makima's manipulative bullshit, she's onto enough of it to actively dislike her.

Then again, she might just resent Makima because of Aki's own crush on their boss. It's been not-so-subtly implied through their flashbacks that Himeno has low-key had a thing for Aki ever since they were assigned together, but Makima has been working Aki over the same way that she's working over Denji. Preventing Aki from being very interested in women his own age and in a not-totally-fucked-up relationship with him through the chain of command.

So, maybe it's not insight on Himeno's part so much as just jealousy that happens to have coincidentally led her in the right direction.

While drunkenly venting and tossing shade at Makima, Himeno slowly shifts gears to the flirtatious again. She apologizes for the vomit incident, and offers to make it up to Denji by taking his V-card. Which, let's face it, she probably would be offering even if she didn't have anything to apologize to him for.

Denji really wants his first time to be with Makima, but he's not about to say no when an attractive coworker is literally pawing at him in her bed right now. So, he starts to consent...but then, while she's getting his clothes off, she happens to find the nausea med lollipop in his pocket. Reminding Denji of his unruined "indirect kiss" and how much more pleasant it was than the direct one that Himeno tried to give him.

Granted, it's very much for the best that he turned her down, if not for the reason he did. The next morning she makes it clear that she was still far too drunk to be in her right mind. Far passed the point of being able to consent.

That's not what her concern was, though. Her fear, when she wakes up with Denji in her apartment and no memory of what happened after they came home, is that she might have taken advantage of him. I totally forgot how young Denji is supposed to be, but Himeno has not forgotten.

So yeah. That would have been really messed up on both of their sides, if it had ended up happening. It's really too bad that the REASON it didn't happen was Makima's hooks being that deep in Denji, but still, positive outcome in this very limited instance.

Although...Himeno's awareness of this makes this next conversation that she has with Denji over breakfast really, really, *really* weird.

Yeah. In light of everything established previously, about Himeno and what she knows about the people around her, how many things are wrong with this? You'll need both hands and probably a foot to count them.

There might be more going on here than it seems. Until such a time as that is proven to be the case, however, my opinion of Himeno will remain significantly lowered.

Well, be that as it may, Himeno tells Denji he should come over for lunch sometime, and that he's free to invite Aki and (for some reason) Power along with him. So, uh. I guess that's nice? Ish? Maybe? Genuinely not sure at this point.

Cut to Makima, on the train to Kyoto to meet with some of her own superiors. She exchanges some words with her attaché that...hmm.

She could be acting here. She could also be genuine. A little bit of actual vulnerability showing through?

She also muses on the drinks she had with her underlings yesterday, and how much she enjoyed them. The way she stares wistfully out the window while talking about this...I don't know. Could be performance, as an elaborate piece of manipulation of the guy she's traveling with, or as just not wanting to drop the method acting while she's on a role. But I don't think so.

I'm tempted to say this is evidence she's not a devil, but...then again, we've been seeing more and more indications that humans and devils aren't necessarily all that that different. They have the same range of emotions (or at least, they potentially can have that range). They have complex social relationships, both with other devils and in some cases with humans. So, fearing her superiors (who may or may not already know what she is and be onboard with her agenda), savouring an interaction with her underlings (even if she still ruthlessly exploits them and treats them like shit), etc...doesn't preclude her from being a human warlock, or a fiend, or a particularly humanoid devil.

Whatever the case, at that moment the four men sitting behind and in front of them on the train all pull out guns and open up on Makima and her companion before they can react.

Whatever Makima is, she's either killable with bullets or is doing a very good job at pretending to be. In any case, I definitely can't say I saw this coming.

That's the end of the chapter, and of the commission.


Heh, well, damn. No idea what to make of that ending.

Unfortunately, not much to say about the rest of it that I haven't already. These chapters were mostly just the downtime between the previous arc and the next one, and they didn't reveal too much more about the characters (except what I already commented about wrt Makima and Himeno).

I have a feeling that the next chunk of Chainsaw Man I review will be a lot spicier.