Chainsaw Man #5: “A Way to Touch Some Boobs”

This review was commissioned by @Doby Mick.


It's been two years and change since I last did Chainsaw Man. In that time, the series has received an anime adaptation that I'm told is quite good. Haven't seen it yet, and I don't plan to until I've finished at least the part of the manga that I have in queue, but I'm glad to hear it. From what I've read of this comic so far, it certainly deserves a quality adaptation!


Where we left off, Denji got a reprieve from his comically terrible life when his pet demonic chainsaw-dog-thing Pochita symbiotically fused with his body, turning him into the mighty Chainsaw Man. Things are better for him now, but not that much better. Shortly after his transformation, he was forcibly recruited into the Japanese government's anti-devil response unit under the sadistic, manipulative, and uncomfortably sexualized command of Chief Makima. Makima briefly assigned him to work with another devil hunter named Aki, but that didn't work out so well, so she's just given him a new partner in the form of a fellow devil-human symbiote who calls herself Power.

Denji had a positive reaction to this latest development, because now that he has a steady roof over his head and food source, his next objective in improving his quality of life is to touch some boobs. And, it just so happens that Power has not one, but two of those, and if they get along well perhaps she'll let him touch them. So, that brings us to the beginning of chapter five.

Denji and Power are prowling the city, searching for signs of devil activity and listening to the police dispatch. Denji is thinking about how he should go about approaching Power about his mammarial ambitions, and wondering if she's actually pretty enough to make up for her craziness. Power is complaining about how they haven't found anything to kill yet, and insisting that her thirst for blood must be sated.

It bears remembering that while Denji is a (unique, as far as we know) type of human-devil symbiosis in which the human remains in control with the devil empowering him, Power is something called a "fiend." A freshly dead human body that was taken over and revitalized by a controlling devil. In short, he's a human with access to a devil's power, while she is an actual devil. The unique thing about her is that, unlike any other fiend that's been encountered so far, she has proven willing to fight with humans against the other devils instead of the reverse. There's no guarantee that she'll keep doing this, of course, so the organization is keeping her under even more surveillance than Denji. Makima might be a tyrant, but in this specific case taking such precautions does seem reasonable.

In a flashback, Makima explains to Denji that while some types of devil have proven themselves intelligent and capable of speech, the possessing fiends specifically are more like mindless beasts. Power is very unusual for her sapience, not to mention her human-friendly disposition.

Hmm. It sounds to me like she might not actually be a fiend at all, but something just superficially similar. This might also explain why, while other fiends we've seen had their human bodies hideously mutated by the possessing devil, Power just looks like a woman with cute little monstergirl horns and fangs.

Makima also explained that her division is a new, experimental part of the organization, which is why she has remit to try risky things like recruiting devils to fight other devils. If she doesn't get good enough results, her unit might get shut down. In which case...

Power will be treated like any other fiend, and Denji will probably be treated like one too even though he's clearly something totally different.

Makima may or may not be telling the truth about what her own superiors would do, of course, but she probably has the institutional power to make good on that threat herself if they disappoint her sufficiently. And I think she probably doesn't even care that much if they know it.

...

Also, apparently Makima is a redhead. I'd been picturing her as blonde this whole time, and my mind just can't square that circle now. :/

...

Power's horns attract attention, but Denji has a badge to prove that they're with Division 4. Even so, they've been advised to avoid heavily trafficked parts of the city so as to create as little stir as possible. The problem with that, though, is that devils like to attack people, and avoiding people also means avoiding places where devils are likely to show up. Hence, them not having found any so far. A counterproductive methodology, to say the least.

Power has a different explanation for why they haven't found anything, albeit one I'm hesitant to trust.

The part I'm skeptical of is Power's assessment of her own importance. The rest of what she's saying, though, implies some interesting stuff.

Devils of other types can become fiends. And, most fiends have only animal-level intelligence, while most other devils we've seen so far are much smarter. I wonder...does killing a devil only destroy its body, while leaving its spirit free to seek an empty vessel? That would explain how other devils can become fiends, and how it's a big drop in status as Power implied. Of course, that leaves the question of how she's so much smarter and saner than other fiends still unanswered. I can only assume she's been asked about this before, so either the organization has learned the answer or they just couldn't get anything coherent from her on the subject.

Denji also figures out, thinking back over previous snippets of conversation, that fellow devil hunter and slight seniority-holder Aki was the one who convinced Makima to assign Denji and Power together as a duo. Or at least, that's how Makima made it sound in some of those snippets. Denji concludes that Aki is trying to sabotage him, which could very well mean getting him (and Power) executed. Kind of awkward to put all that in a flashback, but only have Denji piece it together now. Meh. Anyway, as Denji starts scheming to come up with a way out of this and retaliate, Power suddenly looks up and starts charging forward. She either detected something in the air, or just heard it on the police radio, and now she's making a beeline for a target. Ignoring Denji's demands for her to slow down and explain what she's doing, she leaps off the roof they're on, cuts her hand against a sharp edge on her way down, and does this with her own blood:

Harley Quinn, but edgier. I guess that's her character in a nutshell, personality and abilities alike.

Denji, huffing and puffing to keep up, follows Power to the target. There's a particularly grotesque creature identified as a "sea cucumber devil" rampaging around absorbing people into its mass for digestion.

Those seem to be oversized fingers sticking out all over its body, but that's not what I thought they were at first.​

Grotesque, perhaps, but also not any sturdier than it looks; Power descends on the beast and crushes it dead with a single mighty blow of her bloodhammer. Afterward, she stands over its remains, covered in its blood and mucus, throwing her head back and exulting in the thrill of victory in plain view of many civilian witnesses.

Cut ahead to Denji and a rapidly hosed-down Power getting chewed out by Makima for their conduct there. Partly because they didn't take pains to keep Power out of sight, but mostly because it's apparently against regulations for their unit to engage a devil that a civilian bounty hunter is already in combat with, which this one apparently was. According to Makima, this is actually a full-on obstruction of justice charge that she'll have to work to keep from sticking to them.

...the public safety department is "obstructing justice" when it steps on the toes of civilian bounty hunters?

That is the most ass backwards policy I have ever heard of.

I'm starting to suspect that Makima doesn't actually work for the government at all. Just some crazy cult leader who's managed to bend the local police department to her will.

Power immediately tries to throw Denji under the bus, even though he pretty much had nothing to do with the incident at all.

Denji doesn't take this laying down, though. Power may have boobs, but those by themselves can only earn her so much credit with him. He calls Power on her lie, and a hilariously childish argument breaks out between them as Makima sighs and taps her toes. One memorable exchange goes as follows:


POWER: "This deciever told me to do it! Devils can't lie!"

DENJI: "THAT'S NOT A THING!!!"


Lol, did Power actually think anyone would buy that? Devils lie all the time. Denji fought devils who used lies extensively in like...chapter two? Maybe chapter one as well? And that's just his limited experience, Makima and other experienced people obviously have much more.

Anyway, Makima doesn't care which of them is at fault, but just chews both of them out and reminds them that failure to perform better will mean their deaths. Leadership.

She also reveals some more information about Power that seems to support my earlier inference about what fiends are. She says that Power used to be "the blood devil" before she was reduced to fiendhood, which is why she can still form objects like hammers out of her blood (blood is a big power source for devils in general, but in her case it's especially so). So yeah, something (either bodily destruction or some other type of misfortune) happens to devils, and they're forced to become fiends and look for a human corpse to inhabit, with a great loss of power and intelligence. What makes Power different from other fiends, of course, is still an obvious mystery.

After the chewing out, Denji miserably prowls the headquarters cafeteria while Power paws at the vending machines like she's trying to figure out why the glass is stopping her hands. This situation, Denji says to himself, is not sustainable. He'd best start looking for ways to change it, or else just enjoying life as much as he can before it ends in the near future.

He decides on the former, at least for now.

He's snapped out of his thoughts when Power notices a cat wandering around the room, and immediately picks it up and starts snuggling and petting it. When Denji is surprised to see this behavior, Power explains that it's...well, that it's hard to explain.

She instinctively hates humans. This is an inborn devil trait, as far as she can tell. If she ever knew the reason why devils are born with that hatred, she doesn't remember it now. Curiously, this hatred does *not* apply to nonhuman animals, so devils can develop affections for cats, dogs, etc just like humans can. Power is particularly fond of cats.

In fact, the reason she's siding with humans over the rest of devilkind in this instance is because her experiences have brought her to hate devils even more than her instincts drive her to hate humans. The reason? Other devils took her cat away from her. She had her very own pet cat, by the name of Meowy, and another devil took it from her. Thus, she hates other devils even more than she innately hates humans.

I'm guessing that in Japanese, Meowy's name was "Nyanya" or something.

Also, the way Power tells it, another devil stole her cat, and then Makima "caught" her before she could make the other devil(s?) give it back. I guess Power was already a fiend at this point, then. That raises even more questions.

Though, it also makes a pattern consistent. When Makima first found Denji, he was standing over the corpse of a devil and its zombie army, in werechainsaw form. She probably assumed he was a devil himself at first glance. It seems like whenever she runs into a rare scene of devils fighting against other devils, she makes a recruitment-at-gunpoint attempt at whichever one seems to be less hostile (or, in Denji's case, still alive). This must have been much trickier in Power's case.

Well, assuming any of this is true. Power has just proven herself a flagrant liar, after all.

Power nuzzles her new cat, but pines aloud for her old one, Meowy, who she still considers her true cat even if she acquires others subsequently. And, that leads to...well, this:

Oh dear.


That's the end of the chapter. We're getting a bit more worldbuilding, and surprisingly the devil stuff seems to make more sense and be less batshit than the human stuff. Or...maybe not that surprisingly, considering what we've seen of human society in the previous chapters. In case anyone has forgotten, this is a really, really, REALLY weird comic.

I'll have the next chapter up tonight or tomorrow, so we'll see if Denji gets at those diabolical tiddies. Come to think of it, is that technically necrophilia? Power's body is supposed to be a freshly dead human corpse that "she" reanimated, so...kinda, yeah. There's a pleasant thought for you. :/

Overall, Chainsaw Man continues to just pretty much be itself. Which is a good thing.