Chainsaw Man #12: "Squeeze"

The title suggests that either Denji is going to get his wish, or Power is going to cackle about how she tricked him a second time and wrap her body around and crush him like a boa constrictor. Possibly both; he might manage to fondle her chest while she's constricting him, if his hand happens to be at the right level. Well, let's find out.


Power seems to think she's in a position to negotiate. And...well, to be fair, I don't think he has any way of taking her to task that wouldn't just make him look worse, considering that he already covered for her betrayal. Well, anyway, here's what she tells him.

Wait, what? She isn't giving him a fourth one for not running off when the leech-devil gave him an out? Cheeeeeaaaaap.

On the other hand, her initial promise was just that he could touch them. So, maybe this is reasonable. He should have gotten her to be more specific in the first place. So, he grudgingly accepts.

She sits up on the toilet lid. He grabs them and gives a squeeze with both hands. Surprisingly, Power has a seemingly involuntary reaction to this, gasping and wriggling. She could just be pretending, of course, but it really seems like she got some erotic sensation out of this, and also that this was a surprise to her. Interesting. Maybe she just never bothered trying to use her human body sexually before, and didn't realize it could feel these things?

I'm also curious about who this body belonged to before she hopped into it. We're told that fiends animate and revive the bodies of the freshly dead, but...I don't know, the thought of what the girl who had this body before her might think of this is definitely uncomfortable to say the least.

Granted, when he squeezes a little harder there's an unexpected and (at least for him) unfortunate development. Not quite as bad as being boa-constricted, but still not good.

I'm surprised she wears those. Her chest was more pronounced during her intro scene as well, so this isn't something she started doing just for Denji. She doesn't seem like she cares about making herself physically attractive to humans on her own, either.

Wonder if Makima told her to start wearing them when she first recruited her, for whatever creepy reasons of her own, and Power just kinda shrugged and did as told? That's probably the most likely explanation.

On a related note, I'm not sure if she understands his disappointment or not. She's at least making a good performance of not appearing to. Granted, if her reaction to him squeezing earlier was genuine, then she's going to be surprised anew at how much better she can feel it now without the padding.

Denji just kind of stares there in silent, inarticulate disappointment for a moment, but then comes in for his second squeeze. Power's reaction isn't as dramatic this time, but still pretty vocal. Like she's getting used to it, and was ready for the feeling this time, even if it was more intense.

Also, she isn't *totally* flat-chested, it seems. Denji actually is getting to feel something. Just, not quite as much of the something.

The third squeeze has her gasping and biting her lip again, but after he's done she doesn't seem to have any lingering sensations or impulses. She just cheerfully tells Denji that she considers them to be even now (um...don't think I'd accept that in Denji's place, but then again if I were Denji I'd also want something much more substantial than boob-squeezes to atone for the whole "selling my blood to a bat demon" thing).

She actually does have a more obvious (nonsexual) offer she can make, and she...maybe makes it? Maybe? She tells him that with Meowy safe, she has no motivation to be a devil hunter anymore. However, she's not confident she can escape Makima and her goons, so she'll stick around and help Denji with his job for now. She says she's doing him a favor, but I think she has a sense of wanting to make up for her betrayal even if she won't express it in as many words.

Denji, however, is too paralyzed in disappointment to even think about those sorts of questions.

This experience is not what he was expecting it to be. And not just because of his cup size related misconceptions.

...

Maybe I'm giving this comic too much credit, but I actually kind of like what it seems to be telling the Shonen Jump target audience with this.

So many other mangas aimed at teenagers and young men would have the boob-touch be a mystical experience that leaves Denji with a giant grin plastered on his face or whatever. Reinforcing exactly the same juvenile beliefs that led to Denji himself making terrible decisions in the story. Sex is fun, sure. If done well, it's a strong contender for the most fun thing. But it's still, ultimately, just a fun thing. It's not magic. It doesn't fill an empty life. Especially in your teens, when you're still getting used to the hormonal cravings, it really feels like sex must be the gateway into some transcendent state of being, and we grow up absolutely buried in media narratives that reinforce this. The narratives directed at young boys specifically are absolutely the worst. Sex is the best, most important thing in the world, and women have it, and you need to get it from them.

Now, sure, part of Denji's disappointment is that Power isn't as stacked as he thought she was, and if that was the extent of it I wouldn't feel nearly as positive about this chapter. Thing is, that was only the start of the disappointment. It's more of a symbolic representation of the main issue; the demystification, the de-pedestalization. What really disappoints Denji is that the dirty magazines were lying; boobs, regardless of your erotic interest in them, really are just handfuls of skin and adipose tissue. Just a normal part of life.

...

So, Power goes off to put her cat to bed (lmao imagine thinking you can tell a cat when it's sleeping time), and Denji is morosely contemplative for the rest of the evening.

The next morning, Denji comes to the office in the police station to fill out some paperwork. There's quite a bit of it, owing to how much property damage the battle with the bat and leech devils ended up causing. Makima sympathetically remarks that it must feel like he's being punished just for doing his job and succeeding, especially after how much medical attention he already needed. Hmm. When he remains quiter than usual, she asks him if he has something else on his mind, and he - after a cautious pause - decides to open up to her a little bit.

She asks him what he's talking about, exactly, so he finally throws caution to the wind (bad idea, considering Makima's everything) and tells her that he finally got his hands on tiddy, but that the experience wasn't nearly as rewarding as he'd been expecting. It just felt like holding onto a part of someone's body.

Makima makes some thoughtful noises and scratches her chin, with the air of a mother trying to help figure out her son's homework problem. Then, she takes him by the hands and tells him that "naughty things feel better the more you know your partner." She talks him through the process of getting to know a person's body, its physicality, its reactions, its sensitivities and textures. All while grasping his hands, leaning over him, and speaking ever more slowly. Putting his fingers on her ears, her hair, nibbling one of their tips, before finally bringing his hands to her chest.

Denji's reaction this time is...hmm. HMMM.

On one hand, rather than just sitting there like Power did, Makima really did the whole seduction angle and got him into a headspace. So, maybe that's all the difference. The fact that she isn't wearing any padding over hers might also play a role.

But then, that said, this seems...suspiciously extreme, after that very realistic and grounded scene with Denji and Power:

For a second I thought that she had suddenly slapped him, or pushed/kicked him off of his chair. But no. This was seemingly just from squeezing her breasts...

...

She's not human either, is she?

Or, if she is, then the pact she has with her own devil sidekick lets her magically manipulate sensations or emotions.

One or the other. Either way, Denji's interaction with Power felt much more genuine, in a way that seemed deliberate on the author's part.

...

After Denji falls off of his chair in a quivering heap, Makima kneels over him and leans forward, her lips hovering inches from his own. She asks him if he can do her a favor. He whispers a breathy "yes." She starts to move her face in toward his. He does the same. Just before their lips can touch, she abruptly stands back up and sits in her chair, looking down at him paternalistically and telling him that there's another devil she wants him to kill.

I mean, I can't say I didn't see something like this coming. Even so though, the way this couple of pages are illustrated and arranged just makes it even colder than I probably made it sound.

When Denji lets out a flustered "...huh?" she explains a little more. The Gun Devil is an extremely high profile target. It first made its appearance in (appropriately enough) the United States over a decade ago. Thousands of devil-hunters from hundreds of organizations all around the world have been trying to take this thing down, so far with little success, mostly due to how elusive it is. The gun devil appears somewhere in the world, performs a high-casualty attack, and then makes itself scarce before responders can arrive. No one is sure where or how it hides between attacks, so few have managed to actually fight it, and those who have were either killed or unable to keep track of it when it escaped.

What makes Makima think Denji can pull this off, considering the above? What ability or trait does he possess that she thinks can make the difference when so many other hunters, including ones with significant government support and organization behind them, could not? Well, you see, it's very simple:

Like I said in the last chapter. The only difference between Makima's treatment of Aki and her treatment of Denji is that with Aki she needs to be more subtle due to his greater life experience and legal status. Aside from that imposition on her behavior, it's exactly the same. She collects these kids, pits them against each other, gives each of them the hope that she thinks they're special and might be something more than a boss for them - whether that something is always sexual or not is irrelevant; I suspect it isn't always - and making them all complicit in whatever outright lawbreaking she does commit in their presence.

Then she says...um. Okay, yeah, no, there's no way in hell that Makima is just a human with some weird powers.

That phrasing. Not "do you a favor" or "improve your status" or anything that you'd expect someone in her position to bribe an underling with. "Grant you a wish."

People don't talk like that, even in a WTF psychedellic horror-comedy world like this comic's. Maybe if she was the dictator of the country or something it would make sense, given the breadth of her power and influence, but she's not. This is devil phrasing, the way one would speak when making a pact with a human. I'd be very, very surprised at this point if Makima wasn't either a very subtle fiend, or some other kind of devil with a unique shapeshifting ability (or, perhaps, one that just happens to look exactly like a human. Maybe she'd be the "traitor devil" or the "conspiracy devil" or something, with those salient abilities?).

The big question I have now is whether the government knows what she is. Do they know that the person they're trusting to tame devils for them is, herself, a devil? Is she a living proof-of-concept for them? Regardless of whether or not they know what she is, I strongly suspect that she has an agenda of her own that they would be less than happy to learn about. Unless it really is just tormenting her underlings; that they'd probably be fine with as long as they still get their results. But I doubt that it's just that.

In light of this, the way she seems to be tempting Denji with a sort of hyper-reality, a propagandised version of what he thinks he wants...hmm. Well, I think there's some social commentary here, but once more I might be giving the comic too much credit. I'll have to read more and see where it goes with this.


Anyway, that's the end of the chapter. Chainsaw Man continues to be a multilateral surprise, while still retaining its commitment to being spectacularly, purposefully stupid. Impressive.