Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m happy to announce we’re returning Tatsuki Fujimoto’s phenomenal Chainsaw Man, in the wake of Denji’s brief relationship with the mysterious, murderous, and ultimately quite sympathetic Reze. Like Denji himself, Reze was both servant and victim of forces beyond her control, dancing at the whims of the arbiters of violence and capital that truly run our society. Destined to battle yet determined to maintain their humanity, the two found a precious fragment of normalcy in their mundane teenage infatuation – but of course, this is Chainsaw Man, and thus Reze was crushed by the machine just like Himeno before her, one more victim of our capitalist overlords and their slavering hellhounds.
Incidentally, we’re jumping from essays to notes for this volume, because goddamnit Chainsaw Man is long, and I really do want to catch up on the thing. Kiyotaka Oshiyama’s adaptation of Look Back is my favorite anime of the last few years, and I have every expectation that Fujimoto’s main project will continue to brim with vivid art, thoughtfully sketched characters, and scorching commentary on modern society – this world we’ve built where the will of humanity is secondary both to the sovereignty of the dollar and the finality of the gun. Let’s get to it!
Chapter 53
Our cover features a younger Denji in a dimly lit alley, showing off the sickly pastel color design used for the manga’s covers. There is an argument to be made in favor of the anime’s stabs at realism (though it’s certainly not “Tatsuki Fujimoto likes live-action movies, so we want to make Chainsaw Man look like one”), but I would very much have liked to see an adaptation that echoes this aesthetic, portraying Denji’s world in the faded, unpleasant colors of these covers
Ooh, I like this – the first page proper actually continues the “narrative” of that cover, with the creature beyond the door telling Denji not to open it. Fujimoto’s always looking for ways to experiment with the visual assumptions of manga storytelling, and having the cover be the actual “first page” is another nice flourish in that direction
“I might never feel joy or sadness again for the rest of my life” leading into Denji’s wild celebration of a proposed vacation is a funny beat, very true to Denji, and a fine way of reestablishing normalcy. It’s sort of a quiet theme in Chainsaw Man – this world is full of unimaginable tragedy, but you still gotta go to work the next morning. Denji’s ability to just bounce back from loss actually makes him uniquely equipped for this world, while in turn emphasizes how cruel we have to become to survive
The vacation is postponed as soon as it’s proposed, due to Denji’s sudden celebrity as the very public Chainsaw Man. An ominous aside as Makima reflects that the Soviets “don’t care who has Chainsaw Man, so long as it’s not me”
Makima explicitly says they’ll be fighting the gun devil next year. While most shonen manga tend to conserve narrative resources to the point of drawing their conflicts out, Fujimoto consumes them ravenously, burning through concepts like “a happy family life with Himeno and the others” or Reze in general at maximum speed. The story thus feels much more propulsive, as well as more fragile – basically nothing here is too load-bearing to be at risk of destruction. Fujimoto clearly isn’t trying to cling to Chainsaw Man as a career-long endeavor; he’s got other stories to tell, too
Angel reveals that the last sound devils hear before “dying in hell” is the roar of Denji’s chainsaw. A theoretical worldbuilding detail that we simply lack the context to tether right now, beyond offering some indication of why Makima is so interested in Denji
And we end on the introduction of three American devil hunters, now joining the global project to assassinate Chainsaw Man. The counterpoint to Fujimoto’s willingness to burn up characters or narrative paradigms: his equal willingness to introduce new characters or paradigms, without any of the slow transition work, foreshadowing, or preamble that often accompanies such dramatic shifts. Thus Chainsaw Man can swerve from being a tragic story of star-crossed lovers to a global manhunt in one chapter
Chapter 54
“Tolka, we’re about to do what we did to this fox to a 16-year-old boy.” The next chapter’s introduction of our new assassins offers a wonderful demonstration of Fujimoto’s economy of characterization, creating distinctive dynamics and implying whole private histories in just a few short pages each. This first one also naturally plays into Chainsaw Man’s meditations on the value of a life, seemingly asking if it’s actually a professional hunter like this, who is so accustomed to taking animal lives and making effective use of them, who can truly understand the sanctity of life, more so than someone for whom death is always a distant, theoretical concept
For these two, the idea of killing a boy for political reasons feels inherently unseemly; they killed this fox for its meat and its pelt, but they’re supposed to kill a human for the idle whims of capitalism? We have strayed far from the simple, fundamental law of nature, and yet we still abuse that law to justify the cages we’ve constructed around human lives
“You only have half of a year left to live. I want you to live the rest of your life in peace.” Further parallels drawn between these assassins and our own heroes. Everyone is just trying to grab a fragment of peace in the margins of a world that sees them as tools to be exploited until they are extinguished. The system we are trapped in does not, indeed cannot value things like human connection, personal expression, or self-actualization – humans themselves are purely fuel, purely labor inputs to be exploited. Thus the immediately cancelled vacation at the beginning of this arc both resets the tone as a gag and reestablishes the primacy of capital in all their lives
Our next introduction is Qaunxi from China, leader of a harem of female fiends, whose request for completing this assassination is “give my girls human rights and a basic education.” The particulars may be outlandish, but we all want the same things
And in spite of these assassins’ approach, the connections between our leads remain firm. We end on a brief exchange affirming Aki’s concern for Denji, as he assures our boy that their vacation hasn’t been cancelled, only postponed
Chapter 55
Fujimoto’s got an incredible eye and ear for comic pacing, by which I mean he both knows how to pace a comic delivery (the ear, or “rhythm” of comedy), and also how to maximize the impact of a visual gag (the eye). The slow rambling burn of this conversation between Denji and Power hits a brick wall as we turn the page, revealing that they’ve been surrounded by agents this entire time
Fujimoto really is a man of many talents. He’s intensely curious about the formal qualities of comic storytelling, his own far-flung aesthetic influences ensure his works never feel derivative, he’s got a remarkable knack for comedy, and he’s an ambitious, thoughtful humanist whose challenges to the world as it is are always baked into the fundamentals of his drama. His preposterous talent makes me all the happier Chainsaw Man is proceeding so quickly – it’s a great story, but I’m sure he has plenty more Look Backs and Goodbye, Eris inside him
And just like that, the trio who transferred into our division several volumes ago are dead, killed before they even understand what’s happening. Violence is sudden and death is senseless; no glamour here, just sudden confusion and then commiseration at what we’ve lost. And again, the gun, the icon of America’s fundamental brutality, our abiding desire to both accelerate and sanitize violence. America is a white sheet and a gun
I feel like the expectations of shonen manga make these deaths hit all the harder. In something like Naruto or One Piece, these characters would be “defeated,” join the peanut gallery, and eventually get brief heroic moments some time far down the line. We expect our characters to be celebrated, to become fully known – but these three barely came into focus at all before they were unceremoniously executed, appearing only long enough for us to think “oh hey, glad to see them again” before it’s all over. The potential understanding of these characters that is left discarded on the ground really fuels the feeling that this was senseless or “wrong” in some way, that it was not their preordained, “correct” death. Of course, that’s the point – there is no such thing as a “correct” death, people just die all the time. Our efforts to glamorize or make sense of the world, to turn life stories into coherent narratives, only feeds the power of our oppressors; we justify because we must, because the truth that we are senselessly dying for the whims of faceless capitalist brinkmanship is too horrible to bear
One of the brothers takes on one of the dead’s forms, setting up a future ambush
Chapter 56
“I never wanna eat barf again.” “It’ll be perfect barf, I promise.” Denji and Power remain delightful together
“I used a curse devil. Stab someone with this four times, and you can take their life, but at a great price. I’ve already pricked the target three times undetected. I’ll entrust the fourth and final time to you, Tolka.” This quasi-explanation of this assassin’s power offers a fine demonstration of Fujimoto’s understanding of drama and distinct priorities relative to many of his contemporaries. This power is unlike anything we’ve ever seen, and will likely never receive further explanation, but its mechanics are simply unimportant – both because the idea itself plays naturally into evocative, well-known concepts regarding voodoo dolls, but more importantly because the actual important thing here is the relationship between Tolka and his handler, and how this changing of the guard represents a sacrifice on their end. You can’t really “power scale” Fujimoto, because he understands drama is about human beings – the question is never “is my power strong enough to win,” it’s “can I accept the personal and moral consequences of victory.” His style of conflict resolution is far closer to someone like Nisio Isin than your standard action comic artist – and when great violence is the solution, it’s always painted as horrible, a clumsy, brutal intrusion on the psychological journeys of the characters
Fujimoto’s ability to so efficiently spin up compelling personal vignettes is crucial here, given how little time Chainsaw Man generally offers for any narrative development. We get another charming one between Kobeni and the “Violence Devil” here, who share a soft serve while talking about their feelings. Again and again, we are reminded that these are not the lives these characters should be living, that they can be gentle and compassionate, that none of what makes them exceptional or worthy of love is expressed through their capacity to inflict harm on one another
The pair are interrupted by the disguised assassin from the previous chapter
Excellent beat of Power seemingly acknowledging the absurdity of using a vacation as the carrot to accept being bait for assassins, but then in truth only being angry because she’s not getting a carrot of her own. Love how Power consistently dances with the idea of class consciousness, but is simply too selfish and feral to get any further than “but what about ME” with it
Chapter 57
An amazing string of nonsense as the spy infiltrates their group, confirms Denji is Chainsaw Man, and then even grabs his hand before being run the fuck over by Power commandeering Kobeni’s car. What a delightful play on our expectations, building up the unknown threat of these three brothers, emphasizing their brutality through their heartless assassination of those three known characters, and then turning the whole damn thing into a pratfall centered on Power’s selfishness and shitty driving
It’s basically a comic variation on the lesson of their deaths, and of Himeno’s death earlier – “no death is destined, we could all go at any moment” can be a chilling message, but it can also be a very funny one
This freeze frame of Power and Kobeni’s reactions is so good. Even in some manga I like, their attempts at humor can be extremely trying; lucky for us all that Fujimoto is so genuinely funny
And of course, Power switches immediately to celebrating how great she is when the ruse is discovered. In a story where the selfishness and cruelty of so many characters is hidden behind layers of condescending obfuscation, Power’s “fuck you, I’m great” attitude is very refreshing
Chapter 58
Our title page sees Quanxi and her four fiends strutting across the Tokyo streets, prepared for whatever violence awaits them. This page was one of many I saw highlighted before ever reading Chainsaw Man, one of those evocative spreads that seems to promise a whole history of drama culminating in the next few moments. Of course, now I know that Quanxi was only introduced a few chapters ago, and that this is literally her second appearance – Fujimoto is just that good at creating iconography that feels epic and consequential from the start, at drawing the audience up from zero expectations to full anticipation of a storied conclusion
That seems hard to quantify, though. Perhaps the specific qualities I’m responding to here are confidence and style. In terms of confidence, Fujimoto creates concepts and characters that feel utterly unique to him, and executes them with such clarity that they feel almost “destined” to happen. And in terms of style, he is able to consistently manage panel pacing (like with the preceding “Halloween” exchange here) to make splash pages land with tremendous impact, while also taking advantage of his dual interest in fashion and cinematographic technique to ensure the actual content of those pages sticks in the mind. Basically the only shonen mangaka I can think of with a similar capacity is Tite Kubo; Bleach is overflowing with incredibly iconic splash pages, even if the actual story they’re conveying doesn’t hold up
Of course, his knack for comic pacing and unexpected character-building vignettes is a power all his own, as this delightful conveyor belt sushi trip shows
The rest of this chapter is quintessential Chainsaw Man humanism, posthumously celebrating the life of another of its poor souls. Seemingly on a whim, one of the three assassin brothers heads off to visit a friend of Kurose, the man they killed and then impersonated. We thus learn more about Kurose’s life here than we ever did while he was alive, as his friend reminisces and even offers to open a shop with Kurose, seeing his old friend in such distress
The actual killing of Kurose was swift and brutal, unglamorous and incidental – it is this requiem that is given care and attention, as like Himeno before him, we learn all the ways Kurose was truly valuable. The ambitions he shared, the friends he loved, the family debts he had yet to repay – we are all perpetually working towards some theoretical better, happier self, but Chainsaw Man’s frequent deaths remind us how fragile life is, how often those journeys and quests end not with a satisfying conclusion, but a sentence cut off by a blank page. Staring at a collection of Kurose’s precious memories, and then recognizing Kurose himself has now joined the ranks of these still photographs, even his murderer cries in repentance for what he has done. Everyone is human here, and none of them deserve something so coarse and vile as a life dedicated to violence
“Look after your parents before you die. What would your brother say if he saw you like this?” Even a world this cruel, even with lives this fragile, we do what we can to make the passage easier for others. Like Himeno, Kurose was only doing his best to keep the flame alive
Chapter 59
Our first page sees all four international assassin squads prepping for the hunt, once more captured in those diseased pastel hues that are Chainsaw Man’s natural color incarnation. The color design somewhat reminds me of Diamond is Unbreakable’s adaptation, though of course trending towards much darker hues, and for likely the same reason – both of these stories are attempting to present an uncanny view of allegedly normal modern life, where the general normalcy only makes the sickness of the unwelcome details all the more apparent. David Lynch loves to play in this space; Blue Velvet is basically constructed around this contrast
Hah, and the title spread is just Quanxi having sex with her entire crew. Fujimoto is not fucking around with “implied” queer characters – his sneering liberatory politics are expressed in every possible way
Elsewhere, Germany’s “Santa Claus” has sprung into action. Makima reaffirms both the threat and her own callousness through asking a fiend to “retrieve as many of our people’s bodies as you can”
More fun contrasts of wild, distinctive powers as the abilities of the Stone Devil and Doll Devil clash. The Stone Devil is clearly combining the Gorgon’s stare with general occult symbology, while I feel pretty confident that the Doll Devil was inspired by Hisoka and Chrollo’s fight in Hunter x Hunter
Just enough time for a quintessential Fujimoto gag in the middle of this melee, as a new devil hunter arrives to a chorus of “who the fuck is this guy”s from our crew, only for his gallant self-introduction to be cut off by someone else’s word balloon. A nod to the increasingly convoluted staff situation here, and another example of Fujimoto messing with paneling format for the sake of a punchline. Fujimoto is often in conversation with manga storytelling convention to such a pronounced degree that his works can’t really be “fully” adapted, at least without transitioning gags playing on comic form to gags playing on cinematic form
A last cut to Kobeni, lamenting her car’s damage in the midst of a battle-prep montage, serves as both a comic non-sequitur and a subtle question: why is Kobeni’s drama any less important than this stupid supernatural stuff?
Chapter 60
A mysterious new power is unveiled by the Angel Devil, who states “Usage: Five Years” and then draws a sword from beneath his halo. Creating a grounded, coherent system of fantastical powers is only really important if the interplay of those powers is supposed to be the core drama of your story – if the audience’s ability to parse the contrast and relative strengths of those powers is load-bearing in some way. But Chainsaw Man’s action is all basically horror spectacle, and the story makes deliberate, consistent efforts to emphasize that there is no justice or “fairness” in violence, which incidentally gives Fujimoto free reign to invent whatever the fuck powers he chooses, so long as they continue to facilitate the character drama and support the core themes. And audiences frankly don’t tend to care so long as the spectacle is itself entertaining; Hiroyuki Imaishi’s career is a testament to the fact that sufficiently dazzling spectacle can make groundless action compelling to those who seek action specifically
And the rest of the chapter is given up to introducing Quanxi’s own threat, as she dashes through the department store so swiftly no one even notices her pass, only for all the dolls and devil hunters she passed to fall apart in the wake of her blade’s passage. The greatest powers here only emphasize the senselessness of death, how it could arrive at any moment – Quanxi feels like Makima, someone who demonstrates through their overwhelming superiority the foolishness of taking pride in a talent so arbitrary as violence
Aki again demonstrates his commitment to protecting the people he cares about, just barely deflecting for Angel
Chapter 61
Quanxi’s further assault is conveyed in a rush of dizzying choreography that ends nearly as soon as it starts, in the revelation that Kishibe has already subdued her four fiends. It’s a nice way of keeping things efficient while simultaneously demonstrating just how wildly out of proportion these various powers truly are; in the end, the entire devil hunter crew would fall to Quanxi if not for their outrageously strong protectors
This sense of continuous threat and fragility is a nice side effect of Fujimoto’s refusal to draw battles out; any fight that takes a long time to execute implies a certain degree of parity between its combatants, as otherwise the significantly stronger contestant would simply wipe the floor with their opponent. Quanxi and Kishibe actually do wipe the floor with their opponents, thereby affirming their absurd power
That in turn tells us just how terrifying Makima is that Kishibe would go to the length of hiding this discussion with Quanxi from his superior. And as always, no paradigm is stable here – it was clear from the start that Makima was menacing and untrustworthy, but her reign has barely outlasted Denji’s integration into the devil hunter dynamic
Quanxi declines, and Kishibe is caught off guard after being forced to defend Denji. Odd to think that among all these characters, Kishibe might be the greatest idealist
And Done
Well, as usual, Fujimoto is clearly a restless storyteller who simply can’t be pinned down by any one plot or paradigm. With Reze fading in the rear view, Chainsaw Man swerves toward an action-packed contest of assassins, with each new threat demonstrating the profound fragility of the public safety bureau. This was largely Fujimoto in full manic invention mode, demonstrating why his stories move so much faster and spark so much more enthusiasm than his narrative resource-conscious contemporaries, but it also spared a chapter for that poignant Kurose sequence, a lost soul mourned even by the man who killed him. The world Fujimoto conjures is familiar and bleak enough to truly earn its moments of solace; this is our world, and in this place we can only hope to live with purpose and die with dignity.
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