Transcription
With Chains in chapter 172, the madness it continues. As we continue to keep our foot pressed all the way to the gas, from this last chapter picking up right from where the cliffhanger ended last week, where you have the newly unleashed Chainsaw Man, i.e., Pochita, standing behind the members of Public Safety who are getting ready to target him.
And with this chapter, Chainsaw Man basically remakes that scene from Batman: The Dark Knight, where Batman pops up behind the Joker inside the holding cell without the Joker realizing it, and he just slams his head onto the table. As members of Public Safety are about to start heading out, Pochita stares them down from behind and speed blitzes them with so much speed that it looks like he vanishes. Only one of the members of Public Safety has realized what it is that's happened, and it's the Crocodile Devil, who immediately alerts the others to jump. But it's all to no avail. Pochita has basically sliced everyone standing on the ground.
And for a moment, you're thinking the Crocodile Devil, or Crocodile Fiend, he hasn't been identified, you think that he's a lucky baka for jumping into the air. But then you realize that he's already had his whole head cut off, and it's in this moment that Pochita is just standing there, surrounded by a rainfall of guts and organs, and body parts are spilling all over the place. As we start getting flashbacks to what happened in part one, where Pochita emerged as the Chainsaw Devil. This is merely the first set of many bodies that are hitting the ground in this chapter, and as of right now, there's nobody in the area who is strong enough to confront the Chainsaw Devil.
And even with all that, the true reason why this whole situation looks scarier is the tone of the entire scene. We don't have anything to specifically quantify it outside of the obvious growing fear that people have had towards Chainsaw Man due to all these fake Chainsaw Men that have been sprouting up out of nowhere. With the fear itself, it should have amplified the powers of the Chainsaw Devil. Due to the stronger the fear, the stronger the devil, according to the laws of the universe. But Pochita right now comes across like he might be a lot stronger than was in part one. And as we progress through the chapter, it becomes clear that Pandora's Box, it has been opened wide, and it's not going to be shut. Fam and Yoru, they wanted to power up Chainsaw Man in particular, the Chainsaw Devil, and that's what we're getting right now.
And for a moment, you start to feel sorry for the remaining Public Safety members, who are all gathered around. This isn't even a fair fight at this point. Division 6 begins their counterattack, but after the explosion goes off on the building that he's standing on, Pochita just lands on his feet, and he resumes all of the carnage.
Cimaped tries to take out Pochita, and this one moment becomes a scene where you start to see how truly helpless they all are right now. They're celebrating getting a cut on Chainsaw Man and drawing blood against him. It's like getting in the room with Brock Lesnar or Roman Reigns, and you're giving yourself a high five for landing a punch because you built them up as these unstoppable monsters. And that's basically how Public Safety is coming across right now. Chainsaw Man, he can bleed, maybe we can do this. That's the vibe that they're giving off. But they quickly learn that the Chainsaw Devil is that 100-level floor boss, and they're all a group of party members who are only at a level 10 in skill. Which is why Pochita proceeds to wipe them out like it is nothing before they can even get into the battle formations and do all this cute strategy that they cooked up to continue their assault.
There are literally heads flying as the battle rages on, which at this point is more appropriate to call this a massacre. However, it's because it's a massacre that it's so important to take note of of what we're seeing here. The intestines of the Chainsaw Devil that are wrapped around Pochita's neck, they've got the heads of everyone who he's killed, from humans to fiends to devils. And in the middle of the panel, you see the chainsaws, and you see that Pochita is holding the Ear Devil's head. And a guy from Public Safety, he's giving play-by-play for someone, most likely just us as the audience, but there might be someone else listening to the whole thing. And he's basically letting us know that the Ear Devil is about to be eaten.
And this is where it gets very, very good. The ears of Katana Man and Yoru, they have disappeared in mid-conversation. And Yoru smiles when she realizes it because she knows exactly what this means. The Chainsaw Devil has fully emerged. And while this does end off the chapter, I want to bring your attention back to the very first chapter of Chainsaw Man Part 2, where we learned that Yoru, she planned to attack Chainsaw Man and take vengeance for him eating devils like the Nuclear Warhead Devil. And this is a nice way to tie everything back together as we approach the Yoru versus Chainsaw Man battle. So we're seeing that the power of Chainsaw Man to erase things that previously existed is happening in real time, which means the narrative is now again setting up that eventual battle of Yoru versus Chainsaw Man, or at least Fujimoto is pulling at your heartstrings to make you want to believe it's going to happen soon.
But given the cliffhanger, there's a clear subversion of expectations being set up. This chapter, it is a massive reward for all of the slow burners that we had in Chainsaw Man Part 2, where the patient at times it will slow down to address the character building and the gradual layers that are being added. It's all coming to a head now. Instead of just blitzing through at a super fast pace like we saw in Part 1, Fujimoto took time to let everything marinate before giving us a taste of the fast-paced and chaotic nature of the chapter, very akin to what we saw in Chainsaw Man Part 1. And he's slipping in super disrespectful moments like Chainsaw Man seeing the surprise attack of Public Safety, two whole divisions underway, and he's launching his own surprise attack before they even realized it.
If the members of Public Safety were deer hunters, Pochita in this chapter, he became the equivalent of a deer that's holding the rifle, standing behind the deer hunters. Pochita taking out two special divisions in only a few moments of time, it is just to highlight how much Pochita is powered up in accordance to Fam's plan. And it just makes you wonder, since all this death and destruction is taking place outside the sushi bar that is called Death by Sushi, where a head of Nuts' dead body is on a dish, it makes you wonder if Fujimoto is setting the stage for the Death Devil by having all this take place in this very location. It would make sense narratively if you really think about it. Ears are now non-existent now that the Ear Devil's been consumed. Pochita is on a rampage. Nobody will hear the screams of the dead. Nobody will hear Death as her footsteps start growing louder and louder as she approaches. It's absolutely there if Fujimoto wants to capitalize on it, or he can stretch it out a little longer. But this feels like it's a clear setup for something bigger coming later on down the line because this is easily the strongest we've ever seen Pochita.
While it does suck to see so many members of two special division teams getting used like this, where they're basically wrestling jobbers, it is very important to take note that Makima, even at the height of her power, with all the support that she had, and she herself being one of the strongest devils that we have in the verse itself, the fact that Makima had an extremely tough time with Pochita, it was a sign that these guys, they stood no chance. Especially since this Pochita is stronger than the one that fought Makima. Like, I know to a certain degree it can be very disappointing because, like, you think about say, Special Division 7, and you go, like, oh my god, you had Aki, and you had Power, you had Denji, you had Himeno, you had all these talented individuals. Then you see these guys that are fodder. But it's exactly because of how strong Pochita got that they absolutely had to fall here, otherwise you absolutely break the power scaling itself. Hence, it was an utter bloodbath.
And the crazy thing is, is that Pochita is just getting started. Just like these videos on the screen can be the start of more Chainsaw Man content if you want to watch it, or if you want other anime content, click on the other video on the screen. From Anime Explain, which also is a very quick, cheap plug, I have a really in-depth anime essay video that I'm working on right now that should be coming out in the next few weeks. So you definitely want to keep notifications turned on if you're a fan of Meika's character or if you want to learn more about her character. Very, very proud of that video essay, been working on that one for a while now. And if you're somebody that doesn't like Meika, I guarantee this video is going to win you over.