Let’s Watch is a weekly recap column where I follow an anime for the course of its entire runtime. Expect spoilers!
To some, it will seem a little surprising that we’re already near the end of the first season of Chainsaw Man. But quite a lot has happened over the past eleven weeks, and the foot is not taken off the gas pedal for a single second of episode 11.
We lead by catching up with Aki. As mentioned, he’s pushed to contract with a new Devil, one who is apparently known for taking quite hefty prices—the examples we’re given are “both eyes” and “half of the contractor’s lifespan”—and we meet that devil here. Don’t let the reputation fool you, though. He’s a surprisingly jovial sort. Meet the Devil of The Future.
He offers to contract with Aki for nothing more than the small price of living unobtrusively in his right eyeball. Why does he want that? Well, he says it best himself.
Aki says that he doesn’t care how he dies as long as he can get his revenge on the Gun Devil. But, notably, at no point does he think to ask the Future Devil (who would presumably know) if he eventually succeeds in doing so. Intentional foreshadowing? Just Aki drawing a mental blank that has no deeper significance? Neither? Both? I leave that question up to you.
A solid amount of the episode focuses on Makima having meetings; first with Kishibe and then with a Yakuza boss. If that sounds dry, rest assured that it very much is not. These are possibly the most substantiative character moments that Makima’s gotten so far. Plus, she is wonderfully stone cold throughout both. The character has a real ice-and-iron magnetism, and even if these scenes were about nothing much, she’d be a joy to watch.
Kishibe calls her out to try to discern her true intentions. Evidently, it’s clear even to him that she’s up to something. (Direct quote: He doesn’t care “what fucked shit [she] has cooking” as long as she’s serving mankind’s general interests. Kind of a wild thing to say!) He also accuses her of knowing about the train attack beforehand and doing nothing to stop it. When she reminds him that she was attacked too, and uses this fact to imply that there’s no way she could’ve known anything. Plus, a decidedly creepy grin, and the reassurance that her main goal is to “save as many people as possible from devils.” Oddly exact wording, maybe. Perhaps picking up on this, Kishibe flat-out calls her a liar, and the scene cuts away.
After another Aki scene (pretty good in its own right, but minor compared to everything else that happens here), we again join in on Makima meeting up with someone. This time, it’s the aforementioned Yakuza boss. Her goal here is simple enough; she wants his cooperation, a list of names of everyone both in his own family and in all the others who’ve contracted with the Gun Devil. (These “contracts” apparently consist of little more than giving the Gun Devil money and getting guns and ammo in return. The thing being a glorified firearm dealer is certainly something to chew on.) He refuses, arguing that this’d spark a gang war. Then, he doubles down, and tries to intimidate her while simultaneously justifying his own actions. If the Yakuza didn’t do what it did, he claims, then foreign mafias would elbow their way in to Japan. It’s a necessary evil, really.
This kind of self-justification evidently does not sit particularly well with Makima, whose own counterargument (it’s only a “necessary evil” if the state controls it) is pretty dubious on its own, but its effectiveness as a rhetorical point is rendered pretty irrelevant by what she does next; plops down a brown paper bag filled with eyes. Those of the various yakuza members’ girlfriends, parents, grandparents, etc.
With the frightening reassurance that, yes, Public Safety does have somebody who can put them back in, somehow or another, she gets her list. What exactly she does with it is not textually spelled out, but when the Yakuza goons start getting spontaneous nosebleeds and passing out cold later in the episode, it’s not difficult to draw a connection.
Which brings us to the episode’s final act; Special Division 4’s assault on the building where Katana Man and Sawatari are holed up (said building is infested not just with the Yakuza but also with a zombie army, a remnant of the Zombie Devil’s power). Kishibe leads the operation, and as he explains to the decidedly less-badass rabble that Div. 4 is operating alongside, they should be more worried about the mostly-non-human operatives of Division 4 itself than they should the terrorists. In practice, this is an excuse to give us a stylish introduction to several new characters. Enter Division 4’s ringers. In no particular order, we have:
Beam, the Shark Fiend (Natsuki Hanae), who can swim through any surface and briefly turn back into his proper Devil form to chomp basically anything in half.
The Violence Fiend (Yuuya Uchida), on the extreme rational end for a fiend, and strong enough that Public Safety straps him with a poison gas-emitting mask even in situations like, well, what happens during this episode.
The Spider Devil (Saori Gotou); who has a human woman’s torso with a zipper running up the center and, appropriately, eight legs that she can use to kick the ever-loving fuck out of things.
And finally, the Angel Devil (Maaya Uchida), who despite his waifish appearance can drain the life force from anything with a touch.
The entire final ten or so minutes of the episode look absolutely fantastic, and should once again quell any doubt about the Chainsaw Man anime’s worthiness as an adaptation from a style point of view. The real interesting fight, though, doesn’t involve any of these new characters. Instead, it involves Aki, who gets the chance to confront Sawatari head-on, and—this is unspoken, but fairly obvious—avenge Himeno’s death.
There is only one problem; Sawatari’s Snake Devil can somehow “spit back up” the other devils it’s eaten. Which means that as the episode ends, Aki is face to face with this; the Ghost Devil, returning to strangle the life out of him under Sawatari’s orders.
Will he survive? This hardly seems like the death that “fucking rules” that the Future Devil promised Aki, but maybe he just has a sick sense of humor. Who can say?
Bonus Power Screencap: Despite everything else it’s packed with, this episode doesn’t actually feature a ton of Power. Thankfully, she puts in a stylish monochrome appearance in the ED. Here’s that.
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