Top Level Canon Reviews - relaunched!

This review was commissioned by @toxinvictory. This will be the first of probably three posts, covering the half-dozen chapters commissioned in this set.



We last left off on Chainsaw Man at a real cliffhanger, with the sudden assassination of Makima and one of her aides. Whether or not it was a successful assassination is hard to say, given Makima, but either way the fact that an organized group of armed humans is targeting her at all was a rugpull. Especially coming without warning, right in what seemed like the middle of a calm spot between devil-hunting missions.

I was expecting #23, "Gunfire," to start with Denji, Aki, and the gang reacting to the news of Makima's shooting. It turns out that the calm is ending a lot more thoroughly and abruptly than that, though. It turns out that it wasn't just Makima who got targeted; the entirety of Division 4 is under an organized, carefully-synchronized elimination strike. Denji, Aki, Power, Himeno, Kobeni, Arai, all of them are attacked at the same time as Makima.



And that's not even the biggest twist that this chapter drops on us.

With Kobeni and Arai being targeted while off walking together and their fates unseen (but I'm assuming the worst for now), Denji, Power, Himeno, and Aki come under fire while lunching at a restaurant together. The enemy obviously knows a lot about their targets, because this large concentration of powerful fighters that includes preternaturally hard-to-kill individuals has more than just gunmen coming after them. The attack on the restaurant is led by a ghost from Denji's past with an alarming trick up its sleeve.

I don't know that you can actually attribute that old Yakuza asshole's death back in issues 1-2 to Denji. As I recall, the zombie devil had already assimilated him, and Denji just cut down his reanimated corpse along with the many others. But that doesn't seem to be the version of the story that found its way to his grandson's ears. A few panels later, we learn where he might have heard the doctored version of events from, and why they might have doctored it.


Yeah. Oh shit.

On one hand, it's possible that the Gun Devil might not actually be behind this. It's a mysterious and infamous enough entity that I could easily see some other mastermind having co-opted its name and reputation during its absence. However, given that the Eternity Devil also seemed to want Denji's heart (aka Pochita), and that Eternity had one of Gunny's bullet casings in its possession, well...it still could be someone else gathering those bullet casings and handing them out to their agents while posing as Gunny, but Occam's Razor says it's actually him.

That still isn't the big reveal of this issue, though.

The Yakuza punk and his henchmen get enough of a drop on Denji and Power to shoot them a few times, and Himeno over across the restaurant takes a bullet too. Aki manages to avoid damage and takes out the baddies with a well-placed Fox Devil manifestation...or so it seems. After swallowing the assailants, the Fox Devil reports that one of the people it just swallowed tastes wrong. Not human. Not devil either. Something wholly unpalatable, and unfamiliar. And then, the Yakuza punk slashes his way out from the inside.


Meet Katana Man.

Presumably, he has the Katana Devil replacing his heart in the form of an adorable symbiotic sword-cat or something. Have their been other symbiotes like him and Denji before now? Was Denji the first, and this asshole the second? Or is there a vast conspiracy to keep the large number of preexisting symbiotes out of the public eye that's only now starting to break the surface?

Well. Two things that come immediately to mind:

1. Both of the symbiotes we've seen so far are closely connected to that old mobster who used to torment Denji. One of them is his victim, the other is his grandson. This could be a coincidence, but it's unlikely. Investigating whatever branch of the Tokyo yakuza this family was part of might yield some critical intelligence.

2. The other common thread between Denji and Yakuza-kun over here is the Gun Devil. Sort of. Implicitly. It hasn't escaped me that there's a common thread between "gun," "chainsaw," and "katana" that isn't shared by the other devils who have shown up so far. Weapon devils. Two of them are working together, and targeting the third. Maybe the symbiosis is something they specifically can do because a weapon is only scary when it has a wielder. If what we're looking at is an internal conflict within the weapon devil "family," then the grandfather might not actually be relevant. The other weapon devils, led by Gunny, just looked for a capable fighter who had a grudge against Denji for the Katana Devil to fuse with, and they found Yakuza-kun.

Granted, there are some holes in that second theory. For one thing, there are an awful lot of weapons out there, and so you'd think symbiotes would be a known thing by now. For another...chainsaws aren't actually weapons, exactly. They're weaponizable tools. Does this family of symbiotic devils include every potentially-weaponizable tool? Do the Scissors Devil, the Blowtorch Devil, and the Shovel Devil also fall into this group? If so, then that's even more symbiotic hybrids the world should have been seeing all along. So yeah, I don't know.

Another thought on the "weapon devil family" theory...would this mean that the Gun Devil itself was actually a symbiote? Maybe the reason he's been unseen for so long is because his human host died in the last rampage, and he's stuck doing behind-the-scenes mastermind stuff until he can find a new one? We don't know what Gunny looked like during his old rampage, so he might have had a similar sort of appearance to Chainsaw Man and Katana Man. On the other hand...if they looked similar, you'd think someone would have mentioned this to Denji by now.

Also, how does Makima's secret plot connect with Gunny's secret plot? It appears as if they're at cross purposes, but it could be more complicated than that.

But then, once again, it still could be that Gunny isn't actually involved at all and someone else is impersonating him and using harvested bullet casings to do so.


That's "Gunfire." More information needed. About a lot of things. Next up is #23, "Curse."


With Himeno wounded, Denji still regenerating, and the Fox Devil defeated, Aki instructs Power to bind Himeno's wounds while he tries to hold off Katana Man alone until Denji gets back in the fight. That's easier said than done, though. Katana Man has the same healing factor that Denji does, and - while his weapons don't have the strength and cutting power of Denji's chainsaws - they're much faster and more aerodynamic. As a traditionalist Yakuza princeling, it's probably safe to assume that he's also practiced a lot of swordplay even before getting them attached to his body, so he knows how to leverage that speed.

That said, Aki is no slouch himself when it comes to swordsmanship. He can't inflict wounds that stick on this regenerating monster, but he can at least keep him occupied and avoid getting hit himself.


Still, he knows he can't keep this up, and getting shot in the head point-blank by surprise in human form is taking Denji a lot longer to heal from than Aki hoped. With Himeno not able to help him, and Power busy keeping Himeno alive (I'm surprised Aki trusted her to do that, and - frankly - even more surprised that she appears to be doing a decent job of it), Aki resorts to desperate measures.

During the Eternity Devil siege, Aki was tempted to use this special cursed sword that Himeno talked him out of, telling him the price for its use was too great and their situation not yet desperate enough to justify it. That had been a pretty desperate situation, but, well, Himeno obviously isn't able to give her opinion about whether or not this one is worse enough, so Aki decides to go for it. He uses that strange, needle-like sword now, landing three glancing blows on Katana Man and repeating the word "fire" after each little prick. A creepy voice in the shadows counts them out. Then, after landing the third cut, Aki tells the Curse Devil bound to that sword that her victim has been marked and his fate sealed, she is free to come collect.


Okay that's really cool.

...

This would actually make a REALLY fun weapon to use in an RPG. "Hit an enemy thrice within X amount of time with this weapon, and they get hit by a massive damage bomb."

Lends itself to different sorts of tactics than your character might otherwise employ. Making it limited use in some fashion - either by giving it a painful cost as per the source material or just putting it on a long cooldown - also keeps the pace and tactics of the fights fresh since you'll be trying to land low-damage hits fast when you're using this, and probably trying to deal more damage per hit by default when you're not using it.

I'm tempted to give an item like this to one of my DnD groups and see how it plays in practice.

...

I do have to be a little critical here, though. When I first read this sequence, I had no idea what was supposed to have happened. I had to reread both it and the ensuing dialogue a couple of times before I understood. Of course, it's possible that the localization is more to blame for this than the mangaka, but I still thought it bore critiquing.

Anyway, I have no idea what that took out of Aki, in terms of price. Maybe it's sort of a fractal thing, where after the same person uses the sword's power three times they themselves are slain by the Curse Devil, or the like. But anyway, saving Himeno seems to have been worth it for him. And, after the Curse Devil's attack Katana Man is down and doesn't appear to be regenerating.

Then this other weirdo shows up out of nowhere and starts acting incredibly sus.


I'm not sure why Aki didn't come at her immediately, or at least try to keep her away from the body, given that behavior, but he pays dearly for that indecision. As soon as she's knelt over him, Katana Man gets back up. From Aki's reaction, I don't think this is meant to be a case of the regeneration just having taken a minute to start up.


Blondie has some kind of healing ability. A very, very powerful one. Possibly even outright resurrection, depending on just what state Katana Man is supposed to have been in after Curse squished him.

...

Healing (that is, healing other people) is really underrated as a bad guy power, imo. Especially for people in the "BBEG's field lieutenant" position as this girl seems to be. "Keeping your henchmen in the fight no matter what happens to them" is a readily available dark spin to put on the naturally positive connotations of "reversing harm."

I've seen it done before, but not very often. So, I appreciate Chainsaw Man for giving me another well-executed example.

...

Aki is either too stunned by what just happened, or too enervated from using the Curse Spike, to react with the speed he did to Katana Man's previous assault. The revived Yakuza-kun slashes his chest open before he can even lift his own blade.



I sure hope Denji is getting back to his feet just out-of-frame, because the team sure needs him right about now. Assuming he even still has a team at all at this point, Power notwithstanding. I don't *think* the comic would kill Aki off just yet, but it's surprised me enough times before now that I won't completely dismiss the possibility either.


That second chapter was mostly dialogue-free swordfighting, so I had less to say about it than expected. I'll just let this post be on the short end and save myself a few hundred words to use reviewing the next four chapters.

Issue #26, "Ghost, Snake, Chainsaw," starts off with an incredibly ominous piece of splash art.


It's not like I expected her to survive that much longer, what with all the death flags. Hell, she herself seems to fully expect Aki to outlive her, and she doesn't expect him to live that much longer himself. On the other hand, I was expecting her weird little game with Denji to continue for at least another one or two beats. If you asked me before, I'd have guessed Himeno would die in another 3-4 chapters.

Well, her death (if this really is her death? I think it is, now, but I'm not totally sure) comes dramatically enough, anyway.

After Power has bound her wounds, Himeno is able to see what's going on. She tells Power to leave her and attack Katana Man before he finishes Aki off, but Power refuses; she's strong, but she knows she isn't agile, and she doesn't think she'd stand a chance against an opponent who moves the way he does. Himeno then tries to summon her Ghost Devil to do something about this, but the answer it gives her is...disheartening, to say the least.


Looks like Blondie over there has a lot more powers up her sleeve than just the healing/reviving hax. The "archvillain's right-hand woman" vibes I get from her are definitely intensifying.

...

As an aside...I'm starting to feel like the devil designs are getting a bit too one-note. The Eternity Devil, the Curse Devil, and now the Ghost Devil all looking like a cluster of mismatched human body parts in some configuration or another? With none of those words even having particularly gory or body-horror adjacent connotations to their relate fears?

I don't know, it kinda feels like Fujimoto was either running out of visual design ideas while drawing this handful of chapters, or else just saving all the good ones for the future.

...

Anyway, what Himeno does next partially answers my questions about how possible peaceful coexistence between humans and devils actually is in most cases. Denji (and presumably Yakuza-kun) seem to represent the best, least-predatory, possible relationship between the species. The arrangement that the more typical warlocks like the devil-hunters have with their own patrons, we now see, is quite a bit rockier and more dangerous.

Well, maybe. We also did learn recently that some devils, like Fox, are exceptionally friendly and forgiving toward human summoners. This might not apply as much to those ones. But for the Ghost Devil, well...

Himeno tells it that if it uses its full power in this battle, brings all of itself to bear, then in exchange it can have all of her. It can consume her entirely. It accepts.

As Ghost manifests in its full power to engage Katanaman and Blondie, Himeno thinks out a silent death speech for herself.


I don't think we ever learned about Himeno's family situation, or if she has one at all. But anyway, the idea that Aki will cry for her after her death is enough to make said death worth it, provided that it does in fact give him a chance for survival.

Himeno is...well, like I said, it certainly looks like this is the end for her.


The implication, I think, is that when a devil makes a contract, it's usually hoping that it's human contractor is going to end up putting themselves in a situation where they have to do this.

It might also be that they can always just eat their summoner's body after the latter dies, but on second thoughts that creates opportunities for screw-overs that I think the human would see through, heh.

Anyway. Himeno is dead, and her devil is now fighting Katanaman and Blondie while Power flees like a coward and Denji...erm...how long is it taking him to regenerate, exactly? The heck is even going on with that?...well, anyway he's still down. Ghost seems to initially have the advantage against Katanaman, but then Blondie summons her own devil. Seemingly at much less cost. And it wins.


I wouldn't have expected the Snake Devil to take out Ghost that easily, even with the element of surprise. But it probably has a bunch of Gunny's bullet casings souping it up, since it and its human partner appear to be working for him directly.

Snakes are also associated with medicine generally and immortality specifically in quite a number of cultures, so I'm guessing that's the source of her healing powers as well. Makes sense, at least for a version of Snake that's been jacked up by Gunny as this one probably has been.

As it withdraws its wounded mass back into the ether, the Ghost Devil uses its last moments on the scene to use one of its detatchable flying mouth-hands to...oh RIGHT, that's why Denji hasn't gotten back up yet!


I totally forgot that he needs to pull the wire to activate his powers. He didn't get a chance to before the headshot, so he hasn't actually been healing up until this moment.

I wonder if Katanaman has a similar weakness? Obviously, you don't need to turn a Katana on before using it like you do with a chainsaw, but it would feel weird to me if there wasn't at least some kind of other little ritual he needs to do that reflects that. Maybe something that's suggestive of unsheathing? IDK, his transformation happened inside the Fox Devil's stomach, so we didn't get to see how he triggers it.

Well, Denji is up now. And he might not understand what's going on or who any of these people are, but for Denji that's honestly more of an advantage than anything else.


No plot bullshit he needs to be distracted thinking about. Just gameplay that he's learned to enjoy.

Although, granted, even if he's a match for Katanaman or the snake lady on their own, I'm a little sceptical that he can take them both. Those two have powers that complement each other well, and they're seemingly at least moderately accustomed to fighting as a team.

Well, hopefully Power will decide to turn around and help out once Denji has them distracted. For now though, at least we get this badass action pose to end the issue on.


And, with that ciffhanger of a chapter break, we now have a little humorous omake. "All About Power."

It's just an illustrated list of unflattering facts about Power. For instance, that she's a compulsive liar.


And a coward.


Heh, I'm trying to remember if she expressed any fear of Himeno's patron, back in the Eternity Devil sequence. That would have been a clever piece of buildup for this gag.

...heck, what does it mean for a devil to fear something? Can devils be empowered by the fear of other devils? Maybe we'll learn eventually.

Anyway, ever more amusing and bizarre personality flaws are listed, until the final panel kinda calls the reader out for their own reaction on everything they've read thus far.


Funny. But also kind of a tease given it's placement.


The next two chapters are deeply integrated and have a lot going on in them. So, next post.

Apparently, "All About Power" was an omake thing, not an actual chapter. Explains why it was so short. So, there are still three more chapters to cover in this set.


"The Gun is Mightier" (presumably "than the chainsaw") starts with Blondie McSnakewitch finally naming herself as she calls for backup to deal with the revived Denji.

Sawatari, then. Okay.

Sawatari seems reluctant to summon Snake again, probably for reasons related to the profuse bleeding from her fingernails visible above, and she doesn't seem to be armed herself. So, it's just Denji vs. Yakuza-kun for the next little while until her reinforcements arrive. On one hand, it's kind of a low-tension sequence, since it quickly becomes clear neither of them is going to manage to disable the other anytime soon. On the other, it's a useful trick for the author, giving us a chance to see the two's relative strengths and weaknesses for a page or so, presumably to make some later battles with more participants easier for us to follow. Speed and technique on one side, versus near-unstoppable force on the other. Katanaman can only land glancing blows while avoiding Denji's more powerful attacks.

Unfortunately, things turn sour fast when the reinforcements arrive and Denji starts getting distracted by gunshots, giving his opponent more time to maneuver and thus land meaningful hits. When he isn't busy dodging chainsaws, Katanaman attacks so fast that Denji can't even keep track of where he is.

Denji tries to grab one of the gunmen to use as a hostage. Mafia-kun is annoyed by this, but not that annoyed. These mooks are mildly expensive, but not really valuable in the way that Denji had been hoping for. Which means that, at the end of the day, grabbing the guy and holding still with him just makes Denji an easier target.

Regenerating the entire lower half of his body is going to leave Denji pretty anaemic. He'll have to switch back to human form afterward if he wants to live. His heart is still intact, meanwhile, so mission accomplished. Katanaman, Sawatari, and their remaining henchmen grab the living half of Denji and start dragging him away, leaving Aki bleeding out, Himeno apparently disintegrated, and Power fled.

Well, we'll see if Power does something uncharacteristically brave. Or characteristically stupid, but in a coincidentally helpful direction this time.

Returning to human form, Yakuza-kun gives a gloating little speech about his group's victory over the Tokyo devil hunting agency. Turns out it's not just division 4 that was targeted, but all the teams present in Tokyo at the time. At least four squads.

Granted, I'm not sure if Yakuza-kun should be gloating about the overwhelming power of guns, when that's not even what he personally brought to the fight. Honestly, while firearms did play a role in the victory here, they probably would have won using swords and knives alone given the same element of surprise and well-coordinating timing.

That said, the killteam sent to ambush Makima and her attendant on the train end up not fairing as well as it initially appeared. I was waiting for Makima to get back up from her ostensibly deadly gunshot wounds, and, well, she does. She was just waiting for the enemies to all have their backs turned so she could maximize her own surprise advantage.

We don't see what happens next. Classic horror movie discretion cut. Instead, we jump to the officials who were waiting to meet Makima at the station in Kyoto, recieving the news that Makima was killed en route and that Public Security divisions 1-4 were simultaneously wiped out in a series of armed ambushes carried out across Tokyo. It's surprising that this criminal organization, whoever they are exactly, was able to bring so many illegal firearms to bear. Japan's gun restrictions have only gotten stricter than OTL since the Gun Devil's rampage, and they didn't think anyone would manage to accumulate that many under their watch.

Hmm. Well. Either the Gun Devil can conjure guns ex nihilo for his human mooks to use, or he has agents on the inside.

...

Granted, up until a few issues ago I thought that Makima was the Gun Devil's agent on the inside, but...well, I guess she technically still could be. Having her be targeted by the assassins along with everyone else might be a ploy to remove suspicion from her.

But, while that's possible, I think it's more likely than not at this point that there are two competing devilish conspiracies at work, with Makima at the center of one and Gunny the other. I still wouldn't be especially *surprised* if it turned out they were in it together, but I'm leaning more against it.

...

When the train reaches Kyoto, the agents are surprised when Makima steps off the car unhurt. What she tells them further reinforces my suspicion that she did not, in fact, know that this was coming.

Having her story be that she miraculously didn't get shot when everyone else did would make her seem more suspicious, rather than less. Which isn't the kind of rookie mistake that I'd expect Makima to make, if the purpose of this stunt was to make herself look trustworthy in the face of an external enemy. So yeah. I'm now 80/20 on this attack having legitimately blindsided her.

Interestingly, the fact that she's lying to these other agents about how she survived suggests that they don't know what she is. It's still possible that some of her higher-ups within the Japanese government do know, but if so the information is being kept within a very small circle of individuals. Noted.

Anyway, the train attack group are all dead. We don't know exactly what Makima did to them, but...okay, actually I take it back. This is the state she left their bodies in:


At first I thought we were seeing a bird's eye view of the investigators standing over the bodies, and that those black circles were the tops of their heads, but no. That is four dead bodies with giant holes blasted through their torsos.

The damage profile doooooes look an awful lot like a miniature version of what the Gun Devil did to the cities it attacked. So, maybe Makima actually is Gunny or an agent of his after all, with these four dummies having been sacrificed to throw the authorities off.

Then again - and, once more, by the same token - if those are Gunny wounds, then the coroners are bound to notice that they are Gunny wounds. Which, again, makes Makima look more suspicious rather than less. So, most likely that's not what happened. She or her pet devil have some other attack that leaves circular puncture wounds.

...actually. Are those punctures, actually, or did their chests explode from within? The placement of the holes doesn't appear to align perfectly with this, but that might just be an art mishap, so...thinking about what she did to Denji earlier, could Makima be something like a Heart Devil? Multiple interpretations of "heart" that let her manipulate desires as well as literal chest cavities?

Or maybe her diabolical nature is more specifically sexual after all, and she impaled these losers with a giant dick.

Still too many possibilities. But we've seen what Makima is capable of in combat, and possibly learned at least a liiiittle bit about her relationship with the powers that be in Japan.

Chainsaw Man #27, "From Kyoto," follows directly from this scene, with Makima and the other government people discussing how they should react to the events in Tokyo. None of them seem especially shocked at what Makima did to the train attackers, so whatever they think she actually is this offensive ability is consistent with it (whereas her surviving a bullet to the head without so much as a mark is not).

As for other things that her colleagues do and don't already know about, well. I'm glad I didn't have too much to say about the first few chapters of this review set, because this next bit is going to require the typing of words. A large number of words.

She determines that the main target of the attack is most likely Denji and his heart. And also that, with their personnel in Tokyo in a state of total disarray after that devastating attack, they're going to need outside assistance in a lot less time than it would take reinforcements to arrive by train or even helicopter in order to react in time. So, Makima instructs these local officials thusly:

On one hand, "borrow" implies that they're going to be returned afterward. On the other hand, let's be real, she probably means it in the sense of "can I borrow a bite of your sandwich?"

Also, "serving out life sentence or worse." I believe that Japan (at least in some prefectures) has capital punishment on the books IRL, but I don't think they do it enough to have more than a couple of death row inmates laying around at any given time. So, either Chainsawverse Japan executes a lot more people, or they have an actual, formalized tier of convict used for ritual sacrifice as needed. Either way, this is consistent with the more authoritarian, callous world that previous issues implied, but it's also confirmation of some of those policies in a concrete way that we didn't have before.

Anyway. If these people are nonchalant about "sacrifice the first thirty inmates we can get to the shrine in a short time," then it makes Makima's need to keep certain things secret from them even more ominous.

The timeline of this part is a little wonky. I was under the impression that the attacks on Makima, Kobeni and Arai, and Denji's group happened within a few minutes of each other, and that it didn't take more than a quarter hour or so after that for Denji to get cut in half. However, apparently Makima is able to get herself and thirty bound and blindfolded convicts up onto a mountaintop shrine in less time than it takes for the baddies to drag Denji into their getaway vehicle. So yeah, I'm looking a little side-eyed at the timing of these events. But that issue aside, this sequence is powerful, awe-inspiring, and completely horrifying.



As the Gun Devil's agents (Team Gun? Fireteam? Fireteam) start bringing Denji's unconscious upper half into their van, one of them is spontaneously crushed. Not impaled like Makima did to those guys on the train. Flattened. Like an invisible, building-sized steel block just fell on him while leaving everything around him - including his clothes - untouched. One moment he's alive and on his feet, and the next he's a very flat, mostly circular, pattern of gore.

Curiously, Fireteam leader Sawatari reacts to this by immediately radioing HQ and asking them to re-confirm Makima's death.

Her answer comes in the form of a lack of an answer. Followed by, well.

Sawatari apparently connected this form of attack with Makima the moment she saw it. However, she seems to have not known that Makima can't be killed with bullets.

What this says to me is that the Gun Devil's inside agent has about the same level of access as the people Makima met at the station. They know more or less what she's capable of in terms of offensive power, but they don't seem to know what she is. They probably assume that she's just a warlock with an exceptionally powerful patron Meteorite Devil or something. Notably, those two officials are also present at the mountaintop shrine, and also blindfolded to prevent them from knowing exactly how Makima does what she does.

The actual process raises more questions in and of itself.



After she has a convict repeat the name of a Fireteam member, she sympathetically grinds the latter to a bloody smear between her hands. A moment later, the convict falls dead as well, the cause of death far less apparent.

Did she magically know the names of the Fireteam members, or was she just going down a list of probable suspects? Were a bunch of innocent suspects being pancaked in their houses in between the actual Fireteamers? And of course, for each such death - guilty or otherwise - there's also another person being sacrificed on the mountaintop. Some of them would have been executed soon anyway. Others would not have been.

She either runs out of convicts, runs out of names, or runs out of energy. Sawatari and Yakuza-kun are still alive, but it's pretty much just them surrounded by a veritable sea of souped underlings. With just the two of them, and themselves and their truck all covered in gore, escape seems unlikely. At the shrine, Makima tells her companions that she's finished now and will be returning to Tokyo to assess the damage in person.


You know. A lot of bystanders must have seen those gangsters get pulped. Did they all know that this is something the government did, even if most of them probably don't know the name or face of Makima to connect it to?

Imagine living in that world. The sum total of 21st century police statism, manifested as...this. If they know your name, they can sacrifice prisoners to make you dead. The association with heights and imagery of being crushed from above is probably a deliberate evocation of satellite surveillence and drone strikes. The names being spoken, guilt assumed based on either eldritch information sources or (even worse) estimated probabilities based on the civil database, are a transparent metaphor for personal data mining. And of course, the built-in connection with prisons and executions in the form of her sacrificial fuel.

A nightmare about the police state given form.

The Police Devil? The Surveillance Devil? The Government Devil?

Whatever Makima is, her nature is either closely linked to something like that, or she's calling on a devilish ally with such a name. Whether or not it's Makima herself, this use of the power is definitely a good investment for the entity that possesses it. What could increase the people's fear of the all-seeing eye and inescapable crushing hand of the state more than a display like this?

That doesn't square with the hyper-orgasm trick she used on Denji before. But, well...there's a new complicating factor here that these last few chapters have introduced. Aki with his curse-sword established a precedent of one person having access to the powers of more than one devil. There's also one panel during the shrine scene where the two blindfolded agents muse about "which devils," plural, Makima might be calling upon, and grumble about this information being above their grade. So, if characters calling upon multiple devils at a time is A Thing now, then it's pointless to try and find a common theme behind all of Makima's powers. They could all come from different devils with vastly different purviews.

At the same time, the comic has been very, very consistent about warlocks only getting active, external powers from their patrons. Causing devilish manifestations to happen in the moment through ritual and will. Their patrons don't make them stronger, faster, or tougher. No devil hunter becomes bulletproof by making a contract, and everyone - both ally and enemy of the hunters - makes their plans around this being the case. Surviving the train ambush is something that only a devil (or some kind of devil-human hybrid, like a fiend or a symbiote) could do.

So, whatever Makima is, she's NOT just a human with multiple powerful devils on call. She might be a fiend or symbiote with friends. She could be an unusually human-looking devil who exchanges favors with a few others. Or she could be something different that we haven't been properly introduced to yet. She's not human though. Or at least, not mostly human.

Of course, the detail of her needing a SHRINE to do what she did...that doesn't square with anything else we've seen in this comic. At all. Not thematically, or aesthetically, or metaphysically. So, there's definitely *something* new and different at play here as well as whatever combination of preexisting things. But, well, that just brings up another subject that I already had in mind from these chapters.

Is "devil" just an unflattering word for "god?"

It was actually the Snake Devil that first got me thinking about this. Admittedly, I'm poorly equipped to understand herpetophobia. Snakes are one of the very, very, very few animals that I have no feelings about whatsoever, either positive or negative. I don't think they're cute, or gross, or pretty, or scary. I see a snake, and my bone-deep emotional reaction to it is "I see a snake." But, nonetheless...for people who are afraid of snakes, does the fear have anything even remotely to do with snakes being an archaic symbol of healing? If devils are empowered by fear of a thing, then you'd expect their appearances and powers to exaggerate the thing's more fearsome aspects. But they don't.

To be fair, it might be that Sawatari was calling on multiple devils herself. But this isn't the only example.

Lots of people are afraid of bats, but literally no one is afraid of bats because they echolocate. And yet, rather than the Bat Devil's superattack being something that involves lurking in the darkness or drinking blood or getting tangled up in your hair, it's a weaponized sonar pulse.

I think again about the emotions Makima's display evoked in me. Fear and horror, yes, but also awe. And I look at the shrine. And I wonder.


Next time is #28, "Secrets & Lies."