Chainsaw Man vol. 10

Hmmmm….

I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to talk about how the previous volume ended, yet.  By that extension, the events of this volume are best left for the reader to experience for themselves.  That’s because, if you remember when Steve and I talked about Tatsuki Fujimoto’s previous series “Fire Punch,” you’ll recall that I mentioned that the mangaka liked to burn down the status quo every few volumes.  It’s a trait that he’s carried over to “Chainsaw Man,” to a lesser extent.  Suffice to say that this is the penultimate volume of (this current incarnation of) this series, so the burning feels a little more intense and substantial here with regards to everything the mangaka has built up to this point.

The question then becomes, is all this destruction worth it?  Absolutely – in the first half of the volume.  That’s when Fujimoto cashes in all of the sympathy he’s built up in the reader for certain characters and lets you know what his endgame is.  It’s great stuff, but it doesn’t carry through to the end of the volume, the back half of which is made up of a lot of fighting.  This is stylish fighting, as has been the case for much of the series, but it has the feeling of a necessary evil.  Something that had to be done in order to get the story to where Fujimoto wanted it for the next volume.  Which, at this point, could go either way in terms of satisfaction or disappointment depending on whether or not the mangaka has already burned through every surprise in his bag of tricks for this series.