Chainsaw Man vol. 9

In the previous volume, Denji and most of the main cast went to Hell.  Nobody goes to Hell in this volume.  They just go through it.  Starting with Power, who has been traumatized by her encounter with the Darkness Devil and can’t calm down as a result of it.  Denji does his best to deal with this and even bathes her when she asks for it, resulting in the most chaste bathing scene I’ve read in comics (no, really).  This is followed by the two of them accompanying Aki to his annual visit to his family grave, where their antics provide a surprisingly welcome distraction for the now one-handed swordsman.  It’s this encounter, along with his history with the two of them, that causes Aki to make a deal with a Devil in order to make sure they survive the Gun Devil.  The problem is that this Devil doesn’t give a damn about his, or anyone else’s, happiness.

It doesn’t feel like everything’s on fire in vol. 9 – just most of it as mangaka Tatsuki Fujimoto looks to tear down the series’ current status quo over two volumes instead of one.  He does this by zeroing in on one particular cast member, Aki, over a couple of chapters and giving us a picture of where he’s been and where he’s at right now.  It’s the latter part that’s most revealing as you realize that he has lost a whole lot of things since this series started.  Friends, co-workers, actual years of his life, his right arm.  You’ll find out how all of this has changed Aki in this volume.

You’ll also get some quality spectacle as the Gun Devil makes his big debut in this volume.  It was not what I was expecting.  This is a good thing as Fujimoto finds a unique way to showcase the devil’s raw destructive power.  I will admit to being a bit confused by Makima’s explanation regarding what ownership of the Gun Devil meant, and the means of its containment were meant to play out.  However, the reveal about Makima herself was a good one and I’m veeeeeeeeeeeery interested in seeing what the nature and limits of her power are.  As well as how Denji’s going to come back from all this.