Chainsaw Man vol. 8

In this volume, Denji goes to Hell.  So does the rest of Division 4.  It sounds like the kind of situation that’s tailor made for mangaka Tatsuki Fujimoto’s sensibilities, but it winds up being a case of reach exceeding grasp.  Fujimoto’s vision of Hell is, honestly, a bit too mundane for my tastes.  It’s got a roof of infinite doors, bloody bisected astronauts, and whispers of devils even more powerful than the Gun Devil.  There’s a bit more to it, but I have a hard time believing that even this title’s target audience will be freaked out by what they see here.  We also get some confusion regarding the real villain of this arc as it turns out that one of the bad guys who came to get Denji wasn’t what they initially appeared to be.  The reveal comes off as a little more confusing than it needed to be, which is a disappointment.  Toss in some initially clunky action scenes with the real villain, and you’ve got what is probably the least satisfying volume of this series yet.

That’s “least satisfying” as opposed to “actually bad.”  There are some decent fight scenes over the course of the volume, initially involving Chinese Devil Hunter Quanxi and her accompanying fiends.  Then when Denji gets his showcase fight in the back half, it’s one of the best I’ve seen in this series:  Both in terms of action and unbridled stupidity on the character’s part.  The way in which the threat Division 4 faces is also dealt with in a clever way, and Fujimoto delivers it in a way that makes it more visually interesting than his rendition of Hell.  Finally, we get more indications that Makina is Not To Be Trusted and I still find myself interested in finding out what Fujimoto’s endgame with this character is.  This volume is definitely more of a mixed bag than I’d have liked it to be, even if it does have a lot stuff to recommend it as well.

Then again, it doesn’t quite hold a candle to…