A review by harrowclare
Chainsaw Man, Vol. 9 by Tatsuki Fujimoto

5.0

This volume honestly gets 5 stars because of the snowball fight scene alone...but let's not get ahead of ourselves! This one is going to have a lot of concealed spoilers because it's...a lot to unpack.

The beginning of this volume surprised me because we had been in the center of a fight and woke up to a sad but touching moment in Aki's apartment. There is such a beautiful story of friendship between Power and Denji that is intimate and soft, and not sexual. I feel that this shows enormous character growth for Denji despite how subdued it all feels. 

Aki, Denji, and Power visit Hokkaido and we see just how much the three of them are bonded and comfortable with each other in their own way.

And finally, Aki is asked to be removed from the Gun Devil hunt because seeing Denji & Power unconscious in hell was too much for him to bear. Sadly, Makima more or less does not allow this to happen.

The Future Devil gives Aki a horrifying vision, leading him to visit with Angel Devil, and then the two of them find Makima, who, at last, shows us her horrifying power

as the Control Devil.

There is a knock at the door of the apartment, and as Denji goes to open it, thinking it must be Aki, he hears Pochita's voice in his head - the one from his dreams - telling him not to open the door.

Makima calls and tells Denji that the Gun Devil has arrived and that he needs to kill it without thinking too much about it.

And then Denji opens the door, inviting events that are heartbreaking and cataclysmic.

But now my life has finally... ...finally... ...gotten kinda fun.

The poetry of going between Aki as a child having a snowball fight with Denji, and The Gun Devil blowing away his surroundings while being torn apart by Chainsaw Man...this one really hurt. I am blown away by the scene in ways I struggle to articulate, and it is my most anticipated scene to see animated because holy shit. Aki finally has a reason to live, he decides to try to back away from his mission to save his friends, and he becomes that which he hates - discovering that it is the most fun he has ever had. Aki Hayakawa dies in the worst possible way.

No other volume of Chainsaw Man has had this level of characterization, and it is executed so beautifully. This one truly gutted me, and I loved every second of it. Will I ever recover? No.