Halloween 2023: Reviewing Chainsaw Man Devils

Written by Jonathan Wojcik

   If you haven't heard of Chainsaw Man, you may not be surprised to know that it prominently features a man who is also a chainsaw, technically multiple chainsaws in fact, and this man of chainsaws goes about chainsawing quite a few things, I'll have you know! But HOW, you ask, can this man be of chainsaws?! WHY does he chainsaw things!? Luckily there is a single elegant answer to both of these questions is that he lives in a world where demons exist.





   To be precise, our hero is a starving, lonely, homeless orphan teenager named Denji, who at some point encounters a demon in such a weakened state that it's virtually helpless, appearing as an adorable, blobby cartoon dog with a miniature chainsaw blade that Denji names Pochita; basically Poochy, and yes, can actually wield by hand as a functional chainsaw. Devils are alleged to have no capacity for love or kindness, yet Denji and Pochita truly seem to hit it off as best of friends, and when Denji becomes mortally injured, Pochita narrowly saves him from death by physically fusing with his heart. This transforms Denji from a normal human to a human-devil hybrid, able to transform into the terrifyingly powerful Chainsaw Man!

   All this goes down within the very first chapter of the manga, or if you prefer, the very first episode of the anime, which aired its first season in 2022. And see, I had planned on reviewing its various devils back when that first season aired, but didn't find the time. I figured, perhaps, that the series might be airing its second series by the following Halloween season and make a review article just as relevant, but here we are, Halloween (December) 2023, and a second season still hasn't been official announced. With its explosive popularity, you might think more is all but guaranteed, right? But whenever that's supposed to be on its way, I guess you guys can enjoy this review in the interim. Just remember that like many of my reviews, this will constitute SPOILERS, since I'm going to review demons from far into the manga run and a couple of major reveals!


Tomato Devil

The thing about Devils in Chainsaw Man is that all of them are embodiments of human fear. Anything feared by more than one person will be born in hell as a Devil, which sometimes finds its way to Earth, and the more people fear the same thing, the more powerful that demon becomes. There are, of course, enough kinds of people on this planet that virtually anything and everything is someone's phobia, and that means you get low-tier Devils like Tomato, one of the first we ever see after Pochita. The weakest Devils seem to be born fairly small, but of course they can grow as they horrify and traumatize more humans, and by the time we see this adorable freak, it's at least as tall as a house. A huge, round, shiny red "tomato" covered in protruding eyeballs, with a vertical mouth full of humanlike teeth and a cluster pale, human legs it walks around on like a spider. It's perfectly comical, cute and menacing, and I especially like the little green leaves that poke out around the eyeballs like eyelashes.

   Quickly and easily dispatched by pre-fusion Denji and Pochita, the poor thing never seems to get a chance, but the great thing about these Devils is that they never die for good: a replacement is instantly respawned back in Hell, and sometimes it's only a matter of time before it comes back to our world with a vengeance. I was SO relieved the first time I heard that. If there's one thing I hate about so many series full of so many great monsters, it's that so many of them die, and so many of them are usually one-of-a-kind. I'm glad to know that, canonically, there's another Tomato Devil roaming the underworld, strengthening every time another human develops a complex over what is admittedly the grossest, most unpleasant fruit that I'm still willing to eat. I do kind of hate that clear, thin, brownish-yellow slime with the seeds in it. Ugh!!!

Sea Cucumber Devil

   Another minor devil that presumably few people are all that afraid of, but still fairly threatening. Sea Cucumber looks like its namesake, but with drippy and mushy-looking red flesh broken up by the many oversized, blue-tinged human fingers that poke out of it like "spines." Creeping slowly on these digits, the whole thing sticks upright, its sphincter-like mouth (or anus?) aimed skyward. Also interesting is the human skull embedded in its side, a bit under the mouth; does it absorb prey through its skin, or is that a permanent part of its "natural" anatomy? Either way it's one of my favorites, and a Sea Cucumber isn't as harmless as you might think; many species famously spit up some of their sticky innards as a defense mechanism, which is bad enough, but many can also release a deadly poisonous mucus, those innards themselves can be toxic, or both!

Bat Devil

   I guess I'm not necessarily going in perfect chronological order here, but Bat Devil shows up PRETTY early. This gigantic humanoid bat is of the vampiric variety, of course, but his toothy gums can delightfully morph into a cylindrical tube with a circle of teeth at the tip, like the incorrect pop culture version of a leech's mouth, which he can actually use to blast compressed air with lethal force. Why can a bat do that, exactly? I don't know. It's pretty cool, though!



In the manga, Bat Devil is one of those that return to Earth after his reincarnation, and he doesn't live long, but I appreciate the "Saturn Devouring His Son" reference in this panel. Bat Devil 2 is much mangier and nastier, with goofy buggy eyeballs and a more grotesque, lipless mouth that blends into his malformed bat nose. I like this design a lot more, honestly, but I am at least mildly distressed to know that reincarnated Devils don't always look the same. Yes, it means we can get more designs out of the same concept, but it also means we really don't know if the Tomato or Sea Cucumber Devils have quite the same charm anymore, or even ever will again, wherever they may be! Oh no!!! And can this Bat Devil still do the leechy mouth cannon?! We will never know!

Leech Devil

   Speaking of leeches though, Leech Devil is actually Bat Devil's girlfriend, if you ask her at least. We're not sure if he returns the affection or he's stringing her along for his own convenience, since that's supposedly how most Devils roll. Her design is obviously great, of course, a roughly humanoid shape with slimy, segmented, blackish purple leech flesh, boneless tubular arms ending in pale "suckers" and a long-necked leechy head ending in nothing but a humanlike mouth and greasy black hair. She also has, uh, "teats" I guess, down her "torso?" Six large, pinkish saclike growths with long udder-like protrusions. This doesn't draw from leech anatomy, but they're disturbing and pretty funny. Yeah, they are animated jiggling. Like a ton.

Zombie Devil

   This is THE Devil responsible for Denji and Pochita's fusion, and obviously a pretty strong one, since plenty of people are terrified of the concept of zombies, and this Devil can of course transform any normal human into an undead minion! The design is also just fantastically unsettling; it resembles a corpsen upper torso with its arms long gone, and viscera dangling from its ribcage like a mass of tentacles. Where its head should be is only an oversized, pinkish brain bulging grotesquely from the neck, while a ghoulish zombie head sprouts from the right side of the torso's chest. I love that the embodiment of the fear of zombies would be abstracted to this degree, not just one giant zombie or a mass of zombies or a big mutated beastly zombie or anything, but all the key elements of the zombie concept in an arrangement that's memorably and hauntingly wrong.

Ghost Devil

   Like Zombie Devil, Ghost Devil embodies the fear of something still "fictional" in-universe, except that the existence of this Devil more or less makes "ghosts" a reality, or at least one ghost-like phenomenon, since it has all the powers you expect from a wandering soul, like invisibility and selective intangibility. Also like Zombie, it doesn't simply take the form of "a ghost" in the traditional sense, but something much stranger and more distressing with an obvious motif of ghostliness. Its huge, bright white head resembles a serene, smiling old woman with long, black hair, connected by a long and thick trunk to a mass of immense mass of terrifyingly long, white arms and hands with cracked, doll-like skin. The final aesthetic touch, and actually my favorite characteristic, is that the tubular body in the middle is completely coated in a layer of flowers. Beautiful, and masterfully ominous!

   Devils in this setting also seek to make contracts with humans, and Ghost Devil is introduced working with a major character in hunting other Devils. Did we mention yet that Devil Hunters are just a public service in this world? Yeah, it's not a "Men In Black" situation where it's all kept a secret. You physically could not keep these monsters secret. Everybody just has to live with the knowledge that these things are out there.

Snake Devil

   Also contracted to a human character as an emergency summon, Snake Devil is a very cool looking serpent, more eel-like or worm-like with its smooth scaleless skin. Its long, pointed jaws are formed from rows of interlocking humanlike arms, and it has tiny little black eyes at the corners of the its mouth. A snake themed demon could have easily been a more forgettable design, too straightforward of a big scary reptile, but this both an outstanding anatomical plan and a visual personality I find highly appealing; the size and placement of the eyes puts me in mind of a baleen whale in the best way.

Fox Devil

   This is obviously a popular one, but not just with fans! Fox Devil is contracted to a LOT of humans, because what it mostly wants is an opportunity to eat others of its kind! It will allow a human partner to summon just its big, humongous head to swallow up a Devil in one bite, and it's not as boring a design as you'd expect either. It's no Snake Devil, no, but I like its cartoonish look, long white teeth and multiple, asymmetrically arranged eyes with maniacal, swirly centers!

Eternity Devil

   The Eternity Devil was one of Denji's first missions as a Devil Hunter after his fusion to Pochita, and it's already a harrowing one, as it's able to take over an entire building and trap the hunters in a spatial loop, returning to the same floor every time they try to go up or down or leave by any route. They're stuck like this for days, and whenever Denji kills the Devil, it simply resets time back to before the fight. But unfortunately for the Eternity Devil, its powers can't reset anyone's memories, even its own. That wouldn't feel like an eternity, after all! It turns out getting mutilated over and over again by Chainsaw Man is not a great time, the Devil having accidentally created its own torturous hell until it finally surrenders to death. A great concept and really fun early battle!




Eternity Devil's form resembles countless human limbs and facial features merged into an amorphous mass of ever-changing flesh, but the very center, the Devil's true form or "heart," is a small two-lobed blob representing an infinity symbol, each lobe with a single crescent-shaped eye and mouth.



Eternitywould also reincarnate later, but this time, built a giant humanoid body with no visible eyes, and a gaping black maw surrounded by giant fingers.

Future Devil

   This guy is just lovable! Future Devil represents the near-universal fear of what the future might hold, so he's pretty powerful, but his only real interest seems to be in actually witnessing the future unfold, rather than wreaking havoc of his own. Or maybe it's just because he's being contained by the Devil Hunters, who make use of his amazing power to grant people clairvoyance. All Devils have a price for their contract, of course, which varies from one individual to the next. In the case of one character, Future Devil demands to always see through their eyes, just so he can get a front-row seat to the terrible Future he knows is in store for them. Cold, but he's just so EXCITED about it! Future Devil loves to boast about how awesome he thinks the future is going to be! Just a loud, happy asshole who can't wait to watch all the mayhem and horror still waiting to befall mankind.

   His design is quite good, too; a humanoid formed from what looks like a gnarled tree, with roots dangling from the arms he usually holds outward in a T-pose. His head is like an organic helmet with antlers and six thin visor slots, but his real "face" seems to be in his torso, where a gigantic yellow eyeball peers from a vertical, pitch black cavity down the front of his chest!

Muscle Devil

   This Devil only appears in the manga and gets skipped over by the anime, a decision I'm not sure I agree with unless they'll simply be moving this story to a flashback sequence. It demonstrates a situation much like Denji and Pochita's, in which a Devil in its weak, degenerated form seems to befriend a human. In this form, "Muscle Devil" simply looks like a fat sausage with one big, cartoon eye and a simple smile, a creature even less dangerous looking than Pochita ever did, and it interacts just as kindly with a young human girl as Pochita did with Denji.

   This adds some intriguing uncertainty to our hero's situation, as the Muscle Devil proves to be as heartless and sadistic as most other demonic beings. It recuperates some of its original power by fusing with the girl's body, becoming a pair of gigantic, snakelike muscle-tissue limbs, one of which now ends in multiple eyeballs and a mouth full of blocky teeth. He's delightfully goofy looking, but he even earned the girl's trust first by protecting her from her abusive father, demonstrating just how low Devils will sink and how far they'll dedicate themselves to manipulating the gullibility of humans.

Chicken Devil

   There are, of course, other Devils out there that CAN more or less be trusted. Only seen in a flashback story, the Chicken Devil or "Bucky" is presented to a high school class as a study specimen that they're eventually supposed to kill, but they grow so attached to him that they eventually refuse, and their teacher reveals that this was the real test all along, to show the kids that all life - even Devils - can deserve compassion. Bucky is perfectly friendly towards humans, capable of speech and always joking around, evidently because there just aren't enough people afraid of specifically chickens. I have to say I think a lot more people might be afraid of chickens than they are of tomatoes or sea cucumbers, but maybe that's all the more evidence Bucky's peaceful nature is genuine? Otherwise, he might have at least tried to draw more strength by spreading more Alektorophobia around. Sadly, Bucky does get killed for unrelated, tragic reasons, and we know from other story points that a reincarnated Devil has no memory of their previous life. There's a new Chicken Devil, somewhere, but he wouldn't remember his friends :(

   This Chicken Devil's design is simple but all the more lovable for it; a headless chicken with a bow tie, plucked except for the feathered wings.

Fish Devil

   This Devil is only seen once, already having been killed by Devil Hunters when we come in on the scene. Its form is that of a huge bony fish, a little tuna-like with lots of sharp little teeth, but its tail splits into two, and it has six massive grasshopper-like legs. It feels like a shout-out to Junji Ito's GYO, which no doubt would have given more humans a phobia of fish they never expected to have. Actually, in a setting like this, how do people even get away with making horror media? DO they? If the general public knows that fear powers actual demons that come to Earth to kill people, you'd think horror movies would be basically illegal.

   Fish Devil is also seen surrounded by countless gelatinous eggs, so I suppose one of its powers may have been to reproduce? It doesn't seem like most Devils have that capability, but maybe the eggs would have just hatched into specialized, swarming little minion-fish.

Falling Devil

   This is a major antagonist for an entire story arc, and since "falling" is one of the broadest, simplest primordial fears, she's about as old and powerful as demons can become. I'm not entirely sure, however, how the theme of "falling" ties into either form we've seen her manifest. Both have the bodies of human women, with breasts that thrust up a little, and in her fully clothed, more human form they form a weirdly angular silhouette; her just juts out perfectly horizontal and then abruptly vertical, almost like...OHHHH, like a cliff? Is that the idea? A sudden "drop-off?" That's pretty funny. And I guess it's poignant that she has a pair of appendages on her back resembling huge, bony bird wings devoid of any feathers. "Wings" that wouldn't even keep you from falling at all! Okay. I think I get it.

   Instead of a head, she has a bunch of extra arms. In her "more human" form, she holds her own severed human head in these, unless it's actually supposed to be an actual human's head that she borrowed and speaks through?

   Yes, she also dresses like a chef. She dresses like a chef and she talks about everything with culinary metaphors. I don't think that's supposed to play in to the falling stuff. Devils can have interests outside their phobia! Why shouldn't they!!

Typhoon Devil

   This is one of the nastier designs, in my opinion; this huge Devil is shaped like a cyclone with a human head and human legs, but the head looks obliterated from the nose up, with exposed brain matter lying in its busted-open skull, and this brain matter also continues on to form the whirling cyclone body. It's a deeply unnerving aesthetic that evokes someone mutilated by natural disaster, and in its first appearance, all of its human components are those of a gigantic infant. It reincarnates later with the appearance of an elderly man, but that's nowhere near as shocking as taking the form of a smashed baby. Jesus.

Justice Devil

   Another powerful antagonist, Justice Devil is actually called upon by Falling Devil to eat a series of her "dishes," actually various live human victims, and I think "Justice" is an interesting concept for one of these Devils, being fueled by everyone on Earth who knows or at least believes that they've done something deserving of legal punishment. The form he takes is of a gigantic caterpillar or grub, the upper torso armored with large, pointed shoulders that might bring to mind a suit, and the humanoid head is featureless except for the mouth.



...Though Justice also has a second, vastly larger mouth that can open just below his chest, with vertical rows of gnashing teeth and a huge slimy tongue! I like the idea of a Justice Demon being something gluttonous, and that it's "blind," you know, like Justice! The fact that it takes the form of a "worm," besides just looking cool, may very well be a nod to Pink Floyd's The Wall, which also famously featured a "worm" as a judge.
  

Grape? Devil

   This one was actually only speculated to represent "grapes" by an unofficial popularity poll, though I'm glad it got to be included on a popularity poll, despite appearing for only a single panel, and like the Fish Devil, it was already dead. The poor little fella is nothing but a mass of oversized eyeballs tangled together by their nerve cords, with a blob of noodly-looking hair on top, or something, and a few insect-like limbs. It certainly looks a lot like a bunch of grapes, but not enough, in my opinion, to necessarily indicate grapes as its theme; it could just represent the fear of eyeballs, right? A lot of people fear being looked at, but that's different. A lot of people obviously find eyeballs gross or creepy, too, but that's not the same as an outright "fear" of them, so it wouldn't be surprising for an eyeball devil to be fairly small and weak.

Gun Devil

   This is one of the most formidable Devils in the whole series, a major antagonist of the first main story arc, growing in power with the rise of gun violence. The horrific figure never spoke, but mindlessly wandered the world gunning down thousands of innocent people at a time, able to spray bullets in every direction at once. It even constantly shed pieces of its flesh in the form of corroded bullets that, if consumed by another Devil, significantly magnified their power. By the time of the events of Chainsaw Man, the Gun Devil was technically "already defeated" and divided into pieces possessed by different countries, but 20% of its original form is owned and commanded by the United States, used to their own ends with no regard for the bystanders it constantly slaughters on its "missions." Sounds about right, yes.

  What we see of this 20% is a grisly looking humanoid torso with clusters of various rifles for arms, fused into its mangled looking black flesh. Its head resembles a gun barrel, with similar shark-like jaws to Chainsaw Man. Many bandoliers dangle from its waist in place of legs, and its torso resembles a blown-open rib cage completely filled with thousands of screaming, human faces. These are at least the size of actual human heads, because the guns forming its arms are, apparently, each the size of a small building!

War Devil

      Some powerful devils, somewhat disappointingly I must say, have only ever appeared in completely human form. At least one of these, however, the War Devil, has also appeared in a form resembling a little black potoo. Yes, the chubby birds with the big muppet mouths and hilarious googly eyes. I love that design choice. I don't know what it has to do with war per se, though maybe her true monstrous form, if she had one, would be more like a bird-shaped bomber plane? Or maybe the deranged looking bird is kind of a perversion of doves as a symbol of peace? Who knows.

Carpenter Bee Devil

   Carpenter bees aren't particularly aggressive, but they're very large, loud and hairy, owing to their Japanese name, which translates as "bear bee." At least one species is commonly encountered enough in Japan that I've seen a fear of "bear bees" referenced more than once in anime and manga, so naturally they get their own Devil. Yet another that we've only seen as a corpse, but it takes the form of a giant fuzzy bee with a gnarly mouthful of hooked fangs and at least four human-like eyeballs. Cute! But does this mean that different stinging bees and wasps each get their own individual Devil? Not just a general "bees and wasps" Devil? Or would there be a Bees & Wasps Devil, a Bees Devil, a Wasps Devil, AND additional Devils for singular species? How taxonomically extensive do they get?!

Cockroach Devil

   Also seen just briefly, Cockroach Devil appears as a muscular, lethal-looking humanoid whose skinless body is armored with external bones, including a head like an eyeless, humanoid skull with mandibles and antennae. Not bad! I might have expected more of a shadowy, hairy black insect that emphasizes rapid scuttling, given what I know about all those weirdos who don't like Blattodea.

Marshmallow Devil

   Another weaker one we only see dead. It doesn't really look all that much like a marshmallow, at least not the way it was colored like slick skin in the anime; it's just a lumpy, circular glob with a fringe of gooey little pseudopods and a few sad-looking eyes. Poor little guy doesn't seem to have stood a chance. Just how small and pitiful CAN a Devil be? Does a Devil exist as soon as even one person fears something, but too miniscule to ever be noticed, and perhaps especially unlikely to reach the human world? How easy are the lowliest Devils to safely contain, considering someone was able to make a pet out of the Chicken Devil? I guess what I'm asking are the logistics of keeping a Marshmallow-tier Devil in a little terrarium.

Hell Devil

  Huh. Is that all? Fear of Hell is serious enough as it is, surely even moreso in a setting where everyone knows a "hell" and "demons" exist, but nobody seems to know if there's a "heaven" or real "angels." Hell Devil only manifests as a skinless centaur on fire, with an eyeless skull, and that feels kind of anticlimactic. It's not a bad design, but you'd think Hell Devil would look more like Eternity Devil, right? Like a merged mass of tormented souls, or something?

Spider Devil

   Precious little of Spider Devil, or "Princi" is ever really shown. You might expect something extravagantly weird and monstrous for one of mankind's top irrational phobias, but she actually takes the form of a human woman with multiple sharp-tipped legs, and for whatever reason, a zipper all the way up the middle of her body. She's also one of several Devils and Fiends beside Denji that work as Devil Hunters for their own various reasons. We never learn her backstory, which is a shame, because it feels like it should be a bigger deal that THE Arachnophobia herself got roped into this.

Pig Devil

   Poor Pig Devil, another one Dead On Arrival to the series, and there's not much we can say about it except that it's a scary looking pig with two little extra eyes above its snout, but we're going for completion here. I did say these weren't in any special order, too; Pig Devil is this late in the list because I forgot it existed until last minute. I'm sorry, Pig Devil!!

Darkness Devil

   Obviously another deep, dark, ancient source of fear and very important character, Darkness also has one of the scariest and raddest designs in the series; a stack of fused human bodies their faces in a row down the front and their limbs wrapped around themselves, save for those forming the ribs of the Devil's pitch black "wings." These bodies are bound to a large spinal column topped by presumably the demon's true face, a sharply pointed animal skull, a bit birdlike, a bit equine, with curved horns emerging where the eye sockets should be.

   One of Darkness Devil's most fearsome powers is that it can instantly summon any other Devil.

Stone Devil

   Sadly, this presumably weak Devil - how many people are "afraid" of stone, exactly? - is summoned by Darkness Devil just to be killed, as this ends up killing a character who had a contract with Stone Devil. We never learn anything else about it, but it takes the form of a six-eyed, kind of cute batlike gargoyle.

Fire Devil Creations

   The Fire Devil is actually never seen in person, but actually impersonates the Justice Devil by name, and amasses a following of humans who believe their contract with the being allows them to deliver "justice" themselves. What it really does is give them a physical form that can grant their deepest desire, and see, if someone's come to a Devil seeking "justice" for something, their deepest desire is most likely nothing but personal vengeance against someone, or to otherwise deliver some sort of violence to those they feel are deserving. Due to Chainsaw Man's fame as a Devil Hunter, many who make deals with Fire Devil actually become imperfect "Chainsaw Men" themselves, but there are also a couple who demonstrate unique personal forms. One of these becomes the monster known as "Class President," for instance; a giant tangle of slimy guts forming two thick legs, with the faces of several school students.

   Another of these was a girl who sought to punish another character's bullies. In her new form, she's a decrepit looking humanoid with a large mass of fleshy paddle-like tentacles in place of legs, and her head splits open into two long whiplike feelers where her eyes should be, exposing an unnaturally cylinder-shaped brain!

   One last victim of the Fire Devil's scheme is an unnamed old man whose form is...uh...well it's something, I guess. His head becomes a whole lot bigger, but eyeless, with another, regular size version of his head sprouting out of it. He gets four arms, but they're stunted and misshapen. He gets a long, fleshy tail, but it ends in a single human foot. And he gets big, long, muscular legs, but their feet are shaped into organic high-heeled shoes. I think...maybe this guy had a thing about feet? Was he a foot weirdo? But....I don't know or strongly want to know how that would tie into a desire for "justice."

Santa Claus

   No, this one technically isn't a Devil, per se, but yes, this character is named Santa Claus. Who or what is Santa Claus? Well, they're an an international assassin with a hive mind in control of countless bodies all around the world, identical to normal humans but actually "dolls." This makes more sense with the knowledge that the creation of these dolls is the power granted by a contract with the Doll Devil, which is never seen, but presumably helped transform a single normal human into this global network of murderous puppets, which named themselves Santa Claus because I guess they had a great sense of humor.

   Santa Claus eventually eats a piece of Darkness Devil's flesh in order to elevate her power, and the result, as you can perhaps see, is a downright mesmerizing new body plan. She resembles a towering mannequin with a slightly too-long neck, a humanlike but slightly cracked face with devilish horns and long black hair, over a dozen long, skinny arms with too many joints, four breasts, and most notably, a pair of very long legs made entirely of heads stacked atop one another, each completely cut off just below their nose but still possessing big, bright eyes with dark lashes, obviously evoking "doll" heads, except they are definitely soft and fleshy. They're even somewhat expressive, and they don't really look like they want to be there, which are some deeply unpleasant implications. Oh yeah, and there's just ONE more of them, but it serves as her "waist," squished between her mannequin torso and pelvis. Anyway, I love everything about this design, and I wish there had been more of it. I also wish we could actually see the Doll Devil, but I'm not sure it could ever even live up to this.

Blood Devil

   You may already know the Blood Devil by her human disguise, actually a possessed corpse that she keeps pristine; this is a thing Devils can do, referred to as a "fiend." Her true form as a Devil isn't seen much, but I think it's fairly worthy of her; a nude humanlike body with exaggerated proportions, four arms ending in clawed hands, a black catlike tail, and a mass of intestines bursting from the torn ribcage. The exposed guts also completely conceal any normal head that would be on her shoulders, but they're topped off by a black, masklike pointed face with circular lenses for eyes and jagged teeth, if you ask me kind of like a leather gimp mask designed for a shark. This also has long, pointed ear-like flaps and an abundance of long, pale humanlike hair for good measure. Maybe it doesn't necessarily communicate "fear of blood," but it's a design that's fearsome and deadly looking while also coming across as fairly goofy, and a little cute, so it fits her character like a glove.

Chainsaw Devil

   I warned you about spoilers, but, it's not as if Chainsaw Devil's true form is all that surprising. Yes, this is cute little Pochita at his full potential; a rugged, burly humanoid with four chainsaw limbs, his head is similar to the one he manifests through Denji but a bit more organic, and where Denji has luminous "eyes" visible behind the motor's vents, the true Chainsaw Devil only has an eyeless surface of bony tissue. Grotesquely and quite strikingly, a length of intestine emerges from the demon's stomach and wraps around its neck like a stylish "scarf!"

   The thing about the Chainsaw Devil is that he has a rare ability to put other Devils completely out of commission, sort of "removing them from circulation" by devouring them. In a strange and fascinating revelation about the setting as a whole, Devils forced into this early retirement are forgotten by all humanity...and whatever they represented disappears from the world. If Pochita ate the Tomato Devil, Tomatoes would vanish from the Earth. If he ate a Devil representing murder in general, no human would ever again murder anyone or remember that it ever happened before, even if the concept would still exist as a hypothetical in our culture.

   By the time of the series, the list of things Poochy has already wiped from Denji's timeline by consuming their respective Devils is fairly shocking, which includes:

-The AIDs virus
-Nazis
-The entirety of World War II
-The eruption of "Mount Hio," which doesn't exist in our own world at all.
-"Arnolone Syndrome," an unspecified disease which also doesn't exist for us.
-Nuclear Weapons
-A Sixth Sense humans previously possessed.
-Something unknown, referred to as only "SOA"
-Something alarmingly referred to as the Light of a Star that Breaks Children's Minds.

   This also brings up the intriguing possibility that our own world is still Denji's world, but we aren't aware of Devils, because perhaps Chainsaw Devil is destined to remove their existence as well. This would surely have to restore all other devoured concepts however, wouldn't it? That would explain why we still, unfortunately, have things like the nazis and advanced immune deficiency, but, we still don't have a Mount Hio that ever erupted and we ESPECIALLY don't know of any star that somehow drives children insane.

  There has, however, already been a suggestion that a Devil could be retrieved from this noble hero's digestive system, something at least one other Devil sought to facilitate. By the rules thus far established, it's possible that many Devils escaped from Pochita, returning some of these heinous things to the timeline, but not all of them. And if Pochita subsequently devoured something like a Devil of Devils, or perhaps just a Devil of Devil Attack Incidents, that essentially creates the exact history you and I have been living in. Neat I guess! Should have at least hunted down a couple of those one more time for us!

   We've now looked at every single Devil with a known true form, besides a couple cases - like the Octopus Devil and Mantis Devil - where we saw only a single limb, and we've also skipped over the various other Weapon Devils, who basically all look like Chainsaw Man if you replaced the Chainsaw with other implements of violence, but the Chainsaw Man manga is still ongoing, and no doubt we'll get at least a few more rad creatures to look over before it ends completely.

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