Summary
After the excitement of last week, this episode slows things down and serves as an entertaining setup for the next arc.
We recap the Crunchyroll anime series Chainsaw Man season 1, episode 5, “Gun Devil,” which contains spoilers.
It’s safe to say that while this episode isn’t as exciting as last week’s encounter with the Bat Devil (voiced by Kenichiro Matsuda), it’s still an enjoyable episode in its own right. This episode seems to focus more on progressing the story through character development. We’re quickly introduced to several new members of Public Safety, as well as new devils. Slowly but surely, the story is starting to come together as we get ready to enter a new arc.
Chainsaw Man season 1, episode 5 recap
This episode picks up right where the last one left off, and Denji is mere seconds away from fulfilling his goal. With the enthusiasm of any average teenage boy, he leans forward and takes Power’s chest in his hands. She even fakes a moan before one of the pads from her bra falls out, somewhat killing the mood. Denji still cashes in the last two squeezes Power promised him, but something is clearly wrong. Despite getting what he wanted, Denji feels underwhelmed.
During breakfast, Denji seems lethargic. His lackluster mood continues on the way to work and while he’s doing paperwork with Makima. Noticing his off mood, she asks what is bothering him. Denji admits that after finally obtaining something he was chasing after, it wasn’t as big of a deal as he expected it to be. He’s afraid that if he sets new goals, the same thing will keep happening, and he’ll never truly feel satisfied.
Makima asks what exactly Denji is referring to. When he admits that he’s talking about touching boobs, she suddenly takes his hand. She explains that the better you understand someone, the better it feels to be intimate with them. All the while, she’s entertaining their hands, slowly and carefully overloading his senses. It feels very calculated, but at the same time, Denji is too inexperienced to be anything but enamored as she moves his hands to her face and then her mouth.
Denji is in complete awe as Makima lays down the piece de resistance, moving Denji’s hand to her chest. He all but panics, falling from his seat onto the floor, his face flushed in ecstasy. At that moment, Makima leans over him and requests a favor.
“I want you to beat the Gun Devil,” she immediately tells him. It appeared 13 years earlier in America, but no one knows the devil’s exact whereabouts these days. It’s a powerful devil, but Makima believes that Denji has the power to kill it. She continues to gas him up, telling Denji he’s special before promising to grant him any wish he wants if he succeeds. Yes, even sex, considering just how terrible this devil is.
With devil attacks increasing, gun purchases increased to combat them. This only lead to more gun violence, which lead to fear of guns. Everything came to a head when the Gun Devil appeared, causing a major terrorist attack in America.
We flash back now to a family with two small sons living in the snowy countryside. The parents are focused on the younger of the two, who seems to be sick in bed, while the older searches for a parent to play with him. Too preoccupied with the younger brother, they encourage the older brother to go outside and play on his own. Suddenly, the younger brother declares his desire to go and shoots out of bed, much to the older brother’s dismay.
Despite his best efforts to get rid of his younger brother, the two enjoy one another’s company after an impromptu snowball fight. Wanting to continue the fun, they agree to play catch, and the older brother sends the younger inside to fetch a glove from the house. The younger brother turns to wave from the porch just before the entire house is blown away in the aftermath of an explosion.
“In a little under five minutes, 1.2 million people were killed,” Makima explains over shots of rubble and destruction. The fear brought on by the attack increased the fear of devils in general, only serving to make them all stronger than ever before. She asks Denji if he thinks he can beat the Gun Devil, and he replies that he thinks he can if he pulls out all of the stops.
The first step, however, is actually locating the Gun Devil. Makima shows Denji a case with pieces of the Gun Devil inside. She says that if a devil eats a piece, they automatically become stronger no matter what type of devil they are. At a certain point, once the fragments they have are late enough, the pieces become attracted to the original body they came from. If they can collect more pieces of the gun devil to make a larger collective, they think they’ll be able to use it to track the actual Gun Devil.
In the field, Aki and Himeno are seen collecting a piece of the Gun Devil from a fish devil they just killed. They wonder if the fish stumbled upon the piece or if someone gave it to him specifically. We learn from a brief flashback that Aki is, in fact, the older brother whose family was blown away earlier.
A team from Public Safety, including Denji, Aki, Power, Himeno, Kobeni, and Hirokazu are sent to investigate a hotel. Inside is said to be a devil who may have swallowed a piece of the Gun Devil. Denji wonders if it’s actually the Gun Devil, but Aki says that if it were, the reaction from the piece of Gun Devil he has with him would be stronger.
Hirokazu asks if Power and Denji can really be trusted to watch their backs, considering their devil natures. Aki explains that Denji and Power will actually run point on extermination missions. However, if they try to run or switch sides, they will be killed.
Denji thinks it’s unfair that he should work with no reward because they just fought the Bat Devil. Himeno offers up a kiss to whoever kills the devil inside the hotel. Hirokazu protests heavily for the sake of Himeno’s virtue, but Denji says he already has his sights set on sharing his first kiss with someone else anyway. So Himeno ups the stakes, saying shell make it a kiss with tongue instead.
With newfound motivation, Denji and Hirokazu charge through the hotel hallways. As the four rookies engage in play fighting, Aki and Himeno discuss what they think about them and if they’ll survive in this field. Himeno reflects back to the time she first met Aki, her sixth partner. The flashback and the present are paralleled by Himeno asking Aki not to die on her.
Chainsaw Man season 1, episode 5 ending
The group continues down the hallway, waiting to encounter the devil. Finally, they sense one. From one of the room doors emerges a devil made up of a head with one hand and one foot protruding from the sides.
The devil launches itself at Kobeni but is stopped in mid-air by Himeno clenching her fist. As it hovers, Power slices it in half with a blood sword. She laughs, accusing the devil of hovering in fear of her, but Himeno explains that her power caused that effect. She has a contract with a ghost devil, who allows her use of its right hand in exchange for her right eye.
Ali checks their gun devil piece with the corpse of the hand and foot devil, but it doesn’t react. They decide to head up a floor to keep looking for their devil.
In the stairwell, Himeno chokes Power with her ghost arm after Power threatens Kobeni. Power cannot fight, as she cannot touch the hand or arm. Preferring they get along, Himeno lets her go, and they continue up the stairs.
As they explore the next floor, Hirokazu grows nervous as he notices they seem to be on the same floor they just left. He descends the stairs again to double-check his suspicion and winds up right back on the eighth floor. The others look on in shock as they realize they are stuck.
There’s quite a bit to take in this episode, as we get a lot of character development. We learn more about Aki’s motivations and why he feels his goal is so much stronger than Denji’s. We also see a bit more of Makima and Denji’s dynamic. This episode feels like more of a setup or a bridge between fights, especially since we got so much action in last week’s fight against the Bat Devil.
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