Finally, we get some tasty intrigue and chilling suspense! After the Chainsaw Devil is revealed to the world, Denji is now being hunted by multiple assassins from all of the global power countries. Which leads to some amazing fight scenes with those assassins. They've briefly mentioned other countries that also have devils and agencies, but this volume expands on that way more. Each assassin character is actually fairly fascinating in their own way. I'm glad they built up each of them just enough to get you curious about them. Except for (spoilers!!) [the old dude who is...Santa??? Why is the guy called Santa? Cause he's German and old? His devil makes people into dolls, I guess that's vaguely Santa? But my god seeing Makima say "Santa is in Japan" threw me off so badly. (hide spoiler)] Also, the opening scene of the volume finally made me say "Wait, what going on with Denji?". I'm finally curious about Denji as a character! A miracle! Also, the mystery of Makima was sitting at about 50 percent so far and is now dialed up to about 85. I still want to know what the deal is with her! ( )

When in doubt, dump in a truckload of new characters.

The Chainsaw Man is public knowledge now due to the events of last volume and governments from around the world are sending teams of assassins to kill and/or kidnap him. Along with a dozen assassins, we have a bunch of new and old people suddenly appear from Denji's team to help protect him. Frankly, it gets a little hard to keep everyone straight without a scorecard -- so many generic men in suits! At least the group of female assassins is colorful, though they spend a lot of time providing fan service with their several scenes of group sex before getting down to business.

Everything spills over into the next volume, so onward! ( )

3.75 ( )