Chapter 162 of Chainsaw Man ended the prison escape arc with Asa and her gang successfully rescuing Denji from Public Safety.
Going into Chapter 163 of Chainsaw Man, “Dream Balls”, I was curious to see how Asa and Yoru would react to the realization of Denji being Chainsaw Man.
The results were, as expected of Fujimoto, hilarious.
“Dream Balls” begins with Haruka flipping news channels, only to find that seemingly no one is talking about their prison break.
He finally manages to find a channel where an emotional woman appears to be talking about the chaos caused by the recent Chainsaw Man transformations.
She states she has had suicidal thoughts, that her mother cannot trust anyone anymore, and that she has one thing to say to whoever’s behind all this… “Koma Komagawa! Never stop being our idol!”
Cue my laughter as I realized, just as Haruka did, that this woman was not traumatized about the Chainsaw Men transformations, but by an idol supposedly having an affair.
Humor aside, I actually felt a large amount of sympathy towards Haruka during this moment.
He looked so distraught and remorseful for what he helped cause, before the reveal of what the woman was actually traumatized by.
Haruka is a character who I honestly found to be kind of meh for a while.
However, he has been growing on me quite a bit in the more recent chapters, what with his hilarious exchange with Fami in the prison escape arc and now this.
As for Haruka’s friend Nobana, his “thank goodness” response to the news that the idol’s affair may have fabricated reminded me a lot of his sister’s final scene in Part One.
In that scene, Kobeni was thankful that she no longer had to endure her abusive family, while here her brother is thankful that a smear campaign turned out to be a lie.
Although, Fujimoto seems to be keeping it ambiguous whether Nobana is really happy about that or happy about their escape not being on the news.
The reason for that, though, is probably because Public Safety is being quiet about it in the hopes that they can recapture Denji before word gets out.
Whether they can or not depends on the quality of the gang’s hideout, which appears to be the apartment block the Falling Devil attacked a few arcs ago.
Fami brought them here, and we see her gorging herself on food with her bare hands.
I still find the fact that the Famine Devil is a glutton to be morbidly funny.
Before the group can decide what to do, Denji wakes up, and his first question is what happened to Asa’s arm.
The following exchange is suitably awkward, as Asa simply replies “I dunno” when Denji asks why Yoshida cut off her arm.
The awkwardness of this conversation causes even Denji to wonder if he is dreaming.
A simple pinch would have been enough to prove to Denji that he is awake, but Katana Man takes this a boot further, stomping on Denji’s balls as revenge for the competition back in Part One.
This made me laugh but what comes next had me howling.
Both Haruka and Asa yell at Katana Man for hurting Denji, only for Yoru to take control of Asa’s body and stomp Denji’s balls again.
As I howled with laughter, the chapter ended with Nobana stating he does not feel safe with these people but Haruka replying that they have nowhere else to go.
So, now Denji will learn that yet another girl he has dated wants to kill him.
The guy just cannot catch a break.
I am curious to see what explanation Asa wants to give Denji, though.
She states that she plans to fight him after explaining things, so it will be interesting to see how that will go.
There is also the matter of Akoku.
He’s the only character from the group missing in this chapter and, since he is speculated to be the Fire Devil, that is a bit suspicious.
Or, who knows, he might just turn up next chapter?
“Dream Balls” is another hilarious Chainsaw Man chapter, and it has me excited to see how Denji will react to learning that Asa is possessed by the War Devil.