Chainsaw Man Chapter 98: A clucking good time, a powerful Devil appears, and a hint of what's to come
Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 was released earlier this Tuesday morning, marking one of the most highly-anticipated manga returns in recent memory. Author and illustrator Tatsuki Fujimoto’s feverishly insane and violently beautiful artwork is back in full swing for Chainsaw Man Chapter 98, as is the series’ classic dark-yet-mundane comedy.
Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 initially focuses on the perspective of a brand new character, but for good reason. While fans may feel like a chicken with their head cut off upon beginning Chainsaw Man Chapter 98, the debut issue’s connection to the series' first part becomes abundantly clear by its end.
Follow along as this article fully breaks down Chainsaw Man Chapter 98.
The plot chickens with Chainsaw Man Chapter 98’s introduction of future antagonists with more likely on the way
Chainsaw Man Chapter 98: A classic classroom pet storyline
Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 opens not with Denji, Nayuta, or Kishibe as fans expected, but instead introduces an entirely new character in a unique situation. Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 opens with perspective fixed squarely in a high school classroom, where a teacher announces his intentions for the class to keep the Chicken Devil as a pet.
The Devil introduces itself as Bucky, taking the form of a headless chicken wearing a bow tie around its neck. When Bucky introduces himself and tells the class he’s "eggcited" to befriend them all, the teacher suddenly tells the class they’ll kill and eat Bucky three months from now.
Apparently, the goal here is for the students to understand how precious life is, which causes Bucky to scream out “what the cluck” in alarm. The next page sees students going up and touching and introducing themselves to Bucky, while the Devil sadly contemplates the fate of being eaten and dying.
A girl suddenly walks by the room, noticing that Bucky is on her desk before internally yelling at Bucky to die and slamming the door to the classroom. Her classmates notice that she was glaring at them, before letting readers know that the girl’s parents were once eaten by a Devil.
We see the girl walk through school, ridiculing everyone she sees, from people walking side-by-side in the halls, to those who crowd in the bathroom to socialize and on stairways to kiss. The girl eventually makes her way to the roof, beginning to eat her lunch when the class president comes by, ridiculing her for eating alone, which won’t make her any friends.
The still-unnamed girl says she doesn’t need friends since they’re pointless, which the class president sarcastically expresses amazement at before saying she’ll eat lunch there too. The girl sees the class president pull out a Chainsaw Man bun, to which the latter responds that she wants to collect the stickers and needs them if the unnamed girl has any.
She instead responds with commentary on the city’s corruption, citing the plethora of illegally constructed buildings, their mayor having a DUI, and Chainsaw Man's masquerading as a Devil Hunter. She finishes by commenting on Bucky's being in their classroom now, to which the Class President responds that she should hold it in since he’ll be dead in 100 days anyway.
The still-unnamed girl says she wishes Chainsaw Man and Bucky would both hurry up and die, as the following two pages skip ahead three months with a short montage. The scenes mainly show Bucky interacting with the class in various ways, with a particularly funny scene seeing him tell the teacher that the lesson isn’t “clucking” with him.
All of these scenes see the still-unnamed girl looking on in dismay, with the final panel seeing the class president shooting a glance her way as well. On the day of Bucky’s death, the teacher asks a student with Devil Hunter aspirations to kill the Devil, causing the class president to stand up.
As the unnamed girl expresses her relief, the class president instead says that they don’t want to kill and eat Bucky, saying he’s the class's friend now after these past few months. The teacher says that it’s what he wanted to hear, and that Bucky will continue to live as a member of the class, causing celebration from all but the unnamed girl.
Chainsaw Man Chapter 98: An unfortunate turn of events
Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 then sees the class deciding to go outside and play instead of learning, with everyone but the unnamed girl playing soccer with Bucky. The classroom teacher approaches the unnamed girl, saying she should join in and that high school is more fun with friends. However, she says she’s here to study rather than make friends as the class president waves to her.
She invites the girl to come play soccer with them, which she initially rejects but is interrupted by Bucky rushing to her. He calls the girl by her name, revealing her to be Asa Mitaka, and tells her to "come out of her shell" and play soccer with him, keeping the chicken puns rolling along.
The girl is clearly touched by Bucky's knowing her name, even saying that the class president and the teacher are the only ones who ever remember it. She looks up and sees the entire class smiling at her, very warmly and welcomingly, and she realizes she was just jealous of them as she happily walks to join in the fun.
However, Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 takes a sharp turn when Asa trips while still holding Bucky in her chest, landing on the Devil. The next page sees her begin to get up as others look on and try to help, before tragically revealing that she’s killed Bucky with her body weight, the devils intestines spilling out of his body.
Chainsaw Man chapter 98 then shows the welcoming, warm faces of the other students turn to faces of horror and sadness, as everyone realizes what has happened. Imagery in the following panels shows Asa feeling the sensation of drowning, as she says that if everyone in the class had to vote for one person to jump off the roof, they’d all choose her, including herself.
She’s then seen back in her apartment, lying in bed with a clearly depressed look on her face as she laments the events of the day. A flashback shows a grave marker for Bucky having been planted at the school, as Asa walks into the classroom and is looked at by all of her peers simultaneously.
The flashback ends as she’s back in her apartment, crying and saying she wants to die after what happened. However, a knock at her door rouses her out of bed and brings her outside, with the guests being revealed to be the class president and the teacher. The three then say they’ll visit Bucky’s grave to ask for his forgiveness, together.
However, the next scene sees the class president and teacher crossing the street, with Asa staying behind because the crossing signal is red. The two begin to agree with and console her, recognizing her to be fragile right now, before the class president begins ridiculing her for “always do[ing] this.”
She continues, saying Asa has always been such a goody-two-shoes, before saying that Mr. Tanaka (the teacher who is with them currently) apologized to the whole class on her behalf. She also says that Mr. Tanaka was the one who told her to befriend Asa, as her body begins morphing in Devil-ish ways.
She ends by saying that Mr. Tanaka apparently likes Asa, even though he and the class president are having s*x with one another. Now fully transformed into a fiend form, the class president says that she made a contract with the Justice Devil to reach her “happy ending with Mr. Tanaka.”
She then tries to kill Asa, saying that nothing she tries works because Asa is still alive. Apparently, the Justice Devil told her to trip Asa, which would make her land on and kill Bucky as a result. Asa is clearly shocked, as the class president (now a Justice Fiend) continues ranting about how she laughed her head off, and learned how precious life is from the two.
She thanks her as she goes in for the kill shot on Asa, who expresses relief in the final moments before her death. She expresses relief that she wasn’t responsible for Bucky’s death, as well as the class president being jealous of her. She ponders that everyone is jealous of someone, and says maybe she could’ve had a better life, friends, or even a boyfriend if she knew it sooner.
As this dialogue happens, her face is brutally cut open by the Justice Fiend, and Asa wishes she had lived life just a little more selfishly in her final moments. Her eyes, however, seem to see a pair of floating lights sitting above the crossing signal from earlier. These lights are revealed to be the looping-iris eyes of a Devil, who makes an offer to Asa.
Chainsaw Man Chapter 98: A new Devil appears
Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 then sees the Devil, taking on the form of a small bird, tell Asa that if she wants to live, her body will become the Devil’s. Her last word seems to be "Who...?", before her body stands up once more with her face healed (aside from a scar). The Justice Fiend and Mr. Tanaka are both confused, questioning how she’s still alive and whether it really is Asa.
She then pulls on Tanaka’s head, ripping it and his spinal cord out of his body and calling it the “Tanaka Spinal Cord Sword.” He seems to still be alive as this happens, screaming out in pain while the Justice Fiend asks Asa what she is. She responds in turn that her name is “War Devil,” commanding the Justice Fiend to die for her warmup kill.
The Justice Fiend, expectedly, commands her to die instead, swinging a fist at the newly proclaimed War Devil which is swiftly cut off. Asa, now apparently the War Devil, reconstructs the Justice Fiend’s hand into a flesh-based hand grenade, complete with a tiny hand curling around the outside of it.
The Justice Fiend once more swings at the War Devil, who in turn swings her sword and bisects the fiends body. As the fiend yells out for Mr. Tanaka, the War Devil impales her sword into the Justice Fiend so the two can have one last kiss.
Calling it a happy ending, she then throws the hand grenade at the two, blowing them up in a classic Fujimoto-esque double-page spread. With body parts flying everywhere and landing all over, she begins walking away, until she sees a poster of Chainsaw Man.
She tells him to just wait for her, and, sitting down on the pile of intestines she just made, ends Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 by promising she’ll make Chainsaw Man vomit up nuclear weapons. With no scheduled break announced at the end of Chainsaw Man Chapter 98, fans can expect the next issue to also release on Tuesday of next week, that date being July 19.
Chainsaw Man Chapter 98: In summation
Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 delivers in stellar fashion on all the core aspects of part 1 which turned the series into a nearly-overnight success. The wild, zany action and bloody, over-the-top gore the series is known for pair perfectly with the lighthearted, pun-filled plotline of Chainsaw Man Chapter 98.
Even being only one issue in, part 2 of the series feels like a celebration and double-downing-on of all the things which made the series so popular. This is especially true if Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 is tone-setting for the part, which it hopefully will be.
Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 also introduces the War Devil, the second of the Four Horsemen Devils to be introduced thus far. As speculated on in previously published Sportskeeda articles, the second part of the series will likely focus on the Four Horsemen Devils, which this issue seemingly confirms.
While there are still two more to be introduced, there’s little doubt that Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 sets up at least the War Devil alone as a major antagonistic force this season.
Be sure to keep up with all Chainsaw Man anime and manga news, as well as general anime, manga, film, and live-action news, as 2022 progresses.
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