The following contains spoilers for Chainsaw Man Chapter 98 by Tatsuki Fujimoto, Amanda Haley, Sabrina Heep now available in English through Viz Media.
After a long hiatus and several critically-acclaimed one-shots, Tatsuki Fujimoto has returned with the highly anticipated second part of Chainsaw Man. Chainsaw Man erupted onto the manga scene in a unique way. It's definitely an action-horror series with the mass amounts of blood and gore sprawling on its pages, but Chainsaw Man also features an unconventional protagonist named Denji who desires very simple things in life and is largely motivated with satiating his sexual desires. There's an unapologetically blunt humorous way in which the story gets told. It's so in-your-face that it's impossible to look away.
Chainsaw Man wasn't without its challenges. Part 1 was initially released through Weekly Shonen Jump before making the jump to the Jump+ platform which is unusual to see. In an interview, Fujimoto said that he hoped readers would see Part 2 as completely different from Part 1 and so far, it looks like it's working. Chainsaw Man Part 2 begins in the most Fujimoto way possible: with a headless chicken, named Bucky, introducing itself.
Despite Denji not making an appearance in the debut of Part 2, Chapter 98 introduced an equally compelling character and the perfect segue into the school arc. Mr. Tanaka tells his class that the students would kill and eat a very friendly headless Chicken Devil called Bucky. Most of the class take to Bucky the Chicken Devil quickly -- all except a nameless girl who regards the Devil with disdain. And it's not just Bucky that she doesn't like -- according to her, the whole city is corrupt, and it's made even worse with a Devil, Chainsaw Man, playing Devil Hunter.
The three months go by and the entire class, save for the aghast nameless girl, decide to spare Bucky to which the teacher is utterly delighted as this was exactly what he had been aiming for: to teach the kids the value of life. Out of all the things, the girl had never expected anyone to remember her name, least of all this Devil, ironically enough. But this is enough for Asa to realize that all of her resentment was a result of her being jealous of her classmates. And for a few fleeting seconds, it looked like Asa's life was going to change. And it did but not in the way she wanted it to. She accidentally trips and crushes Bucky, ending her brief attempt into connecting with the rest of her class.
It turns out it was all orchestrated by the class president who in a fit of jealousy over Mr. Tanaka's preference for Asa over her, made a contract with the Justice Devil. Ordinarily, 'justice' isn't something that most people who aren't criminals would fear, but as the class president believes that it is wrong or 'unfair' for Asa to steal Mr. Tanaka away from her, the contract makes sense. In her dying moments, Asa reflects on her life and realizes that she and the class president were similar in that they both harbored intense jealousy.
One of Chainsaw Man's greatest strengths is Fujimoto's ability to blend dark humor and gore in a way that doesn't feel trite. It's so unabashedly self-aware, such as when Asa uses the class president's hand to make a hand grenade in the shape of a hand. She forces Mr. Tanaka and the class president's heads to kiss before setting off the grenade. And in the most meta nod, the explosion that erupts behind Asa is an exact replica to the ending scene to Goodbye, Eri right down to Asa calling it a "happy ending" except for the fact that guts and heads are flying everywhere.
Although Denji isn't in this chapter, he's still very much present. The most obvious are the mentions of Chainsaw Man being lauded as a hero but the scene where Asa is woken up by someone knocking on her door is reminiscent of Pochita pleading with Denji to not open the door in his dreams. Part 2 also begins with an origin story of Asa that parallels Denji's in contrasting ways.
When Asa is killed by the Justice Devil, there's not much left of her, save for a single eyeball. This echoes how Denji first appeared in Chapter 1 with a missing eye. Asa's eyeball latches onto a Devil watching her atop of the crosswalk Tanaka has pointed out earlier. Asa's transformation into the War Devil mirrors Denji's Chainsaw Man transformation in only one way: both the War Devil and Chainsaw Devil were in weakened, diminished states when they reached out to their human counterparts. Where Pochita and Denji had already created a bond of mutual trust and genuine affection, the War Devil seems to have completely taken over Asa. As she lies there, she wishes she could've lived more selfishly. As much as Denji is outwardly portrayed to be selfish as he initially cares about nothing except being able to live a simple life and have many sexual experiences with girls, he isn't selfish when it matters.
Asa's goal as the War Devil is clear: she wants Chainsaw Man to "vomit nuclear weapons back up," as the reappearance of nuclear weapons would increase the fear of war and thus increase her power. The irony of Asa being the War Devil isn't lost -- the point of Bucky was for Mr. Tanaka to teach the kids how precious life is and war only cares about killing as many people as possible. She had already expressed an intense hatred for Chainsaw Man before her death, though it's not clear why just yet. It looks like Denji will have yet another dangerous foe to contend with.