Chainsaw Man Just Made Bad Movies Absolutely Heartbreaking

Warning! Spoilers for Chainsaw Man chapter 93!

Mangaka Tatsuki Fujimoto left fans reeling when he revealed that Denji’s beloved Makima had been manipulating him with the intent of ruining his life because he wasn’t worthy of serving as her precious Chainsaw Man‘s vessel. Weirdly enough though, the choice to kill her inevitably came down to whether her new world would allow for bad movies.

Makima sought to leverage Chainsaw Man’s real power of eliminating the existence and memory of devils he devours in an effort to rid the world of everything bad. Despite how much she mistreated him, Denji could never really bring himself to kill a woman whom he’d dedicated the majority of his tenure as a devil hunter to please so she could grant him any wish. When he eventually confronts her in chapter 93, he presents an ostensibly odd query: “In that perfect world you want to make. Are there any bad movies in it?” It’s when she replies in the negative that apparently convinces him that his only logical course of action is to kill her. But an earlier chapter reveals this wasn’t just a random question.

In chapter 39 long before Makima betrays Chainsaw Man, Makima presents him with the opportunity of a lifetime when she agrees to take him out on a date where they will watch films back-to-back at their local theater. All of the first movies are popular. The theater is packed in every instance, and the audience both laughs and cries throughout. But neither Denji nor Makima react positively to them. The date finally concludes with a film that no one understands and has been panned by critics. In the empty theater, both Makima and Denji are moved to tears for the first time.

This turn of events should have comforted Denji because, under normal circumstances, this would mean he and his date shared the same taste in film. But he’s only filled with dread, for not too long before, a fellow devil had accused Denji of having no heart (which makes sense since his heart is literally Chainsaw Man). Denji had already been wrestling with how he no longer felt the same way about things like he did when he was human, and this confirmed his suspicions that his humanity was gone.

Makima comforts Denji by denying this possibility later that night, but his fears end up being warranted, and not just because all devil hunters are cursed. Once Makima confirms she, too, is a devil, their reactions during their date now imply that she and Denji view the world differently from humans because they are devils. A possible interpretation of Denji deciding to kill Makima over movies is that he understands only humans like these bad films, creating the impression that Denji doesn’t want to rid the world of something humans enjoy because it demonstrates their humanity and, possibly, because it could one day prove he’s human.

Interestingly, Denji recently admitted that he wants to be Chainsaw Man after witnessing how positively news reports portrayed him on TV by airing video footage of women holding signs asking Chainsaw Man to be their boyfriend. That’s because one of Denji’s goals since the very beginning is to get a girlfriend. His popularity will grant him that wish. From this perspective, Denji’s want to preserve his connection to humanity also makes sense as he always dreamed of experiencing a normal life when he lived in destitution. In other words, Chainsaw Man agrees to kill Makima over bad movies because he wants both his heart back and his dream of living a normal life to come true.

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