Gun Devil is Chainsaw Man’s one of many focal points in its most recent arc that continues to build towards the aforementioned entity’s arrival and the chaos that’ll also come in its wake.
Warning: This article contains light spoilers
The highly anticipated anime ‘Chainsaw Man’ has already introduced the viewers to some great characters, those who are protagonistic and shall remain so, and then some whose character arcs aren’t similarly linear.
Additionally, the anime has also shown really cool kinetic sequences rife with all the action and hype the fans associate with the title.
Other than the top-of-the-line animation and direction, a major element that makes these scenes is the antagonist.
The broader antagonist in each of these scenes is one or another diabolical Devil.
Ferocious and terrifying, the devils in Chainsaw Man are the embodiments of humanity’s collective fears, materializing and thriving off said fears, and then simply feeding on the humans in which those fears reside.
One of the anime’s biggest and most terrifying Devils has already been namedropped and the central protagonists are on his trail.
While the anime-only fans have somewhat caught up with the “big deal” nature of this Devil, fans of the manga can’t confine their hype for the devastation that the entity will be bringing with itself.
Here’s what the Gun Devil is all about;
Firearms, fear & origins
Every Devil in Chainsaw Man is an embodiment of a collective fear the humans have regarding a thing. It makes sense then, as to why a Gun Devil will be an inevitability.
The Devil first spawned when a large terrorist attack took place about 13 years before the current events in the anime.
However, it all started when the people decided to start using guns to fight the Devils, using them in great quantity. That came with its own set of problems as the use of guns increased tremendously.
Subsequently, a world replete with guns bore witness to a radical change of scenery as crimes, strife, and conflicts were now all being committed and caused by guns. It wasn’t just the Devils but humans too that became the victim of these weapons.
As a consequence, collective fear of guns pervaded society.
Then came the hammer, hitting the final nail in the coffin — the terrorist attack in America. This was when the Gun Devil made its first and utterly devastating appearance.
A world asunder in its wake
In his very first appearance, the Gun Devil existed for a total of five minutes. And in those measly five minutes, the world lost 1.2 million people in the wake of the devil’s destructive wave.
It hit Japan for only 26 seconds, and over 55,000 people were killed as a result. The destruction was swift, and catastrophic, with thousands of people dying in one second and one fell swoop.
The harrowing visuals of the devil’s attack and the aftermath are shown in the anime when Aki delves into a memory. His flashback shows a loving family of parents and a little brother being swept along with his house in less than a blink of an eye.
Along with the house, and all the people in it, the devil left a massive trail of ground levelled clean of all the material contents lying or built upon it.
Grotesque build and hideous quirks
The Gun Devil is capable of exacting total and utter destruction, ravaging anything and everything in its wake. Due to its size, which towers over buildings, the devil can impart a much more significant attack on its victims, had its size been smaller.
With limbs made out of guns and a huge barrel protruding from its head, the devil is not a pretty sight to behold, making his appearance really befitting the horrors the devil is capable of.
Apart from the tremendously catastrophic powers, the devil is really really fast too. It’ll be downplaying it to term the devil a ‘blur’ when he moves because his speed transcends beyond that metaphor.
Additionally, the speed is so horrifyingly and inhumanly, that when the devil moves about, his flesh starts ripping apart in pieces. These parts are also really weird and grotesque, as well as befitting, bearing great resemblance with the shape of bullets.
These pieces of the flesh also have a magnetic quality, clumping together whenever they’re close to each other.
Also read: What is a Fiend in Chainsaw Man?