Popular manga Chainsaw Man is coming to an end on March 25, 2026 with its Chapter 232 being its final chapter. The series follows teenager Denji who he fuses with a devil named Pochita. He becomes Chainsaw Man, a human-devil hybrid who can eat devils and the concepts they represent.
Throughout Part 2, creator Tatsuki Fujimoto has put Denji through the ringer. From losing what’s left of the found family he had in Part 1 to finding himself trapped in a toxic, complicated situation with Yoru the War Devil. Said War Devil is actively trying to kill Pochita to restore her full power while her sister Death Devil is trying to save humanity from the apocalypse.
As everything comes to a head, how will Fujimoto resolve so many plot points in just one chapter?
Pochita’s Sacrifice
Chapters 219 through 231 are essentially one long, escalating collapse.
Yoru is in the midst of transforming her sister Death Devil into her personal weapon until Pochita devours her. Furious and seeking vengeance, Yoru attacks Pochita and by extension, Denji.
To make matters worse, this is all happening while the United States has reinvented nuclear weapons despite Pochita having devoured the Nuclear Weapons Devil ages ago. Drawing power from the fear of an impending war, Yoru’s abilities are stronger than ever and giving Chainsaw Man a run for his money.
For several chapters, Denji and Yoru have been fighting each other across rooftops, through Hell, and back again. Desperate to help Asa Mitaka (the girl Yoru shares a body with) regain control, Denji starts eating devils to try to slow Yoru down. His actions briefly erases physical concepts like “legs”, “mouths” and “teeth” from reality, causing body horror on a global scale. Yoru does make him vomit some of those concepts back up, undoing some of the damage but it’s not enough.
Pochita’s decision to eat the Death Devil set off a chain reaction that nobody anticipated. Insect fertility rates are inversely proportional to that insect’s short lifespan. Take death out of the equation, and those limits disappear. The result is a biblical infestation. Flies, mosquitoes, roaches, and worse are swarming cities worldwide, devouring people who can’t die because death no longer exists.
In chapter 231, Denji wakes up in a peaceful field inside a mental world with Pochita beside him. The two have been eaten by a devil and all hope is lost. When Denji lists everything he never got to do, Pochita mentions that Denji was actually happier before he became Chainsaw Man.
Being broke, starving and forced to work for the Yakuza was better for Denji’s mental state than becoming Chainsaw Man. Transforming into a human-devil hybrid cost the boy everything and everyone that ever mattered to him. And that’s on top of being exploited, manipulated and ultimately traumatized by people who were after the Chainsaw Devil.
Pochita transforms into his full devil form and holds Denji close. He decides to eat his own heart, erasing himself from existence to create a new world where Chainsaw Man never existed. Denji begs him to stop. Pochita tells him to “keep on dreaming,” and disappears.
How Does Pochita’s Erasure Affect The Chainsaw Man Universe?
The biggest question chapter 232 needs to answer is how does the world change following Pochita’s sacrifice.
Since the Chainsaw Devil could erase concepts by eating them, his demise should bring those same concepts back. Which means every concept Pochita consumed over the course of the series should be restored. Dying, aging, diseases like AIDS, World War II, fascism, the sixth sense humans possess, etc.
As for the insect apocalypse, Pochita’s death can bring it to an end, but it probably won’t undo physical and psychological damage it inflicted onto people and cities.
That doesn’t sound like a good world to create for a now powerless Denji, but the alternative is just that bad. Without Pochita, the pull-cord in his chest goes with him. For the first time since the start of the manga, he’ll be just a regular person.
What Will Happen Between Denji and Asa?
Part 2 of Chainsaw Man was about Asa’s loneliness mirroring Denji’s. She lost both her parents when she was young, was betrayed by a classmate’s death, then shared a body with a devil who wanted to trap the world in an endless cycle of devastation.
Pochita’s death might be enough to free Asa from Yoru. Of course, his death would probably restore Yoru to full strength. She may decide to celebrate by trying to bring about a different apocalypse on her own terms.
But what if sharing a body with Asa plus spending time with Denji changed Yoru? Chapter 230 made it clear that while the War Devil hated Pochita, she didn’t hate Denji. She may decide to make peace with the two teenagers. Maybe Asa will finally be able to live a somewhat normal life, regardless of whether she’s still bound to Yoru or not. Assuming Yoru and Asa survived the infestation.
Could Chapter 232 Open the Door For Power, Aki, and Nayuta to Return?
The return of death as a concept reopens a door that’s been shut for a long time.
Power, the Blood Devil who became Denji’s chaotic, beloved friend, sacrificed herself in Part 1 to save him from Makima, the original Control Devil. Before she died, she made a contract with Denji where he promised to find her as the Blood Devil, and remind her of her life as Power.
That contract still exists. With death restored, the reincarnation cycle that Power was counting on could finally complete itself. Whether she’d remember Denji is the real question, and Fujimoto would probably make that as painful as possible.
Nayuta, the reincarnated Control Devil Denji raised as a little sister, is probably the most likely to return in some form. Control, domination, hierarchy are human constants. The Control Devil will always exist as long as people do. But will the same Nayuta appear or will she be a completely new reincarnation?
Aki is different. His death wasn’t caused by Chainsaw Man’s existence in any way. It came from his own choices, his contract with the Future Devil, his love for his team. He’ll probably stay dead (unfortunately) but the manga will hopefully do something to honor him.
What the Right Ending Looks Like
The right ending for Chainsaw Man is everyone taking the bitter with the sweet.
I don’t think every plot line will be resolved, but that will be the point of chapter 232. It’ll be a message that most people don’t get tidy conclusions to their life. Because that’s not how the real world works. Some stories end rather abruptly and in ways that don’t always make sense to us. The world could be in a worse state than it was in chapter 1, but there will be hope for things to get better in the future.
I would like to see Fujimoto do a call back to chapter 96. Denji makes a meal for himself filled with good food and eats it by himself. He will grieve for Pochita while thinking back on the good memories he made with the Chainsaw Devil. When he’s finished, maybe he’ll encounter a dog that reminds him of Pochita and decides to adopt it.
After everything he’s been through, it would be nice for Chainsaw Man to end with Denji just living his life the best way he knows how. That’s the ending he deserves.
