Updated February 25, 2023 by Ernie
There are more forces at work in the Chainsaw Man universe than we see at first glance, and we witnessed this firsthand with Sawatari Akane’s death.
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On the surface, we might see these events as quite typical, but… WHAT IF there is more to Sawatari Akane’s sudden DEATH than meets the eye?
Like, maybe the FACT that KOBENI actually ended Sawatari Akane.
And let’s consider that her death could also be due to multiple things happening at the same time!
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THE CULPRIT BEHIND SAWATARI AKANE’S DEATH
For starters, let’s start with a small rundown of what a Rashomon-style scenario is.
Then, we can go back to Season 1, episode 12, or Chapter 38, summarize what just happened, and start theorizing from there.
Let’s start this off with a small definition: what we now know as the “Rashomon effect” is all about how people and eyewitnesses are innately unreliable, and difficult to connect with each other.
“You have to find the truth between the lies.”
(named after Ryunosuke Akutagawa’s short story which was later on adapted by Akira Kurosawa into a film with the same title “Rashomon”, about several conflicting eyewitness accounts of a samurai’s death and his wife’s ill fate, all of whom change their stories in little ways to make themselves look better… or less bad. When combined, the stories become impossible to connect… or are they?)
As to how the Rashomon style is relevant to the end of Chainsaw Man’s first anime season, this is your last chance to avoid spoilers from the manga, so if you do not want to be spoiled, WALK AWAY!
Okay, now that all the ehem..are gone… let’s get to the good stuff!!
We already know that at the end of Season 1, Episode 12, or Chapter 38, Sawatari Akane abruptly loses her head thanks to the Snake Devil, SHE WAS COMMANDING.
This is a fundamental contradiction of how devil contracts work: a devil can’t kill you while you are contracted to one unless you sacrifice your life for one of its terms.
The question now becomes: why did the Snake Devil TURN on Akane? Here is where we start theorizing based on the Rashomon effect.
So, where are we going with this, you might ask? The key phrase here is “multiple agendas”.
For starters, let’s take Makima’s explanation at face value: she said that Akane’s death was “part of her contract with the Gun Devil”. Sawatari Akane is a mysterious character, and since dead men tell no tales, I guess we can accept this explanation, or can we?
However, consider this a starting point: how do we know the nature of Sawatari’s contract with the Gun Devil? Was there even a contract established in the first place?
All this and more are valid reasons to scrutinize Sawatari’s death further, because we already know that at this point in the anime (and later in the manga), Makima’s behavior is suspect.
Is Makima doing more than her job here?
This establishes that Makima will do the dirty work needed of tying up loose ends and make sure that devil hunters gone rogue (even civilian ones) will face justice.
The question remains, though: if Makima did kill her, why would she do it?
Well, it’s already established near the end of the manga’s Arc 1 that Makima isn’t just a devil, she is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: the White Rider, the embodiment of conquest (or control). It is also here that we see she can wield the power of the Snake Devil.
This means, it would be really easy for her to nudge the Snake Devil a few feet to the side, so its attempt to free Sawatari would end up killing her instead.
Expedient, devious, and most of all, utterly deniable, all for Makima to take out a potential liability, and add to her power, while keeping her hands clean, in one fell swoop.
If we go by that interpretation, then her showcase of powers right before Sawatari’s arrest is her sleight of hand to keep the Bureau’s attention away from her manipulating the Snake Devil.
Even so, there is still a major variable we have yet to consider when analyzing the incident that killed Sawatari Akane, namely Kobeni.
We know that this incident is the one that forces Kobeni into retirement, even if she still has a devil contracted to her.
In fact, when Chainsaw Man and his terrible power were running amuck, the hunter of devils had taken some time out to visit Kobeni and spend a terrifying day with her.
This leads one to ask: why would Chainsaw Man go out of his way to do that if Kobeni wasn’t a devil hunter anymore?
What if the answer is that Kobeni could still be contracted to a devil, a devil that has not yet revealed itself in the story thus far? We know that she has a contract, but not the nature of the contract or the powers she has.
What we DO know though, is that before this incident, Kobeni had a strange streak of luck going. Even when the Chainsaw Man in his unhinged glory was going after her, it seems that Kobeni is unscathed in the middle of all the chaos around her, like the eye of a storm.
If we guess that this is how the contract works, then we can make another educated guess that Kobeni’s devil has been giving her good luck by siphoning it off others’.
How does this come into play with the death of Sawatari Akane?
Because the Snake Devil may have been targeting Kobeni in order to rescue Akane, and thanks to Kobeni’s luck, it may have redirected the attack altogether.
There’s still one side of the story we have yet to consider, the most mysterious one, and that is…. ‘The Snake Devil itself.’
We know the Snake Devil is responsible for the death of Sawatari Akane – its contracted wielder: what does it know that we don’t?
Did it slay its wielder due to the Gun Devil’s contract, or some sort of self-destruct clause in Akane’s own contract?
Was it trying to free Akane literally, trying to figuratively free her from living due to the nature of her contract, or was it acting completely under Makima’s orders?
In Conclusion:
The Snake Devil has not reappeared in the current manga chapters, so we are currently in the dark about why it did that. To sum it all up, there are multiple factors at play here:
First is Makima’s explanation, aka the Gun Devil contract.
Second is Makima herself manipulating the Snake Devil to do her dirty work.
Third is Kobeni’s luck diverting the Snake Devil’s attack away from her.
Finally is the Snake Devil itself: what was its own motivation?
This is where the “Rashomon effect” manifests. But with that, here is the really interesting part: what if all of these factors were in play all at the same time?
It might take a little creative interpretation, but it’s possible to fit everything together.
Thus, here is a possible hypothesis on what really happened: the Snake Devil is compelled by its contract (and Makima’s own power) to attack Akane. It tries to free her by attacking Kobeni as well, but Kobeni’s ‘luck’ and Makima’s manipulations change its aim, so Sawatari Akane ends up killed instead.
Though this might be a fair hypothesis of what happened, bear in mind that this is based on theories made on characters, actions, and entities that have not yet appeared in the story, and is thus subject to change, depending on if we get further information in the future that provides a better explanation.
This entire scene, however, opens up a new world of possibilities about which demon Kobeni is contracted with, and how it manifests in the real world.
Could it be a demon of misfortune that absorbs others’ good fortune and uses Kobeni as a repository for it, or is it something else entirely?
Okay, comment down below what devil you think Kobeni is contracted to.
Everything so far is shrouded in mystery…
…and we’re not even at the craziest part yet.
So far, we’ve already seen three out of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: In the first arc, the white rider of Conquest: Makima;
and in the second arc, we meet the Red Rider of War: Yoru…
the Black Rider of Famine: Fami…
…but who could the Pale Rider be?
Or… if you think you already know, who do YOU think is the Pale Rider? Share your thoughts and comment down below!
