I’m still not 100% sure what the show is doing in terms of its story structure, but I am enjoying it.
Part of that is the fact that this episode was still getting the newbie situated. Denji has Udon with Makima (his new boss; it’s hard to read where she stands on the spectrum between affectionate and trolling, though my personal lean is more towards the latter), gets introduced to the force, has a time being asked to shadow his no-nonsense senpai (They beat each other up first time on patrol), and after most of the episode dedicated to quirky adjustments to a life that appoximates normal, is assigned a new partner.
This partner is Power, a Fiend (Devil that possessed a corpse) who is exceptionally rational by fiend standards and is thus working with Public Safety. It’s worth noting that by human standards, even the ones established by the loons in this show, she’s still quite unhinged.
Denji’s main concern, though, is that she has boobs. This is because, while recovering porn magazines from a devil related crime scene, he has the epiphany that getting to touch boobs would be the next big step in his movement towards an ideal life, and one that might be figuratively (as well as literally) within his grasp. Makima’s would be ideal, of course, since he’s rather besotted with her (and she’s tacitly encouraged as much) but even as nuts as she is, it’s clear that Power would do just fine.
Before Denji gets the chance, though, he has to put up with her on patrol, in which she’s darting around looking for things to kill until she catches wind of a sea cucumber devil and smashes it into an explosion of purple gore with a flying leap from a rooftop. Thus, the episode plays us out with Power’s maniacal laughter in the scene of her ‘victory’. Even Denji, deprived of normalcy as he may be, seems to get that she’s weird and slightly insane.
Now, when considering what to expect from the show, I said I’m still not 100% sure… but I am now leaning more towards it having a major plot (or more major plots) rather than being pure monster of the week.
The reason for this is that we have a monster of the week (arguably two – a fiend Denji takes down and the sea cucumber devil Power squishes)… but the focus isn’t on it. I think if the show was going to go into a monster of the week formula, we would have a good deal more interest in what a particular devil or fiend was doing, where it came from, how it made people suffer, or so on. Instead, we’re focused more on the human dynamics of the team, how they do or don’t get along, what being a devil hunter means to them, and so on. It’s not a hard rule, but in general you build character more for stories that need to have a continuous thread (supported by the characters) rather than stories that are more overall episodic. That’s not to say you can’t go the other way, but it does mean I think I can make an informed guess at this juncture that Chainsaw Man hasn’t played all its cards.