Warning! Contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Chainsaw Man Part 1!The blockbuster anime Chainsaw Man has released many stunning endings over the course of its run, and the ED for episode 5 is by far the trippiest. But hidden within the cryptic imagery, it is foreshadowing one of the manga’s greatest tragedies in a way that most anime-only watchers won’t notice.
Chainsaw Man features a large cast of characters, but its main focus is on the central trio of Denji, Power, and Aki. Watching their relationship grow and evolve over the course of the series is a joy and makes Aki and Power's eventual deaths even more tragic. This is especially true for Aki who merges with the Gun Devil that he had wanted to destroy for the entire series. While his death was shocking, Chainsaw Man's fifth ending is laying some subtle hints to it for anime watchers.
Chainsaw Man's fifth ending is a mind-bending masterpiece meant to reflect the horrific nature of the Eternity Devil. As such, it is a meditation on the terrors of both the infinite and the infinitesimal, featuring both characters wandering down endless paths and flashing frames showing a `demonic hellscape faster than the mind can comprehend. It also serves as a tribute to the origins of animation, featuring a motif of horses running in place that harkens back to Eadweard Muybridge's seminal The Horse in Motion prints, which was a prominent precursor to film and animation. These horses also represent other meanings specific to Chainsaw Man, like the four horsemen of the apocalypse, who serve a major role in its story. However, the horses mainly represent the Devil Hunters introduced so far.
Chainsaw Man's Fifth Ending Foreshadows Aki's Tragic Fate
Many of these horses actually can represent multiple characters. The first black horse can represent both Aki and Arai, each of whom value order and each of whom have a dark fate, which fits the tarot-like bloodstained card that briefly covers the horse. Likewise, the plushie horse can represent both Power and Kobeni, the former who is horned just like the doll and whose playful nature fits its whimsical appearance, and the latter because they are often portrayed as helpless as a ragdoll and whose knife appears as the creature's horn. There is also a centaur with Himeno as its upper half and a headless horse on a Chainsaw tread that clearly represents Denji. But most ominous of all is a horse with a gun for a head covered in eyes and trigger fingers.
Given how each horse has served to represent a character or multiple characters, this horse seems to represent Aki after he merges with the Gun Devil. This is further ed by the following shot of Aki descending some infinite stairs towards debris likely caused by the Gun Devil attack. His tragic fate is being obviously hinted at for manga readers, but for anime-only watchers the psychedelic imagery obscures things quite a bit.
Much like how the stellar opening to the show seems to obviously point to Makima being evil for Chainsaw Man fans who have read the manga, this ending seems like an obvious giveaway that Aki becomes the Gun Fiend as well. But its cryptic imagery makes it unlikely that fans who haven't read the manga will catch on. The double meanings in Chainsaw Man's fifth ending serve as both fun foreshadowing for manga readers and as interesting and cryptic imagery for anime-only fans, which is what makes the ending one of the anime's best.
Chainsaw Man is available to stream on Hulu and Crunchyroll.
