The Meaning of ‘Chainsaw Man’s Famous Astronaut Panel

Things are regularly taken out of context on the internet. (For better or worse, but usually worse.) Sometimes, though, a panel from a manga or a screenshot from a series is so stunning, that you can’t help but take it out of context. That’s the case with the now-famous “astronaut panel” from Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man.

The panel features a receding line of astronauts chopped in half. Their arms appear to be in prayer, their heads slightly bowed. Their upper and lower halves are spaced apart, with the legs sticking straight up out of the grassy field. The space in between creates a path that leads back to a truly horrifying and formidable-looking devil, half-obscured by the darkness.

It’s a striking and incredibly artful image, no matter how you slice it. If you haven’t read Chainsaw Man, the image feels wildly different from any context you might have from watching the one current season of the anime. You might wonder if it makes “more sense” when surrounded by the action around it.

Truth be told, the image is just as surreal and shocking in context. Maybe even more so. It’s so striking and unprecedented within the series’ own context that most Chainsaw Man readers remember reaching this panel.

MAPPA’s anime adaptation won’t reach this panel for a while. It takes place during the arc after the arc which will be covered by the upcoming Chainsaw Man movie. So we unfortunately won’t see it animated for several years, at least.

But if you’d like to know the context—with as light of spoilers as I can manage—read on.

Bad, bad news

Spoilers ahead for Chainsaw Man

Chainsaw Man‘s famous astronaut panel basically oozes foreboding. And that’s very much the point. It literally depicts Hell.

This full-page panel is taken from chapter 64. Denji, his allies, and his foes have all been suddenly transported into Hell—where “devils far, far more dangerous than some Gun Devil” have their domain.

You learn a little ways into the manga that devils have a particular life cycle. When they die on Earth, they’re sent to Hell. When they die in Hell, they’re sent back to Earth. And so on, and so forth. But the most powerful devils have the names of “primal fears” and have never died. One such devil is the ominous figure at the end of the row of astronauts: the Darkness Devil.

What’s with the astronauts, you ask? They just look cool.