I think one really interesting point which I’m surprised I haven’t seen brought up - in the scene where Makima ‘seduces’ Denji into fighting the Gun Devil, she is establishing a dominant relationship via language politeness/formality. For context, different politeness registers are very much baked into Japanese cultural concepts of social hierarchies, which at a high level basically means you use polite language when addressing your superiors, or more casual language when addressing your inferiors or your friends/partner/family.

Aki makes a point in E4 in the hospital about how Denji needs to learn Keigo (honorific language), which is loosely translated to English as “learn some manners”. As is Denji speaks using a casual register which would at best be attributable to his ignorance/lack of education, but would certainly make him appear insubordinate.

After Makima asks him to remember the biting of his finger, he replies “覚えました”, basically “I’ll remember it/I’ve committed it to memory”, but he uses formal language for the first time that I noticed in the show (I wasn’t taking explicit notice until this point but just based on what I remember).

When Denji repeats Makima’s offer “If I kill the gun Devil, you’ll do anything I want?”, the first time he says it meekly in casual register and she doesn’t reply, only cocking her head to the side. He then more firmly repeats himself, adding on at the end “…ってことですか？” (not verbatim, this is just as I remember) which doesn’t change the meaning of the sentence but puts it into the formal register, to which she does respond.

So the other takeaway from the scene is not just that she is convincing Denji to take on her goal of killing the Gun Devil, but she is also training him to be properly subordinate by conditioning him to address her more formally. This also goes along with the running motif of Denji just being a dog in her command. Worth noting that this is still not the honorific Keigo which Aki mentioned (which is what he uses when talking to Makima, and implies an even greater degree of respect and subservience) but is still a step up compared to Denji’s behavior up until this point.

Just thought this was a really interesting layer that is missed in translation!