I LOVE TALKINGA BOUT CSM SO MUCHHHHHHH i'm going to ramble below my thoughts about second season bc none of my friends read csm except for a select few who lowkey just read it for action/fun and not for literature analysis and i LOVE literature analysis so i'm going to post it here like it's reddit (which is so objectively pathetic of me im so sorry)
i'm ngl, i'm kinda surprised by the dislikes for this season. this is such a fujimoto, csm thing that people saying they're disappointed or caught off-guard is kinda odd to me. and i think asa and yoru are great in terms of their dynamic and their individual/combined dynamic with denji (not saying i necessarily like them, just that i'm interested to see how they interact with him and how they think). like if anything, it kinda reminds me of season 1 when i had a lot of feelings about people like reze or himeno, since they all follow the same theme of "everyone cares about chainsawman, but nobody cares about denji" with only reze breaking that mold.
like himeno, who was objectively not a good person given that she makes moves on minors, but was probably the only person at that time who loved aki and cared about him more than herself (and was one of the few non-prejudice folks), only cared about denji since his value as chainsawman boosted aki's goal and could potentially replace aki in directly fighting the gun devil. and reze, who also was one of the few people who liked denji but also basically bit off his tongue and was willing to terrorize an entire community for her goals. currently yoshida, csm cult, and even nayuta can all be categorized as people who don't really care about denji as a person. the only person i can think of rn who likes denji as a person is kishibe, but he has an apathetic interest towards life in general, and is hands-off with denji's development.
like yoru is just another weirdo who has a morally dubious interest with/in denji and wants him for ulterior motives. what's curious is that unlike the others, she wants denji specifically for her ulterior motives, not chainsawman, and her original goal was not to use denji for chainsawman, rather, she saw value in denji as a pathetic person for his personality. the only other person i can think of who actually saw denji for who he was and decided to either use it or care for it was probably reze, and maybe himeno but only because she saw an influence in aki through raising denji. to me, yoru is a new example of how people use denji but in a way that others haven't before, and i'm curious to see how that'll develop, since it seems like asa is meant to foil that and if one or another doesn't compromise then what's going to happen to them, who share one body?
like i think asa and yoru sharing a body is similar to "pochita" and denji who share a body, and the dysfunctionality within it all. denji wants to be chainsaw man while pochita wanted him to have a normal life, but denji is having a consistent identity crisis where he sees csm as a part of him, but he was basically taught through trauma that chainsawman is an isolated personality from who he was as denji, since everybody only cared about chainsawman as if it had nothing to do with denji himself. he also sees chainsawman as something of pochita, rather than chainsawman being an identity he created. to him, chainsawman is almost a separate entity that he's unable to really reconcile as a part of him, so instead of seeing himself as chainsawman he thinks it's something he has to become or obtain; so it's like two versions of him, chainsawman and denji, and he can't seem to compromise between both since he has such screwed ideas of what a normal life is or what he really wants, and he doesn't even have clear ideas of who denji or chainsaw man is, anyways.
meanwhile asa wants to have a normal life but yoru has an ego and wants to be a war criminal, so unlike denji who doesn't know wtf is going on and is living off survival instincts and an idealized version of what he was taught was "normal," they have clear personal goals of their own that directly clash with each others'. idk i personally really wanna see what happens to them, and how they react to denji who they both actually want for very different motives. like this is the first time we see like strong contenders for wanting denji from the getgo. the only other people who wanted denji for who he was without the idea of chainsawman being their original goal was like, nobody lol. aki and power grew to really care for him and it's so sad.
that's another thing, i think it makes sense that denji is the way that he is rn. like aki and power died during denji's probably busiest developmental stage, given how he was at a stage of happiness where he had so many normal things (a shelter, stable job, social interaction, clothes, food such as bread/jam), but he was also chainsaw man at that time. it's just when everything was destroyed because of his identity as chainsawman, he was never able to properly reconcile that these two identities are both equally a part of him and not just two lifestyles (like to him, denji symbolized normalcy, and chainsaw man symbolized action, power, fame. he never really took time to understand that they were more than just representatives of a lifestyle and rather a part of his personality and identity). like denji and csm never felt equal footing and without proper guidance and genuine care + lessons from aki or unconditional love regardless of who he was such as from Power, he's left to make his own assumptions which was horrible since he has no frame of reference for normalcy and doesn't know what to make out of all of this in the first place. he just lives being told what to do and finds normalcy and contentness in that, and once given free will and he's meant to be responsible for his own life and actions he's lowkey fucking everything up since he had pretty base desires and never actually had to think farther ahead until now.
like i think fujimoto writing good characters who do bad things but have interesting thoughts held for each other is so fun to read LOL. like i think people are disappointed bc the first arc held a lot of very emotionally touching and good moments because of the found-family trope, as well as social commentary which is always fun to read (I LOVE KOBENI VS DENJI PARALLEL ANALYSIS), but csm was never about found-family, i think it's more about humanity and social commentary as a whole, and everything within society is fair game. such as power imbalances, predatory behavior, assault, etc.
I ain't reading allat
Can I just say I have not read all of chainsaw man through its entirety. I stopped somewhere inbetween the first part after power got exploded or something. I was basically spoiled by the internet of all the important stuff aki fighting denji and reze also being a tool the maki-ma being eaten and shet and like whatever. However, even without having read through everything you are completely correct. From the very beginning denji has consecutively been lost. He completely separated chainsaw man from himself and does not know how to healthily balance himself as a human being and as chainsaw man. It is a complete identity struggle for him all throughout and what he has been put through big ooof. There are so many panels that like show you what you said denji doesn't know that like both chainsaw man and him are equally a part of him and who he is. And yeah he doesn't know the balance of anything and like normalcy in the slightest he had like brief as hell normalcy when he was a family with aki and power as well as when he was with nayuta and going to school , but he's always been stuck in survival mode. One of my favorite panels was denji tweeking over the TV when the chainsawman cult was revealing their leader on TV and the cult was like this is our leader the real chainsawman and we all know that denji is actually chainsaw man. So denji is just literally jealous and upset and sad while watching the channel. He wants fame he wants to be on TV, he wants acknowledgment, he wants to be a superstar he wants to be chainsaw man and he is ,but he doesn't see that he is chainsaw man as he doesn't have balance between his identity. And it's not his fault that he doesn't have a balance or and understanding of who he is and how chainsaw man and him are equal parts of him. he went through alot of messed up stuff lol. While he watches the channel he cries because he wants to be chainsaw man but he also wants to live a normal life with nayuta. Throughout the whole manga I feel like denji was never treated like as a human being and as whole complete person. The only ones who treated him as a human being even after knowing he is chainsaw man and treated him nicely and accept him as whole person whole person being denji is chainsaw man and chainsaw man is denji are gone now aki and power even himeno and like I even say pochita lolol kishibe too but he gone and kishibes mindset has like some screws loose idk if he counts fully lol.
Can I just say I have not read all of chainsaw man through its entirety. I stopped somewhere inbetween the first part after power got exploded or something. I was basically spoiled by the internet of all the important stuff aki fighting denji and reze also being a tool the maki-ma being eaten and shet and like whatever. However, even without having read through everything you are completely correct. From the very beginning denji has consecutively been lost. He completely separated chainsaw man from himself and does not know how to healthily balance himself as a human being and as chainsaw man. It is a complete identity struggle for him all throughout and what he has been put through big ooof. There are so many panels that like show you what you said denji doesn't know that like both chainsaw man and him are equally a part of him and who he is. And yeah he doesn't know the balance of anything and like normalcy in the slightest he had like brief as hell normalcy when he was a family with aki and power as well as when he was with nayuta and going to school , but he's always been stuck in survival mode. One of my favorite panels was denji tweeking over the TV when the chainsawman cult was revealing their leader on TV and the cult was like this is our leader the real chainsawman and we all know that denji is actually chainsaw man. So denji is just literally jealous and upset and sad while watching the channel. He wants fame he wants to be on TV, he wants acknowledgment, he wants to be a superstar he wants to be chainsaw man and he is ,but he doesn't see that he is chainsaw man as he doesn't have balance between his identity. And it's not his fault that he doesn't have a balance or and understanding of who he is and how chainsaw man and him are equal parts of him. he went through alot of messed up stuff lol. While he watches the channel he cries because he wants to be chainsaw man but he also wants to live a normal life with nayuta. Throughout the whole manga I feel like denji was never treated like as a human being and as whole complete person. The only ones who treated him as a human being even after knowing he is chainsaw man and treated him nicely and accept him as whole person whole person being denji is chainsaw man and chainsaw man is denji are gone now aki and power even himeno and like I even say pochita lolol kishibe too but he gone and kishibes mindset has like some screws loose idk if he counts fully lol. @lukewarn_piss
holy shit, whyd u type a research paper??
LMAOOO so fair
nobody was replying to my texts and i didn't want to do my job :O like i rlly got no excuse tbhhh lol
hey can we get married. like thanks for sharing bc now im obsessing over ur thoughts LOL
but no frrrr i completely forgot about that TV scene but you're so right about that. like the fact that denji was so jealous could only be possible because he himself is insecure about his relationship with chainsawman, and isn't even aware that csm is just another aspect of himself, not a position he's taking up. like i think nayuta is just another pochita lol. just some little creature he takes responsibility over and resembles some form of normalcy and support, but ultimately becomes the only thing he lives for, and now that he realizes there's smth like being csm, which is ultimately his decision, he's like,,, struggling between free will and personal choice over the comfort of having someone else control (nayuta!) and make the decisions for him. like bro is rlly out here cosplaying normalcy LMAOOO
like denji, regardless of biology was never treated as a whole human being, even when he was a 100% human, and he himself doesn't really know what it means to be one either, so he's just categorizing and labelling what he believes is normalcy and therefore what it means to be a "human"
I literally love you so much for this, thank you thank you thank you!!!1!!!1! I am so obsessed with chainsawman analysis, like half of my watch later videos are about chainsawman. I am now legally obliged to follow you
Why did I read all that.. it was a good analysis tho
I LOVE THEMMMM but i hope things stay platonic in the future or just one-sided crushes (since that's pretty common from younger to older generations).
bro died and revived after 3 days like jesus fucking christ damn (I LOVE OUTRIGHT RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM RAHHH). also ngl. he might've been arguably morally okay as a kid but like jaeho's such a bitch rn like he just brainwashes ppl into unconsented orgies so like hope dude stays dead. also i love mc too much that idc what happens to him LMAO
nah im actually obsessed with this. MC is op but not power-levelling to the insane degree where he's the only main character of this earth. and the undertones of class, job choices (knight, prostitute by choice or by force, nunnery, etc), and their ties to social class, birthright, and morals are SO good. and i love how well-developed the settings that we see introduced so far are, especially with MC's hometown and his people who the author consistently reminds and more importantly proves are people with lives of their own separate of MC's..
No cuase this is exactly how I feel! I jist love ot so much and didn't know how to put it into words but you did it so perfectly, it's just so good!
idk why but ch15 is so sweet to me. i feel like it's such a small lil sidequest (the one w minho) but it's such a good insert of a chapter.
honestly this is one of those plotlines that the more upsettingly distressing it gets the more weirdly amazing it gets. bc it's like, upsetting in a very like "yeah this fits" way like "this makes sense that they go through this shit" like i'm not surprised, it just adds to denji's distressing lore in a pretty natural way.
i love their entire dynamic. single father of six kids. i also wish people would stop using "wifey" or "young lady" as a comment on the 13-year-old's personality like it's a compliment, when she's clearly just a parental figure out of necessity bc everyone else is like half her height LMAO
the summary is crazy like "angry lesbian sex" HELLO??