#CSM anime spoilers

[ingoodjesst]

himeno is a character rife with duality. her final sacrifice is the epitome: selfless enough to give up her life but in possibly the most selfish way. it's not just to save aki, it's also to ensure aki outlasts her - long enough to cry for her, give her life some meaning, mark his heart indelibly...

there are other obvious dualities. a ghost is a living thing somehow persisting after death. when himeno and aki first meet, we know she's not quite dead, but between the drinking and smoking and grieving, she's barely living.

it's curious how himeno is so inconsistently precious about her own life. she knows public safety is a death sentence, but she still stays there. she can be vigilant and cunning, she knows how to be cautious around a threat (see her initially guarded reaction to katana man in the ramen shop, see her in buddy stories). she's undoubtedly competent at staying alive; there's no other way to earn aki's respect and, more importantly, outlast five partners. yet out of combat, she indulges in vices that she knows will shorten her life. more than once, we see himeno composed, trying to survive... until it looks like aki will die.

even her love of aki is arguably both partially genuine and partially fabricated. it's not hard to imagine that she came to love him partly to cope with devil hunting's painful realities... but she loved deeply enough to sacrifice herself, unrequitedness notwithstanding.

duality permeates her personality. himeno recognizes when she's a bad person, even chastises herself for it, yet does not change. she hopes without holding out. she often weighs the consequences of her actions with one hand and discards them with the other. she does harm and she does not heal.

in a story like chainsaw man, these consequences always come back to life and death, explored through the narrative's many characters with unique relationships to both. some are ready to throw their life away, some cannot die, some always come back to life, some can only die in particular ways. for himeno, she wades between rationality and irrationality in a deeply human way, undecided whether she'd rather live or die until her choices finally collapse into chainsaw man's first major death.

[righteousdelusions]

gosh Makima and Kishibe's relationship is so underrated, there's something there but i can't connect enough brain cells to say it. It's so interesting

[radically-bitter-coffee]

I don't mind spoilers about CSM (I've already been spoiled and I don't care about spoilers that much anyway, I think good stories can't be ruined by them) so you can say your thoughts if you want!

Alrighty then!

The thing that would irk most feminists watching CSM is probably this one character in particular: Himeno.

Himeno's character is, when boiled down, very "manic pixie dream girl". She introduces and/or encourages other characters to do "bad" things like smoking cigarettes, drinking, and hooking up whilst drunk. She has her reasons for being the way she is, and I would not say her character doesn't make sense or that these traits and actions come out of nowhere, but you can clearly tell after her death that she was written specifically for a male characters development.

Now, CSM is Not above killing off characters for character development in backstories, male Or female. In fact Himeno's backstory involves lots of men dying.

Himeno's death is definitely written to factor into a male character's development, and even slightly for the protagonist's, but I do think it was a suitable end for her.

Onto the whole hooking up whilst drunk thing though... that was gross, I'll admit. Episode seven is when she encourages Denji (who I think is 16) to drink at a gathering with their coworkers. She gets drunk, makes out with him (it's a gross scene, emeto is involved), later takes him back to her apartment when he passes out (probably due to drinking too much as he's still dizzy/drunk when he wakes up) where they proceed to sleep on the same bed, with her in her underwear and a tanktop. After she asks if he wants to have sex with her but he refuses, he goes back to sleep but on the floor instead. She sleeps on the bed.

In the same scene, right before asking to have sex, she calls another woman a bitch because she finds the protagonist and that other male character I mentioned earlier stupid for crushing on her when she won't love them back. It's a bit reminiscent of reddit nice guys.

This all makes sense with her personality and backstory and all but I do think they were overall... not needed at all. They're so gross that I can't even say they're particularly fan service. They aren't drawn in the typical "huge tits huge ass very saturated blush" way either, it really is just not a nice scene. One could argue they are for her character, and they are, yeah. I don't think it truly justified it though.

Now besides Himeno, I should also not fail to mention that Makima, the character everyone talks of as a femdom, is also not the best. Clearly written for the manga authors fetish, Makima is also definitely grooming the protagonist, even though she doesn't exactly have romantic or sexual intentions with him. While Makima's lack of attraction does change things in terms of whether this would be called pedophilia or not, she does encourage his attraction to her, and promises things like letting him feel her up in exchange for doing things such as hunting a specific creature, and says that she'll let him do more for bigger accomplishments. Her strength as a character comes from being very manipulative, mentally strong, and having Some Sort of Magic.

Again, I have all this to say about Himeno but overall I did enjoy Chainsaw Man a lot. The animation is pretty, the characters both male and female are likable, the world building accomidates the added fictional creatures nicely. The protagonists want to get with a woman is not in the typical shounen perv way, as he wants an actual genuine connection (which is why he refuses Himeno's advances) but finds sex to be a physical representation of that as an emotionally halted teen.

[denjiisaminor]

This was gonna be a episode 10 analysis but it turned into an analysis of Denji's character instead lol

This episode gave us such good insight into Denji's character and how much more complex and fucked up he is than at first glance. The episode starts with Denji saying he only visited to get his manga back and him being bummed out that Aki was crying over the lose of his partner. This leads to Denji really considering whether he'd cry if any of the people he knew died (to which he decides probably not). Denji thinks his lack of emotion is due to becoming a devil but personally I think it has more to due with his lack of human connections all throughout his childhood (with getting Pochita's heart potentially exacerbating this lack of empathy).

Denji is inherently a selfish person. He had to be to survive as a kid with the only exception of this selfishness being Pochita. Being pushed into the Public Safety division is forcing him to have those positive human connections he lacked as a kid and hes slowly learning to form relationships with the people around him.

I think the main thing that's really hindering Denji from truly caring about those around him is that pretty much every interaction hes every had is an exchange. Makima gives Denji a comfortable life in exchange for serving her. Aki gets stabbed for Denji because he needs him to kill the gun devil. Himeno offers her friendship in exchange for Denji helping her get together with Aki. Even when Denji first meets Pochita, it's an exchange of his blood for Pochita's help in paying off his debt.

The only truly selfless act that someone has performed for Denji (to my knowledge) is Pochita giving Denji his heart so that he can live. Hence why this the only "person" that Denji has every really cared for.

That's not to say Denji is completely apathetic, he has moments where his humanity shines through such as when he saved the civilian in the car during his fight with the Bat devil or when he fights the eternity devil (although these moments could be argued that they were done with self preservation in mind) but on the whole, Denji is pretty selfish person who doesn't care about the people around him as long as hes needs are met because he genuinely doesnt know why or how to care about others.

How is someone who's never been shown love or selflessness supposed to give it to others?

[magical-girl-enjoyer]

hey did anyone else notice that it looks like the black chainsaw has an umbilical cord around his neck??

like did ppl talk abt this years ago and im just late to the party or

[bytedykes]

the episode 12 outro aaa another hayakawas day out... making me so emotional... power throwing her arms around them... aki wearing his stupid fucking. over the shoulder fanny pack??... denji getting to wear real people casual clothes... them all walking together going on errands... them stopping by a shrine...

aki smoking while power and denji goof around on the playground... them going to the store together... aki giving them the side eye as they chuck things into the cart but then exhaling and smiling fondly... they got ice cream on the way home... the shots of them at home where they're all getting out of their day clothes... DENJI'S HAPPY LIL FACE BEFORE THEY EAT... the way they're all talking and eating and clearly teasing each other... DENJI'S FULL BODY LAUGH!!!... the way power lays on her side and plays with meowy...

and then the seamless transition to aki going to smoke on the balcony while denji and power are passed out inside... GOD they make me so UNWELL!!!!!

[ID: meme of a fat cat laying against a pillow and crying. /end ID]

[normal-thoughts-official]

Today's episode was SO fucking good what the hell. I knew everything that was going to happen and it still felt like the first time. The way they filmed Denji from Himeno's POV, the way I was expecting the curse to be this sudden shift into position and instead they dragged it out, the way they used cutesy music and silence to build up tension, the way they really dragged the most despairing moments so we could see every detail as Aki's and Himeno's sacrifices were completely in vain. I'm losing my mind!!! Every director's choice was fucking brilliant oh my GOD

[bootlickerhawks]

[cheesecakemermaid1048]

truth be told,when everyone was hyping up chainsaw anime  when the trailer came out.I was only interested in the angel,they were automatically my favorite character and this episode solidified it. 

[todd-machine]

undefined

[ingoodjesst]

i wonder how guilty it made aki feel, reading about how desperately himeno wanted him to leave public safety. how desperately she wanted to keep him alive.

right before himeno's sister visits him in the hospital to give him her letters, kurose tells aki to take a more objective look at himself; now, kurose wonders why aki can't be more realistic. it's interesting to then draw connections between the themes in these two conversations.

aki knew himself too well, that he couldn't leave public safety without feeling lost. he isn't a man who could get by without some grand purpose in life, without some lofty goal to chase and raw vengence to pursue. in his view, there's just things that you gotta believe to keep going - that your family's death won't be meaningless if you avenge them. that no one has to lose their lives and their loved ones to the gun devil ever again if you yourself can ensure its downfall.

but time and time again we see the vast personal cost this takes from aki. only two years left to live. the death of a buddy who tried as hard as she could to keep him alive, even at the cost of her own life.

himeno herself could've left public safety anytime; she didn't because of aki. i wonder how that must haunt him, to know that she died because of the person that he is.

it's like a greek tragedy whose ending you can see coming from the moment the chorus speaks. he could've left public safety and learned to cope with his grief in other ways, paved a new path for himself with one of his closest connections alive by his side, even if his life became much less notable in the grand scheme of things. but he was too stubborn. now he must endure the deaths of dozens of colleagues, including that of his first and longest-term buddy.

more importantly, he was too shortsighted to find purpose in the mundane, in the small-scale connections. he simply had to have aspirations that rival those of a manga character to make meaning of his life.

that's what makes him so palpably tragic. to feel the desperate urge to make something of your life that you squander your own body, your own lifespan, your own relationships. when we already know that aki's life is not meaningless in the slightest. we saw how much he meant to himeno without him fighting a single devil. we see how much he looks out for power and denji, despite and almost because of their unrestrained, hedonistic inanity.

perhaps aki hayakawa just embodies a sort of youthful shortsightedness that we all hope to grow out of before it's too late.

[righteousdelusions]

I liked the Makima scene adaptation though, instead of villainous vibes it's more unsettling, it makes the scene more mundane and the softness of her va really brings such an uncomfortable touch to the scene

[k1ttycrush]

the duality of girl

[denjiisaminor]

Aki going through incredible shock, grief, and depression after losing his partner, most of the division, and only having 2 years left to live

Denji:

[bytedykes]

i know the tumblr girlies are gonna be so thirsty over that one shot of aki i know it i know it

[thejessc0de]