#chainsaw man chapter 142

[sugar-grigri]

Fans are Denji's source of unhappiness

First observation: Fumiko is worse than Barem

I don't like making meaningless comparisons, especially in a work like Chainsaw Man where when the characters aren't nuts, they remain at least morally gray. But this comparison makes sense in the sense that the construction of the chapter refers to it. As usual, let's analyze this by following the chapter's chronology.

This one takes place in a funfair, which is not an insignificant location, but we'll come back to that later. These few lines of dialogue already evoke a very simple idea: Denji isn't so stupid that he wouldn't know he was being manipulated. He knows full well that Fumiko was placed in Yoshida's care not to protect him, but to keep a close eye on him, to prevent him from turning and joining the church.

But she tries to disprove all this, evoking the ecstasy one might feel if one were Chainsaw Man. Being Chainsaw Man is also a source of unhappiness for Denji, who corrects her, and Fumiko adapts to his speech, looking for the first negative point that comes to mind. I think it was a real mistake for Fumiko to mention this point, but once again, she adapts to Denji's reaction. He's completely horrified at having been observed in the bathroom, so she shares his negative view of the situation.

She knows that Denji's main objective is sex-related, so she builds on that by downplaying what she's doing. This is fan behavior; fans are sexually obsessed with Denji in the hope that it will delight him. But Fumiko knows no bounds, either ignoring his consent or stalking him, which logically engages Denji's rejection reaction again.

Once again, he perceives the means of manipulation with the word "fan", and rejects it. So far, these experiences have only been negative and intrusive, and even when they have been positive, whether with Asa romantically or Power platonically, the demon of control, another female figure, has put an end to them.

But instead of stopping the manipulation, Fumiko goes on to confirm Denji's words even as they express pure disgust and rejection. For a character who knows absolutely no limits, she may also override stopping this conservation, but she continues with her family history. If public demon hunters know anything about Denji apart from his natural distrust and need for affection, whether sentimental or physical, it's his sensitivity.

I can't say that the story Fumiko tells is a complete lie, just as I can't say that she's telling the truth. She's a hunter, and anything she mentions could well have ended up in a report, especially given the national authorities' interest in the gun demon. But even if her story is true, the tragic aspect, not for her but for Denji, is even stronger.

Fumiko says she lost her parents because of the gun demon, that CSM didn't hear her cries for help. I'd like to remind you that chapter 79, the chapter in which she refers to Aki's death, is dedicated to the trauma of what it means to be Chainsaw Man.

For the demon from the future, Aki died in the worst possible way, not for him, but for Denji. It's clear that the little boy is forcing himself to continue this snowball fight he no longer wants to play.

At first, he tries to reason with Aki, forcing him to wake up, but when he himself is shot trying to spare one of his only loved ones, people won't let him lose. Chainsaw Man is a weapon of vengeance into which everyone projects their frustrations, the deaths of their loved ones. Denji was forced to be resurrected, to kill Aki not for himself, but for the community. Chainsaw Man never acts for himself. If Aki died in the worst way for Denji, it's because his fans, this community, forced him back to life to remove one of his sources of love.

Denji was traumatized by having to win.

Let's be clear: it wasn't Denji who ignored their calls for help, it was they who ignored his.

Isn't it tragic to criticize Chainsaw Man for not hearing Fumiko's cries for help, or the cries of all those people, when he was instead so compelled by them, like a machine that would be reset to kill a loved one ? Chainsaw Man, on the other hand, hears all the pain in the world. This doesn't mean that Denji is altruistic - he isn't. He's closer to amorality than compassion, but like a permanently dehumanized machine, he must serve others. It has no morals, so how can it live for itself ?

That's why what Fumiko says is so paradoxical: saving Denji means finally allowing him to live for himself, granting him the right not to hear all those voices.

She doesn't mean what she says when she says she's never thought of him as a god, but simply as a child in need of protection. She's only setting up a dissident discourse to that of the church, which idealizes him by banking on the part of identity that is Denji, while the church banks on Chainsaw Man. How can someone who is constantly sexually abusing Denji be competent to protect a boy?

This chapter is about setting limits for children. To have access to the merry-go-round, you have to be over 1m10 tall. These clear limits were never set for Denji, either when he was forced to kill Aki or even when he explores his sexuality.

Having killed his father, been martyred by the mafia and then manipulated by a demon, Denji is now at the heart of other vicious circles. He's condemned to being too young an adult, watching over Nayuta like a parent while children play behind him, not enjoying the funfair with friends, a girlfriend, being cloistered on that bench. The bench represents the stagnation in Denji's life, his questioning, placed on the bench of his own life, his name unknown to his fans, his nature instrumentalized, his age ignored.

Denji needs and must be considered with the age he is, a 17-year-old teenager. Yet even this characteristic, even the fact that he's still a child, is ignored by Fumiko, hence her insistence on the word "senpai".

The treatment of Fumiko is good, I find her to be the very embodiment of Denji's sexual trauma in the sense that she constantly manipulates him to play on his interests, and constantly ignores his own desires, his limits.

Fumiko manipulates, hence the emphasis on her outraged expression when Barem interrupts. If Barem's manipulation is more grotesque, it's not to manipulate Denji but to mock Fumiko's strategy. Although it's incredibly more insidious, the weapon has a clear idea of what she's up to.

And yet, in just a few sentences, it's right on target. It's much closer to Denji's reality than to Fumiko's human perspective. Weapons are seen as weapons, machines at the service of humans, whose immortality is a pain, as it leads them to the trauma of always winning.

Barem uses a cigarette, obviously reminiscent of those smoked by Aki, who had given in to Himeko's advances and needed an outlet for his stress. Aki's misfortune is to have spent his life on revenge, living to avenge the dead, not living for himself. The cigarette was his flaw, the proof of his humanity, the one he threw at Denji to spare him the pain of getting involved in the horrible business of hunting demons.

Whether or not it was there to manipulate Denji by reminding him of his older brother, whether or not it was there by chance, it conveyed the same message: proof of the humanity of a man who lived for others. A man who was executed once again for that same community.

This community, Denji's fan club, is the cause of his deepest misfortune. Chainsaw Man has never been so popular, yet Denji has never been alone. Because he's not allowed to have loved ones. Nayuta, too, is proof of this: she wants her brother for herself, and convinces him that he's loved by others by acting under the cover of Chainsaw Man.

That's why Denji's intervention to stop the attack in progress is much less certain. All these fans, this humanity waiting for Chainsaw Man, are the source of his misfortune. Of course the fan club will call Chainsaw Man. What's less obvious...

Will Denji listen to their cries for help?

[denjhenge]

The last illusion of privacy has been eroded... this kid is gonna snap soon...

& Another thing I wanna know...is Fumiko actually that bad at her job or is she doin it on purpose? Though seeing as how a teenager like Yoshida is in charge of keeping dibs on Denj....I'm gonna say she's just that bad.

[liil-ee]

⚠️CSM CHAPTER 142 SPOILERS⚠️

hehe she’s so cute I love her 🫶

ok Denji… we need to practice having a filter… 😃

I know a lot of people don’t like her, but idk I think she might have potential…

Chainsaw man love triangle?? (Asaden for life tho 🤞🤞)

CHAINSAW MAN COMEBACK?? YES?? PLEASE?? it seems this arc is focused on Denji’s internal conflict of listening to public safety (what’s left of it) or listening to the chainsaw man church (and we all know Denji can’t make decisions for himself)

[thomas-jefferson-miku-binder]

me when chapter 142

[charismawizard]

the real reason public safety doesn't pay for denji to get a therapist is because then he'd realize half the fuckin people they send to him are freaks who shouldn't be allowed within 20ft of a school.

[anisaanisa]

Chainsaw Man | チェンソーマン | Ch. 142: Denji Fan Club ☆

[pao-of-the-stars]

[CSM Chapter 142 Spoilers]

Out of all the women Denji have met in his life... the one who vocaly told him that they genuinely noticed Denji as a human being is the fucking pedophile

[renposter]

CSM 142 spoilers

CSM 142 spoilers below...

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I literally love chainsaw man sooooo much

[jammielambie]

Everybody just leave Denji alone Challange!

[justphilia]

why is everyone so mean to Denji

[fluffyyymocha]

WHHY IS SHE GROOMING HIM, STOP GASSLIHJTING HIM FUCKKKEJWJEJE NOT AGAIN NO NO NO

[sugar-grigri]

Hey! Have you noticed the visual parallels between the gun fiend and Chainsaw man in this latest (152th) chapter?

The parallel between Aki and Denji in the last chapter

No, I hadn't noticed, and I like that others have because I might have an explanation for this parallel.

Fujimoto likes parallels, but this time he does it the other way round. Let me explain: for me, and according to my interpretation, he had already made an explicit reference to chapters 78/79 in this chapter:

Chapter 142 exploited Denji's relationship with others, but also with being a CSM, just as Fumiko's speech only reinforces the fact that even when she places herself as a victim, she reinforces Denji's position as a martyr.

Even when Fumiko argues that she saw CSM as a child, the chapter proves her wrong, whether through her unsuccessful manipulation techniques, her many contradictions, but above all her behaviour is typical, allowing Denji to deny the pain he suffered by killing his brother.

I won't go into it again ((if you want to know more, the link is above)) the only thing you need to remember here is that Fujimoto still intends to exploit Aki's death, albeit in a subtle, poetic way in part 2.

In chapter 152, Denji suffers because he has decided to; his suffering is his own, he demands it and even sees it as a means of experiencing pleasure. What's more, this chapter follows on from chapters 150/151 in Denji's claim to his own identity: I WANT to be CSM, and no one is going to stop me. The negative consequences are mine because I've decided to.

Whereas during his confrontation with Aki, Denji's identity was stolen by his "fans" (a theme dealt with in chapter 142), who positioned themselves as the only suffering parties (ignoring Denji's), and it was the frightened, bruised men and women who decided that CSM had to save them, had to act and kill.

So chapter 152 is more than an awakening, it's Denji who takes back the right to suffer if he has decided to do so. Before, it was always the others who decided, but instead of taking the plunge and saying: I'll never let myself suffer again, this time the martyr doesn't want his suffering to be taken away from him.

Because if we take away Denji's suffering, he won't turn into a CSM anymore

If that's taken away, his memories of Power and Aki are fragmented

These last two sentences are actually linked, because Denji has learnt to love just as much as he has learnt to suffer through Aki and Power. Aki's curse is to have been possessed by his sworn enemy, the Gun Devil, who reclaims his rights over the man who tried to resist him: to be there to make Aki's family suffer, always, even the second time around.

As the curse repeats itself, Aki's mind is stuck in his childhood, when it hadn't yet been broken, so he's blindly enjoying himself. Because, paradoxical though it may sound, it was when Aki realised the cruelty of this world, the loss of loved ones, that he tried to protect his family - the greatest act of love. Suffering is an awareness.

Aki had gambled on his suffering before, wasting his years of life with almost no ties. And when he began to change his perception of wanting to do something for his family, those wasted years didn't leave him enough time to protect his second family.

While he was escaping the suffering of his first family, he didn't even realise that he was causing the second to suffer. Fate was simply amused.

It is just as much for Power, a bestial being by nature who has already learnt about the suffering of losing loved ones with Meowy's kidnapping, Aki's anguish possessed at the door, bringing a birthday cake to Denji as an act of kindness, before realising that she would rather die than let Denji die. Suffering is also what brings destinies together and intertwines them.

Power and Aki are symbols of the same thing: when suffering began to be reflected in others, materialising in the fear of losing a loved one, fate turned against them.

So what Denji is doing is a narrative attempt to free himself from his fate, if he starts to fear more for Nayuta than for himself, if he stops being CSM for her, then the passage of suffering turned against oneself, there will always be someone to catch the ball. So Denji ends the cycle.

Denji will see no-one but his pain, Pochita, he will ignore even the flames that tore him away from his animal family, he will push back to Nayuta. It's a retreat into his own identity in the final chapter, a futile attempt to escape from a pain even worse than the pain of being cut in two, the pain of seeing another part of himself ripped away: a loved one.

Now we've pretty much understood the parallel. But don't forget the beginning of this post, Denji is doing exactly what Aki is doing.

Chapter 152 is the hero's attempt to regain control of his destiny, as if suddenly aware of the suffering inherent in the work, wanting to reverse it, to turn it into pleasure.

But he will not escape his fate. Denji may laugh, but only fate will have the last laugh.

[vixvaporub]

Chainsaw Man | チェンソーマン – Chapter 142 ⊙ Denji Fan Club

[otrebot]

Chainsaw Man Chapter 142

[trashbaby92]

Chainsaw man by Fujimoto Tatsuki. Chapter 142

[minimal-effort-name]

I feel like we are being presented with two options for how to interpret the sexual harassment devil (fumiko):

1• she's an expert manipulator and her actions are mostly controlled by the government with the purpose of keeping denji in check.

2• her actions in this chapter, and in general, are genuine, and while her job is to keep him in check, she does mean well in some way.

Both are interesting but the second one calls to me more, since it gives her a lot more depth than just being a manipulator, since that's the character who SA'd denji and made him suck on the tentacles of a recently hunted devil and at the same time is one of the two people in the narrative so far who have acknowledged that denji is just a kid who definitely should not be going through so much shit.

So I like to think she is being genuine but, like every single other person in public safety, is completely unhinged and has a difficulty grasping social norms.

Today's chainsawman chapter was fantastic, but also Fumiko is getting worse and worse