#fumiko mifune

[poop-benedict]

CSM #174 Spoilers

Turns out that the Aging Devil might be a mistranslation and the Japanese government isn't making the insanely stupid decision to end the concept of aging.

Credit to Reddit user u/DutifulCleric over on the CSM subreddit for pointing out that it could be the Old Age Devil instead which is a very different thing.

Getting it eaten won't stop people from aging, just from getting old. And now it makes sense why it wants 10,000 children to die in front of it, it wants to see youth die.

This might also not be a solely selfish decision by the old wrinkly ass higher ups, or more likely, Public Safety is using the higher ups selfishness to achieve their goal. The fear of getting old is a big part of the fear of dying. If life lost that inevitability, the Death Devil would lose a lot of its strength.

[jaylee-is-here]

all eyes.

( god the books are so rough im sorry 😨 )

[jaruis]

Her headslam lunch special.

Burning bridges with Barem's balls.

[sugar-grigri]

1. bent by the system, wanting to escape, while being invaded, sideways because in ambivalence

2. turning your back on the system, without a better fate in sight (she doesn't take the stairs)

3. twisted by the system, facing up to it because of its total acceptance of it

🌱🌱🌱🌱 :

1. the dead are seen as messy things you can't escape

2. the dead are identified and treated well (her girlfriends)

3. the dead conceal the twisted aspext system through a sense of duty and sacrifice

[morgenstern16]

part two girls

[strawberryblondie-locks]

#CSMTOBER DAY FIVE: KARAOKE

[thespacehatter]

Weird flex but okay 🙄

[meowzanin33]

[skiplo-wave]

Fumiko paying for her crimes arc lets gooo

[cutecapybarapics]

[iridescentscarecrow]

volume 17 extra pages. what is fujimoto doing.

[makimacult]

fujimoto is sooo good at making layered characters who are despicable and sympathetic and so so human.

see. is she lying? is she telling the truth? she's an indentured paramilitary government worker, she fucks with the traumatised teenager she's assigned to watching over for shits and giggles, she's mean and manipulative and hilarious.

now. fumiko is obviously paralleling asa's "i want to save red-chainsaw man" moment with this "i want to save denji" moment, but notice how neither of them really ask denji if he wants to be saved, or what his definition of "being saved" would really be (like. in no universe will denji accept pochita being killed before him!)

this ties in nicely with how the chainsaw man church and public safety both objectify denji too: public safety wants him to be stagnant and passive, to do as he's told; the church wants him to basically keep self-harming, martyring himself for the world (pochita-denji jesus christ metaphors meta is looming dangerously in my future...)

...look at denji's face here. he's not flattered, he looks a little disgusted (i mean. that could just be because a man is telling him all this.) denji is utterly caught between a rock and a hard place this chapter, and it's heavily implied that the weapon devils are gonna go full suicide bomber on the food court to force him to finally make a decision (but is it really a decision if you've been cornered and leashed like a dog to make it...?)

[noven-warsh]

Someone on twt said that Denji's a heartless asshole so I decided to cook up an entire thread showcasing the times he wasn't, which I'm gonna copy-paste over here (because I love wasting my time responding to useless stuff)

Introduction Arc:

♥ He tells Pochita that he can use his body to live a normal life ♥ He offers the little girl to run away with him and her devil because he empathizes with her

Bat Devil Arc:

♥ He empathizes with Power, even though she betrayed him and sacrificed him for the Bat Devil ♥ Tells this one random girl to flee, even though he doesn't have to ♥ He unnecessarily holds Power when he finds her in the midst of the devil's organs

Eternity Devil Arc:

There's a good chance he feels bad for Aki shielding him here (it might be a reach tho idk)

Katana Man Arc:

♥ He contemplates if he’s heartless for not crying for Himeno, even though it’s clear that he didn't because he wasn't that close to her ♥ He protects a girl from becoming collateral damage by Katana Man

Bomb Girl Arc:

♥ He starts crying at a scene of two guys simply hugging ♥ He straight up forgives Reze and even considers her offer of running away, despite her being a mass murderer and beating the shit out of him

International Assassins Arc:

♥ He starts running away from Santa's dolls because he recognizes them as innocent people and doesn't want to murder them ♥ This panel

Interlude: He rejects Makima's offer because he wanted to take care of Power

Gun Devil Arc: He constantly begs Aki to wake up and return to his senses, cries when he lands the finishing blow, and spends the days after that broken down from the fight

Control Devil Arc:

♥ He loses the will to live because Power and his newfound family won't be there with him anymore ♥ He chooses to eat Makima not as an attack but as an act of love ♥ He decides to raise Nayuta with love and care, despite her being the reincarnation of a someone who caused him great harm

PART TWO

Introduction Arc: He saves a cat from falling off a building

Asaden Date Arc:

♥ He offers Asa starfish (which means he listened to her entire lengthy talk about fish) when he finds her hungry and alone ♥ Admits that his obsession with money (recycling cigarettes, stealing money and selling hats) is so Nayuta could go to college

Falling Devil Arc: He shows empathy for Asa and tries to talk her out of letting herself succumb to falling

Chainsaw Man War Arc: -

♥ You can see him feeling sympathy for Fumiko's family ♥ He tries refusing Nayuta's offer (with lots of advantages) because he still likes Asa and wants their relationship to somehow work

♥ He constantly worries for Nayuta, from snapping out of his manic phase when he sees her hurt, to his waking thoughts being her, to straight up accepting anything as long as he finds her

[jaruis]

A requiem from thou to thee

To herd two birds with one Chainsaw Man.

[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?

[morgenstern16]

she still sucks tho