#i love that denji didn't have any memory of her in this chapter

[kozukihiyori]

Denji's Loved Ones in Chainsaw Man Chapter #183

[sugar-grigri]

Hello! With the discussion of Yoshida with your recent analysis, what's your perspective on Yoshida offering Denji the choice before: of being chainsaw man or having his family and how much of that was Yoshida enforcing his own ideas of what's good for denji vs his efforts to help denji in the limited scope of his position? I feel like this could have been talked about before on the blog but with added context from csm 156 interested in how this develops too

Denji is Yoshida's reflection that he refuses to see

The answer might be easy if I aligned myself with my own position, the one I established in my analysis 156, which attempts to theorize that Yoshida is on Denji's side

But you know I know I haven't convinced everyone with my blindness around Yoshida's hidden goodness. So I'm going to answer your question, but from the opposite position: let's explain Yoshida's reactions, whether as a non-ally of Denji or as an enemy. I know this may confuse you because you'd like me to analyze chapter 133 in relation to what I analyzed about chapter 156. But even if I assumed the opposite, I would have come to the same conclusion.

I love Yoshida, and even though I seem to have left him out of my analyses, I've always reflected on every one of his interventions. And something strikes me, Yoshida often seems to be talking to himself, even deluding himself almost as if to hold on.

In chapters 120/121, Yoshida invites Asa. Now fans (like me!!!) are fantasizing about rivals, a fake love triangle and a date. But in reality, it all falls depressingly flat.

But this chapter remains interesting for two reasons: two people share their experience of solitude as the only way to avoid disappointment and be happy. However, Asa projects herself into a possible love with Yoshida.

It's like reciting something to convince yourself but secretly wishing for the opposite…

But what's interesting is that we take the position of thinking that everything Yoshida said was linear.

Let's review. Yoshida knows that Asa was leering, that she looked depressed, and since he's watching Denji, he must have known about the date, hence the warning that comes later. So why get involved? As Asa's Nayuta-altered memory made him the executioner, why make her pain worse?

Because Yoshida must have had a childish reaction. It's as if, for once, he hadn't quite accepted his role as a spectator of events. I think Yoshida must have seen himself in Asa in some way. In chapter 121, Asa is all silence and Yoshida is for once almost in monologue. It was as if everything he said would convince him a little more out loud. Whether it was his theory of happiness up to........ "stay away from Denji". That point. Part of the points that concern him as much as they concern Asa.

I think and I'm convinced that even by not interpreting Yoshida as an ally, he became more sensitive and involved with Denji's plight and didn't always know how to place an emotional wall between them. Because Denji catches him off guard, makes Yoshida's smiling mask fall off. And this is something I've never verbalized before, but it's a pillar in my interpretation:

Being with Denji pushes you to be yourself.

Because Denji refuses the social game, doesn't tend to judge as teenagers of this age usually would, and has extremely sincere reactions that are so unpredictable that they don't allow for calculated responses, responses that form the shell of other characters like Asa and Yoshida.

What Asa liked about Denji, above all, was that he was able to give her confidence and make her proud when everyone else was putting her down. You don't like fish, so what? Eat starfish. Because yes, even if it was boring, I saw you, I listened to you and you made an impact on me. Because you're not insignificant.

Denji has that effect on Yoshida. Very symbolically, during their new interaction in part 2, the protagonist doesn't remember Yoshida. Of course, it's quite funny, because it can be interpreted in all sorts of ways, like the fact that Denji is so uninterested in guys that he forgets them so easily. But it's symbolic for Yoshida's character. He's so fake and so in control that Denji doesn't perceive anything in him.

And it's when he becomes more and more desperate as a result of these reactions, and when his mask gradually breaks, that Denji finally remembers his name. Because Yoshida acts less like a public hunter and more like himself, like Yoshida.

I think in chapter 133, it's really a way of trying to wake Denji up and help him. But then again, it helps to weaken Yoshida's mask. When Yoshida repeats that Denji has only two choices, that of his family or Chainsaw Man, Denji repeats that he has two. From Yoshida's point of view, this is fundamental.

The system offers only one choice, only one possible path. But Denji opposes both. In a chapter about protest, we also talk about his position towards the system. Oppose it, protest as if in the background, claim the symbol of Chainsaw Man or oppose it, see it as a societal evil, a danger of undermining the system. For I repeat, Yoshida has decided to believe in the system when Denji distrusts it.

So Yoshida gets angry, belittling Denji as if he can't see the absurdity of this dilemma imposed on a boy who has been given a choice. Who was only told there were only two choices when there were three. Rehearsing allows Yoshida to convince himself, but we see that this controlled mask has completely disappeared, giving way to anger and a kind of panic. Because Yoshida's ideals are unravelling.

Denji is a reflection.

Reflecting the cruelty of the mafia that Katana doesn't want to admit, the dream of going to school that Reze is trying to forget, allowing the trust that Asa thought impossible and the reflection of Yoshida: a teenager, who will trace a third path to the two that will be reserved for him.

If Chainsaw Man allows you to project what you want, have or be in him, hence the pandemic of CSM wannabe. Denji, hidden behind it, is doing something far more unbearable: showing us who we are.

Aki's vengeance gives way to a desire to be surrounded by loved ones, loved ones he may not be able to protect. Thinking only of oneself shows Power, through her sacrifice for Denji, that she is capable of love even if it goes against her survival.

So chapter 156 takes on a softer version. I repeat: why did you wake Denji up just to tell him he'd lost?

That Yoshida had warned him? Once again, through a strategy of self-conviction and self-protection, what Yoshida is doing is reminding us that complete alienation from the system is better than individual affirmation (which is what Denji is punished for, having repeated that he is Chainsaw Man). This identical public hunter's costume is the symbol of this submission. Yoshida is no longer even a fake high-school student. He's just a public hunter.

But I find this chapter takes on an air of funeral and goodbye. Yoshida's costume, taking on that of someone in mourning in a symbolic way.

Because saying goodbye to Denji.

It means saying goodbye to yourself.

So I ask you, Anon, and you, the reader, does Yoshida really want to continue refusing to see his reflection ?

[duhragonball]

Chainsaw Man Ch.53-62

I've got a lot to cover here, so let's just dive right in.

Last time, Denji fell in love (again) and got his heart broken when the girl turned out to be a Russian agent sent to assassinate him. He seemed to think it could still work out somehow, but he hasn't seen her since their fight, and I'm pretty sure he never will, since Makima had her killed in Chapter 52. Not sure if Denji knows that part, but there you have it.

So he's pretty depressed about the whole thing, and he's been having dreams where Pochita calls out to him from behind a locked door "Don't open it." Don't open the door? I guess. Also, Denji's a kid in this dream, so I don't know if that means anything.

He quickly bounces back from his funk when Makima invites him, Power, and Aki to join her on a vacation in Enoshima.

Buuuuuut the trip is postponed when Makima learns that the news media is covering the Chainsaw Man, who was seen fighting Reze and Typhoon Devil in the previous arc. This is a problem, because Makima considers Chainsaw Man a very valuable asset in the hunt for Gun Devil, but now the whole world knows she has Chainsaw Man, and she expects other nations to send agents like Reze to capture him.

Makima reasons that this was Reze's goal all along. The Russians sent her after Denji, and maybe their plan was to start a big enough ruckus that Public Safety couldn't keep Chainsaw Man a secret any longer. So even if the Russians couldn't get Denji for themselves, they could at least make it harder for Makima to keep him.

That makes sense up to a point, except it doesn't quite line up with Reze's actions. She took a very subtle approach with Denji, and seemed very intent on killing him as quietly as possible. The big battle in the city might have been Plan B, but at the end of the arc, she admitted that she had failed by taking too long to fight Denji. So if her true mission was simply to expose him to the world, she sure didn't act like it.

So why the hell is Chainsaw so damn important anyway? Denji's pretty formidable now that he's merged with Pochita, but Pochita didn't seem all that special by himself, and all these players seem to be fixated on the Chainsaw Devil, not Denji. Gun Devil's gone after him, the Russians have gone after him, and now Makima is expecting other countries to send their own agents. But why?

The answer seems to have something to do with the fact that other devils are terrified of Chainsaw Man's power. Aki discussed this with Angel Devil recently, and Angel explained to him that when you kill a devil, they don't actually die. They turn to ash and simply reincarnate in hell. Then they live as devils in hell, basically doing the same thing there, until they're killed in hell, which causes them to reincarnate on Earth.

This has to do with the devils being manifestations of fears. People are afraid of guns, so there's a Gun Devil. People are afraid of bats, so there's a Bat Devil. Apparently enough people are afraid of tomatoes to get a Tomato Devil started. So it kind of makes sense that you can never permanently kill these things. Those fears don't just go away, so it follows that they can resurface after a time. I'm not sure how this cycle works, but Angel Devil doesn't even understand it himself. He doesn't remember his time in hell, and he compares it to a human having no memory of the womb.

Angel's point in all of this is that he's spoken to other devils who work in Public Safety, and while they don't remember hell very well either, they do recall a very specific sound they heard when they were killed in hell. And that sound was the revving of a chainsaw.

So that suggests that the Chainsaw Devil, Pochita, is the manifestation of the devils' collective fear. He's the boogeyman of all boogeymen. Then again, if Pochita was killing them all down in hell, how did he end up on Earth when he met Denji? Someone must have killed Pochita in hell, right?

At this point, it seems likely that everyone wants to control Denji so they can use Chainsaw as a weapon. Devils were eating Gun Devil flesh to get stronger, so it's likely that eating Chainsaw flesh would give them an even bigger buff. As for the humans, apparently they just really don't want Makima to control Chainsaw, even though she plans to use him against Gun Devil, which seems like it'd be in everyone's best interest.

All right, let's talk about the characters who go to Japan to hunt down Denji. First, we have these three guys from America. I call them "The Immortals" because I don't think we ever learn their full names. They have a contract with the Skin Devil that allows them to impersonate other people, and they've survived a lot of hardships in their lives, including the Gun Devil attacks, so they consider themselves indestructible.

Next we have Tolka and his master. I guess they're Russians, but I don't think this is spelled out. Tolka's master has him kill, skin, and cook a fox, just to prepare him for their mission of hunting and killing a 16-year-old boy. She wants to know if he can go through with such a thing, and he seems to believe he's up for the job.

Next we have Quanxi, a Chinese assassin. She has a squad of four fiends who help her on missions and such. Also, they fuck constantly. This army guy just walks in on them while they're in bed together and tells her about the mission to kill Denji, and they're both pretty casual about the whole thing. It's like they both understand that there's no point waiting for her to get done fucking, so he can just walk right in and state his business.

Beijing apparently is willing to grant her just about anything for her to take this job, and she thinks about it and requests human rights and a basic education for her harem of demon skanks. I just want to point out that one of them keeps saying the word "Halloween!" over and over again, so that's probably some sort of learning disorder. Also, I like how the CCP will do anything within their power to pay Quanxi for this, and she asks for human rights and they're like "Ouch, gee, that's a tall order, but we'll see what we can do." Like they were hoping she'd just ask for a solid gold house or a new eyeball.

Somehow, Makima already knows Quanxi is coming... Uh... sorry. Bad choice of words. But as dangerous as Quanxi is, the real threat is.... Germany's Santa Claus. What the fuck? Do I even want to know?

No. No, I do not. Germany's Santa Claus is an old man who takes the job and asks for four "good looking" children as payment. He plans to sacrifice three of them to make contracts with devils for more power, and the fourth one is "for pleasure", and that just might be the most spine-chilling pair of words in this entire series. Fuck you, Germany's Santa Claus. Just... no. Fuck.

Hey, here's these guys. I don't know who the hell they are, and it doesn't matter because the Immortal Bros. run their car off the road and gun them down in order to assume one of their identities and infiltrate Public Safety.

The problem with this whole part of the story is that there are a lot of new characters being tossed around here, and a lot of them are just young men in suits with fairly normal features. Chainsaw Man has demonstrated to me just why so many other manga characters have outrageous hairdos and wardrobes. All six of these characters look pretty similar, and one of them is a woman, for crying out loud. Fortunately, only two of them matter much here. The Elder Immortal, the one with the soulpatch, plans to impersonate Kurose, the Public Safety guy with the scar across his nose.

As he prepares to do this, he asks his brothers, Joey and Aldo, how they feel about the murder they just did. Joey's cool with it, but Aldo throws up, because it's his first killing.

So just keep Kurose's face in mind, even though the real Kurose is dead, and Elder Immortal is imitating him. He's got a scar running horizontally across his face. The other one who matters is Aldo, who has two scars over his right eye.

See, the logistical problem Public Safety has is that they're devoting all their resources to defending Denji, but they can't just hide him out in the mountains somewhere, because even though the agents pursuing him might not know his human appearance, they have contracts with devils who can sniff him out. Hiding Denji is all but impossible, so Makima just has him and Power go about their day-to-day business, but with a bunch of Public Safety guys standing guard over them all the time. Denji hates this because they boss him around constantly, and he soon realizes that this arrangement isn't to protect him at all. He's bait. They're hoping to draw out his pursuers, and maybe defeat some of them and convince the rest that it's not worth the trouble.

Meanwhile, Tolka and his master are eating in the same McDonalds as Denji and Power. Tolka's master has a contract with the Curse Devil, the same one Aki used a while back. The difference is that Tolka's master actually knows how to use the ability. She uses a nail instead of a sword, which allows her to poke Denji three times without him even noticing. Once she gets him a fourth time with the nail the curse will activate and insta-kill him. She leaves this task to Tolka. I guess this is like a final exam for his apprenticeship under her.

Fake Kurose shows up and tells the others that his two comrades were killed in an ambush, but he insists on continuing to help on the mission. He starts being all friendly to get good and infiltrated when...

Power hits him with her car. No, wait, it's Kobeni's car. Power saw it and wanted to drive it, because it reminded Power of her car, which looks exactly like Kobeni's car... Wait, did Kobeni steal Power's car? How could you, Kobeni? We all trusted you!

No, wait, Kobeni was the one driving and it's definitely her car because it was used to commit manslaughter. But wait, Kurose's face changes and he's one of those American hitmen! Power immediately takes credit for exposing his ruse.

So what about the other Immortal Bros.? Well, they were also nearby, but disguised as bystanders. They're horrified to see their big brother die so randomly, and Aldo pukes in an alley while Joey swears revenge. But he immediately gets spotted by a Public Safety guy and killed on the spot.

That just leaves Aldo, who only survives because he puts his disguise back on, and the Public Safety guy decides he can't be a hitman because he's throwing up. So now Aldo's on his own.

I'm kind of focusing on the Immortals' part of the story because frankly German Santa Claus and Tolka's Master haven't make their moves yet, and Quanxi just fucks her henchwomen instead of pursuing her target. Also this was the part of the arc I had trouble following, because of shapeshifters disguising themselves as the same background character.

Okay, so now Aldo's fucked, and the cops go to his hotel, so he can't stay there, so he uses what little information he had on Kurose to go visit Kurose's brother. This isn't a bad idea, except it really strains Aldo's already precarious mental state. He just watched his brothers die, and now he has to pretend to be this guy's brother and try to keep up appearances. I really enjoy this page where you see them from outside the apartment window, and all the word balloons are inside the window with them. Aldo's just completely trapped in this nightmare and he doesn't know what to do.

Kurose's brother thinks that he must be stressed out from work, and tries to talk him into quitting the Devil Hunter business. He asks what their big brother would say, and Aldo recalls what his actual older brother used to say, which gives him the resolve to see this job through. He spends the next few chapters trying to work up the courage to find Denji and kill him.

But we're not going to see that play out just yet. No, first it's Germany's Santa Claus' turn. His power comes from the Doll Devil, and anyone her touches is turned into a zombie-like doll who must do his bidding. Anyone the dolls touch is also turned, and the conversion is irreversible. This one guy guarding Denji has a contract that lets him turn people to stone, so that helps, but there's too many dolls coming after them, so they have to withdraw.

The stuff with the dolls is kind of fun, but it's not too different from other zombie battles we've already seen in this series. Then Quanxi and her minions enter the fray, and Quanxi does this big leap with swords, and everyone along her path gets cut in two. I'm not sure if Quanxi's fiend-skanks are assisting with this or what. This is like one of those JoJo arcs where there's two Enemy Stand Users at the same time, and it's impossible to figure out which one is doing what. Only multiply that by a hundred because Tatsuki Fujimoto can't stop adding characters to this story.

I don't understand her power, but the artwork for it is phenomenal. Dolls and civilians alike are massacred in a single stroke. I guess Quanxi does something similar to Janemba's sword slashes in Fusion Reborn, maybe?

Aki manages to block the effect before it kills Angel Devil, or I think that's what he's doing. They survive, but it knocks the wind out of them.

I'm kind of skipping around here, but Master Kishibe-- not Tolka's master, but the guy who trained Power and Denji-- subdues Quanxi's minions, then confronts her in the mall they're fighting in. They sit down at a table and talk while Denji and Power hold the girls hostage. This is one of those deals where the two grisled veterans talk it out for old time's sake. He seems to be trying to convince Quanxi to give up peacefully, but it's not that simple.

While they speak, he holds up a notepad that reads "Makima is listening", then reveals that he's planning to kill Makima, and he's willing to let her go, and even tell her his plan if she agrees to help him.

The thing is, she starts fighting again shortly after this, so I can't tell if she's doing that to keep up appearance, since Makima would be expecting a battle, or if she rejected Master Kishibe's offer. We'll probably find out later, but there's a lot of other stuff going on, so it'll probably be a while. The important thing for now is that Kishibe has gone from being suspicious of Makima to outright plotting against her, and he seems to trust a Chinese assassin more than his own boss.

Oh, here's a gag at the end of Volume 7 where Power demands Kobeni thank her for killing that bad guy. Aki explains to Kobeni that not only is Power a pathological liar, but she used her blood powers to alter her own memories to believe her bullshit. So the way Power remembers it, she heroically rode into the scene with her own car and ran over a bad guy who was threatening Kobeni and Denji. I'm not saying I like Power's version of the story better, but it's definitely got its advantages.

For example, a lot of Chapter 62 is spent on Quanxi fighting.... some guy. This is the same Public Safety guy who killed Joey after Power heroically killed Joey's brother with Kobeni's Power's car. Notice how I had to mention four other characters just to put this guy in context. I think he has a name, I just didn't think I needed to bother remembering it, since 60% of Denji's bodyguards have been killed off already. This guy has multiple earrings, and apparently that made him cool enough that Fujimoto thought he deserved this big action sequence with Quanxi, who... we really don't know all that well either.

So what the hell is Denji doing during all of this? Well, he considers turning into Chainsaw Man to join the fight, but Beam warns him against it, since he might need that later on, and it would be risky to wear himself out. Then Denji steps on a nail, which was carefully placed on the floor by Tolka.

We've seen the Curse Devil's effect before, but Denji hasn't, so he has no idea what's happening to him until it's too late. Beam tries to help, but Tolka kicks him and... yeah, I guess that's it. RIP Chainsaw Man. Again.