#yoshida i Know what you are

[iridescentscarecrow]

viz. your site is malfunctioning. i clicked on csm chapter 132 and ended up on the page for some sort of depraved yaoi manga instead. yeah. i thought you should know.

[aliennazero]

This is like... one of the gayest paneling I have ever seen in shounen, IT LOOKS SO INTENTIONAL ISTG. Fujimoto you can't keep get away from this.

The romantic/platonic subtlety isn't very visible in English, in the original Japanese ver HOWEVER—

*open my eyes wide to make sure I'm not insane and hallucinating*

I don't have such knowledge on Japanese language but I could read it for a bit. In this exact scene where their expression is shown face to face, when they talk, they didn't use any specific plural pronoun (they/you all) except for context giver in the middle.

When we exclude the middle frame and directly translate other lines, up and below, we will have something like this.

"Ore tte ii ko na no ni nande?" (But I am a good boy, why?)

"Kimi o kirai dakara sa." (Because you are hated)

*VERY DRAMATIC zoom in*

"Nande demo-tai to tatakatte nda?" (Why fighting the protesters?)

"Kimi o suki dakara." (Because you are adored/liked)

*gritting my teeth and punching the air* If we take a look at it again, that sounds like some sort of a VERY deliberate double meaning words right?

Since "Kimi o suki dakara" could mean "Because I like you" and it sounds like as if Yoshida also fighting for Denji versus people who hates him (the protester).

After that, it cut shorts to the next panel where Denji say this-

Then they had a brief moment of silence where Denji looked up at Yoshida and Yoshida's eyes remain hidden.

It's so??? Skskskskskk. Fujimoto, what kind of yoai are you sniffing when writing these two.

[misplacedgamer]

So we all knew that Yoshida was ripped straight out of a yaoi doujin BUT THAT WAS BEFORE THIS????

WHAT IS THIS POWER STANCE? HELLO? AM I LOSING MY MIND???

[devotion-disorder]

Happy (late) new year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1 WE MADE IT THROUGH ANOTHER YEAR WAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

and sorry for the lack of activity for the last couple of days! that was because i was actually travelling!! but im back home now and its back to business babey spreading the yandere agenda one day at a time!!!!!!!!

some cool stuff from my trip under the cut :))

REAL LIFE 3D EL KAWIWI ENCOUNTER........ BUT HE WAS SOLD OUT (I mean i knew that but)😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

among. on tha tree

kitty :)) (I couldn't get a good angle on his face 😭😭)

we needed to kill some time so we went into a random arcade place and turns out a it houses a fangamer store!! with this mural that absolutely FUCKS

but also THERE'S SIGNATURES FROM THE CREATORS OF THESE INDIE GAMES???????? THATS TOBY FOX'S ACTUAL SIGNATURE WHAT THE FAWWWWKKKKKK

and last but not least. The Boy Has Been Acquired

[whosname]

[Id. Digital drawing of Gintoki, as a kitten, being carried by Shouyou on his back. End Id.]

Dandelion kitten.

[pityfiesta]

did a little official art redraw with the vday fits for valentine's day + ash wednesday : )

[angelfrogs]

Considering the latest chapter I am not sure if Yoshida’s dead but I think even if he was in control of himself Denji would not give a damn about Yoshida’s fate. In fact after everything I would not be surprised if he was cool with the idea of killing Yoshida personally, nor do I think he would be the wrong for wanting that!

There’s a lot this last chapter has left up in the air! Yoshida’s fate being one of the major unanswered questions, and genuinely I have no idea if he’s dead or not currently to me it’s about a 50/50 chance. I stand by on what I’ve said on him before, if he’s dead I believe he died full of regret and I think he may have died outright apologizing (though in this state that probably wouldn’t register to Denji at all). If he isn’t dead? He probably will be dead soon, if not at the hands of Denji then by someone else. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next chapter is Yoshida focused for this reason but given how much Fujimoto likes to jump around and slowly weave the scene together I’m not holding my breath. Either way, while I have always found Yoshida interesting and have been waiting for the other shoe to drop when it comes to this character for a LONG TIME, I think that his fate will be, and should be, a vehicle to discuss Denji’s current emotional and moral standing. I do not think Denji, or rather chainsaw man, would hesitate to kill Yoshida. (Though I don’t think he’d actively seek Yoshida out or try and track him down if he ran) There are two ways Denji could kill Yoshida right now and that depends on, like you mentioned, how in control Denji is of Chainsaw Man currently, my first instinct on seeing this version of csm (the version that can eat devils out of existence) is to say that this isn’t Denji at all but Pochita, like what was true before. However the circumstances in which this csm appears are quite different and it’s very possible that through all this emotional turmoil Denji found away to fully take hold of his devil side and keep his own consciousness. So if Denji has/does kill Yoshida as this version of chainsaw man it’s either done unfeelingly with pochita in the “drivers seat” sort of speak… OR Denji kills him personally in his own rage, as you mentioned. To an extent I agree with you that Denji would not give a fuck about Yoshida’s fate, mostly in that I think Denji would not care if Yoshida as a person is alive or dead. I do, however, think that if Chainsaw Man kills Yoshida, that will weigh on Denji. If Denji kills Yoshida mindlessly and without full control? Well then we are back to the conversation of the ways being chainsaw man, being half devil, dehumanizes Denji. If Denji does it consciously in rage? Then I think this would actually be more in line with the narratives of exploring Denji’s sexuality: he would have to face that even though he wanted it there would be no actual gratification in doing this because it’s a stand in for what he really needs. Revenge like this is unfulfilling either way, and while I absolutely agree with you that I don’t think he’d be in the wrong at all for wanting him dead I don’t think that’s the actual dilemma he’s going to have to face, I think it will be the horrifying realization that this carnage means nothing to him. But that’s just my two cents!

And a side tangent while I’m on the subject! I do think that there is a way where Yoshida is completely and irreversibly caught but he still survives: if Asa intervenes. Asa cares a lot about Denji, Yoshida is someone she knows personally, and she is someone with extremely strong feelings about morality (she doesn’t like the idea of killing people so intensely she keeps the WAR DEVIL from doing it) I think if she’d be able to she would try and talk Denji out of it. I think narratively if there’s going to be anything that snaps him out of this spree it’s going to be that but once again I’m not holding my breath on this lol! Especially bc now we have to deal with this no mouth situation….

[callitblackstar]

i need to finish my yoshiden zine because i do genuinely think nobody gets their dynamic right except me (Especially regarding yoshida but that's because fjmt very rarely gives us concrete information about him as a person) but like. it changes every fucking weeekkkk and it's not exactly inconsistent so much as the narrative i Thought was being told between them is not what's currently happening. if denji was developing as a character and interrogating his weird empathetic toleration (and strange attraction to? refer back to the butthole tonguing) of a generally antagonistic and VERY MALE yoshida, maybe something concrete worth explaining would be there. but instead denji's going mindless again and yoshida is refusing to sit down and talk to him like a person anymore. their tentative connection seen in 133 kind of ended when yoshida brought fumiko into denji's life. and i don't know if we'll get it back now

[deathandnonexistentialdread]

I've been thinking about the final fight of Gintama. How everything about it was a gesture of love and reminiscence.

Somewhere in the series, it is mentioned (i think?) that when samurai fight, they are fighting against themselves. Throughout the battle against Utsuro, Gintoki isn't fighting against just him. He is fighting against Shouyou sensei and Takasugi. He is fighting against his past for the future.

Gintoki fought so that Takasugi could smile while Takasugi fought so that Gintoki would never have to cry like he did when he cut Shouyou sensei's head of.

Takasugi's body was fighting against Gintoki but his spirit was fighting alongside him.

The last thing that Takasugi saw with his left eye was Gintoki's tearful face and that last thing that he saw with his right eye was Gintoki's smile.

I don't know, this makes me want to tear my head and cry, there is something here I'm just not sure what it is.

[a-birdhouse-in-your-soul]

hana yoshida serving 2013 tumblr with the galaxy print

[ocdhuacheng]

wtf @ the new csm chapter

[mistystarshine]

Feelings on. Today csm chapter

After it came out, myself and one of the co-admins of my CSM server discussed and decided that you can say 'faggot' in the server specifically so we could call Yoshida one

Note: We are both faggots

[emoboyfag]

How do you feel about tentacles?

finally someone asking the real questions. I am a huge fan of tentacles in any way, shape, or form. Tentacle dicks, slimey ones, ones that lay eggs, tentacle bondage,all of it. The idea of something alien and strange all over my body while I can't do anything about it has been a main fantasy of mine for years especially ones that produce their own lube. I'm drooling and purring a little bit

[righteousdelusions]

To be a bit kinder with my process, I did get all Yoshida/Asa/Denji interaction when I reread it in Japanese. Well except the bear anecdote, I blacked out there

[uh-mozzaza]

Yoshida WISHES he had Hiyuki's swag

[iridescentscarecrow]

of course, fjmt uses panel to panel callbacks in order to evoke various themes of part one, and multiple characters (not just these ones) reformulate imagery that makima initially uses. you can chart these callbacks all the way back to fire punch if you wish but the Reason i'm talking about these three characters particularly is because they converse with denji - csm's metanarrative and makima's authorship of him - in a very interesting manner and thus reproduce makima and denji's relationship.

what frustrates me about fandom interpretations of makima as a one note Source of evil, apart from the fact that the manga itself refutes this, is that her character haunts and ties together so much of part two that it's impossible to fully understand without understanding her.

makima isn't ever a unilateral antagonistic force. she's an agent of the institutional evil that looms over all of CSM. she's in as much a commentary on gender and performance of gender as denji is.

and fjmt in part two enacts the "haunting the narrative" trope in such an interesting manner because you see flashes of makima in every female character. you see elements of her diluted into, most visibly, the characters of asa, nayuta and fumiko.

in asa, i see makima in that yearning for connection. i see her in the way that asa herself is fundamentally unable to approach the relationship of equals that she so desperately desires, partly due to her own social awkwardness but also because of yoru's threat: everyone she gets close to turns into a weapon. the fundamental inequality to human relationships that makima is unable to overcome.

during the aquarium date, you see asa echo makima again and again in lines that evoke makima's purposing of denji. that weaponising. "i'll grant you any request / save me chainsaw man! / you don't have to think about a thing."

and her connection with denji also founds itself upon this. yoshida talks to asa about parasocial relationships -- rerendering makima's idealisation of the CSM in how asa sees denji as a love interest. asa and denji parallel each other so organically in their gendered suppression and portrusion of desire. it's a punctuation of denji's search for intimacy that's mirrored by makima's in part one. exploring how asa is different from makima is perhaps the most intriguing part of this reflection though: an example being the way asa overthinks her outfit for her date with denji while makima seamlessly models herself into an Effortless woman.

[it's not like asa borrows just from makima. for example, there are things to be said about the way she views her Body (as compared with reze and quanxi) but examining how mkm's character bleeds into asaden is quite compelling.]

nayuta being the most visible remnant of what makima was is also interesting because makima herself appears so little in nayuta beyond the surface. nayuta's role as the control devil is hinted at frequently as is her appearance resembling makima's

but her and denji's dynamic more often echoes the hayakawa family and pochita than anything else. consider: aki giving up his goal (his 'easy revenge' that he finally sees for what it is) for the sake of his family, that warmth of blood and platonic bodily intimacy that power embodies--

it's all referenced to again with nayuta and denji, in direct panel callbacks and the plot itself! nayuta is The Family that makima constructs for denji in part one to pull him along the plot she prepares. i'm thinking about how makima is an allegory for capitalism. and what the family unit means in a capitalistic structure. the propagation of an ideal that hinges on birth and descendancy, about narrative and reproduction of narrative, about how nayuta births herself from makima and denji's relationship.

and this is also why nayuta herself exerts so much control over denji in the plot, as well as why she's used as a piece to control him. in part one, family was used to create the Chainsaw Man from denji. in part two, it's used to make denji abandon the Chainsaw Man, this icon that the church and the public now take possession of. [something something alienation of the worker from the product. from the collective. from the self.]

fumiko is perhaps the hardest to pin down here because her role evolves as the fandomisation of the Chainsaw Man evolves too. in fact, as a denji fan, she represents not just makima but multiple people who see something in and want something from denji! (think of how she references reze in her highlighting how denji is just a child; how reze uses her commentary on denji to engage with her Self. it's fandomisation,,, and what is makima but Chainsaw Man's fan?)

fumiko most obviously calls back to these wants and their conceptualisation of denji in the raw sexual violence that the events in the theater scene moving into the karaoke scene embody. the undercurrent of sa that runs through p1 and p2 is brought to the forefront in this scene -- denji falling back into these cycles of abuse, him slipping into habitating the wants of others (his initial horrified expression and then his grin during the fight. his initial inner monologue and then the cut to him licking the tentacle.)

so much of CSM rests on this fandom of denji, this theme of what production and idealisation means, one you can trace through fjmt's body of work. and this fandom reaches its crescendo in p2. what's even more interesting about fumiko is her pathos under this layer. her seeing denji as denji at some level but in the end, her handling of him is so selfish. her echoing makima's uninhibited laughter at the horror of denji's situation, her predatory cruelty. denji simultaneously humanised and dehumanised through her fandom.

fjmt's characters exist as foils, as parallels and ideas. makima's character has such a stranglehold over part one and these ideas run over into part two naturally -- as a consequence of denji being a reciever of these themes, but also deliberately in fjmt evoking the Thing that is makima repetitively -- to underscore the forever re emerging structure that denji and now asa are trapped in. the same structure that makima produced and was simultaneously caged by.