Live blogging what I read

NOBODY MOVE.

Op said it is "Suki (like/love)" and is written in Hiragana as すき.

I remember when I first read it, I was shocked at how terrified Yor looked because of the kiss. Still, I thought it was pretty justifiable considering she's never kissed anyone before, let alone a complete stranger.

But her face was completely different from any expression we've ever seen her show. Normally, whenever she is faced with any type of romance, her face goes red, and she becomes very flustered.

We even see her do it in the same chapter.

Yor is always very vocal and over-the-top when anyone mentions kissing or flirting, or anything of the sort.

But this time is different. Yor looks terrified. And now we know why.

Instead of another dramatic outburst about romance, Yor is shaking in fear. Not because of the kiss. Not because of the hostage situation. But because of Loid.

Someone was pointing a gun at her, and he stepped in. He stepped in front of her (why the hell did he step in front?) and nearly got hurt because of her. Loid could've gotten killed, and she would never forgive herself for it.

In her eyes, he's just a regular civilian, a regular civilian with a nice house, a stable job, and a beautiful daughter. The thought of someone like him dying shakes her to her very core. So she sucks it up. All she has to do is kiss someone. There is no reason to involve someone like him in this, especially if it would gravely injure him.

So she goes up and tells him she can handle it, but her body still shakes with the idea of his lifeless body falling limp to the floor. Because people die. People die every day. It has happened, and it will always happen.

Due to popular pressure ( 1 person) I posted bunny loid, I made several variations

Bisexual

Demisexual

Trans

oh my god this moment is everything.

This could mean nothing... OR IT COULD BE THE START OF A LOID REGRESSION WHERE HE COMPLETELY PULLS AWAY FROM HIS FAMILY AND BUILDS MORE WALLS UP FROM THIS PERSONA

We‘re finally getting some emotional turmoil from Loid!!

[Start] [Part 8] <- -> [Part 10]

The smear frame is cracking me up. Bro locked in. You don't have to tell him twice.

And then he faints...like the delicate flower he is.

I think the only way for you to accept this ending is to realize that Fujimoto didn’t intend to write a proper conclusion. Wrapping up a series like Chainsaw Man with all its loose ends would have required at least fifty more chapters, and I think Fujimoto chose to end the series prematurely out of exhaustion. He wrapped it up with a generic “what if” scenario that’s almost a caricature of bad movies, because after all, he considers Chainsaw Man to be a bad soap opera.

Like many mangaka, Fujimoto needs time to create, to not be constrained by fans’ expectations every week, and to have the rest necessary to refine the story and artwork. As time went on, Chainsaw Man became increasingly sloppy, and this situation—seeing his flagship work become more and more of a sketch rather than a finished painting—showed the author, in my opinion, that he couldn’t produce anything truly satisfying from it and that he needed to finish the work so he could create again, but under much better conditions.

And now you’re probably thinking: “Well, how do you know all this ???” I think any reader has actually noticed this decline—major plot points being ignored (death, Nostradamus’s prophecy), or even main characters (Asa has been completely sidelined). Above all, not that I’m an expert, but I think I’ve been scrutinizing Chainsaw Man for three years, and I suddenly noticed that Fujimoto had hit the fast-forward button. To the point where I myself stopped analyzing the latest chapters because the rich material that was there before was no longer there: the chapters were straightforward and required no perspective, which is unusual for Fujimoto’s writing.

[Start] [Part 7] <- -> [Part 9]

I'm allergic to vulnerability so I have a love-hate relationship with this part.

other covers

The cover of the third volume features Yor in her black assassin dress, sitting on the chair called La Chaise (designed by Charles and Ray Eames) and holding her blood-stained stiletto.

Similar to Anya’s cover, there are no objects hidden under the chair, only a few blood droplets. It’s obviously a point to her violent job, just like how we see Twilight holding a gun with empty bullet casings under his chair.

What I find interesting is that the blood isn’t hidden at all. She’s not hiding the stiletto nor the blood, and she’s even comfortable holding it there, looking at the camera, like she’s chilling with you after an assassination. That looks to me like a reference to how, despite the fact that she kills people, she’s still kind about it and also tries to make their deaths as quick and painless as possible.

Like, when you’re facing her, she won’t hide what she’s there to do. She’s like hi I’ve got a job to do please don’t resist, if you would be so kind :)

Also, obviously Yor is hiding the fact that she’s an assassin… but not because she’s ashamed of it. It’s only because she knows it’s against the law. Yor mentions how her boss, the Shopkeeper, has instilled in her the idea that through her work she’s keeping the country safe, and so she actually takes pride in what she’s doing.

She only hides because she has to, not because she wants to. So I feel that’s why the blood is in front of and on the chair, instead of hidden behind it.

About the lack of other objects: Twilight’s cover has more spy gadgets under his chair. The covers for Yuri and even Franky also have equipment that is adjacent to their jobs.

But Yor only needs her weapons to kill, and the blood is an unavoidable repercussion of it.

And so, actually taking it all into account… Yor’s perception of the world has been greatly influenced by the job she was lured into from a very young and very vulnerable age. She sees herself as one of the country’s appointed executioners, frequently thinks about solving her problems with murder before remembering that she can’t hurt innocent people, and is prepared to lay down her life to complete her job. For the Thorn Princess, her value is in killing people to make the world a better place.

And that speaks for how insecure Yor is in her everyday life.

She can’t speak about how she kills dangerous people, so her self-worth is tied to what she does outside of her assassin job… which is not very much, considering how much her assassinations have overtaken her life.

She has to keep herself fit and strong, and remain a skilled fighter with perfect perception of any possible danger around her. All that not only takes a big amount of time and devotion (thus stealing away time she could use for interests and hobbies), it’s also not something very valued in the world she lives in.

At some point she says that she understands why Loid wouldn’t want a woman like her, whose best quality is her strength and fighting skills, and combined with the general misogyny of the world it’s easy to understand that physical strength is not something that women get praised for, so… she reaches a very low point of self-confidence.

And so, she seems to take pride in what she does as an assassin. It’s the only place where her innate but also very practiced skills are appreciated.

And so she looks at the camera with a content smile, like yeah I just killed someone, how have you been?

Similar to Twilight’s presentation in his cover, I feel that this is only about Yor’s assassin side. She’s in the respective appearance, and there are no intimate objects around her, as we’ll see with later covers. This is the Thorn Princess – not Yor in full.

And bringing it back to how this job has consumed her, the lack of objects could point out her lack of focus on herself. Twilight doesn’t have personal objects because he’s rejected having an identity for his job; Yor doesn’t because she wasn’t given the space to. We see a bit from her original apartment and it’s quite plain – no interior decorating, only what’s necessary to get by.

And look, I am myself someone with a complete lack of interior decorating skills or even interest in it. But I am a real person. My curtains are blue because I like blue, there’s no narrative around it. Fictional characters can be built upon their choices in appearance or decorating or a lack thereof – they don’t exist in a vacuum. Twilight isn’t supposed to have an identity, but he decorates the house as Loid Forger – even by picking colourful toys and decorations for Anya’s room.

So, the lack of interior decorating on Yor’s apartment… tells me quite a lot about how empty her life was, until she met the Forgers. She even says at some point that her only attachment she had was to Yuri. But at the point we meet her at, Yuri has been living on his own for at least one year – and that would be enough to make Yor feel detached and lonely.

Camilla even comments on how she used to have a blank, robotic look on her face. But that changed once she started living with the Forgers, and she started feeling appreciated. Loid gives her good faith in why she took that “questionable work”, shows pride in her fighting skills, vouches for her, defends her feelings, and listens to her advice. Anya feels safe around her and proud of her strength, immediately accepts her as her mother, and wants to take her example.

But also – and that is very important – they don’t begrudge her for her horrible cooking. They don’t idolize her over it (like Yuri does) they’re not demanding her to be good at it (like society does) and they don’t punish her mistakes (like the Shopkeeper would).

All in all, the Forgers are a safe environment for her. It’s one where she feels safe to be herself, both in achievements and in mistakes.

So it makes sense why, through living in a misogynistic society and working a horribly demanding job, she didn’t really have a lot of time for herself. She just had to fit in and not catch too much attention; and there’s a small detail that Endo mentions, that in her City Hall job she’s just good enough to not get yelled at; she obviously finds no passion in it, and wouldn’t even need it financially considering what she makes as an assassin, so I’m guessing she took it as a cover. And through 1. her loneliness, 2. her lack of focus on herself and what she wants, and 3. the world’s criticisms that seem to burden her down… yeah, she would lose some spark in her look.

Now I’ve gotten into this whole tangent because while it’s sad, that the first focus we get on her is a minimal cover, I think I can be hopeful that if she ever appears on another cover, we might get to see more of Yor, and there will be objects around her chair that reflect who she really is.

As for the chair, the white colour contrasts nicely with the red of the blood and her dress, but as we see the blood is also on the chair. While Yor is meticulous in cleaning after her kills, it’s obvious that this work has had a deep effect on her. So the chair isn’t spotless either.

As for the shape of it, it’s interesting how this chair looks easy to lounge on. You can relax on it, and there’s lots of space to stretch, and even have someone sit close to you. Contrast again to Twilight’s restricted seating, but also to Anya’s open couch. She’s more relaxed than Twilight, but not as relaxed as Anya.

The inside cover shows Twilight despairing over Anya’s failing grades, with Anya attempting to comfort him.

Since this has no connection to Yor herself (aside from maybe the antithesis to us knowing that to Yor it doesn't matter what grades Anya gets at school as long as Anya enjoys her time there) I assume it’s a reference to chapter 16, from that same volume.

(anime only here, don't spoil me for the manga please)

In all seriousness though, I like how this whole arc seems to poke fun at die-hard fans making unnecessarily huge fuses when shows/movies they like don't end the way they want (hopefully Endo isn't drawing attention to this because he intends to end SxF in an unexpected way 👀) In the real world, creators sometimes get death threats, and in this case, the fans hijack a TV station at gunpoint and force people to make a new ending.

I also like how Camilla, Martha, and Becky highlight different viewpoints from fans. Camilla sides with the majority while Becky is the opposite and found the twist ending exciting, while Martha...has her own unique opinion 😅

But back to the story at hand, Loid's way of getting out of being shown on camera was perfect! We can add "stage designer" to the list of jobs he's had in the past 😆

Yor continuing to freak out when she "accidently" shows her super strength in front of Loid...c'mon girl, he's already seen you send a guy flying with one kick and knocking out a rampaging cow - he'll be totally okay with this 😂

By the way, Bublina's name in the Japanese version is クチベッタ (kuchibetta). I'm not totally sure what it means, but I think it has to do with the fact that she can't express herself well with words: "kuchi" means "mouth" and I think "betta" means "last place/tailend."

I also loved "protective" Loid, even though the parts with Yuri were probably fake. But I would like to think the part where he tells the terrorist "stop threatening my wife" were more genuine, since there wouldn't be any other reason for him to bring attention to himself in that moment, or risk getting on their bad side.

This panel made me crack up 🤣 Can't wait to see the next conversation Yor has with Becky and Camilla after all this is over.

Speaking of Becky, Jules on Twitter brought up this great point! Becky, PLEASE!!!

So now that we know for sure that a kiss is on the table, the big question is: what will happen next? As of now, I see three possible scenarios:

Loid can't stand the idea of Yor being kissed by another man (Yuri might actually support him here) so he somehow gets himself to play the part of the guy who she kisses (gives himself a big makeover so he still stays anonymous)

The kiss with the other actor happens anyway

The kiss ends up not happening, either due to interference from Loid, Yuri, or Yor herself refusing due to not being emotionally ready to kiss anyone, or at least someone who isn't Loid

This is a post series I've been planning for a while and I've finally had the time to complete part 1! 😃 I may have mentioned here before that I got my B.A. in Japanese/East Asian Studies, and even though I'm not fluent, I know the linguistics of the language fairly well. So I thought it would be fun to examine the interesting aspects of the Japanese version of the SxF manga that aren't reflected in the English translation. It might also be an informative experience for those who don't know any Japanese to learn a bit about the language through SxF! I'll try not to get too technical with the linguistics and keep my explanations at a beginner's level.

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Part 1 - Twilight's "honne and tatemae"

One of the main themes in SxF is how many of the characters have secrets they want to hide, so they act a certain way in front of others in order to mask their true selves. Japanese has a word for this phenomena called 本音と建前 ("honne and tatemae").

I remember learning about the concept of "honne and tatemae" during my Japanese college studies – a quick google search will yield a lot of publications on the topic and its relation to Japanese culture in particular. While the idea of hiding one's true intentions behind a fake facade can exist anywhere and is not something unique to Japan, it is enough of an occurrence in Japanese culture that there are specific words for it. The Wiki article has a basic but good definition of honne and tatemae, to quote:

A person's honne may be contrary to what is expected by society or what is required according to one's position and circumstances, and they are often kept hidden, except with one's closest friends. Tatemae is what is expected by society and required according to one's position and circumstances, and these may or may not match one's honne. In many cases, tatemae leads to outright telling of lies in order to avoid exposing the true inward feelings.

Sounds very much like the characters in SxF, doesn't it? Twilight especially, because unlike other characters like Yor and Anya, who simply have secrets they need to keep but don't create fake personas for themselves, Twilight does – the cheerful, friendly Loid Forger is a different person from the cold, calculating Twilight after all. Also unlike Yor and Anya, who speak the same way consistently no matter who they're talking to, Twilight uses different speech levels depending on which persona he's using and who he's talking to.

There are many different levels of speech in Japanese, ranging from super formal to totally crude. These speech levels are distinguished mostly by the pronouns the speaker chooses to use for themselves and who they're speaking to, as well as how they choose to conjugate the words they use. For example, 座ってください (suwatte kudasai), 座って (suwatte,) and 座れ (suware) all mean "sit," as in, telling someone to sit down. But the tone being conveyed is different: the first one is polite, the second one is casual, and the last one could be seen as rude if you're not using it with a close friend/family member.

As Twilight, he uses casual speech with the masculine and less polite pronoun 俺 or オレ (ore). This is the speech he uses when talking to a fellow spy like Fiona, and for his own inner thoughts.

As Loid Forger, he uses the polite 敬語 (keigo) speech, which is basically comprised of using the -ます (-masu) conjugation for verbs and the "to be" verb です (desu). He also uses the pronoun ボク or 僕 (boku), which is the standard male pronoun and more polite than "ore." He uses keigo to address pretty much everyone who doesn't know his true identity. When talking to a higher-up like Sylvia, he'll still use "ore" but will use polite speech instead of casual speech.

Anya is an exception to this: with her, he uses his most casual speech, the same as he uses with Franky.

I discussed a bit about this in part 24 of my Twiyor analysis posts, but this could be because Anya is a little kid, so he doesn't feel the need to put on any airs with her (same with Bond, whom he also uses casual speech with).

An interesting side note is that, as a child, Twilight used the pronoun "boku" but then changed to "ore" as soon as he became an adult/soldier.

Another aspect of keigo, besides using the more polite forms of pronouns and verb conjugations, is putting the honorific さん (san) after people's names. Twilight does this all the time with Yor, as she does with him. However, he switches to casual speech and drops the "san" part in her name when addressing her in front of people who (supposedly) believe they're a real married couple, such as Yuri and Fiona – because it would be weird for a real couple who have been married for a year to address each other in such a formal way, especially the husband. In the below panel when Fiona visits them, he's calling her "Yor" instead of "Yor-san" and using casual speech instead of keigo.

Oddly in these situations, while he uses just "Yor" when addressing her directly, he still calls her "Yor-san" when talking about her. During Yuri's first visit for example, he calls her "Yor-san" when telling Yuri how much Anya loves her (talking to someone about her) but then calls her just "Yor" a few moments later when telling her that he'll clean up the spill (talking to her directly). It's strange to me that he wouldn't just consistently use "Yor" whether he's talking to her or about her in these situations...I'm honestly not sure if he does this intentionally or if he just slips up since he's so used to using "Yor-san" in her presence.

*UPDATE* Thank you to @dentedintheworld-blog for enlightening me with the below reply about this!

"In Japanese, when speaking to your spouse's family about your spouse, you address her/him by attaching "san" her/his name out of respect for her/his family. This is also to show her/his family that you respect your spouse. That's why Loid calls Yor with san when he talks about how much he loves Yor to Yuri."

That definitely makes sense for why Twilight switches between "Yor" and "Yor-san" in these situations.

Regardless, this is why the scene in chapter 86 is so significant – when Yor isn't present, there's no reason for him to refer to her as "Yor-san," especially in front of a fellow spy like Fiona who knows he (supposedly) shouldn't have any feelings for her. Yet, even after he just called Yuri by his full name "Yuri Briar" a moment before, he doesn't do the same for Yor and continues to call her "Yor-san" here, much to Fiona's dismay.

In the same chapter, it's also significant that he uses "ore" when addressing Yor directly in his thoughts. Even though he's not speaking out loud, I believe this is the first time he's speaking directly "to" her as Twilight and/or his true self and not as Loid Forger.

But despite all this, I think that both Loid Forger and Twilight are tatemae…they're both masks to hide the person he truly is. The person who fondly talked about his mother to Yor on the park bench, the person who genuinely expressed gratitude for her sacrifice when leaving the resort island, the person who refused to kill Yuri in a life-or-death struggle because he knew it would hurt her…that's his actual honne. But of course, the ongoing conflict of the series is that he has yet to realize this. He won't even show his honne to his closest friend, Franky. Seems like it mostly comes out in dribs and drabs during his interactions with Yor...no surprise there, lol. The man is certainly a work in progress. When he finally starts letting his "honne" show, I'm curious what form of speech he'll adopt.

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