Kertchu’s Blog

the tone of part 1 and 2 converges on the hopelessness of a broken system that offers no opportunities for resurgence or hope for the oppressed, but there's something crucial that this ending lacks, while part 1 does very well: the resilience and perseverance to try again. and it's curious that even with a world reset, the message completely fails. denji did reach such a conclusion like this, despite losing makima, power, and aki, he decides to keep living because they exist within him, in his memories of what was once his happiness, in his very being (the cannibalization of his love for makima), he decides to atone makima's sins out of love of the people he lost, his memories are both his torment and his strenght.

by subjecting denji to oblivion, one cannot obtain a resolution or moral from a story or protagonist without memories. denji is completely stripped of his agency and forced to start from scratch. until the final chapter, this could be interpreted as retribution for his obsession with being chainsaw man (an idea that never fully convinced me; pre-Church Arc, denji's greatest desire was companionship -> using the hyperbole of having lots of sex, eating steak every day, and having many girlfriends due to his limited worldview and self-perception—being chainsaw man was a means to that end) seen with his breakdown in-front kishibe and kobeni. but this idea also falls apart because the final chapter is pointless fanservice. if the message was to destroy the cycle of violence (associated with the vindication of yoru/war devil who destroyed everything in her path), it's a stance that only rests on the themes and completely fails to grasp the execution or autonomy of its counterparts. denji doesn't choose to break the cycle; he's forced into it. the sacrifice is a punishment imposed by pochita, until literally next chapter is rewarded with the precariousness of a reality tailored to the emotional needs of the concept that the protagonist once was. whatever happens to this new denji introduced in the last chapter, it isn't of my concerning because this isn't my 230+ chapters long developed denji.

and if that were the point—"pochita saved Denji from the Chainsaw Man Curse"—does that mean that victims of abusive and oppressive systems, people trapped in their addictions, are beyond saving? that no matter how hard they try, they'll never get better, that the only thing that can do it's to wait for a miracle—a deus ex machina? there are many stories with similar endings; take homunculus, for example. while it's not a favorite of mine, the protagonist's self-imposed tragedy was built throughout the story, and his descent into despair was under his own volition, it is believable and feels like a conclusion, a very bitter one. but this ending doesn't even fit being considered a tragedy or bittersweet because, once again, denji is handed over to his other half on a silver platter—power— without any effort on his behalf to go find her, as stipulated in his contract, to continue his deadbet life in PS. but since it's nayuta instead of makima, he can't be groomed or traumatized! it doesn't feel earned at all. there are no consequences for a story that its fans insatiably baffled about being serious or "more than generic shonen" covering such crude topics as political propaganda, corruption, SA, STDs, child exploitation, suicide; seriousness was demanded in its narrative and they delivered nickelodeon.

and even if we were to say that the point of the ending is simply to free denji and let him live happily ever after, that the ending "shouldn't be conclusive" (whatever that means, seriously, what the hell), this reality still doesn't guarantee happiness for this version of denji at all, and continues to trample on the themes established in part 1 and the beginning of part 2. both good and bad movies deserve to exist because without a point of reference we can't recognize the other. so, eliminating the bad, the bad memories that evoked the trauma and the vicious cycle Denji was, and yet, within them he found happiness and life lessons (because before any pain there was love there), is completely contrary to the original message. and to argue that part 2 proves that motto true means you're admitting that the ending was bad and the ending of part 1 was "the good movie." there's no way around lol

bomb girl arc introduces the central theme of csm, the dilemma of the city mouse versus the country mouse. it's the first time it's mentioned that denji truly lives an infair and abusive life, that a boy his age has the right, simply by virtue of existing, to an education. but they want us to believe that denji is much happier going back to being PS dog, fragile, mortal and with no protection other than his contract with power: a expendable agent who will die on the most random, even remotely challenging mission, if his heart-disease doesn't kill him sooner. do they expect me to be satisfied with an ending where this "denji" will have a long, fulfilling, and happy life? denji was always a city mouse until the very end. does that mean the city mouse is doomed without salvation? and it's better to be a country mouse all along? there are other endings that illustrate this concept of breaking the cycle better (one being worse doesn't mean the other is good lol): breaking a stake in favor of the evangelion rebuilds, shinji breaks the cycle of the eva curse by rewriting reality, eliminating the problem that the evangelions represent both in-universe and thematically speaking (for evangelion fans, we know this is the epitome of metanarrative because of everything the Evangelion legacy means to gainax, anno, and otaku culture). in this case, it does feel like a conclusion because destroying the cycle was shinji's decision, and it was alluded to multiple times throughout the film by the cast as a possibility. In csm, the possibility of reboots or time travel was never established; pochita only resorts to erasing concepts and modifying history to justify the absence of the devoured concept, as was the case when the ear devil was devoured but radios and telephones were still created because the auditory organ system continued existing.

"but what solution did you expect in a reality where death was erased and insects devoured people alive?" I can't do fujimoto's work for him, but I'm sure there were better alternatives than erasing all the characters' memories without destroying the narrative threads of csm for no necessary reason. just like the now absurdity of part 1's ending, which was the reason part 2 was built: denji adopting and raising the new control devil to fulfill her dream of being loved and having a family. makima was written as a villain because of the exploitation of her control devil nature, robbing her of opportunities to form organic and meaningful bonds with other people, a product of how public safety raised her like an object alien to feelings and a childhood. well, all that is now a lie, because this nayuta is fine and normal, she behaves like a normal spoiled kid of her age. kishibe didn't have to kidnap her from china to save her, nor did denji have to sacrifice so much to make her happy, since seems like nayuta was always guaranteed to turn out normal anyway. If denji never really needed to go to school, and the control devil didn't need a family to be happy, then what was the point for part 2 to exists?

world-building was never the author's strong suit, but we've seen that pochita's powers only erase the concept he devours from the world and memories. there was no established reason for any of this to happen; this ending only provides the symbolism of an apparent conclusion using the theme of "dropping the chainsaw" to save asa as a human, erasing ALL other narratives. the fact that he drops the chainsaw to "save" asa means nothing because this denji was never chainsaw man since his memories were erased. and thematically, it doesn't stand on its own either, since denji never decided to drop the chainsaw of his own free will; it was because pochita forced him to. are you telling me that makima was always right and that denji will always be happy as long as others make decisions for him? "he dropped the chainsaw"—this denji isn't the same one we know; there's no merit in it. denji had an evolution in part 1; up until the penultimate chapter, was cyclical, this ending erases the cycle. denji cannot return to the beginning (complete another cycle) if the circular path is erased, nor can he break free from it if the cycle never existed. pochita was nothing more than an intervention to give denji the easy way out, fitting for a devil, not for a human very serious story.

nor is it meritorious that he saved asa in a timeline that, to begin with, makes no sense (mentioned at the end). asa's arc never called for her to stand helpless and getting saved by other people; moreover, she wanted to take control of her body stolen by the war devil, and make decisions for her own benefit, to live selfishly, to acknowledge and act upon her need to form meaningful relationships with others. she was the original protagonist of this part, she getting flanderized into being denji's ALMOST love interest (which she never even managed to become since he preferred to have sex with yoru using asa's body as a means) was the premature indicator of the drop of quality and bad omen of this ending coming. her character is erased and dragged back to the beginning, and she is "saved" by a man. there is no resolution to her drives. asa doesn't have a conclusion as a character, unless you believe that her never having tripped with bucky was what she deserved, in which case she should never have been a character beyond chapter 1. asa never managed to connect with her classmates or make friends during the og timeline, she never made a decision without yoru's intervention, she never managed to save denji, she accomplished nothing. the only thing she gained was becoming the body that denji believed he earned to fuck.

I don't understand what fujimoto was trying to achieve with yoru. I see many people blaming her lack of intelligence and impulsiveness, ultimately concluding that "war is stupid," and that's it. anyone who thinks this way is a symptom of our times of anti-intellectualism and arrogance, it's an incredibly childish and tasteless view. would you be capable to say to, for example, the lebanese people that fighting is "stupid and meaningless" when their sovereignty is threatened? war steals identities and autonomy and hides behind slogans of freedom. all of this was more or less present in yoru, but it didn't land to anything at the end. you might think, "okay, the concept of war and violence destroyed denji and therefore the concept of Chainsaw Man," but it lacks execution, climax, interactions, and above all, logic within its universe. yoru's main motivation was to create an eternal war and never be forgotten because pochita's erasure powers were her greatest nightmare; she desired transcendence. well, that was never mentioned again, and her character was indeed completely erased so that no one even remembers her, with her last words about wanting to have sex with denji.

and among the fanservice inconsistencies, there are many:

why does the timeline mix the beginning of season 1 and the beginning of season 2 if there's a one-year difference between them?

how did the blood devil come back to life inside a body that's already dead—power's body—and how does nayuta exist without makima? If the dead come back to life, why doesn't she? the argument that makima can't exist without pochita is completely reductive to one of the best characters in the series. she's a devil independent of pochita's existence; she's a character in her own right.

It took power two whole arcs to get used to and like denji. since when does power like dogs?

did the gun devil happened? aki, himeno, angel devil and others are alive?

what the fuck was the pochita devil if chainsaws still exist?

did all the concepts he devoured reappear? that is, did WW and nuclear bombs never disappear, and therefore, did War Devil never cease to be the most powerful of the sisters? and if so,

what happened to yoru?

and of course, the biggest flaw will always be the side characters, morti lil'D whatever, fami, the hybrids except barem, the school devil hunters except yuko because she died early, none of them sticks to me. yoshida's conclusion stills feels very weird.

Edit, decided to add an alt version because I kinda liked the monochrome!