My thoughts on the chainsaw man finale: part 1
I've let the last chapter simmer a little bit and now i feel like i can share my thoughts on the finale of part 2 and chainsaw man as whole but for now I'll focus on the finale:
First things out the way: I did not enjoy this finale as both a end to part 2 or chainsaw man period, mind you that when the second to last chapter hit and we got the notice that the series was ending i immediately tempered my expectations heavily.
But oooh boy, first off, the timeline reset. I'm not entirely opposed to the idea nor am i'm reacting as heavily as other people that imply the series pulled a "it was all a dream" but man do i feel like the story did not earn that at all, we simply smash cut from a fight into the afterlife? jjk style where pochita gives a very rushed final speech before eating himself.
To which i'm genuinely asking, how did that give pochita seemingly the power to control the timeline? If all that happened was that pochita and chainsaws got erased and we got to see all the effects that had on the world it would be one thing but not only do chainsaws still exist so does pochita? And he's still denji's heart?? He does say that he has no clue what will happen once he eats himself and people are taking that as confirmation that pochita was never the chainsaw devil but honestly i'm taking that more as a cop out answer of "well ANYTHING can happen".
but we're here denji is back in the shack with only one eye and completely alone and we cut to the zombie devil fight where instead of denji becoming chainsaw man power saves him and then nayuta instead of makima shows up and forces then into the public safety which ok, i'm not gonna lie i was really happy seeing nayuta and especially power again but it immediately downed on me how hollow it felt, it wasn't a catharsis of a arc being completed, or a good twist, it felt more like a cameo, a "hey look your faves are here for one last time!" which does nothing for me in the terms of the narrative that was being formed.
And then we cut to denji meeting asa again and saving her from killing bucky which segues into my thoughts about asa in the finale and her role in the story as a whole.
That is to say i'm so, so disappointed in how asa was handled in like the entire last stretch of part 2, she went from no joke, a contender for one of the best, if not, THE best female character in a shonen ever (and easily the best teenager one) to essentially getting sidelined for yoru, which, speaking of yoru we didn't even got to see her and asa's last moments together and the very last moments of asa in the story where given to us from denji's pov not hers which is.. urgh.
and then we end with power and denji walking off wondering what they're gonna eat which is not at all a bad last panel for chainsaw man as a whole and not even a bad send off to denji but it's preceded by all that came right before which makes it feel like another nothing ball.
and so part 2 ends with denji never learning to confront his hyper sexuality, never growing past basic needs and asa never coming to terms with well, literally anything that was set up as a struggle for her character, everything including part 1 gets completely erased and is rendered null and void.
And this as a whole makes all of part 2 feel so much worse for me, which aside the obvious "literally none of this even mattered and it was all erased" i was a staunch believer in fujimoto's vision and was sure he had a point he was trying to reach with everything in part 2.
The problems that people had and that i felt too, of the plot feeling meandering and aimless, the endless repetition of hammering the point that denji is sex obsessed, the downright misery porn that him and asa got submitted to constantly, i always believed that would all serve a point narrative and even tough it might not stick the landing, it would at least come full circle and we would see the necessity of all of it.
I did not get that, i did not get that at all, not only was the plot just genuinely aimless, not only was denji's hyper sexuality just being reinstated on scenes where he humiliates himself over and over, not only do both him and asa get put through the wringer for seemingly no reason other than to reinstate the already stated cruelty of the world they live in. It was all for literally no reason since once again it all gets reset and wiped away at the end so what was even the point of both of them as characters?
And regarding what i said in my previous post, i still think chainsaw man's female cast overall is way better than the average shonen's (not that that is high praise or a impressive achievement) but i still feel very disappointed with their use (or non use) in part 2 overall.
Asa like i said, started wonderfully before getting sidelined (on all honesty she started getting sidelined once denji became the focus again) , Nayuta got actually unironically fridged (as in the actual definition of the trope) halfway through part 2 which i'm honestly still shocked fujimoto did that, i, like almost everyone else, was convinced she wasn't dead or would be revived somehow, quanxi showed up mostly for, i don't know, part 1 fanservice? She then got shoved into a meat locker and was never seen or mentioned again, reze never even showed up which. I'm not asking for reze to come in be a major part of the story, have a romantic rivalry with asa yada yada. But she is alive in part 2 and all the other hybrids show up so why did just she got omitted and relegated to one flashback from denji? And i don't even want to comment on fumiko because i straight up don't know what fujimoto was trying with her man.
And that's not even bringing up characters like death who was the prominent active threat of the entire part only to be quickly disposed off so that yoru could be the final big bad and true famine was barely even a character and more of a gag.
but on all honestly that disappointment is not just contained to the female characters, like genuinely what was yoshida's whole deal? We where constantly teased with him being more than he seemed, him having more knowledgeable than he should have or at the very least him having conflicting feelings about what he is doing to denji and asa but we never get a resolution for that instead he is just killed off in a almost mirror of how nayuta was in a way that was almost downright comedic in it's execution.
I could got on about other things like kishibe not even getting the honor of a single mention or aki not showing up in the finale but this post is as big as it is already so my closing thoughts:
It really felt to me that fujimoto was just completely burned out on the series as a whole not only from the honestly nonsensical way the plot was going to how almost bitter this finale felt, also a personal opinion of mine is that fujimoto never really got adjusted to the weekly release schedule (which to be fair is absolute hellish oh my god japan needs to get it's shit together) and that was felt in both the writing and the art.
And so part 2 ends with honestly no real feeling of conclusion or satisfaction to me just a slap dash "happy ending" that closes off or wraps up pretty much nothing that was set up in the entire series other than denji and power being together again.
That is not to say i didn't have a good time with part 2, far from it some of it's chapter in a vacuum are amazing, with the standout in my mind being yoru declaring her love for the us and it's warmongering, that was some genuinely evocative imagery but again it all just feels so brought down by this ending.
