l o u l o u

All of this conveys a single idea. Fujimoto knows he cannot erase Chainsaw Man, that it is part of him even if another story were to unfold. That even if he had wanted to write something else, that thing would still have been Chainsaw Man.

Part 2 is a hymn to creation, an experiment that is at times incoherent and clumsy, Fujimoto’s way of conversing with his audience and drawing the conclusions he needed to draw :

Chainsaw Man isn’t really that serious… but even when he creates something else, there’s still a little bit of Chainsaw Man in it.

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.

I must admit that as a reader who read it every week, I felt a certain exhaustion and creative breakdown in Chainsaw Man, and once again, the weekly pace is responsible for that.

And if this is a time loop, call me God, but even I'm starting to doubt that it's anything other than the final chapter.

My theory is that Pochita is Denji and Denji is Pochita (they are 2, remember ?), so Pochita is no longer the only one who can decide to cease to exist by devouring himself, because by not devouring Denji, the man in Chainsaw Man persists.

So Fujimoto is following his own storyline, as Pochita wants to erase Chainsaw Man, so Chainsaw Man, the manga ends in the same way.

This leaves two options: either Chainsaw Man will continue under another title with Denji still as the protagonist, meaning a part 3 without Chainsaw Man in the title. Or Denji will be able to bring Pochita back and thus force Chainsaw Man to continue.