#csm 164

I accept that the last arc can be read as comic, but you have to push the analysis further; every situation, every comic spring, pursues a theme: identity.

While it had been raised, questioned, it's in this arc that Fujimoto announces that this time we're in the dissection phase.

Denji is accompanied by characters of different narrative rank to enable this operation: a former enemy (still current, but belonging to part 1), a current enemy (introduced in part 2), a potential lover, a guy who idolizes part of his identity, and someone a little more out of touch with everything that's going on.

Everything is there to talk about identity, from the fact that Asa's high-school girl outfit is an advantage for going unnoticed, to the fact that she's stumbling.

Because this way of portraying Asa isn't the right one, since she's a teenager who's always resisted fitting in at her high school.

The guillotine is not insignificant either. It's not to be analyzed as something innocuous - there were plenty of potential demons - but Fujimoto chose ultra-symbolism.

For the guillotine has been manipulated by men of all political persuasions, and is also the symbol of a France seeking to redefine itself.

Above all, it's a symbol of a changing world.

And the rules of the world into which the characters fit are changing.

Fami's struggle against death is one of the first cogs in this change.

Stripping the guards of their clothing is also a way of removing their authority through their uniforms.

The high school girls' uniforms, on the other hand, had the advantage of symbolizing innocence and candor, and of not drawing attention to themselves.

The guards' uniforms contained their authority, so undressing them is enough.

Finding Denji cut up also heralds what's to come, as all the characters help him to literally rebuild his life.

If Asa learns who Chainsaw Man is from Denji's severed head, it's also Fujimoto's way of punishing his main characters.

Asa had always conceived of Chainsaw Man as an evil symbol, a demon for whom she felt no respect or consideration.

So, presenting her with a severed head is always reminiscent of the guillotine: the guilty party's head, presented to the people.

Because Chainsaw Man, before being a hero, is a culprit.

Just as the greatest revolutionaries glorified by the early revolutionaries ended up on the guillotine.

Above all, Fujimoto punishes Denji, because Denji's dream, the only thing he had about his identity - the power to reveal himself - has been taken away from him.

Denji didn't present himself, he was presented as a hunted beast

If Yoru and Katana Man are trying to help Chainsaw Man, it's because without the bloody, invincible enemy that is Chainsaw Man, they lose their objective.

The way they both present themselves from the start is through a desire for revenge

If the beast that would allow them to savor this vengeance is not in state, then all falls away.

What you're witnessing is not a humorous transition arc, but a pause in the work's own narrative.

Because its main character no longer accepts pretending to be Chainsaw Man

So the work stops and starts again from the beginning

What does Denji want to eat?

And what could he have eaten already?

The most obvious response to a Denji who refuses to rebuild himself as the person he used to be, and to whom he no longer wishes to resemble, is to grant him what he desires, since what defines this life before is precisely the fact that he doesn't get what he wants, that he stagnates, and that everything is denied to him, even his own identity.

Sex is something Denji is banking on, basing all his hopes on, since what he's experiencing doesn't please him, so surely the answer must lie in what he hasn't experienced, right? His reasoning is as simple as that. If sex is the foundation of existence, then it also settles existential problems.

It's a disillusionment, an obsession for a teenager, who has been denied the status of child so much and is now obsessed with this """"passage to adulthood"""" because everything would make everything so much more coherent.

Sex is also an element of incessant blackmail, but one for which Denji is willing to put himself at risk because it's his only hope, yet another unknown physical sensation, yet another need to be satisfied.

Denji takes up this objective knowing full well that what he's missing once again is someone, a loved one, to protect. For the old Denji loves, tries to protect, is trapped in Chainsaw Man's infernal cycle of suffering. If he is to return to the way he was, then he must also learn to love again, and to love others.

But love isn't visible; Denji only expresses himself in terms of needs.

The need to be loved and the need to have sex are two different needs. Denji doesn't seek one through the other, he only grasps one.

This conclusion on sex sums up this arc a little, this pretext for making Denji out to be an idiotic character, obsessed with sex as a poorly-written character with subversive aims. It's not about falling into the pitfall of a puppy looking for love.

It's about a boy who has long since stopped accepting that he has to go on living, and who projects himself through his non-experience to find meaning in it.

Me watching Asa and Denji

ALSO, THIS!!! PLEASE I HOPE FUJIMOTO MAKES THEM CANON