#csm 166

The golden rule in Chainsaw Man is to focus on the title, since it's the key to reading the story.

Rain, Brothel, Removal seem to be three absurdly unrelated elements, and Fujimoto likes to put it that way, because the challenge for the reader is to find a way of reading that links them together.

This chapter is funny as well as disturbing, deeply sad, and in itself this collection of sensations just makes you uncomfortable, since the tone is always reversed, and the protagonist himself refuses to allow his situation to be a comic spring.

Fujimoto confirms an interpretation that is fundamental to understanding Denji: his character thinks only in terms of short-term objectives, incapable of projecting himself, just as he responds only to the satisfaction of needs without being able to verbalize and think about his unhappiness in a more abstract way.

Denji, for example, isn't thinking about whether sex is actually a solution to his problems, no, it's more concrete than that: he's thinking about whether he's masturbated recently.

Another piece of evidence is the rain. I've always thought that when it rains in Fujimoto's works, it's proof that no lies are being told.

Whether in Look Back with a silent victory, the school moment with Reze and Denji.

But that's not what we're interested in here, because there's no doubt that Denji is sincere, or at least the rain only shows us that he's sincerely desperate.

There's a subtlety....

Denji complains that he only thinks with his dick, but there's another, more philosophical and certainly less funny idea behind this: Denji only thinks through his body.

The rain, the amputation, the brothel - they're all proof that Denji only thinks with his senses.

Denji thought the brothel was the solution to his distress, it's when it started raining that he collapsed, as if the change in weather had evoked his own emotional change. Yoru's solution is amputation, another physical sensation and solution.

Amputation is a solution all the more symbolic because it's antithetical to what Denji is: a demon man capable of regeneration.

To amputate is in itself not to regenerate, and not to regenerate is in itself to be more human.

What distinguishes us from animals (although science relativizes this) is the way we think about our own emotions, something Denji is incapable of doing, or at least has great difficulty in doing.

This doesn't mean he can't verbalize it at all, but when he evokes, he evokes a sensation, a dish (a shitty hamburger, a steak, a ton of sex).

Even when he wants to be loved, Denji formulates it in the form of wanting his heart, almost organically.

No one wants Denji's heart because it's gone

And it makes sense, because Pochita has reassembled his entire body, except for Denji's heart, which has literally been left in that garbage can.

That's why, when Pochita lets Denji access his feelings, the place is symbolized by a garbage can.

When Denji asks Pochita to wake up to find Nayuta, Pochita asks him where his legs are, because Denji's only function is to be a body.

And now everything makes sense again

When Denji spoke his dream to Pochita, being Chainsaw Man, I think there was a certain feeling in every reader: what exactly does it change?

What if it changes nothing? It's normal for Denji not to be able to project himself in the long term, as he should symbolically listen to his heart.

Denji's inability to have a dream, a goal for the future, is symbolized by him and Pochita as children.

It doesn't mean that Pochita is an antagonist (although that could be cool), but that Denji and Pochita are prisoners of their own situations.

Denji doesn't have access to his heart, but Pochita is contractually bound to what Denji wants.

This is also why, when Denji reproaches himself, it's his child self who's addressing him, because the only way to reproach himself, to feel guilty, is symbolized by his old self, the Denji that Pochita may have known. Just as Denji doesn't have access to his heart, Pochita has difficulty gaining access to the person Denji has become, all of which only leads to stagnation.

Denji as a child is also the symbol of a scumbag, the remnant of a lost heart, always dressed in poor, dirty clothes, a past that Denji seeks to escape, but a past that is the only time Pochita has been able to get to know Denji.

I know it's a pretty crazy line, but it's precisely because Denji is Chainsaw Man - a being both fused and disconnected - that he thinks with his dick lol

Saving Chainsaw Man by killing Chainsaw Man has never been a truer statement

Chainsaw Man is Denji's prison but also his only hope

A cage

feeling normal about chapter 166

[desc. - asa and denji stand on either side of the frame, ass on the left and denji on the right. asa’s arms are crossed and denji is holding out a peace sign. there’s a chibi fami at the bottom. the whole image follows the “goth trans” meme formatting. the text reads as follows:

asa: my top surgery went really well.

denji: that’s great! my bottom surgery is next week.

both: i can’t believe we’re both hybrids and trans!

human brain: ah yes, the point where denji finally confronts his impulses and its intrusiveness. the point where it's finally no longer a punchline, where denji realises how it was a mask, to distract him from the horrors of his past and present life, and how it destroys him from the inside. truly, fujimoto excels in writing this about his characters.

These panels are so fucking interesting.

The alianation from his peers feels heavy. Denji's expression is distressed while trying to put them by his side but the boys are just there. Quiet and expressionless, not reacting to his emotions, proving him wrong with their silence. Also, they are dressed in a "normal" way and their hats even makes them look a little bit formal, like they had a uniforms (a military one for example. The hats just have that vibe). They also look similar, like a copy, giving a sense of uniformity. Meanwhile, Denji has just a sleeveless shirt and some shorts which someone on twitter pointed out is just the clothes kid denji was wearing some chapters ago. This could mean that Denji is still in a trauma state rooted on his childhood, in contrast to the other boys (forgot their names woops) who got to grown up normally.

Also, I think this is the first time Denji talks to other men to ask for some form of solidarity or support, appart from Aki. This is clear not only by the dialogue, but also with how Fumi is removed from the picture. This is between them, in a little old "this is between men" (cringe) way and "girls wouldn't understand". He tries to use language usually used in men's conversations and yet, Denji still fails to connect with them. His first called for help to other men is unanswered, as well as his attempt to say that he is just like them. The boys' uniformity evident their shared clothes makes it look like Denji is in fact different to the society and its members as a whole, even if he tries to use its gender concepts and language. At rhe end, Denji is no like the "normal men" of his age. And, if we connect this with the clothes he is wearing, we could say that he can't be like the others because of his upbringing.