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[Discussion] Chainsawman #174
(hexbear.net)
Okay, so I never really wrote it down, but what I really really really love about CSM is how Fujimoto takes really simple, easily understood metaphors and just uses them to brutally illustrate our condition under late capitalism
Making literal deals with devils...
Just, man, this manga is just so peak
It's incredible, isn't it? This whole series has been like "look folks you might think you know where this is going but I assure you, you absolutely do not" and we consistently fail to learn this lesson. People construct all sorts of theories about things, speak confidently about narrative arcs, all that shit, and the Fujimoto is like, "yeah but what if Denji got a sort of accidental handjob and then mouths stop existing" and everybody is like "uuuuuhhhhhhh what is happening." I love it.
The wildest part is that despite all the swerves everything still fits in a narrative/thematic sense
Spoilers for this chapter
Denji has the power to change the world lying dormant within him, the metaphor literalized in the story as a supernatural ability to ontologically change reality. Everyone on this forum knows that the powerful won’t bat an eye to sacrifice as many innocents as needed to prolong their grasp on power, but we’ve gone from the fucking around to the finding out stage as we see the prime minister’s office lose control of the situationAbsolutely, that's why the series works I think. Fujimoto always goes where nobody can predict but thematically it all makes perfect sense. He's not like an edgelord just trying to do surprising things with no thematic reason. Everything connects, it's all intentional.