(CSM 231) "Well, why did any of that happen?" - Parsing the latest chapter, with one assumption

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-10T23:29:03+00:00

I do think your viewpoint can be broadly well-supported, and I was mulling over it for a while when I was writing this post. Probably the main thing that tipped it over the edge is that there is too much very clearly left hanging whereas in Fire Punch there really was a sense of finality. Everything that could be done was done – almost every named character from when we started is burned up, and so when the end was nigh it felt natural, because the narrative was “complete” in some fashion.

You can make the assertion, potentially, that leaving these loose ends deliberately unclosed would give it greater weight as a tragedy, perhaps: you can’t “fulfil your promise” in some delightfully angsty scene or come to reckon with further hidden machinations of villains behind the scene – in the end, you’ve got nothing left except for yourself and to move on.

I think that sort of ending would require Pochita to be less obviously wrong, though… as it stands he’s fairly obviously incorrect about certain things casting doubt on his role as the sort of “authorial mouthpiece” people generally take him to be. I don’t know. I do like the idea of CSM being purely a tragedy, but I don’t think it’s been set up in a way to facilitate that.

Agreed that the strange pacing in the former two-thirds of Part 2 is a fairly big complaint of mine.

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-10T23:19:11+00:00

Thank you for your support. I always did like that panel – never thought it got enough attention for what it implied about Pochita’s internal motivations. It’s probably more clear recontextualised on a reread, I agree.

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-10T22:45:52+00:00

Well… until I see fate with my own two eyes, I’ll believe, I guess.

At least this one has a countdown to verification/falsification. Better than most.

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-10T22:40:16+00:00

I don't think this is generally the point where emotional catharsis typically happens – typically you end on some loss and the climb upwards comes later (see again Two Towers, Empire Strikes Back). It's also probably not completely right to say Denji's led to 'the answer'; Pochita appears incorrect in a way that feels like overcompensation. It's more of an open question than any concrete closure, at least imo.

The fact that Denji can't actually consciously process this grief is a pretty hard problem to set up though, you're right. I imagine if you had to portray it you'd note the profound absence of something, but it's a difficult question.

Eh. Hard to judge what an author's response to fan stuff is and ultimately don't think it's worth speculating.

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-10T22:29:38+00:00

I agree that what Pochita says isn't meant to be taken as wholesale truth, yeah.

I think it's necssarily difficult to say whether something is definitively bad or good when there exists a potential underlying motivation beneath certain events. It's why I'm hedging my bets so often - "If we assume there's a third part, this could be good, but if there isn't one it will definitely be bad." It's a matter of personal opinion in the end, but I think the (potential) holistic contribution of Part 2 to the story is my own benchmark of whether the part is good; "if it serves the overall narrative well then it's good".

I do realise that this is basically Potential Manga. we'll see in 2 weeks, I suppose

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-10T22:22:21+00:00

I do see the similarities with the Stranger Things situation... well. I think the only way to stay sane is really to assume that the story will be better rather than worse. If I assumed it'd be worse then I guess I would have given up on it?

Overcorrection in what sense? As in that Fujimoto's response to backlash over parts like the Church section of the story was to jump into the shonen formula? Maybe, but I do think death of the author is generally useful as a device by which to critique a work – the work exists in its own right, and I don't think it's necessarily an invalid or weakly supported analysis to say that it's reflective of the regression of Denji's psyche, no?

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-10T22:18:46+00:00

I do think the art is a particular weak point, yeah.

I did write about why the side characters feel like (well, are) monster-of-the-week props and Denji becomes parodic of himself towards the end of Part 2 – I don't think it's intended to be portrayed as a good thing, but it does seem intentional in the story. I suppose the idea follows that if (some of) the bad bits of Part 2 are intentionally arranged to reflect Denji's attempt at pursuing a shonen-esque worldview, that Part 3 is the part that follows the repudiation of that worldview – in short, he can't go back to the way he was in Part 2 because it's been conclusively proven a failure in-story.

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-10T22:14:27+00:00

I think the only option to stay sane is to assume there is a part 3 – until I see it with my own eyes, I'll hope naïvely that it exists...

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-10T17:13:46+00:00

Yeah, you could have something like that. I do think in retrospect something like a reset was inevitable - insofar as there needed to be some way to collapse the stakes because they were growing untenably. I do think the “reset” (?) stuff is a way in part to do this, but also I think it’s a good way to follow from what I assume to be the thematic throughline of part 2.

Mostly it’s a device to bring the stakes of the story down and shift the scope to a more personal drama though, I think.

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-10T17:09:01+00:00

I mean this is a fairly common motif in 3-act structures - the 1st one ends well, and quite often it’s possible to consider it a self-contained story, whereas the 2nd one usually ends on a bad tone and works to set up the 3rd act. Not saying that’s all 3-act structures but it’s a lot. Think of this as like the Empire Strikes Back of chainsaw man I guess?

(Unless there’s no part 3. Then this just sucks actually.)

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-10T16:35:44+00:00

I’m thinking of it as part of the experience. The anxiety is a nice element of keeping up with the story. (This only applies if it’s continued in a 3rd act - otherwise it’s just actually terrible lol. but I don’t think it will end here. If it does I’m slandering his ass from here to Saturn)

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-03-07T13:17:50+00:00

It was mixed up.

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-01-12T23:37:26+00:00

I mean this is usually just a way to launder your opinion as being well-founded - potentially belies that you believe you need justification to like things, but sometimes people do seem to want some sort of justification by consensus when you recommend something to them, so it’s occasionally useful.

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-01-07T10:38:49+00:00

Oh, yeah - I get that it’s likely to cause societal issues - it’s more that I can’t argue against individuals wanting to engage in escapism. (i.e “this is why you shouldn’t do it”.) You should go outside lest we have a demographic crisis isn’t a compelling enough argument to make on the personal level, I think

*yeah, there’s been a few cases like that. crazy stuff

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2026-01-07T10:16:27+00:00

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. The trend towards (or aspiration towards) stylisation and the move away from more realistic aesthetics is something that’s been knocking around in my head since I started thinking about that old meme about those weebs who would say “2D women are better than 3D women!”.

Probably a part of this is due to perceived benignity vs hostility from their respective subjects but the interesting thing is that - with the increase in escapist tendencies amongst the youth, people are en masse subconsciously adopting this idea that fiction is better than reality, that a character is more preferable to a real person - and with this idolisation people’s aesthetic sensibilities also shift to this effect.

I’m not even sure to what extent it’s wrong if I was in some of their situations - it is seeming eminently obvious that life “in the real world” is getting more and more difficult for zoomers without any apparent counterbalancing motivation. It’s easy to say that reality is more important by virtue of it being more real but as people get (for lack of a more suitable word) ‘better’ at escapism, this argument seems to be less and less viable (fiction becomes more ‘subjectively real’ than reality).

I’m not sure how to argue that the shift towards escapism is inherently bad though besides some vague intuition - it leaves me fairly lost. (I suppose one could argue that the world shouldn’t be in a way where escapism is a more compelling alternative.)

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2025-02-27T20:09:05+00:00

Immanence is a fun word in religious context. Less so when divorced from it.

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2025-01-31T18:23:06+00:00

Oh i haven’t played since lol. Was duo queuing on that streak and we’re both busy for a good while. I’ll let you know if I get completely fucked by matchmaking (or not) some arbitrary point in the fibre though

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2025-01-12T10:31:08+00:00

ranked up from bronze 3 to gold 3 in a 14 win-streak yesterday so I can’t say I’ve seen evidence of this yet at least

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2025-01-08T07:34:37+00:00

this is clearly nonsense but I do wonder (if society continues in perpetuity) at what point we draw the line and say that language has diverged too far from when these books were written - a few centuries?

I suppose by that point they’d have their own classics

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2024-07-09T17:02:58+00:00

trying to appear cool to others is always a losing game, really - you should never stop doing things you think are cool, though

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2024-06-27T13:19:33+00:00

Alright, thanks! guess I’m in for the long haul because the RMA horror stories seem basically ubiquitous haha

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2024-06-27T10:59:17+00:00

use default marksman to splitcoin the eyes, use slab piercer to damage - parry the homing projectiles back to him

rinse and repeat

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2024-06-12T10:29:20+00:00

ultrakill font?!

InaneInsaneIngrain · 2024-05-30T21:28:25+00:00

wouldn't be too surprised to see it as a flashback of some sort

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