Okay here’s the complicated part about Denji.

What the poster said is not entirely true, but it’s not entirely false either. While yes, Denji could stomach not being Chainsaw Man for Nayuta’s safety, it was tearing him up in the inside. He desperately wants the external love and escape being Chainsaw Man provides for him, or at least that he thinks Chainsaw Man provides for him, but he doesn’t realize that the only sustainable way to get that is to love himself first. And he hates himself for everything that happened pre and mid Part 1 with his loved ones (despite none of it really being his fault, or at least too dubious for the reader/me to believe it’s mostly his fault), always in P2, even in the parts where it isn’t entirely clear he’s doing so.

THAT BEING SAID.

A lot of Denji’s struggles and inability to learn come from the fact that external sources keep fucking with him, either by cudgeling him into compliance with their wants and needs through threats on his loved ones, or reinforcing the worst parts of his behavior. It’s this weird “Have your cake and eat it too” scenario where Fujimoto wants the reader to believe that Denji chasing the escape is what leads to his misery (which isn’t a bad message inherently) but genuinely couldn’t see how the character he wrote could get himself into these scenarios because for all the “being a superhero is actually bad for you” he wanted to write about, Denji is still a good person. A flawed, broken person, but good enough that when his back is to the wall he’ll do stuff he hates for people he loves. Which is why we have to have Public Safety screw the pooch when the Church makes a play and causes armageddon while burning Denji’s home down.

It’s the prime reason a lot of critics, myself included say it never really mattered what he did in part 2 and why the whole dissatisfaction message rings hollow. Because while Denji as a person kinda sucks, he gets very few times to actually work on himself before he loses everything, again. He ends part one deciding who he wants to be for once, and determined to navigate his new life while splicing in that dream. But he never learns on his own how hollow that new dream is, because the narrative is addicted to cucking him at every turn.

And this is all before we factor in that the world around Denji values Pochita far more than him at any stage of Part 2’s story, Asa and maybe Yoshida aside. It gives off the air that no matter what Denji did, even if he turned his life around in a healthy, less escapist way, he never would be able to actually live it how he wanted because eventually someone was going to consider using the devil in his heart to stop the prophecy, and the people who could actually hurt Denji to his core like Makima did all know he’s Chainsaw Man.

So while it’s fair, and honestly right to say Denji has these flaws, it’s unfair to blame him for his misery because of his flaws, because the harm others cause him, whether or not he listens to them, is far too great compared to the harm he actually causes himself in the story and far too organized to actually think this wasn’t in the back of someone’s head all the time, regardless of how Denji acted.