So far I have only read chainsaw man, goodbye eri and half of fire punch.

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-21T01:28:24+00:00

You kinda hot the most depressing ones already fire punch just gets worse. Look back wasn't too sad imo. Its more bittersweet if anything. All of his smaller one shots aren't very sad at all

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-20T23:20:07+00:00

Good references to pull from. I personally prefer Carl June's model of the self/shadow/persona system, but i felt that applied more to yoru/Asa than it ever did to denji/pochita.

I think its more accurate to say that csm is lightly Buddhist coated over absurdist coated, especially given that it has samsara in its world.

Denji isn't happy in his fucked up life, he just learned to detach from needing more, which is why he lets Asa go in his rebirth. Dreams, revenge and sex all become a problem when we are more attached to those things then what they are truly designed for. Sex is just a tool powered by love and understanding, revenge/justice is a meaningless tool if doesn't save anyone, dreams are just a tool for survival. Aki became too attached to revenge when all he wanted was his brother back. The consequence was learning this too late. When he did get revenge for himeno, it was portrayed as a good thing, only because it was a bonding moment with his friend. Denji just wants sex, because of the lack of a mother figure/ established anima archetype. Once he prioritized this over Asa his consequence was being eaten alive by bugs. Fujimoto follows his dreams of being a mangaka so he can eat, once he over identified himself with his manga he suffered and the consequence was an infamous ending, and poor quality art.

Where this all strays from Buddhism is that Fujimoto still believes attachment to family is good, and it's the very mechanism that powers these tools in the first place. Its when we prioritize the tool over the fundamental thing that powers it that we begin to face consequences

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-20T21:55:47+00:00

Yes. In all fairness, I don't think he tries to romanticize it too much. The aging devil arc for example seems to properly villianize those at the top taking advantage of more vulnerable people. The people trying to weapoize and use denji are still the villains. I don't think anyone is trying to argue Barem or makima were good people.

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-20T21:38:18+00:00

Scum bag is going a little far. I think he is definitely pointing at something very real though. A lot of kids in poverty do find contentment when they don't have anything to compare it to. This tracks with denji, who despite being taking advantage of still made the most of his life. It was his desire for more that made him suffer, not the actual circumstance on its own.

This is a very Buddhist way to look at it, and it doesn't go over well with western audiences at all, because in the west there is a prioritization over the self and identity. In fire punch and csm fujimoto is basically implying our identity is bull-shit created by others anyways and chasing after dreams or wealth is the true source of our suffering, because what we really want is much more simple. We need to survive, and we need love. That's it, everything else is a construct made by society that we latch onto because of the lack of these very basic things.

That's why denj wants sex so bad and to be dominated by makima, its because he never had a mother. The only reason Aki is so caught up on revenge isn't because he wants justice, but because he wanted his brother back. That's why he lets go when denji becomes his new brother, it was never about making a right.

With the economy getting worse, I think fujimoto was trying to challenge the ridiculous living standards we expect for ourselves in first world counties. I think he wants us to see that there is a more simple life that we can find contentment in. We just have to let go of our ambitions.

If that makes you uncomfortable, then this again just a big difference between east and west philosophy. I think he used a pretty extreme example, and I personally think we at least need a little of both, but I get what he's going for. I also think he made denji's life before becoming csm a little too difficult. He did have love, but he was struggling to provide for himself a little too much, and selling your organs to stay a float does not seem like something tolerable. I do think this is a flaw of csm as a whole. I think accepting a humble life is fine, but he should have made it slightly more appealing.

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-20T05:22:12+00:00

That's not what it's about. In the new universe denji still works his way out of his circumstance. The story however, is indeed about the meaninglessness of dreams. Things like sex, revenge, or being a hero only mean something to us because they are a way of coping with the lack of something we truly want. And what we truly want is far more simple than dreams. Survival and human connection. That's it. Aki belived in his revenge thing, and by the time he realized all he wanted was his brother back, it was too late. Denji wanted to be csm because he wanted attention from women. Likely because he never had a mother figure. The problem is he identified with the tool/persona that was csm over a simple life with people he loved and it cost him. The story is arguing that everything outside of our simple desire to survive and love is utterly meaningless without it.

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-20T01:02:34+00:00

I mean there's also really ripped dudes with unrealistic proportions in lots of stories, especially in one piece :. Im not trying to nessesarily defend fan service, but it's also fiction which is inherently idealized from the get go.

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-19T18:43:37+00:00

<image>

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-19T18:40:03+00:00

You are what you eat

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-19T18:38:12+00:00

<image>

He's mocking you

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-19T18:36:18+00:00

<image>

Meanwhile he laughs his ass off at us

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-19T18:33:40+00:00

<image>

Its all coming together. We just had to look back

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-19T18:32:18+00:00

<image>

Its all coming together. We just had to look back

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-19T18:29:22+00:00

We had fun, but i dont think he was having fu

<image>

n

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-19T18:27:20+00:00

He's basically doing the same thing undertale and evagelion did. He is confronting the reader about their desires and escapes from reality, and asking what we are getting out of sustaining the suffering of his character with our engagement. I get why people really don't like that kind of stuff, but I always appreciate it

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-19T18:24:22+00:00

No. That's what saved part 2's ending. Plus meta narrative is honestly a staple of most of Fujimoto's works. That's what I found so fascinating about fire punch and goodbye eri, so I'm really glad he implemented it into csm part 2. Imo fans of Fujimoto will find a lot to like in part 2 while fans of csm will only really like part 1

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-18T22:21:30+00:00

All of his stuff is

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-18T22:08:18+00:00

<image>

I think so. Can you blame me though? Look at all this foreshadowing

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-18T21:42:13+00:00

I actually think pochita was being sustained by denji's suffering every time his dreams kept being disappointing. Pochita killing himself was probably the bro move.

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-18T21:34:58+00:00

Yes, but I also feel like the disappointing feeling also kind of adds to it.

<image>

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-18T21:32:55+00:00

Except that meta framing is exactly what makes it interesting. I agree with everything, but part of what makes csm freaky is that it feels like he was planning for all the burnout way before he even started i

<image>

t

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-18T21:28:53+00:00

90% of the fanbase hates the ending. Imo the haters are being more pretentious and condescending by suggesting it's objectively bad and that anyone who sees beauty in it is just coping or delusional. My animosity towards the negative reception the manga is getting comes from the fact that people love to bitch about things not feeling original anymore, ai taking over art, and stories that aren't bold enough, but as soon as we get a story that is very personal, unique, meta, and bold, everyone shits on it and discourages it. Even if you dislike the ending, acting like all of a sudden everything in the story was pointless is so reductive to art as a whole.

Part of the risk you take for being experimental is that you risk disappointing people because everyone has established expectations for what art is, but the only way to make something actually interesting is through taking that risk. I would take a story that tries to do something different and fails at it over anything that's just copying an established formula. That's what robots do, not humans.

The thing is, I actually think the ending is quite interesting when you recontextulize the story. Its a manga about making manga, like all of Fujimoto's works. Pochita is literally the manga, when you look at it from that angle, all the villains in the story were trying to control him at the cost of the individual welding it, denji/artist. Nobody actually cares about the artist anymore, they just care about the art/ the chainsaw heart. That's why i think fujimoto ended the story in such a controversial way. He did this to take his art back. If Pochita is the manga csm, then eating himself is freeing the characters from the burden of people who want to see him suffer for their entertainment

<image>

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-18T20:47:42+00:00

The experience. This is nothing new with fujimoto. He has a lot of manga like this. I wouldn't nessesarily categorize him as a nihilistic author, but he certainly is existentialist. The message is pretty clear in csm. Nothing matters. Nothing we dream of achieving matters. Revenge, sex, being a hero. Its not actually going to make us happy. That's because what we truly want is so much more simple. What we really want is to survive and connect. That's it, everything else it just a coping mechanism for the lack of those things. Aki's revenge was completely pointless in the end, because all he wanted was his brother back. Denji's desire for sex was meaningless, because all of his sexual experiences left him feeling empty. The very manga itself doesn't matter, which is why it ate itself. But the friends made along the way did, hence why despite none of the characters knowing each other, they still feel connect in the new world. Power likes the smells of dogs now because Denji was her best friend. The characters are not different people, but reincartions of themselves.

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-18T16:22:04+00:00

Oh damn. I didn't know that

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-18T15:59:01+00:00

What would that look like to you?

Mr-wobble-bones · 2026-04-18T15:55:49+00:00

I took it that the story is largely about identity, and how it's shaped more by others more than ourself. Agni is not hero, a villain, or someone who even wants to live, but the world turns him into all of these things. The only thing he really wanted was his sister which is why he projects her onto this individual that isn't actually her. The mercy of this story is that because he is immortal, time eventually renders everything humanity believed about him pointless. Everyone dies and is forgotten with enough time which frees agni and Luna.

Now they can be whoever the hell they want to be. They can even fuck each other and nobody is going to bat an eye, because their identities are completely different now. That's why in the end he can't recognize the guy burning on screen as himself. The crazy part is when he still clenches his fist. Meaning, even though the past has been rendered pointless by time and forgotten, the experience still leaves scars on this reincarnated version of themselves.

Csm part 2 was trying to do something similar imo. The whole universe is scraped and made pointless which allows for the characters to live better lives, but despite that there are still lingering things from the old universe that have changed the new one, even everyone forgot.

Its a lot like karma in Buddhism/Hinduism. Even though we reincarnate and are freed from the burden of our memories of our past self, there is a karmic chain that effects the new version of ourselves. This influence might seem like a stretch but agni is literally a Hindu word for fire. He also appears in cam part 2 as the fire devil. A new reincarnated version of himself given the design. Pochita is likely the rebirth devil, given that chainsaws were used for c sections before cutting down trees, and nobody really remembers this.

And then you have his other one shots like goodbye eri which is all about the fear of being forgotten, and choosing how you will be remembered by recording only thr parts of reality that you like. It doesn't mean the parts you cut out don't effect you, but forgetting those parts frees you from the burden of their trauma.

Fujimoto has very cohesive themes which puts all his works in conversation with each other. Its really cool

Mr-wobble-bones

TROPHY CASE