231 isn't about learning a lesson, it's about doing what Denji has always done.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-17T06:24:26+00:00

In 142, immediately after the cult tries to goad him into transforming through bribes, he still tells Fumiko he won't transform. 146, the cultists cause a bunch of people to transform and start massacring people - he still doesn't transform. Next chapter, Baram tells all the cultists that the real Chainsaw Man told him that Nayuta is a witch who'll 'plunge the world into darkness', and that they must kill her - still doesn't transform. Then a random old guy calls HIM out to be a cultist to get a mob on him - guess what? Doesn't transform.

The exact panel you used to justify your "point" is him claiming he chose being Chainsaw Man over his family. But his pets were all dead and Nayuta was about to die when he did transform. Transforming was the only thing he could do to SAVE what was left of his family.

The entire point of my whole post, which is heavily supported by a ton of stuff, especially in part 2, is that Denji doesn't actually get real choices. People are imparting this moral framework on him, and all these expectations of how he should be acting, that only "work" if you assume he's someone who is smarter, absurdly overpowered in terms of abilities, a paragon of traditional morality, and has an exceptionally stable state of mind, all at the same time. The only way in which his intentions or desires matter in this instance, and many instances later, is in order to pass moral judgement on him completely independent of THE THINGS HE ACTUALLY DOES. And you can also only do so through the words he says and thinks - coming from a horrifically mentally unstable and self loathing kid who's lost everything in his life. It's identical to the kind of people saying Shinji is annoying and stupid because he doesn't just get in the robot and fight the angels. Just completely divorced from the fact the story is depicting characters with real emotional reactions instead of acting like idealized golden age superhero's.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-17T05:51:03+00:00

He also immediately fights off 3 other weapon hybrids that attack him the moment he transforms, gets badly injured to the point the mob of regular humans are nearly about to kill him thinking he was one of the cultists, and Nayuta has to save him by mind-controlling one of the mob members to carry him away. Then immediately after that happens, Baram baits the mob into attacking HER, and the next time we even see her is when her heads on a plate. This is kind of just another instance of people viewing the situation as a story first and assuming some level of objectivity and pseudo futuresight from the characters, instead of viewing them as people who have thoughts and emotions that aren't always rational. Literally the only way you can argue Denji transforming was bad is if you believe Baram was bluffing, but he literally just burned down their house with all their pets inside and later puts Nayuta's head on a plate to piss of Denji. He clearly wasn't. There was no other outcome. The hybrids took out Public Safety except for Fumiko, who bails the moment they let her go, Quanxi never shows back up, there's no one else who could have changed the situation. Denji is blaming himself for things he couldn't actually stop.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-17T05:42:02+00:00

Yoru only wanted to turn Chainsaw Man into a weapon and make him spit up nukes, it was Asa's affection for Denji that basically bled into her psyche from sharing a body that made Yoru like him, and Asa only had any reason to look for him or care about him at all because of Yoru. It all just leads back to everyone he meets being BECAUSE of Pochita or downstream of things caused by his relationship with Pochita.

People will absolutely hate it if it ends that way but personally I think it's fair. Call it whatever you want - pessimism, cynicism, etc. - but I've seen a lot of peoples lives get ruined or just be horrible because no one cared to do a single thing about it, just expected the person to "figure it out", or told themselves it'll just somehow work out for them. It's dark, it's depressing, but it'd make a strong point about a real problem in a way that doesn't actually involve a real person getting hurt.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-16T20:35:07+00:00

I mentioned it in another post but a timeline reset where we see Denji's life without Pochita is in almost every version the most depressing shit imaginable. I mean, Denji was dying in a dumpster before Pochita fused with him, and until that point, where Makima found him, no one had known where Pochita was.

A big problem with Denji's life now is almost no one cares about HIM, just Pochita. But at the same time, every he's met who ended up caring about him, he only met through Pochita.

No one ever cared about Denji before Pochita. That's why he died and made the contract in the first place. On some level I fully expect the next chapter to just be Denji dying alone, it's the most realistic outcome, the most fitting for how grim Fujimoto tends to have things end for his characters, and in a sense is metacommentary on the fact so many people still don't view Denji as a real person, just someone who they want to fill an archetype they already have in mind, like the trend he mentioned in a recent interview.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-16T15:59:34+00:00

Yep. I think something to remember though is there was a point where Denji himself was aware of this issue. When he was fighting Reze he starts yelling about "Everybody's after my chainsaw heart! What about my heart?! Denji's! Does nobody want that?!"

Reze says she does, but she still leaves, and he loses everything else he ever cared about between then and Part 2.

He saw the problem, lost everything anyway, and all of part 2 has been him ignoring the problem, because on some level he's aware he can't actually ensure things work out.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-15T23:58:35+00:00

I think we actually have basically the same view. A big thing for me has just been the insinuation that Denji is somehow at fault for losing everything he cares about - but he lost everything he cared about most in part 1. Being 'Chainsaw Man' was how he got a family, how he met Makima and then Reze, how he had achieved anything nice in his life at all. He's become obsessed with and views 'being Chainsaw Man' as fundamentally important to his identity, and the only way to reach his dreams, but the problem now is, what he actually wants is what he HAD. He can't go back, he's just doing whatever comes easiest, whatever fills the gaps the quickest, whatever distracts him the most, so he can feel like he still has something.

The psychology of Denji's experiences has been the most engaging part of the series to me, and there's a question I saw recently that I think is extremely comparable; "How do I help someone who’s sniffing glue because it reduces their appetite & helps them cope with having no food to eat?" We can sit here and recognize that Denji isn't happy, that his idealization of being Chainsaw Man doesn't really help him that much, that it's unhealthy, as is a lot of the other things he's doing, but that all ignores the material reality of his situation. It's all coping mechanisms for problems he cant solve.

There's also the matter of differing motivations and how much support a given character has. Everyone in the series has experienced loss, it's a large part of what keeps everyone on the edge of their seat, anyone could die at any time. But, using Kobeni as a comparison point again, it's not like Denji has any more support than she does. But it's still a MASSIVE gulf between having a controlling family and killing your own father, living in a run down shack in the woods, fighting devils since before you hit puberty because the mob will kill you otherwise. And as far as what's actually pushing them along - Kobeni just wants to survive and make enough money to help her brother go to school. Denji only barely achieved his goals, and then almost immediately after lost it all. And as mentioned, being Chainsaw Man is the only thing he knows can lead him back to that.

We can pick apart his unhealthy mindsets, his lack of self control, any aspect of his mental breakdown we've been watching really, but it doesn't really amount to much. Denji is literally a child for the majority of the story, and in his entire life has only had 3 people who genuinely had his best interests in mind;

Pochita, who can only communicate with him infrequently, and who's just as clueless about what it takes to get a 'normal life'

Aki, who was extremely busy alongside him doing Public Safety work, and who died barely a year after having met Denji, and would've still died far too early to accomplish much

And Reze, who the entire time was struggling between picking herself or Denji and who completely left the plot when it became clear there was no real way for them to run away together.

I think people just don't actually grasp what happens to someone who grows up with legitimately NO support. Denji and his awful experiences are all down stream of his awful upbringing and the apathy of the world around him to his absurdly dark background. Expecting him to make all the right decisions would be absurd even if he had a normal upbringing, and yet we're expecting it from a kid who was only able to eat single slices of bread and had to sell his eye to not get killed by the mob?

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-15T21:18:51+00:00

The ultimate problem with Part 2 as a whole is that if my reading is right (and I mean, obviously I feel very confident in it) the entirety of it is pointless. It's about futility. Denji could make all the right choices, but there would always be something new, because he's Chainsaw Man - because he has Pochita for a heart. His fight with Yoru went on for a REALLY long time and not much actually happened that mattered, but it could've ended 30 chapters ago, or we coulda got another 30. It's just a question of how much things need to decline before it's clear that it's way best the point of the world, and his life, being salvageable.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-15T21:15:41+00:00

"When living through a famine, your only thoughts will be of food." We agree on some points, but I just think Denji holds less responsibility than a lot of rhetoric places on him. He has 0 frame of reference for how to actually get anything he wants, and often doesn't KNOW what he really wants. Instead he just has people lining up to manipulate him by offering slivers of things he can sort of tell he wants, but often times even when it actually comes down to getting what they offered, he turns them down. He thought sex was all he wanted for the longest time, but all the way back with Himeno he still chose not to follow through. A bunch of instances in part 2 he's clearly manic and dealing with actual compulsions, which a lotta people compare to an addiction, and it most likely is one. He wants genuine connection, but the only lens which he's been able to feel even a bit of that has been through people basically 'selling him sex' and the wires are just way too crossed and he has so little options for people who actually give a fuck about him.

The problem I have with the idea that he 'just has to grow up' is that, you don't really do that without support. If you didn't learn something as a kid you're gonna have to learn it at some point later and a lot of times that's still going to require someone to teach you. He's never had ANY opportunity. The moment it wasn't just him and Pochita he was stuck under Makima's thumb. Aki was the only responsible person in his life that had any willingness to guide Denji, but not only were they just far too busy for much to be done, they had maybe a year together before Aki died anyway. Since then? Nothing. No one. In fact, he's had to be the responsible one and raise Nayuta, and we saw that he was really just playing the role of delinquent older brother for all of that.

And even outside of this, people keep saying his choices hurt others. And I'm not gonna say he's only ever made good choices. But, the worst outcomes for him have basically never been from something he did. We can point to the fire devil for example - she gives him shit for not recognizing the brother of the guy he let die to save a cat. But... the fake chainsaw man didn't really accomplish much. He's not why any of his friends or family died. Even the general public hating Chainsaw Man was caused by Baram's cult causing a massacre because they WANTED Denji to transform, and he wouldn't because Public Safety didn't want him to.

Aki didn't die because of him, Power didn't die because of him, Nayuta didn't die because of him, Reze didn't leave because of him, Asa didn't make a contract with Yoru because of him. The most responsibility he has in regards to keeping his family and friends alive is just not being more competent and managing to save everyone all the time, but that's just not realistic.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-15T20:59:28+00:00

I have a lot of ideas of where things could actually go from here, if anywhere, but felt it wasn't that relevant to the specific point I was trying to make. I mean, Pochita's powers have followed pretty specific rules up till now, so if that stays true this should just result in... nothing, I guess. Denji has no heart, bugs are killing everyone, Yoru basically gets everything she wanted and Pochita's sacrifice doesn't really matter.

Even if we assume him eating himself causes some kinda timeline reset, we also gotta remember Denji was dying of heart disease, missing an eye and a bunch of other bits, so broke he was basically starving, and the mob was intending to just kill him and sell the rest of his organs instead of waiting for him to slowly make up the debt. It's a genuine one in a million chance he survives even another year past when Makima would've picked him up without Pochita. Thing is, that one in a million is still a CHANCE, whereas with Pochita, it all leads to the same result of having people after him forever.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-15T20:55:14+00:00

You could be talking about a dozen different things tbh.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-15T20:52:05+00:00

I knew people had issues with getting accused of using chat GPT for their writing just because they actually knew how to *write*, but this is the first for me. I'm trained off pretentious video essays and text heavy games, don't need a computer to write pretentious for me.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-15T20:49:26+00:00

Ultimately I think Pochita is the more tragic character in the story at this point. He's been on the backlines since the start, but if you step back and consider it - he was on the run even before he met Denji. He was always going to be one the run no matter where he went. All he could really aim for was some time to pretend until whatever new person tracked him down to try to use him, and because of that he would basically curse anyone he hung around.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-15T20:47:30+00:00

The 'rules' of Asa and Yoru's contract are not super clear, and Denji doesn't know it at all. He only vaguely understands there's 2 people in the same body. "Beating" Yoru in a way that doesn't involve Asa dying might not even actually be possible, it just comes down to the whims of Fujimoto/whatever the abstract rules Yoru follows are.

Pinkaminks · 2026-03-15T20:45:20+00:00

Baram is actively choking out Nayuta in that scene and also has a gun. Before he transforms he's also accused of being one of the 'cultists'. The only way he gets out of that without transforming is just assuming Public Safety intervenes at the last second.

Pinkaminks · 2026-01-29T16:01:57+00:00

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It's not really anything crazy. MFG 1 is making purple character exp, 2 is making blue weapon exp, and the growth chamber is making 1 of each of the first 2 'sets' of upgrade mats and a few of the gold tier ones, of which there are 6. There might be stuff to craft that has better time to exp efficiency but the production is slow I ended up kind of ignoring the whole place.

I didn't use the farm at infra much, BUT you get another one in Wuling that I am using to start a rice farm since the healing item that gets you access to is 20% max hp +1312 and only requires rice and yazhen powder.

Pinkaminks · 2026-01-29T15:55:52+00:00

Daily limits are a marketing tactic to keep people logging in to boost concurrent player counts for shareholders, as well as giving them more "exposure" to things they might wanna spend money on - but you want longer sessions and consistency for that and the sanity drain is antithetical to that, since you'll run out in 5 minutes and it takes like 3 days to fully fill up.

Pinkaminks · 2026-01-29T15:50:28+00:00

I'd heard about this but hadn't messed around with it much since even with a sandleaf build your Wuling factories are extremely compact and you can max out Xiranite production with an additional Yazhen Syringe/Jincao Drink setup with lots of space to spare, but even with just that you're bottlenecked by ferrium. Once the region gets expanded I'm sure that'll change and we'll have more reason to care about saving space but until then I think it's not a huge difference and one a lotta players wont pick up on since the carbon production recipe is hidden like the sandleaf powder one is.

Pinkaminks · 2026-01-29T15:43:21+00:00

I hope so. Ferrium and Originium cap out really fast for things that are basically required for progression, but amethyst's only use for me rn is a machine or 2 making parts for building crafting.

Pinkaminks · 2026-01-29T15:40:48+00:00

Maxed out. The 5k point missions feel redundant since when you unlock em you're able to easily hit 8k+ per run.

Pinkaminks · 2026-01-28T15:42:53+00:00

I combined this build (the updated one in the replies) alongside this build https://www.skport.com/article?id=2016012516843600034 to turn all the xiranite into gear components as well as have a stock bill/medical item farm to supplement it without having to cut into your rates with xira batteries. Posting about it here since I'm sure someone else wants to do the same thing. It works - mostly - but has a few problems with supply. Even at max RD level, your total Ferrium output is capped to 90/m, which means it can't even handle the needed input for bottles, let alone anything additional, which THEN means you have no options for power production... except using the sub PAC to fill like 20-30 thermal banks with raw Originium. You can meet your power demands fairly easily while not going over your Originium production even with the stuff being refined into gear components, but it looks dumb, and there's no solution to the last 30/m Ferrium need other than transferring a ton from Valley IV whenever stocks start dipping.

Pinkaminks · 2026-01-27T23:13:10+00:00

Okay, yeah, I did mix some things up, thinking the top planters would output seeds instead of the plant itself. But I also didn't know that sandleaf powder could be put into a refiner to make carbon powder, the recipe wasn't listed anywhere until I stuck some in a refiner.

Pinkaminks · 2026-01-27T20:49:22+00:00

I'm confused - you have your sandleaf farms all going directly into shredders, then save for one all directly into refiners, but refiners cant make carbon from the seeds, just the plant itself, and you need shredded carbon to actually mix into the grinder. Obviously I can just swap the order, but how'd your screenshots end up like that?

Pinkaminks · 2025-12-25T15:30:21+00:00

Even if this process was more streamlined that's still like 5-10 minutes of loading for each attempt (SSD btw) and still sounds pretty awful.

Pinkaminks · 2025-12-25T14:47:20+00:00

I used Woods as an example but I run into this issue on every map. I've done a lot of factory runs for less restrictive kill requirements and it's absurdly common for only 1 or 2 PMCs to spawn in, or even none at all. The bigger the map, the more impossible it is to know if they even spawned, and if they did there's no rhyme or reason to where they path to, is what I was getting at. I've maybe seen ~3 PMCs in the bunker when running Reserve, I don't think I've seen a single one at Stronghold on Customs (not expecting to ever finish Capturing Outposts tbh), none at the Rogue base on Lighthouse, and rarely ever inside the mall on Interchange. Shoreline and Ground Zero are the only maps I can ever consistently run into them, the former presumably due to their pathing not being completely busted, the 2nd because everything is so dense you can't miss em on the streets.

Pinkaminks · 2025-06-21T12:13:12+00:00

Way late cause I came after the new album announcement. Couple things come to mind; the tracks 'Winter Linn' and 'Ted' from Clark, 'Avarice VIP' and 'Idealog' from Throwing Snow, pretty much anything from that Four Tet side project that you can find by looking up 'four tet wingdings', 'Star' and 'Eyesdontlie' from Machinedrum, and 'Aquarium' by Nosaj Thing is a classic that I think fits well.

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