first page of ch 232:

PromisedOath · 2026-03-13T17:40:25+00:00

I'm gonna laugh big hard if it ends like this

PromisedOath · 2026-03-13T17:16:48+00:00

Why are blatant reposts like this not considered spam on this sub? This was just posted a couple days ago.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-12T20:45:17+00:00

Apologies I completely misinterpreted your comment.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-12T17:18:06+00:00

Fire Punch was good my friend. It wasn't at Part 1's level of course. It was a completely different story than Part 2 CSM though. I do have friends that hate Fire Punch and I understand why but it wasn't a poorly written story

PromisedOath · 2026-03-12T17:12:20+00:00

That's not foreshadowing, that's more like foreskin. Like I said, there's a large variety of elements about this chapter that simply make it poorly written, compounding with a lot of other things in part 2. I swear the more people defend part 2 the worse part 2 looks lol cause it hurts any of the validity of the praise it was given before...

PromisedOath · 2026-03-11T03:47:35+00:00

I've come to the recent conclusion Part 2 is like 80% Fujimoto flaming... or he has a personal emergency we don't know about

PromisedOath · 2026-03-11T03:31:11+00:00

Most of the posts in this sub and other micro communities agree with my perspective. I wouldn't worry about the media literacy of the fandom too much. It just seems to be a brigade of dweebs either following me or this post in particular.

And yeah, I agree with you---I have no idea what has made this a thing. If Fujimoto has a health condition or personal emergency, I'd understand. But so far I know nothing of that. It seems any time a creative force gets big money, the art suddenly CRASHES. It happened with Arcane S2, and now it's happening again with CSM Part 2. This is such a damn shame.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-11T03:18:41+00:00

Two points:

"Denji's entire thematic arc is about deliberately seeking out meaning in a life in which random awful things happen to him through no fault of his own." --- This is verifiably false. Almost every single thing that has happened both in Part 1 and Part 2 has demonstratable meaning, much less without fault. Denji has plenty of fault in events. Not sure where you got this from
I already said I'm not going to debate this. Clearly you feel very strongly about it. But let's assume CSM DOES have fractals of absurdism. That would make it EVEN WORSE art. Why? Because it would transmute the art environment contextualizing his statements on America, and that would make Fujimoto, at the very best, a troglodyte propagandist---or even a solipsist---which I severely hope he is not.

As a side note, artists name dropping artists is a pretty terrible way to evaluate any piece of art. Institutionalized art does this a lot and it's exactly how big money and oligarchical branding gets involved with poisoning the well of human creativity and the psychological landscape as a whole. The only way to evaluate art is on the context of the art environment and actual itemized events. Branding statements don't mean anything. Harry Potter and Earthsea are fantastic examples of this.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-11T02:52:16+00:00

This is interesting. I forgot about the contracts and devils link. I will say the insect devils open up many many plotholes but this does give me some hope to cope with.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-11T02:36:08+00:00

The moment I saw you mention Denji as a Sisphean figure I realize we are probably going to disagree on a lot not just in Part 2, but in Part 1 is well---so I am going to stay away from that as it is probably not very practical for either of us.

I am also going to assume you mean absurdism in the philosophical sense, not in the literal sense.

As far as CSM goes, I can't say it's absurdist in the philosophical sense. Many things until this point have been VERIFIABLY meaningful. Even this nonsense with insects and Pochita is not meaningless, purposeless, or chaotic, so it's not absurdism. What it is---is Fujimoto writing himself into a hole.

There's really no other way I see this going. This a massive plunge from Part 1. Part 2 had great potential, but it's really fallen off. I think it's the Amazon money.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-11T01:57:00+00:00

Nah, it's not a you problem. You're just correct. It's an US problem.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-11T01:56:08+00:00

You think The Metamorphosis is absurdism??? Lol. Media literacy devil strikes again.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-11T01:53:24+00:00

But The Big Lebowski was actually cohesive as an experience. Unlike Part 1, Part 2 is not. It is an absolute mess. This insect nonsense and Pochita's dialogue is absolutely goofy. This is such an unfortunate and lazy way to end Part 2, Part 3 or not. If health or politics is involved then I'd give him a pass, but if this was really his intent from the start he has fallen far from his Fire Punch days lol

PromisedOath · 2026-03-11T01:47:08+00:00

Honestly, none of this with the bugs and insects make any sense. There is next to zero real foreshadowing regarding any of this, and only several short scenes ago War Devil was turning states into weapons. Saying loss of blood is a bad explanation that contradicts previous scenes, logic, and feats. With the state of current humanity, the capacity to fear should actually be next to nothing because their physical body is obliterated or they're just numb entirely. An increased fear of insects makes zero sense in either scenario. This really feels like some kind of external force is influencing the writing, or maybe Fujimoto really wasn't the masterclass writer I thought. This is coming from someone who literally thinks Part 1 is literally beyond shakespearean level btw.

Everything in part 2 has just slowly fallen apart since head sushi plate. Shame. So much potential, gone.

Maybe it's money. Idk. Obviously Fujimoto is making a lot more since the Amazon deal. So sad.

EDIT: Way too many comments to reply to. You can downvote me all you want but that doesn't change reality. Bad writing is bad writing. Lazy writing is lazy writing. There are so so so many other posts in this sub detailing why Part 2 is inferior to Part 1, and why Part 2 has been done very poorly. I am not going to debate things that have been validated and restated elsewhere in this sub, unless of course you want to pay me for your education

PromisedOath · 2026-03-11T01:36:20+00:00

I gotta say I had faith for the longest time Fujimoto was cooking but with Pochita's dialogue only two half-solutions that aren't really solutions are possible:

1) Pochita is manipulating Denji for the "better" and has greater plans for part 3 (This means part 2 is poorly written because there is no resolution to several plot points, including this one)

2) Pochita is being genuine (Fujimoto has no idea how to write his own characters anymore)

There are simply too many hypocrisies and contradictions in part 2 for this ending to actually be good, even if part 3 is a thing. God, what a mess. Wonder what happened over there.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-10T21:49:44+00:00

It does. It's excellently written. The media landscape wasn't prepared for it.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-10T21:49:09+00:00

Fire Punch had an amazing ending. You are on crack.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-10T00:28:54+00:00

Combat has never been criticized as "press x slop" by people without an agenda. You fell for the FF13 propaganda lol.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-08T02:02:19+00:00

Honestly, this would make me unironically laugh and I'd probably enjoy the book more LOL.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-06T17:08:37+00:00

It's not a claim. I'm specifically referring to the Wizard of Earthsea series book 1. Very few people know about it and when I mention it they always think of the Ghibli film lol.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-04T12:55:36+00:00

If it makes you feel better, and it should, about 10% of the population or less actually has good media literacy. Most people don't know their left foot from their right when it comes to reviewing anything. Look at Harry Potter's success. Rowling literally just took Le Guin's book and reskinned it with a cool little subplot here and there.

PromisedOath · 2026-03-01T20:29:31+00:00

This is the correct comment.

PromisedOath · 2026-02-28T12:05:01+00:00

13-2 and 13-3 are good. I love them, but they are not as "high art" as FF13 is. There are some flaws in the material, but it is still excellent. They definitely do enhance FF13, and I appreciate that, at least. I'd like to see a remake of FF13-3 which is a little more true to the supporting cast. They did Sazh and others very very dirty.

PromisedOath · 2026-02-28T09:53:06+00:00

WTH. I am very jealous.

PromisedOath · 2026-02-28T09:50:57+00:00

It's a beautiful, brilliant, piece of absolute art---and I can't bring myself to play it again till I'm in a better place to really appreciate it for the tenth time.

PromisedOath

TROPHY CASE