#chainsaw man 231

[keyserelric]

Chainsaw Man - Chapter 231 “Goodbye, Pochita”

[infestuous]

"final chapter coming 3/24"

[korise-ren]

maybe the real chainsaw man was the friends that died for shock value along the way

[jaruis]

Denji Meshi.

Awkward aquarium.

[gawrt218]

How I sleep knowing that in the next chapter Fujimoto will pull another plot twist, turn everything upside down, and all the theories will be wrong again.

[ikissyourmomwiththismouth]

Fire Punch fans right now:

[peachsuhai]

Imagine denji just has a normal ass dog now

[khepiari]

Yes, Chapter 231's decisions feel abrupt, especially when the cool lore was mentioned, and greater demons hinted at.

The crux of Fujimoto's writing is that the cool or exciting lore exists to serve as a source of fear for the strange world the characters have to navigate, and that same lore is also a distraction for readers from what he wants us to see.

Fire Punch readers have experienced it before, as well as his many one-shots does the same.

Fujimoto really likes exploring the human condition through the medium of body horror. As a writer, he does well when he is left to do his bizarre existential thought experiments in his stories. Most of which all ask the same question to the readers: what makes a person a “human”?

Chainsaw-Man is not only Denji's Story. The story is very much Pochita’s as much as it is Denji's.

This chapter is Pochita’s point of view.

A dying Pochita gave a hopeless, lonely, starving, and almost on the brink of mental death Denji his powers in exchange for blood. That blood pact had kept Denji going all these years. Now, over the course of the story, Pochita has witnessed what that same pact has done to Denji. It is hurting Denji to constantly fight as a weapon and lose his loved ones. The boy is stuck in a loop of violence.

Pochita is a devil dog. His logical thinking will be like one, very straightforward. Unlike humans who are thinking of many scenarios, to Pochita, there is only one way to stop Denji from being constantly abused and hurt.

A total reset of the world is easier for Denji than living through the current hell and the aftermath of this battle. Pochita has lived through countless wars, and obliterated and erased devils for god knows how many aeons. He knows the real taste of hell.

Resetting and erasing the devils is what he can do to protect Denji.

This is Pochita paying back Denji.

When Denji had found Pochita in his most vulnerable form, he experienced what Devils don't get to see easily: kindness.

Denji saw Pochita's suffering and related to it. And he did what he knew and thought was the best, he offered his blood first and then, because he had suffered so much, made his kind act a gesture of a deal because that's what the world taught him, there are no free lunches.

But throughout the story, the flashbacks that we have seen, Denji was worried that he would die hunting devils, and Pochita would be left alone to fend for himself. Thus, Denji had offered the desperate solution of aftercare that is most commonly associated with cat owners' thinking: “If I die, you can eat my body to survive!”

To answer the question, what makes a person a 'human'?

Their humanity.

Denji’s humanity doesn't come from his never-ending suffering from loss of friends, abuse at the hands of people in power, and the reactionary sex drive.

It comes from his one act of kindness.

A lonely, little orphan boy gave the only things he had in his possession, his blood and flesh, to a devil dog. That was his display of humanity, which changed Pochita permanently.

At the core of it all, Chainsaw-Man is the story of a lonely boy and his lonely, loyal dog.