#csm 174

[add1rall]

my concrete professor when I’m failing

[numbmontezuma]

I love how fujimoto managed to tackle both how the japanese goverment only see value in the youth as tools to further the "nation™" and how they loathe their elderly population so much they're literally trying to erase then from existance.

[poop-benedict]

CSM #174 Spoilers

Turns out that the Aging Devil might be a mistranslation and the Japanese government isn't making the insanely stupid decision to end the concept of aging.

Credit to Reddit user u/DutifulCleric over on the CSM subreddit for pointing out that it could be the Old Age Devil instead which is a very different thing.

Getting it eaten won't stop people from aging, just from getting old. And now it makes sense why it wants 10,000 children to die in front of it, it wants to see youth die.

This might also not be a solely selfish decision by the old wrinkly ass higher ups, or more likely, Public Safety is using the higher ups selfishness to achieve their goal. The fear of getting old is a big part of the fear of dying. If life lost that inevitability, the Death Devil would lose a lot of its strength.

[weebookey]

Chainsaw Man 174: Explained.

It seems pretty clear now that Pochita is targeting devils that are directly associated with Denji’s trauma from Part I. Lets also quickly go over last chapter because I think the dialogue is very interesting from this chapter. Makima told Denji to memorize the shape of an ear, Pochita ate it.

Octopus: Denji sucked an octopus for Fumiko

Mouth: Kissing and Eating Makima.

Snow: The whole scene with Aki and the snowball fight.

Bitterness: Eating literally anything (including vomit).

[jaruis]

CSM GIFS 172-176.

[shinriha]

1 chapter difference

[ragde890]

This is huge. Based on how people were acting on the last two chapters, the assumption was that, without ears, people didn't hear anything anymore. However, Fumiko is directly stating otherwise.

You could argue that she's refering to sound itself not disappearing and it's just the wording being weird, but she says it even clearer in the Spanish translation: the sense of hearing did not disappear.

It makes sense, after all, the politicians from this chapter are saying that they had a conversation while ears did not exist.

In my post about chapter 172, I said this:

Fumiko's dialogue (especially the part about ear picks) seems to suggest that the second option is the best candidate right now, which is quite scary. I wonder what will happen exactly if Pochita really eats the Aging Devil, taking this into account.

[sugar-grigri]

What does the devil of aging want ?

Let's be synthetic for once (I'm sure I won't be able to). But this is surely the most philosophical chapter in the whole of CSM.

The whole chapter is an insult to what Pochita is. The greatest contempt that can be shown.

I'm going to ask you 3 questions, each of which calls for a philosophical answer.

Does the demon of aging really care about living?

Why does they want to be eaten by CSM?

Is Chainsaw Man really... messy?

The answer is actually in this line. Chaos.

What is chaos? I'm not going to play the expert on Greek antiquity. But I can say with certainty that the Greek chaos is in no way disorderly. Even if this may seem contradictory.

Greek chaos is not disorder, it is what exists even before the beginning. That which exists before the light itself.

Now I'm going to ask you, how can these old fogies teach Pochita a lesson ? Control chaos ? Hold the power of Pochita?

Fumiko always thought she had Denji. In itself, she got it. But the mistake she made was not only in thinking she understood Denji, but even more fundamentally in thinking she understood Chainsaw Man.

Fans are Denji's source of unhappiness

First observation: Fumiko is worse than Barem I don't like making meaningless comparisons, especially in a work like Chainsaw Man where whe

Pochita is basically chaos. Because he has the power to make disappear. He can either decide to start again, or to reappear and end. Its power allows it to precede existence.

When you were reading this chapter, did you ever wonder how many times things had disappeared and reappeared without you noticing? I'm not talking about disappearing into the collective unconscious. But to see something reappear without you even realising that you've lost it. What this chapter tells you is that Pochita's power is above all an opportunity. Everything that disappears and appears is part of his choice.

Holding a newborn baby. Having an idea. To create. They are nothing more than things whose existence we discover through our senses. The birth of a thing lies in the moment when something is brought to your attention.

What we have here is a power of creation rather than inhibition (to the Anon who asked me this question, I haven't forgotten you) . I had previously analysed the fact that Pochita explained his power by the disappearance of the hearing.

CSM 172 : Do you hear Chainsaw Man? Because I do !

The more 'silent' a chapter is in terms of dialogue, the more it speaks to you. Especially when the chapter itself talks about sound. And th

He continues to do so with the disappearance of the mouth. The second lesson Pochita gives you is that he is the beginning itself. Birth itself. Or the demon of birth.

Why would the demon of old age want to be eaten by the demon of birth? Because old age is obsessed with youth. The discussion in this chapter is your answer. Aging does not want to die. And the demon of old age is not looking for disappearance. On the contrary, what he's looking for is a rebirth.

But the demon of old age is a primal fear!!!!!! He's super strong, he's not scared of death.

Yes! But he’s terrified of being closer to an end than a beginning. That's what old age is all about.

In French, the chapter is called 'coup de vieux', which means feeling old, often because of the gap with the younger generation. This gap with the beginning of life is precisely what explains the objective of this demon.

I also don't want people talking about Denji or Pochita symbolically wanting to protect young people. This is not the case. Enough has been said to emphasise the fact that the very church that spoke of CSM as the hero of the younger generation did not resonate at all with Denji.

On the contrary, Pochita is the most.... Paternalistic of all in this chapter. You want to be young? So lose what allows you to scorn. Don't talk like an infant. Worse: keep quiet.

It’s fair to interpret all these elements as traumatic elements of Denji. I'm not here to explain each of them, I think that everyone can see through them a part of Denji's tragedy. And it's also very interesting to see analyses explaining that these are things that the reader is aware of, not Denji. (Denji fought Aki, the snowball fight was Aki's hallucination, so Denji wasn't aware of all that, for example).

But you have to take it all the way. What brought these elements to you? What are you holding in your hands? That manga called Chainsaw Man, right?

We said it here. What is born is nothing more than what is brought to our attention.

Continue to interpret everything in relation to Pochita. Denji is simply the key to understanding its mystery.

A devil carrying the weight of what precedes existence.

The trauma of birth.