#csm 218

[keyserelric]

Chainsaw Man Chapter 195 “Kill Me Tears” & Chapter 218 “Eat Me” Story & Art: Tatsuki Fujimoto

[sugar-grigri]

CSM #218 : WHY CHAINSAW MAN IS A TIME LOOP

Why is Makima, the devil of control obsessed with Chainsaw Man ? 

What is this battle that the knights of the apocalypse fought ? 

Why is Denji so obsessed with the idea of falling in love ? 

Why does Aki relive her last moments during a snowball fight ? 

Why does Power tell Denji that they will meet again ? 

How could Pochita, a demon, have had the idea of sacrificing himself, how was he able to love Denji ?

Because Pochita caused a time loop.

Part 1 repeats itself and the characters' motivations stem from unconsciousness, not of their past but of their future. The future is represented by this spiral. The horsemen of the apocalypse have these eyes because they have memories not of the past but of the future and of this loop.

Hence the eyes of the devil of the future.

Let's take it step by step. Why would there be a time loop ? Because Pochita killed the devil of death, if Pochita eats Little D, the world will turn into a loop because it will be deprived of its end. Yoru wanted World War II, but Pochita has another goal, so the loop won't be the same.

An endless world effectively neutralizes the effects of death, since there will be renewal. Little D is unaware of what exactly causes her own finitude, but the absence of death does not mean “no one dies,” but rather “no one truly dies.”

An ending where Asa sacrifices herself wouldn't be satisfying, because Denji is in love with her, yes. But above all because sacrifices have no end, and Denji's character proves it, incessantly. They all ended up sacrificing themselves or being sacrificed. In short, the cycle of sacrifice never ends. Pochita will therefore cause a time loop involving Denji's life in an attempt to achieve a different ending. And Pochita...

How and why does he have this power to erase ? Because he got it from the future. By activating this loop, what he devours does not remain in this loop and therefore disappears into the past because it cannot be reborn.  When I tell you that this theory explains everything, it explains everything. And yes, it's twisted, but you need a twisted rule to explain a twisted manga.

That's the only way to fully explain Angel's words.

It's as if there were several levels of consciousness: the horsemen of the apocalypse have memories of the future, demons only remember sound, and humans remember nothing.

Bonus : the chickens at Asa's feet are not sacrificed human lives, but all the Buckys that overlap with each restart of part 2. The apocalypse is finally caused by the arrival of death on earth, which, in seeking to avoid its end, will gradually create the perfect conditions for the creation of an endless world.

But why is Fujimoto doing all this ? To talk about grief.

One of the biggest revelations and most terrifying moments is when Makima pushes to open doors, which represent choices of destiny and psychic powers. Denji decides to open the door and relive a family trauma by seeing Power cut in half in the same way that, as a child, he found himself alone with the corpse of his father, whom he had killed himself.

From a narrative point of view, Denji relives a trauma. From a meta and temporal point of view, Denji decides to relive these two moments over and over again, to open these doors. Pochita's voice intervenes to try to prevent these doors from reopening again and again. The purpose of creating an endless world is precisely to show the chaos and horror of it by refusing to accept its finitude. 

The Knights of the Apocalypse are indeed the knights of the end of the world, their deaths marking its endless renewal. We know that their characteristic compared to other demons is that they remember. They remember all the concepts devoured by Chainsaw Man because at the beginning of the time loop, they are in a state that is neither quite dead nor alive, they have not yet been devoured by him.

Moreover, the devil of control has a special place, as you can see on this page : she is missing. The devil of control has either been reincarnated somewhere, or she never died and decided to stay apart of her own free will. Makima's obsession with the idea of being devoured by Chainsaw Man stems precisely from this : she is the only one who has never been fully devoured by him, and she associates this with honor and love because unconsciously she has fragments of feelings and memories of her future self, Nayuta. Nayuta doesn't know who she is because she is conscious and searches her past without realizing that Makima herself was looking for answers in a future she idealized.

The mental breakdown of the demon of control is the result of this loop. She is the devil most affected by it because she is the one closest to Chainsaw Man and Pochita. Makima is obsessed with Chainsaw Man and the idea of a family because she has an unconscious awareness of her future where she becomes one. 

We come to this moment. Is it a metaphor or a concrete reality ? It is only when we, as readers, are aware of the loop that this scene becomes even more terrifying. For me, Makima really went to see Denji. I don't know how to explain it yet, but I think the devil of control is precisely the one that prevents Denji from knowing another ending. Part 1 and Part 2 share the SAME antagonist.

Above all, the devil of control and the death of Denji's father are closely linked, because Makima pushes Denji to open this door, and when he thinks back to Nayuta's death, Denji doesn't allow himself to mourn her because he killed his own father.

I think that the devil of control, through its connection to Pochita, is most aware of this loop, and Makima pushes Denji to reopen this door, while Pochita tries to stop him because he knows that this event will be decisive in terms of the ending of the story.

And if you think that's twisted, it's not OVER yet:

For me, it's NOT the body of Denji's father, and the control Devil is trying to prevent little Denji from understanding that he is in a time loop and that the corpse in front of him is Denji, but from the future.

If you're still not convinced, consider several things. Makima visually intrudes into Denji's memory, we as readers cannot see what happened in the darkness, and Denji doesn't have time to realize that she is already providing explanations. Isn't it strange to trust the antagonist to know this? Above all, if Denji remembers killing his father, he would see himself doing it. Not opening that door. In Makima's presence. The memory he revisits is exactly that of Makima explaining. Not him killing his father.

It may seem super twisted, but it explains a lot.

This explains his existence.

THIS Chainsaw Man has never been explained ((and don't tell me it's the other fake Chainsaw Man, because they don't look alike, they don't talk the same way)) and most importantly, there's a connection to sunrise.

Dawn is a new day, but above all, it's the advent of a new loop. This Chainsaw Man, who for me is the only moment when Denji meets his future self, here, because they are not on earth and therefore not traceable, allows him to tell him that he must try to stop this loop by saving Asa.

Asa herself is unaware of her future. She begins to mistrust and hate Chainsaw Man because he will devour her. She mistrusts love because it will not be enough to save her.

Above all, she loves cats. Cats are a symbol of sacrifice for Fujimoto, often facing life-and-death dilemmas.

Power sacrificed herself for Denji when she wanted to kill him at the beginning to save her cat,

Asa's mother sacrificed herself for her when the girl was trying to save a cat,

the fire demon themself knows that there is something about this cat, and is obsessed with the idea of choice.

Will the same choices be repeated ? The same sacrifices ? Sacrifices. Power is also unaware of the future when she promises Denji she will find him again, which will happen since the loop is activated.

The snowball fight with Aki is not just a metaphor; Aki experiences his own death every time he plays in the snowball fight. And the cigarette is the symbol of this finitude that will be present from the beginning. 

Aki calls Denji, whom he doesn't know, and his brother comes to join him, which shows that he is indeed in a kind of reality of his own that continues, and above all, he wanted to play “catch,” which shows that his intentions were disrupted by memories of the future that affect him through the loop.

If you find this theory strange, I invite you to reread Chainsaw Man with this in mind, as it really changes your perception of the story and immediately gives it an even more gloomy atmosphere.

Even if you're not convinced, you have to admit that there is something at stake at the beginning of the story, because kid!Denji plays a huge role in part 2. Wanting to become Chainsaw Man, meeting Makima, Asa—all these moments represent that brief moment when the end and the beginning intersect, when Asa can speak to her mother one last time before joining her in death, when Denji will relive his father’s (?) death. These unexplained moments are the exact moments when several realities overlap in the same alley.

Asa's stumble was actually a deliberate choice, which changes our perception of the manga and leads Fujimoto to repeat the recurring theme of Part 2: don't trust the author, but ALSO the characters, because you don't really know them; this manga may not be the one you're reading, hence the obsession with the senses. The characters' perception is altered, but so is that of the readers.

And Pochita tries to make you understand this. 

If falling is written, then the characters have no way of changing what will happen to them from the beginning. Or do they ?

[ratantics]

[treeblades]

The eenie weenies. The itty bitties

[the-hidden-idiot]

[akechifan602]

[csmdailyy]

2810

[tyrewear]

chapter 195 / chapter 218