Discover Top Posts Tagged with #moonlight mask

Mammoth Kong prepares to smoosh his nemesis, Moonlight Mask!

And now, see what that rut in the road was really for:

GIFs by me

#Moonlight Mask #Gekko Kamen #Mammoth Kong #kaiju #tokusatsu #suitmation #first TV kaiju #Senkosha #Japanese superheroes

光仮面 Gekkō Kamen けっとうゲーム paper sumo wrestling and mask, pages contained in a 1970s notebook made by Kokuyo

"Let's make a Moonlight Mask!! You too can become Moonlight Mask!!"

#光仮面 #gekko kamen #moonlight mask #tokusatsu #70s

#tokusatsu #Moonlight Mask

#moonlight mask #mammoth kong #月光仮面 #マンモスコング #ジャスティス #川内康範

All of the current designs for my MLP au! Working on lore and more designs slowly but surely, we'll get there one day :3

I'm gonna be making pretty much all the cannon characters into ocs, so I can post the art I get of them on Toyhouse!

They currently have no bios, but that'll be changing soon!! If you wanna keep up with the lore before I post it here, and see all of their old designs, their art etc, heres the Toyhouse link to their folder! - https://toyhou.se/Bats_in_the_snow/characters/folder:7458612 (I also post about art trades there, and I plan to put the Jaxs back up, and FINALLY work on their bios, along with my other ocs!)

#pixiestix #honeydrops #nightfall shadow #moonlight mask #personal mlp au #mlp au #my little pony au #mlp redesign #my little pony redesign #mlp oc #my little pony oc #character refs #fully finished

There Is No Such Thing As Justice With Chainsaw Man

正義の味方: the Ally of Justice. This is a concept that runs through Japanese hero stories, from cop dramas to Kamen Rider and now to Chainsaw Man. It begins in 1958 with the mysterious figure of Moonlight Mask.

Moonlight Mask (月光仮面) is Japan’s first Superhero Tokusatsu (practical effects based film such as Ultraman, Kamen Rider, Godzilla, etc.) The series follows a simple formula, one of the “Skull Masks,” a group of international spies that wears well…skull masks, will be running some evil scheme in their effort to acquire the “Joe-engine Bomb,” a secret weapon developed by Japanese scientists.

When the Skull Masks’ villainous ways put innocents in danger, there appears the masked man, Ally of Justice, Moonlight Mask, riding on his motorcycle, with automatic pistol in hand. He only shoots to disarm, never to kill, forgives his enemies and never takes a life. He uses his superhuman (?) strength to protect the weak.

One interesting aspect of Moonlight Mask is that no one, not even the audience, has the hero’s hidden identity confirmed. It is implied through the storytelling that the great detective Juurou and Moonlight are one and the same, but even the credits don’t reveal his identity: Moonlight, played by “?”

This concept of Justice — a faceless, benevolent protector — is the foundation of Japanese super hero stories. You can see its influence in the Kamen Rider, Super Sentai and Sailor Moon, and you can see it’s negation in Chainsaw Man.

Denji is notable amongst Shonen heroes for his unclear ethics. More than his unfiltered sexuality, his lack of education or his meager material conditions, this is what makes him especially relatable.

Other heroes in the Moonlight Mask tradition are driven by a particular sense of morality, of Justice, and they act to protect that idea of what is right and wrong. But the rules they are bound by exist beyond the law and order of civil society. Moonlight Mask never kills, not because killing is illegal, but because it is wrong. His motto: “Don’t hate, don’t kill, forgive.”

Denji does not have a meaningful code. Nor does he have a particularly meaningful dream. His goals are mundane and his morality is common. He doesn’t want to hurt people, he doesn’t want to let them die, and he is kind. But this isn’t motivated by a coherent philosophy. And it doesn’t spur him to action. It is, if anything, a point of confusion.

This makes Denji realistic, because individuals rarely have a coherent ethical system by which they evaluate their choices. People make the choices that they do because of who they are, whether those choices are coherent or not. Choices aren’t computations or evaluations, they are the endpoints of a story.

This is Fujimoto’s brand of existentialism, not unlike Kierkegaard’s, but with less freedom. Denji creates the meaning of his existence from what he sees around him — he decides his own dreams — but this doesn’t grant him the sublime freedom to take a leap of faith. Rather, it is an act of necessity, something that you cannot help but do. You need to dream to keep moving forward.

Ethics, then, is not a dispassionate evaluation, but an encounter between a person’s intrinsic drive for a better life and the reality of the world. Regardless of choices being right or wrong, people still do what they do for reasons rooted in the life they have lived. This is the reality of how choices are made, rather than an ideal designed for passing judgement.

On the contrary, the villains in Chainsaw Man are exactly those people who believe that they can pass judgement. The Allies of Justice are not heroes who protect the weak, they are villains who use their moral code to justify selfish action. And that is the root of evil: they are dishonest with their selfish life.

Yuko is an example of this. Yuko wants to save Asa because she wants to be seen as a hero, like Chainsaw Man, but she justifies it by casting herself as an Ally of Justice, a protector of the weak, like Moonlight Mask. Unlike Moonlight Mask, she doesn’t follow some abstract code. Her inflated ego leads her to justify violence, and ultimately transforms her into a devil.

Asa, on the other hand, is genuinely selfish in her actions. She makes choices based on what she wants to be right, regardless of the outcome. She doesn’t hide her selfish intent behind a moral excuse; she is selfishly moral: she acts as she wants the world to be, rather than giving in to what it is.

This is closer to Kierkegaard, but again, there is no faith. Asa doesn’t have to believe the world is good. This is the selfish aspect. She decides what the good choice is based on her moral intuition, then tries to make that real, even if it is a risk. This is Fujimoto’s heroism: the bravery to be wrong.

This Justice, this heroism, is consistent but dependent. It’s not the same as relativism because Yuko was wrong. She wasn’t being honest with her dreams. She was selfish, but not living selfishly.

This is why there is no Justice with Chainsaw Man. Because what is right isn’t about an abstract Justice which you defend. The hero isn’t a faceless detective, stripped of his name, who appears from the shadows the save you from a similarly faceless evil. The hero is just a kid, just some girl, just a person who has lived a life which has led to a moment, and in that moment makes a choice, adds to their story.

Chainsaw Man isn’t a story with Justice, it is a story about Justice. A story about how Justice is created in the search for happiness. And right now, Denji has lost his drive. He has lost sight of who he wants to be — which is good to some degree, as he l still clings to sexual impulse — but has yet to discover what good he wants to create, what he wants to believe the world should be.

There is No Justice With Chainsaw Man

Yet.