"I'm Not Jealous" Chapter 13 fanart by Wáng Lǎo Jí
The screech of pure delight I let out when I got this in my inbox (free! unprompted!) I'm surprised y'all couldn't hear it. I can't say enough about this but I'm not sure if even need to. Just look at this lil' beauty. It's perfection speaks for itself.
All credit goes to @black-n-golds for their amazingly adorable artwork.
Ultimately, I suspect the reason that Chainsaw Man ended on such a wet fart note is simply that Fujimoto made the mistake of letting the story sprawl into too many different directions that were too divorced from the start point without figuring out how to really make those threads tie together in the end like they did in Part 1.
He started losing the plot, not really being sure what he was trying to say that he didn't already say with Part 1, and he impulsively made a very bad writing decision in an attempt to focus it together into a coherent thread and that decision instead just made everything worse. Everything kinda tailspinned from there and he got exhausted and realized he couldn't salvage things, so he just pulled the plug rather than subject himself and his readers to futile suffering.
Specifically, looking back, I think that the second that Barem killed Denji's family was the moment the manga was just screwed and thrown into a death spiral it couldn't recover from. Because, like, after something like THAT, where else was the story going to go? Yeah, there were all those other plot points, but they were just too disparate from the center story of Denji's life and devoid of emotional attachment to feel like anything more than random bullshit happening around Denji. And with his loved ones all dead, the emotional core was ripped out and Denji was left without head or tail outside of confronting Barem, and that ended up amounting to nothing (when any other series would've made Barem THE main villain and focused everything on fighting him). He no longer had any true supporting cast or motive to do anything, so what the fuck was there for him to do but stand around while a bunch of craziness he had barely any connection to occurred?
While I often hate this style of defense of bad writing, I do have a sinking suspicion that the last two chapters were - ultimately - Fujimoto saying exactly all of this to the readers. Basically admitting "yeah, I dropped the ball here and took things out of a comfort zone I could handle, I'm sorry, let's not drag this out any more". And I wouldn't be terribly surprised if at some point in the future, he does an interview or something where he says something like that if he could do Part 2 again, he'd have focused more on Denji raising Nayuta and their battles with Barem than anything else.
I will add to this and say I don't think P2 could ever decide on what it wanted from Denji. It tries to be a story about how Denji making poor choices has consequences that ruin his life, but it never feels like he's in a position where his choices seem like they can actually affect the outcome. The fire scene in a vacuum is great to get this across, because while he is happy to be Chainsaw Man even though he should be running with Nayuta, you can't really ignore that he is only in that position in the first place is because multiple other parties are trying to destroy his life. Then you have both the Fire Devil and Fumiko stressing that he has an important choice to make, only for nothing to ever really happen since he's just thrown into the fight with Yoru as Pochita, and when he personally joins in Death is already erased and the world is like five minutes away from being eaten by bugs.
The story tries so hard to be critical about Denji but he spends most of the story in a narrative freefall and being kicked around from trauma to trauma until the story just decides to end.
Huntress Wizard is so funny, like she'll go against her own order, kill their god, then go on to kill another god, with no hesitation, all to save Finn's life.
But she can't return the "I love you" Finn gives her, even though she knows he'll have no memory of it.
Any thoughts on the Reze movie? From what I can see, it's very faithful to the manga, but I wonder if any of the changes gave the arc a different feel/depth
The Reze movie was absolutely fantastic. The Reze Arc I think is maybe CSM's best arc, it does a fantastic job of conveying many if the themes CSM has into a single storyline, so seeing it turned into its own movie I think was great. One of the best tragic love stories out there. As for changes, I think about the butterfly and spider but that was added to the pool scene, and how it has a lot of meanings to it: the first and most obvious one is Reze being the spider and Denji being the butterfly, but the opposite cab also be true, with Reze being the butterfly who ends up being trapped by her growing affection for Denji, or even as foreshadowing to how their battle goes: trapped and bound, surrounded by water.
Personnal storyboard based on my favorite scene of @eldenring shadow of the erdtree, the tragic confrontation with former comrades…
The music of the fight (Those United In Common Cause - Elden Ring Shadow Of The Erdtree OST) is so beautiful I had to do something with it.
It was a totally different exercise than the previous storyboard, with one simple arena but many different characters.
Love, Death and Robots: Rated by the amounts of love, death and robots each episode has: Season 4
For the previous season, check here.
Can't Stop
Love: It's a music video.
Death: It's a music video.
Robots: It's a music video.
Verdict: 0/3
Close Encounters of the Mini Kind
Love: Nothing in particular stood out.
Death: This episode is about a war between aliens and humans, which results in a blackhole that takes a chunk out of the galaxy.
Robots: The aliens use giants machines to invade the humans, though this seem to be more vehicle than robot.
Verdict: 1/3
Spider Rose
Love: Spider Rose is haunted by the death of her husband, and in the end grows to love Nosey enough to let it eat her to survive.
Death: Spider Rose kills Jade and his clones, and she herself is later eaten by Nosey.
Robots: Spider Rose uses spider-like robots to maintain her station.
Verdict: 3/3
400 Boys
Love: The varying gang members share a strong sense of camaraderie amongst themselves.
Death: The city is ripped in half by the 400 Boys, many of the gangs are killed, and the final battle sees deaths on both sides before the Boys are killed.
Robots: There are no robots to be seen.
Verdict: 2/3
The Other Large Thing
Love: Sanchez's owners seem to be a married couple, but they are not the focus.
Death: Sanchez locks his owners in a burning apartment, though we don't see them die.
Robots: The service robot, Thumb Bringer.
Verdict: 2/3
Golgotha
Love: The Lupo revere their god, Blackfin the Dolphin, enough to commit genocide on his orders.
Death: Like there is talk about Blackfin reviving, and the episode ending with the start of the extermination of the human race, there is no on-screen death.
Robots: There are no seen robots.
Verdict: 1-2/3
The Screaming of the Tyrannosaurus
Love: Mei and the surviving gladiator share an intense kiss with one another, implying a pre-existing relationship with one another.
Death: There are mass casualties amongst the gladiators, dinosaurs, and the audience.
Robots: There are no robots present.
Verdict: 2/3
How Zeke Got Religion
Love: The the bomber's crew work well together.
Death: The nazis conducting the ritual are bombed, most of the bomber's crew are killed by the Fallen Angel before the Angel itself is killed.
Robots: There are no robots in this WW2 time piece.
Verdict: 1/3
Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners
Love: None to be seen.
Death: None to be seen.
Robots: Not robots, so much as personifications of inanimate objects.
Verdict: 0/3
For He Can Creep
Love: Questionable, while Jeoffry is willing to fight Satan for the sake of his human, it seems to be more on a sake of possessive pride than anything else.
Death: There are no deaths in this episode.
Robots: This episode set in the 1700's has no robots.
Verdict: 0-1/3
Final Verdicts
Best episodes with a perfect 3/3: Spider Rose, (maybe)
Worst episodes with a 0/3: Can't Stop, Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners, (maybe) For He Can Creep
If there is ever a sequel to Expedition 33, I think it should follow the Verso ending and have Lune be the main antagonist, because if anyone deserves a crashout and become a villain it's certainly her.
theartofmadeline
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