#also.... yuko and asa's friendship

[ladsofsorrow24]

the latest chapter

[adhdmeds]

How It Started W/ CSM Characters [Gender Neutral]

This is my first x reader fanfiction, so please give me plenty of criticism. You can also request certain scenarios. I hope you enjoy :) Makima:

Makima is not a devil who cares for love. She finds the idea of love to be below her, a human concept that doesn’t concern her.

You two are coworkers at the Public Safety office in Tokyo. She’s a superior and you’re a new hire, ready to prove yourself

At first, she pays you no attention unless it’s to give you orders. Whatever kind of worker you are, lazy, hardworking, enthusiastic, etc., whatever it is, it slowly catches her attention.

At first, the idea of you becoming a lingering thought to her vexes her. She’s an important person who has to run a government organization, she has no reason to get interested in anyone, even in a platonic sense

But she can’t help it, something about you stays with her until the end of the day. This can’t persist, as she has plans for Chainsaw Man and the world. With all the devils of hell to deal with, one measly human can’t distract her

She “accidentally” let some devils loose in the Tokyo district and sent you and your team to go and fix the situation.

Despite all the odds stacked against you, you survive and this does it, Makima then can’t help but think of you CONSTANTLY.

Slowly but surely her schemes pivot from Chainsaw Man and eradicating devils to getting you to be just as infatuated with her as she is with you

Maybe she could make some use of you as well

Kobeni:

Poor ‘Beni, there’s no way in hell that she has the confidence to ask you out. It’s all on you, champ

For Kobeni, you will definitely need to be coworkers for you two to become close. She has to work constantly in order to please her abusive family.

You guys are assigned to patrol the city on day and that is how you two meet.

During that patrol, you strike up conversations with Kobeni, who, despite her nervous appearance, cheerfully reciprocates.

You don’t mind her nervousness, in fact, you find it quite endearing, leading you to slowly fall for her

After that patrol, you two exchange contact information to stay in touch outside of work.

This is where she will progressively open up to you about her family problems and the difficulties that she has to go through and, to her surprise, you listen and try to help her on an emotional level

No one really cared about her emotionally so she didn’t know what to do, she felt a bit overwhelmed

You being there for her and being a genuinely kind person to her is what makes her slowly grow attached to you and what makes you fall for her even harder.

You ask her to go out to eat or to watch a movie. You stop short of calling it a “date” just in case

You both have a great time

She doesn’t admit it out loud, but she would definitely agree to a few more dates

Asa:

You’re a student who transferred to Fourth East High School. You introduce yourself to the class.

Asa doesn’t think much of you at first, you’re just another student after all.

It isn’t until you are seated next to Asa that she finally pays you any attention

You start trying to talk to her outside of class to her initial displeasure, she’s an incredibly emotionally avoidant person.

This goes on for a little bit until the Bucky situation, Yoru taking over her body, and Asa losing her best friend Yuko.

After that, she starts to appreciate you coming up to her constantly.

These past two weeks have been miserable for her and you taking time out of your day to bug talk to her has cheered her up ever so slightly

Yoru wants to take advantage of this newfound friendship to make a powerful weapon to kill Chainsaw Man

Of course, Asa can’t let that happen, you are one of the only people talking to her at the moment and she can’t let you be taken away from her

This feeling of friendship slowly changes, she looks forward to school just at the thought of seeing you again

Asa decides that she must act and so she asks you out on a date and to her surprise, you agree!

Things are looking up for Asa! She has someone who she can be close with and maybe more than friends!

Maybe Yoru can leave this relationship alone, right?

[sugar-grigri]

I was wondering what you think the likelihood is of an actual canon Asa/Denji romantic relationship is? I mean obviously they're building that Asa has feelings for csm/Denji (separately) and Denji has shown passing interest as well. I wonder if it's feasible at all or are they going to be pitched against one another now that Asa's getting seen more in the public eye while Denji is forcibly pushed aside.

Love your blog and enjoy reading your analyzes of the chapters/characters/plot!

Denji and Asa will have a romantic relationship 

I'm sorry to answer so late (almost 2 months later) and without justifying my delay, I think it's the right time in view of the last chapters to answer !!! I think Asa and Denji will have a romantic relationship. Before explaining my arguments, I would ask that we all put our personal preferences aside. I'm only interested in Denji and Asa's writing and story arcs. Now that that's been cleared up, let's get down to business.

First of all, I'd like to reiterate a few points about Denji's development and objectives.

In part 1, Denji understood what it meant to be loved properly, the different facets of love, how to protect and pamper a family, just as his response to the antagonist was driven by his love for Makima. It's important not to deny that Denji has become attached to Makima, and the paradoxical aspect of this affection is what made the end of Part 1 so brilliant and memorable.

Firstly, it confirmed that CSM's main theme from the outset was love, and secondly, it proved that Denji's response was extremely sensitive and mature. Instead of locking himself into a cycle of revenge and hatred, he forgave.

But above all from a narrative point of view it's interesting because in the first part, Denji grasped his value as a human being, knew what it was like to be considered and loved by Power and Aki. I've always seen Part 2 as a response to Part 1.

After the character has grasped that he can be loved, Part 2 places within it, consecrating it as the pivotal protagonist: Denji's beloved, Asa Mitaka. Instead of simply mystifying the love interest as a deuteragonist, as many works do, and depriving us of her point of view, Fujimoto places her with equal narrative importance. Which makes sense, since love is a central theme, Denji's love couldn't take a back seat.

All this to say that the very fact that Asa is also the protagonist puts us on the right track. But there's nothing to stop it all being a trap? Just as there's nothing to stop the relationship between the two protagonists opening up to a lovely friendship, is there? From a personal point of view, I'd have found it interesting if Denji had struck up another platonic friendship with a girl, with no undertones.

But that's not what Fujimoto has in mind...

Asa and Denji are written to complement each other. And when I say complementarity, I make it clear that the writing doesn't imply that a relationship between the two of them would solve their internal problems. Their flaws are put to the test by the external scenario.

For example, Asa's lack of trust in others is underlined in her development compared to other characters such as Yuko and Yoshida.

Yuko and Asa had a sincere friendship, although this drifted into moral combat as the young girl wanted to be as beneficial and useful as Chainsaw Man. As for Yoshida, he torments Asa, playing the game of promiscuity in order to create distance between the two of them, motivated as he is by Chainsaw Man. But his aim is not to become like him, but to prevent him from acting to the full.

Whether it's to inhibit Chainsaw Man or to become like him, Chainsaw Man has occupied a place in Asa's relationships with the others. But again, this only serves to underline the extent to which the destinies of the two protagonists are intertwined. Instead of hating Chainsaw Man even more for disrupting her relationships, Asa Mitaka unknowingly experienced his profound kindness.

During the aquarium arc, Denji simply occupied a special place regarding this issue. While the young girl mortified herself about being a good-for-nothing, a loser like Denji, it was he who paradoxically helped her. Firstly, because he'd listened to her explanations, boring though they were, about starfish and the fact that they're edible. What's more, Fami can control those she would have starved, so subconsciously the fact that Denji offered her food saved Asa.

But this is implicit writing, as it doesn't make sense until well afterwards, when Fujimoto spells out the conditions of the famine demon's power. When we read the aquarium arc, the one who finds the solution is Asa. Denji was merely a springboard.

This episode is central because Fujimoto, in developing the relationship between Denji and Asa, also clarifies the way in which he will write it: one will not overshadow the other, and he has not placed Asa as the protagonist so that she is not a pivotal point in the scenario.

But before this good experience, Asa only sees Denji's little flaws, the fact that he's a fan of Chainsaw Man, that he rips off homeless people and even goes so far as to dehumanize him, considering him somewhere between a cat and a criminal. Instead of idealizing Asa as Denji's great savior, she is first presented as a threat to the boy. But this chapter only confirms the future romantic (and tragic) aspect of their relationship.

I'm putting my theory back on the cat, because it's this symbol that heralds a perhaps not-so-pretty ending between the two of them. Fujimoto takes on the characteristics of a Greek tragedy, with a game of identities, intertwined secrets and a series of misunderstandings, with two camps, characters also preventing their relationship (Nayuta and Yoshida). But above all, it's tragic: Denji is somewhere between a cat and a criminal, just as Asa lost her mother while trying to save a cat, just as the first being Denji saves in Part 2 is a cat.

The cat is a figure that links Denji and Asa (the fact that they both saved one, that it is linked to their family (Power and Asa's mother), the metaphor of cat and criminal being what characterizes someone as morally gray as the two of them TO SUM UP their relationship will end in sacrifice. The ultimate proof of love. Isn't it wonderful to have a boy as the protagonist who pursues love, only to die for it? The reverse is just as beautiful: a young girl who closes herself off in solitude finds self-fulfillment in dying for the sake of another.

But back to something happier: Asa is the only one who has a healthy love (or rather, attachment) to Denji. Firstly, because she first faced Denji's and Chainsaw Man's flaws before seeing their good sides.

First, she doesn't project anything onto the boy, and sees him exactly as he is. She experienced his obscenities, his interest in sex that repels her. This was something I'd considered a flaw until now, to be honest; I was afraid that if the two protagonists ended up experiencing intimacy together, it would "save" Asa from her rejection of sex. But I was reassured by Fumiko's development, which parallels that. Fumiko has an unhealthy interest in Denji and is constantly contradictory in her dealings with him.

As I said, chapter 142 sets up a fairly simple idea: no one respects Denji's limits, above all, no one sees him as the teenager, the child he is. With Chainsaw Man, the same thing happens: people, faced with their powerlessness against the demons, project their grief and frustrations onto the machine man, to the point of pushing him to live again and again to kill his loved one, his big brother. 

No one hears Chainsaw Man's cries for help 

Asa stands out from all this: first, she's the one who wants to save Chainsaw Man 

Fumiko already had an idealized image of Denji before she met him, has an ascendancy over age, a manipulative strategy, but beyond these problematic issues she respects no limits, thinks Denji's sexual desires, which do exist (let's not deny it), are watchwords. 

She, who considers him a child, doesn't act at all in the spirit of protection that she acclaims. 

Asa has the opposite reaction, but purely the opposite. When she meets Denji, she's not at all interested, even distressed. She'll have exactly the same reaction to Chainsaw Man. She doesn't like him, so she has nothing to project onto him. And even her first reaction to him was far from idyllic. 

Fumiko's presence is also intended to underline the way she and Asa differ in the way they deal with Denji's limitations. 

Asa respects Denji's limits, or rather those he has set as rules dictated by his little sister. But Yoru crosses a boundary by kissing him. Without the desire to justify a non-consensual act, what Yoru is doing is crossing a boundary not set by Denji but by Nayuta, who is trapping her older brother in a certain solitude by wanting to protect him. The control devil is obsessed with a happiness that can only be found in the number of two, which is the common trait that links Makima and Nayuta, although they are not exactly the same entity. The first kiss between Yoru and Denji is then an act of rebellion, rather than Fumiko's constant overstepping of boundaries. 

(Again, these are two non-consensual acts, and I'm not justifying them, but they don't have the same narrative function).

But above all, the limits set by Nayuta have another meaning - they're there to consolidate the fact that Denji and Asa's relationship is a romantic tragedy inspired by the ancients, as Shakespiere was. The breaking of rules is a major theme in Romeo and Juliet, especially in the case of Juliet, who must choose between morals and her love, her family destining her for another marriage (symbolized by Nayuta). 

But we'll come back to the symbolism of Romeo and Juliet in a moment... 

Asa has met the purest version of Denji - whether it's Denji revealing his identity, or his profound kindness at the aquarium - and she's also witnessed the flaws of Chainsaw Man, this perverse monster, not good with words, who not only tried to reassure her, but actively protected her.

In other words, when we see her disturbed by her growing feelings for both Denji and Chainsaw Man, they are more than sincere, for she has seen them both as they were. But above all, she is the first character to love both sides of Denji's identity. Whereas Makima was obsessed with Chainsaw Man or Reze focused on Denji's weaknesses, Asa became attached to both the human and the demon.

Denji's dual identity is central, with the public hunters trying to annihilate Denji's demonic identity while the church relies on it, confusing the boy into having to choose one or the other, while the one who intends to help him unknowingly loves both sides. She likes him doubly. Asa is proof that Denji has to claim his two identities.

Not only is the girl also two, harboring a demon within her just as Denji has fused with a demon, but the way their demons are linked to each other and have a history between them only reinforces the destiny that binds them.

Asa is someone who intellectualizes her emotions to the extreme, so her love is more cerebral than Denji's, who thinks primarily through his senses, having a more instinctive love. Yoru occupies half of Asa's brain, while Pochita replaces Denji's heart, totally in line with this symbolism.

Above all, Yoru is disturbed by Asa's budding feelings, which also affect her. We've seen that Yoru hasn't succeeded in transforming Denji. We all stopped to think that she couldn't transform a hybrid, a demon. Yoru is a knight of the apocalypse and has a natural ascendancy over other demons, just as Fami had the falling devil under her control and Makima had controlled many demons. No, the reason why Yoru can't transform Denji is twofold: she's disturbed by Asa's feelings, which are also her own, and doesn't have the will to make him her weapon; but above all, they're not yet together, and the feeling of belonging to each other hasn't yet been established. It's not certain that Denji will ever become Yoru's weapon, since as soon as their relationship is established, he will symbolically offer her his heart.

In the current arc, Fujimoto places Asa in Denji's initial situation, so as to better parallel them: she becomes the church's new flagship image, her popularity competing directly with Chainsaw Man's. But while the current arc shows us the downside of these parasocial relationships, with Denji completely paralyzed by his existential crises, Asa experiences the opposite.

She who has always felt isolated is finally beginning to be appreciated and loved by the majority. In short, one begins to learn something that the other is just experimenting with. Denji and Asa are two very isolated teenagers who project themselves into the recognition their audience has in them. 

What's certain is that Denji's existential crisis doesn't just concern him, insofar as his experiences can serve as a lesson to Asa, that to become a hero is above all to be alone. The church intends to sacrifice innocent people to spur Chainsaw Man into action, a church that Asa now represents. Asa hasn't yet seen this side of the church, so Barem mocks her by presenting her as a naive young girl. However, Asa has the intuition that tragedy will strike, since she has a nightmare of it.

Asa's going to have to go beyond her moral limits, to take the brunt of her own popularity, and even if she intends to save Chainsaw Man as he saved her, I think it's he who's going to help her more, not to eclipse her but as a springboard to push the heroine to save herself.

Denji's development isn't slow, flat, in this arc, it just reaches its conclusion. What's left for him to do to end it all is to prove his love.

Even if it means dying for it.

[fmet]

If I’m counting right the most recurring devil in part ii besides more immediately important ones like pochita, yoru, fami etc would be the justice devil. We see her in chapter 1 contracted with the class president and several chapters are dedicated to her contract with Yuko. It’s also not lost on me that justice devil’s behavior seems to make a bigger point on the concept of justice both in her own scenes and in chainsaw man’s world at large. In every case that a human contracts with her, their sense of right and wrong are warped to fit their own desires to the extent that anything and everything they do is deemed righteous, making their actions all the more deadly because they’re backed by the irrefutable defense of being “justified”, in whatever way they argue it.

Asa has been shown to struggle with this same sense of righteousness. It’s not her that’s in the wrong, it’s everyone else; It’s not her fault that clucky or her teacher or her class president are dead, it’s simply a matter of chance. People only hate her because they’re irrational and unjust.

Asa holds these really strict moral standards and bases her impression of people on these standards, mostly as a way to avoid rejection and transform her jealousy into something more palatable. We’ve seen that these standards are also a source of great pain, self-loathing, and guilt for her in the instances that she can’t follow her own bizarre morality. She blames herself for the death of her mother because she saved a cat instead; and the most recent chapter ends with her despondent that she can’t be useful to the devil hunting club, just as she lambasted denji for being prior. Her very last words before contracting with Yoru are of her lamenting how she wasn’t selfish in life—how she hadn’t indulged in the friendships, pleasures, and chances ripe for the picking, which she’d failed to capture because of her irrational moral pessimism.

And then there’s moments like this one, in which she drops the charade of righteousness and begins to think in partiality. She’s had this sort of revelation several times already in part ii, and soon regresses back to her more defensive thought patterns afterwards, but this recurrent criticism of justice and morality that’s been popping up, in conjunction with everything that happened in part i, makes a really striking point of how something like justice doesn’t belong in the chainsaw man world (or our world, for that matter). If everyone were held to the same standards of wrong and rightfully received repercussions for these wrongs, then nothing could get done. We wouldn’t be able to move on from irreparable injustices, and all of humanity would be stuck in the same hateful cycle that Asa finds herself in.

Denji could not have killed Makima if he hadn’t loved her. Against all narrative expectations, Aki and Himeno and Violence and Angel and Reze and countless other characters died without due justice given to them or their dreams. And even if denji had tried (and in some cases he did), there’s no possible way he could have “made up” for these losses through acts of justice. There’s no point in him completely rejecting the woman who caused all of this death, either. While this theme appears to promote a feeling of helplessness or even nihilism in the face of society’s flaws, the (arguable) good it has done for Denji, and the moments of clarity it has granted Asa creates a much more positive outlook on the relinquishment of justice, both in their world and ours. I’m excited to see what Fujimoto continues to do with the justice devil and the concept of justice overall, especially in regards to Asa’s complex over it.

[iridescentscarecrow]

yuko//reze rambles (warning: highly messy) --

this is a comparison that makes sense to me structurally -- the line of idealisation, imagining of yourself, passage of a goal. but i think tracing the deviation between asayuko / denreze is interesting because asayuko has this very intense aching for a relationship from asa's side with the valuation of friendship as concrete -- yoru to an extent. yuko is more immediately formative to asa's existing narrative while reze effectively disrupts denji's narrative (makima). though a lot of parallels can be drawn with how reze's interest mirrors yuko's own (with a recognition of yourself). and yuko here sees asa as a symptom of a problem she's been dealt but she's already characterised that problem. this characterisation is something reze doesn't do.

reze is unable to engage with the qualitative fabric of her Problem and she doesn't extend this to a particular thing she tussles with (unlike yuko & the Bullies). she doesn't even engage with it in herself, outside her plea to run away. they both perpetuate the cycle, but the nature of this differs. reze transplants herself onto denji & it's selfish. yuko transplants the problem into the construction she builds around asa and herself.

yuko doesn't work as a mirror to asa, & reze's forcible mirror is also flawed upon denji. because while asa refuses to allow herself this protagonism (the justice yuko centers herself into doesn't build upon the obvious move from yuko's save "asa" -> to asa's "save the csm"), denji's goal formation & nature resists reze's narrative of him.

this disconsonance in both of them / the horrific narrative twist (love interest's kiss / friend's sleepover)...

because the derivation of self / derivation of external structure for reze & yuko respectively pertain to their specific part's themes.

[asadenjis]

i have a lot of thoughts about asa and denji’s relationship that i wanna summarize onto.. i really wanna explain why i adore their dynamic so much.. i know so many others have written these reasons but i just love talking about them so much.

they are practically mirrors of each other. the one thing i adore about part one and what we’ve seen of part two is their lives are vastly different, yet also very similar. denji never had any of that maternal love that asa had grown adjusted to from a young age. yet, when he becomes a teen, he eventually gets to experience the comfort and affection of having a family. at that same age where denji finally receives the comfort he’s always yearned for, asa has lost that connection, maybe even a little before if we’ll be technical.

asa also seems to resemble a lot of core people in denji’s life, mostly good. denji wants a companion, as do most teenage boys do but he’s been sheltered for so long before he was even discovered and taken in. asa yearns for that too, but we see how her bitterness clouds that. we don’t really realize until both yuko and denji becoming closer with her that that she wants to be able to form a bond with someone. even with her death and revival, we see it.

i can certainly say that i see every aspect of being a teenager in both of them. despite denji experiencing love and crushes numerous times before asa’s introduction, it was a sort of unobtainable kind. my best comparison is it reminds me of the first few relationships i had, pretty short, fleeting, it’s clouded by bliss and romance. the tragic infatuation denji had with reze and her with him was short lived. i also liked denji x reze but it served its purpose and i can understand peoples hopes of her potentially appearing again one day.

i think perhaps its just my lesbian ass projecting too but you can see remnants of the same situation with asa and yuko. albeit it’s not canon and it was just a friendship, but it’s so similar. the way yuko cared for asa and how asa cared for yuko reminded me of the bomb devil arc, though not necessarily with the same romantic tones or the severity of the betrayal. also, the same way reze is killed and yuko is killed is similar. whoever is impersonating denji killed yuko as well, similar to makima.

we already know that denji is desperate for a girlfriend, so achingly and painfully obsessed with the idea of having a girl of his own. so much so that he can’t reject asa, the local weirdo of the school who’s likely had a few rumors spread with her name strewn into them. yoru’s presence makes it a pain and asa is also desperate for a solution to live her life freely. so much so to the point where she’s willing to risk his life for it. it’s selfish, but at that age that’s a guaranteed trait. it’s her life on the line after all.

also, not to discredit denji or any of his thoughts, but coming from the boy who thought for a good minute or two if he smelled and if that’s why asa doesn’t like him vs asa spending her free time angry thinking denji didn’t like her enough is… comedic to say the least. asa thinks so deeply and is very expressive about it, whereas when we see denji lost in thought he’s got the same damn mouth hung open expression.

ehh i got too lazy and wrote this im probably not gonna finish…

[righteousdelusions]

rereading part 2 thoughts:

Asa is a very realistic kid. I liked her small development in her introduction chapter. How she realized that she felt lonely and envious of people around her... And then she died and wished she was a bit more selfish and now she has war inside of her. It's so cool

Yoru is very cunning and passional, like war itself, it's so cute. She's also hilarious in a dry way, like i think she's trying to be funny, sometimes (i have bad news and worse news). Kinda reminds me of Togata

Also she was the one who named herself Yoru, a naming convention for Asa, who doesn't like to call her War Devil, based on Asa's name as well. I think she likes her, as much as you can like the vessel you are using. We'll have to see how that relationship develops though. The fact she didn't reply when Asa asked herself if she could tame her...

Yuko is adorable and the fact she "wasn't totally pure" with her hero intentions make her more adorable

Asa cringefail allure is unparalleled. Why save a cat in a moment like that... In a sense, she's also a superhero in the making... Or she'd be it if this were a different manga, i guess (?)

I think Denji not saving anyone it's pretty funny not only because it defies superhero genre conventions but because you get this probably not purposely idea that devils watch tv. That devil just finished watching spiderman 2002 before wrecking havoc. You know he wanted to pull that trick on Denji, he practiced it for days and Denji just blew it. It was his green goblin moment and Denji ruined it 💔

Yoshida was recently transfered to the school, which obviously it's due to his mission afaik. Him saying "what a coincidence we've met, Denji" it's not even just wrong because he was looking at him as a creep before saying hi aka was not a coincidence in that moment, but also that he's searching him since the beginning (it took him a few days how can you not find a classmate that someone is paying you to look for sjsjsks). I guess they ordered him to be subtle. I think he dropped that pretense as soon as the cake thing happened ajsjsk

Denji looked so pretty in his reintroduction chapter 💕 he always look cute but I think he looked extra cute there

Yoshida screamed when Denji cut the cake with his hands. I think that's funny. Fujimoto adds a lot of characterization to Yoshida, it's really interesting because it's all in small tidbits that just make him more mysterious... Like everything he does is poised in a mysterious manner, even just asking for directions (Yoshida was the one who initially got close to Asa, he asked her if she was feeling alright and even offered to go with her to the infirmary. Probably to get more Chainsaw Man info from a student).

Yoshida didn't introduce himself again, at least not on screen. Would be soooo funny if Denji still didn't know his name (if he has indeed called him by name in Japanese then that's okay, it's not Relevant that Yoshida had to reintroduce because Denji didn't remember him, so it might just not be shown. I just think that if someone told me they didn't remember what happened when we met, I'd say my name. Yoshida just said: trust me it happened. Which.... Lol. Yoshida you can't be that hot and that hilarious. It's not fair).

Yuko and Asa deserved a friendship were they could've been quiet peacefully.... They were almost there, they just needed more time....

Yuko really did feel in love with Asa and decided she needed to be her hero and get rid of all of her bullies as a thank you for saving her... Yep, a realistic highschool crush. Deadly in a world like chainsaw man. I would've recommended a confession with mariachis, but i guess that's just me.

All this up to 105, I'll keep rereading tomorrow before the new chap

[jwrry01]

CSM MANGA SPOILERS

this is an art account except for this post bc i don’t wanna spam my twt with this lol

i honestly feel like ppl are jumping to conclusions with the latest chapter of csm (chp 116) mainly with the panel of denji and asa running together

everyone’s talking about how every time we’ve seen a panel like this in fujimotos works that one of them always dies (the look back girls, denji and power, asa and yuko etc.) but i feel like ppl are being a bit too quick with the idea that one of them is going to die.

denji and asa are both very powerful (less so asa and more so the devil in her but still) and aren’t going to die so easily esp with the war devils major goals.

however its also alot more than just “they’re super strong so they won’t die” fujimoto said that part 2 would be going in a different direction than part 1 and i think that this running scene and asa and denjis relationship as a whole is gonna work as a cycle breaker

both denji and asa have gone through the past few years or so of their lives watching ppl close to them die and have struggled to persist because of it. not alotta ppl seem to talk about how out of it denji seems during part 2 so far

i feel like the relationship between asa and denji wether it be a friendship or romantic or whatever will be breaking the cycle for both of them as well as helping them both move on from those they’ve lost

alotta ppl are also talking about this line and it’s obvious nod to power and how asa reminds denji of her but i think that there’s more to it because asa seems alot like a mixture of everyone denjis known.

ofc the attitude and arrogance reminds him of power but asa is also sort of self secluded and judges ppl easily a lot like Aki did, and she has TONS of similarities with denji as well.

alotta people mistake fujimoto as another mangaka that makes characters solely to kill them off but fujimoto instead makes characters that build eachother and sometimes in order to build a character another one has to die.

i feel that asa and her similarities to denjis past fiends is gonna sort of indirectly help denji move on from the past, and possible the other way around with asa as well.

it kinda takes some enjoyment out of everything to just assume that characters are always gonna die or smthn bad will always happen

k anyways back to drawing lol

[robotlesbianjavert]

Do you mind if I ask your top 10 favorite characters (can be male or female) from all of the media that you loved (can be anime/manga, books, movies or tv series)? And why do you love them? Sorry if you've answered this question before.....Thanks...

oh it's been forever since i got a top characters ask - this has probably changed a lot since i last considered a definitive top ten. and actually this has tormented me a lot. had to kill a lot of darlings. oof. not actually definitive this could probably change a lot.

10) it's a really good thing i never got into Supernatural when the fandom was in its heyday i think there would be something wrong with me if i did. anyways november 5th unlatched something in me and i do think that Castiel is real and alive and gay out there in the universe in a way that precious few characters can lay claim to. everyone please respect him.

9) Battleborn is a dead game and a dead fandom which i grieve all the time, not least because it meant one of the greatest yuris of all time was lost from knowledge. anyways i love Galilea for largely gay reasons - tall woman in armor sword and shield, intense relationship of deep friendship and betrayal with Ambra, being a knight templar cursed by eldritch powers. i miss her. we truly lost something great. being so trapped between duty and love that it rips you apart for the rest of your existence. insane.

8) when Locus from Red vs Blue was first introduced like i kneeeeewwww they were gonna do something with him and also he had a sexy voice (tragically the voice actor turned out to be a dick.) and my knowing paid off. i love it when a character tries to abdicate their autonomy in order to escape their crimes but ultimately can't it's soooooo juicy.

7) Beast Wars has so many insanely good characters who are all my favourites and it is so so so hard to ever choose among them. but Blackarachnia claws her way to the top. funny enough it's a point where i think the show failed with her character that pushed her to the top - a large part of her characterization is trying to win and protect her autonomy/individuality, and "proving grounds" is such a triumphant climax of that. but she's also stuck in a toy commercial and needed a new design to sell so "crossing the rubicon" had to happen. it's something about how she had to be literally knocked out for the writers to make that upgrade happen that's both infuriating, but also speaks to how strong she is as a character.

6) Denji & Power from Chainsaw Man, do not separate them. i'm actually incapable of separating them. i have a lot of beloved characters from csm - makima, aki, kobeni, asa, yuko, it's probably easier to name the ones i don't like - but denji and power as both individual characters and as a relationship in the story is so important to me. denji was a character i actively didn't think i would love as much until the narrative gut punched me so hard with the full breadth of his story and development. power i always knew i would love, and it paid off i was so pleased with her and chapter 90 was pure euphoria for me. i need to see them together again so much.

5) Eleanor from The Haunting of Hill House, SPECIFICALLY the novel not the tv show, the tv show is nothing to me. she's anxiety incarnate she's trying too hard she's a uhaul lesbian she's a jealous paranoid waif of a woman but this house loves and accepts and wants her so she'll let it have her. there are a lot of parts of eleanor that are painfully familiar and no one will ever understand her like me. certainly not mike flanagan.

4) Community is one of my favourite tv shows, and in a similar way to beast wars there's so many characters that i love love love. but Shirley is actually a very easy choice. a choice with a lot of hang-ups as shirley is easily the most mistreated and least developed of the main long-term cast and every day i imagine myself shaking dan harmon violently saying hey if you were so proud of have half a room of female writers maybe you should have a) kept going with that and b) make less of them right. there's so much ground that could have been covered with her anger issues and past alcoholism, her crossed paths with jeff as kids, finding herself outside of being a wife and a mother, and they just struggled to really do right by her. but also she's so cute the way she says "i'm so sorryyyyy" in competitive ecology. kills me all the time.

3) i have written 18 spinaraki fics with more in my wips and i think it's fair to say that Spinner from Boku no Hero Academia is an all time forever favourite character for me, just barely edging out over shigaraki. obviously spinner is a gay little evil henchman so that clinches it. but also it's just like - seeing him go from a nothing character that could have easily have been written out, to being given his own plotline and character arc about trying to find meaning and purpose and ultimately finding it in caring SO HARD about one weird guy. and he's so moe. i believe in him.

2) jose from cybersix but i can't talk about it.

anyways i'm actually really at killing my darlings so really quick a couple of runner ups based on long-term history vs faves with a recency bias.

Runner-Ups Based on Intense & Passionate History

mr lahey from trailer park boys; enrico from stravaganza; bulk & skull from power rangers; jason voorhees from friday the 13th; redcloak from order of the stick; gob from arrested development; soundwave from transformers (franchise-wide); harvey dent from batman: the animated series; hardison & sophie from leverage; rabbit from winnie the pooh; cobra commander from gi joe; hyde from jekyll and hyde; griffin from the invisible man; bosola from duchess of malfi; masquerade & gus from bakugan; claptrap from borderlands; hook-handed man from a series of unfortunate events; kaiba from yu-gi-oh; rorschach & laurie from watchmen; stephanie and reverend putty from moral orel; demidevimon & impmon from digimon; quickstrike, inferno, dinobot, and rattrap from beast wars; chang & abed from community; cybersix from cybersix; shigaraki and honestly all of the lov & mla in bnha; six & makoto from bnha: vigilantes.

Runner Ups Based on Recency Bias

jessica from cannibal farm; mimi from psycho goreman; oj from nope; barbara howard from abbott elementary; evelyn & joy from eeaao; kinsey from the strangers: prey at night; misty, taissa, and shauna from yellowjackets; eva from monster; akagi from kimeno jihen; dimple from mp100; uma from disney's descendant (a movie series i have not watched. but i like her sooo much.)

okay with all that off my chest, my most number one favourite character of all time ever.

1 ) Meowth from Pokemon he's my best friend.

[luckyrave]

Chainsaw Man Chapter 111 Thoughts

A huge realization came to me upon going through this specific chapter, and it’s actually not a huge thing relevant to the story.  What exactly could that be, you might ask? To put it simply, there are only 8 chapters left before I’m fully caught up on my thoughts for the manga.  I literally went from the double digits range throughout these past 4-5 day to the single digit range, and that couldn’t honestly get me even more excited to continue sharing my thoughts on the manga for Chainsaw Man.  

Asa wastes absolutely no time beating around the bush with Yuko,  and asks she is gonna devour her. Not an ounce of hesitation lasts for her best friend to provide Asa with an answer that makes Yuko look away ashamed by her answer, but it also leaves Asa rather stunned as well. The reason Yuko came to visit Asa in the middle of the night was because she was gonna leave to be with her distant relative in hopes of trying to be human again.  In saying so,  Yuko wouldn’t be surprised if her fate also ended up in death at the end of the road. It’s here  Asa apologizes to Yuko for making a contract with the Justice Devil for her sake, but it’s revealed that wasn’t the exact truth.

 Yuko made a contract with the Justice Devil to be like Chainsaw Man as a way to get attention while using Asa as an excuse, but also having hopes it would make Asa her friend due to the simple fact that she never had any friends. Killing her neighbor and attacking people at The Academy. None of it was for the sake of justice. Many peoples thoughts creeped into her mind after that contract was made and it took away her own in the process.  Asa attempted to reach out to Yuko who uncontrollably used one of the tentacles to attack her.  Not knowing who she was anymore, Yuko made the decision to leave while giving Asa a proper goodbye; this also gets her to second guess whether those were really her own thoughts to begin with. 

Right before that happens,  Asa gives Yuko back the same shoes for being barefooted much like how she was that day at Yuko’s place.  That day when Asa walked around barefoot and Yuko lended her the shoes. A simple returning of the favor which really spoke a lot about their friendship. Asa even makes an effort to quote the very same thing that Yuko told her that day, and immediately the two girls began bursting out in laughter about the whole thing.  Thoughts ran through Asa’s mind about everything that’s happened in her own life about how a bunch of people died.  How she killed her own teacher and class president, and feeling like she’s the absolute worst due to just laughing about the whole thing. 

Finally, Yuko bids her farewells to Asa promising to return the shoes back to her one day to which she’s very hopeful about. She hopes through town from building to building as the night transitions over into the morning before being startled by birds.  Interestingly,  it is also revealed that Yuko can’t read the minds of animals and wished it was possible.  A quick shot was shown of the student,  Asa who is rather sad about Yuko leaving,  and a quick sneak of Denji being sleep with a small tease of Nayuta next to him with the dogs surrounding them. When it cuts back to Yuko quotes “Chainsaw Man?” in confusion while her head was severed onto he floor with a shadowy figure of Chainsaw Man holding her body upside down as blood leaks onto the floor bringing an end to the chapter. 

All in all, I give this chapter of Chainsaw Man an Amazing+ rating. When it comes to story progression there wasn’t really a lot that happened per say, but the real strength comes from the emotional aspect between Asa and Yuko. Their final conversation with one another was really captivating and heartfelt seeing the two friends bid their fair wells to one another, but it also comes with a huge sense of tragedy taking into the fact that at the end of the chapter Yuko was killed by a mysterious figure that resembled Chainsaw Man.  The mystery behind this particular outcome has still yet to be determined, but we can infer that it wasn’t Denji as he was asleep with Nayuta during the whole time. Which Tatsuki Fujimoto does an incredible leaving us at the edge of our seats waiting to know what happens in the chapters to come, but that’s just only gonna add more for what’s to come with Chainsaw Man.Until then, I hope you all take care of yourselves out there.