#fumiko is also supposed to be a demon

[simonxriley]

Skylar "Phoenix" Jackson (r6s) | Liz Walker (CoD) Himiko Nakamoto (Demon Slayer) | Fumiko Nakamoto (Demon Slayer) Naho Kaneko (mha) | Aoi (mha) Kai'Sa Blake (aot) | Redacted (Spy x Family)

I was tagged by the wonderful @leviiackrman @chuckhansen @chazz-anova @detectivelokis @corvosattano and @playstationmademe to use this cute picrew for some of the kiddos. Thank you! 💜

Tagging @nightbloodbix @voidika @nightwingshero @shegetsburned @jinfromyarikawa @river-ward and whoever else wants a go at it!!

[sugar-grigri]

Denji is awake, Asa is already inside and Yoshida is Chainsaw Man's ally

We interpreted the last chapter in reverse, so why not continue the exercise?

I haven't read any reaction, but I know in advance that Yoshida will be shown in the same way: as a cold being always there to make Denji's situation worse. But the observation is quite the opposite: he's the one who's constantly negotiated for his situation. Worse still, interpreting him as an ally makes everything absolutely clearer.

I know what I'm saying may come as a surprise, after all, he's the one who announced Denji's dismemberment and doesn't seem to be doing anything to stop it. But don't interpret things that way, the whole answer is in the title.

The title refers to the ambient sounds of Denji's dismemberment, having no words at all, whereas titles usually refer to the dialogue in the chapter. Why is this? Because the answers are in the scenery and the unspoken words.

For example, the answers lie in the questions that seem to be answers (stay focused): for example, we learn that Denji slept for a week… OK… but why exactly did they let him sleep for a week ? The protagonist asks Yoshida: why didn't you wake me up before?

In addition : why wake him now?

The chapter deliberately focuses on a cold Yoshida, who announces that he's put him back to sleep. But why wake him up to tell him all this and then put him back to sleep? After all, the contract had already been broken, Denji couldn't negotiate.

Because it's been a week since Yoshida negotiated to give Denji one last chance. In any case, the time that has elapsed shows that there have been negotiations about what to do with this out-of-control Chainsaw Man. Why is Yoshida doing this? Because more and more, he starts trying to protect him, even though he's supposed to control him. We'll see that his principles and his own way of surviving will also be increasingly undermined.

Yoshida knows that Asa has a connection with devils, whether it was when he prevented Denji from revealing his identity after fighting Yuko or or when he assisted Yoru during the aquarium arc. Telling her to stay away from Denji was a means of protection, as he knew that she was a disruptive element, which could lead Denji to either reveal his identity or transform and thus put himself in danger.

In chapter 132, Yoshida appeared in an extremely dominant position with a bound Denji, with Yoshida looking almost antagonistic. But in reality, the direct consequence of Yoshida's intervention was an equal negotiation around a table about Nayuta and being Chainsaw Man in the chapter 133 that followed. Above all, Yoshida presented himself as a malevolent force when, in reality, Nayuta arrived earlier than expected, a sign that she was safe and already freed.

Above all, we know that there is a mole because the information leaked to the detriment of the church, the public hunters were aware of the attack to the point that Quanxi stopped it before it went off at 5pm. Worse than a leak, there was an exchange of information because the church was not at all destabilised and had already planned its response with the fire demon.

If you're still not convinced: then interpret Fumiko as the strict inverted product of the system that Yoshida has become. Fumiko is a hunter who presents herself as younger than she is, calling Denji senpai even though she's older than he is, while Yoshida never behaves like the teenager he is.

Fumiko also presents herself as Denji's ally, showing that she sees him as a child, whereas she has never had the will to protect him and has always dehumanized him. Yoshida does the opposite, presenting himself as Denji's enemy, playing on the fact that he's the only figure among the public hunters to negotiate with him and face his wrath, preventing him from doing what he wants while secretly helping him.

Yoshida is beginning to worry about Denji, otherwise he'd be totally indifferent to the fact that he doesn't grasp the stakes of the dilemma the hunters are imposing on him. The aim of the public hunters was to send a hunter around Denji's age for more connection, but in reality it's Yoshida who is becoming more sensitive to Denji's actions than Denji is to Yoshida's words.

By being this mediator who enters into direct negotiations, he feels that he is not only responsible for what Denji may do, but by dreading the fact that he breaks the rules, he also begins to dread the consequence of having broken them: Denji will be in danger.

Negotiations then took place for a week to improve Denji's situation, but failed given the way Chainsaw Man behaved out of control. Yoshida could do nothing officially, so he turned to the last resource he had left: the war devil.

When Yoshida confronted Asa, we sensed that he himself was unsettled by what he was doing. We also feel this unease expressly in this chapter, when he sees the state Denji is in.

But what interests us most is that he apologizes to Asa for attacking her, even though she had followed the rules. It's as if Yoshida realised that, even if he made sure that we totally complied with the State and its conditions (Asa had to stay away from Denji, Denji mustn't transform), that wasn't enough to guarantee the security they were hoping for in return.

All this overturns Yoshida's principles in two ways. From a relational point of view, Yoshida sees solitude as a way of life less likely to be hurt, and we also see that his criteria for normality are the fact of being isolated. But the hunter's tactic backfired: instead of not getting hurt, he became increasingly concerned about the fate of the man he was supposed to dehumanise.

On another level, Yoshida's survival strategy is to trust the system, to trust it blindly and to accept its logic, hence his eyes without a glint in them, like Kishibe's, who had integrated them so as not to suffer. But more and more, he realises that this is not enough to guarantee safety. He realised this when he attacked Asa himself. But above all, Denji himself has never broken the rules. He never revealed his identity to anyone. And when he turned into the Chainsaw Man, the contract had already been broken by the actions of Barem, who attacked his dogs and cat. In reality, Denji trusted Yoshida's words, he had fully integrated them, but the state failed to protect him as it had promised.

It is easier, even if only politically, to accuse a 17-year-old teenager of not honouring his commitment than to recognise that the state was unable to protect dogs and a cat from the actions of the church to prevent this transformation.

But above all, and this is what's fascinating, is that Yoshida uses this very political way of presenting this state failure when he opens the doors and is heard by Fumiko and the other agents, as if to convince them that he's still on their side. Yoshida thought it was enough to be alone and trust the system, but Asa and Denji proved that it wasn't enough. This trust in the state can be represented by the tako-tsubo trap: the octopus enters these cylindrical jars thinking it can protect its fragile constitution by sticking to the sides, but in reality, the octopus remains at the bottom of the trap.

Yoshida becomes aware of the trap he is in and helps Denji more and more. When did he have this realisation? I can't date it, but what I can say for sure is that in chapter 156, he intends to help Denji. He wakes him up to talk to him one last time, he gives him information, if only temporal, and Denji only confirms the failings of the system: Yoshida doesn't know Nayuta's fate because the state has completely failed to protect her.

But more importantly, takotsubo is also a fairly rare heart condition that can be brought on by a great emotional shock, which Yoshida wants to avoid by isolating himself. But as we said, he's already in the trap, so he's already become more emotional.

So Yoshida wants to help Denji, but how? By doing the opposite of what he was supposed to do, bringing Asa back into the equation by warning her about Denji's situation and his position.

The dismemberment of Chainsaw Man is a more than secret operation, and Fumiko asks Yoshida for confirmation, a sign that he is one of the only people with the most reliable information about Chainsaw Man's fate. No-one else could have warned Asa. But above all, Yoshida's information is going to help the war demon: by redeeming himself.

Denji has one leg removed, then the other, but what's left? His arms, right? Whereas Asa's legs are shown at the very end. But what was she missing? Her arms, right?

And what are these doctors doing, harvesting limbs and obviously? On top of that, it's a big number... 26... 27... what the public hunters are surely doing is to weaken Chainsaw Man as much as possible by dividing him up, but to accentuate his division, they're pulling on Denji's strap to force his regeneration while playing on his sleep to leave him unconscious. A large number of Denji's body members are harvested.

And who cut off Asa's arm? Yoshida. What could he do? Place her arm among all Denji's arms. To leave her with a weapon of choice within these walls. Warn Asa, and take advantage of her severed arm by recovering it, was Yoshida's plan B.

I know your headache's already there, but let's get on with it. What's the chapter title? Ambient noises, right? But who hears them?

I'm going to say the first sounds are those of the helicopter. The others are those of the dismemberment operation. But who hears all these successive noises? Isn't Denji supposed to be asleep?

Quite simply because Denji has woken up, not physically but to recover his senses a little, hence the detail of his clenched fist and the fact that he can now hear. How is this possible? Probably because Yoshida made sure not to shoot him completely. Why not? Because not only does he need Denji to remain at least minimally conscious, he also needs him to stay awake out of fear for the uncertainty surrounding Nayuta's fate.

We can see that Nayuta's fate agitates Denji and even makes him semi-conscious. Telling her that she was fine would have had the opposite effect, as Denji would have had no desire to get up. I think you can see where I'm going with this, but it was in Denji's interest to frustrate him even more about Nayuta and that's exactly what Yoshida did.

Let's make a brief philosophical and legal point: Leviathan by Hobbes is a work that forms one of the bases for thinking about the relationship between man and the state. Hobbes wrote this essay while traumatized by the English civil wars, for whom the only way to avoid chaos would be to give our liberties to a powerful monarch.

Man is a danger to social well-being; his natural reflex is domination, enslavement and violence.

Giving our freedoms to the state provides a powerful arbiter who in turn ensures security and social peace - the social contract. Why Leviathan? Leviathan is none other than the State, a creature invented by men, against which no individual can compete. Yoshida works for the state and therefore symbolically for Leviathan, the octopus demon.

The quid pro quo of this contract with the State, the Leviathan, is security, which is not guaranteed, as Yoshida can testify. So what does Yoshida do? He helps the figure whose popularity threatened that of the State as the guardian of social peace. But above all, he is helping the element that the state fears most - civil war, i.e. war within its borders. Within its walls.

If Yoshida and Asa have one thing in common, it's that they prefer to be alone to avoid suffering. What they do, however, is join forces to prevent Denji from stopping suffering, to enable them to move forward just like the legs they lack.

Just like friends would do.

[mewmewchann]

I was bored today, so I decided to go down a rabbit hole trying to put together Japanese spellings for the DFTH cast’s names instead of doing schoolwork. Fair warning, I don’t speak Japanese, so some of these may not be viable spellings. Also, names are surname-first name because that’s how they’re ordered in Japanese.

Hikari Kokoro - 光 こころ

This one’s relatively straightforward. Both Kokoro and Hikari are single-kanji given names, but since that’d look odd and I’m pretty sure Kokoro is usually written in hiragana anyways, I went with the hiragana spelling. 光 means “light”, and Kokoro means “heart/soul”.

Shion Jasper - 紫苑 ジャスパア

Since Jasper’s first name is English and Chapter 5 all but outright stated he picked it himself, I’m going to assume it’d be written in katakana like most loanwords are. 紫苑 means “aster”, which I really like for some reason. Nothing else to say here, really.

Todoroki Yuuma - 轟 優真

It took me ENTIRELY too long to find the kanji for Todoroki. Anyways, 轟 means “roar/thunder”, 優 means “excellence/superiority/gentleness”, and 真 means “real/genuine”. I’d personally translate 優真 as “genuine excellence”, but any mix of the above meanings would make sense.

Akahana Sachiko - 赤花 幸子

This one was pretty easy, actually. 赤 means “red”, 花 means “flower”, 幸 means “happiness/good luck”, and 子 means “child”. Put together, her last name means “red flower”, and her first name could be translated as “happy child” or “lucky child”. (Side note: this is one of my favourite names in the cast. It’s just such a pretty name.)

Akuma Amai - 悪魔 亜舞

Okay, my pick for her first name is a tiny bit complicated. I’m pretty sure the most accurate spelling would be 甘い, meaning “sweet”, but that’s not an actual name, so I picked 亜舞 instead. 悪魔 means “demon/devil/evil spirit”, 亜 means “second/Asia”, and 舞 means “dance”. Put together, her first name would probably translate to something like “second dance”.

Sora Haruto - 昊 陽斗

This one’s relatively simple! 昊 means “sky”, 陽 means “light/sun/male”, and I’m not actually too sure what 斗 is supposed to mean. Either way, it’s a nice name and I like it a lot. (I’m pretty sure Haru would just be 陽, since it’s a shortening of his first name, but don’t quote me on that.)

Odayaka Kaoru - 穏やか 馨

So it turns out Odayaka isn’t a real last name, despite sounding a lot like one. That’s wild. Anyways, 穏やか means “gentle/calm/quiet”, and 馨 means “fragrant/fragrance”. You could probably translate his name as “gentle fragrance”, which is pretty neat. Moving on…

Aiko Ahmya - 愛子 あふみあ

This was one of the ones that took me forever. As it turns out, Ahmya probably isn’t an actual Japanese name? Despite a lot of sources claiming it’s a Japanese name meaning “black rain”, the only kanji I could find for it is an unorthodox reading that calls it a foreign name, which seems pretty damning. I’m pretty sure it’s a corruption of Amaya, which is an actual Japanese name that can be spelt 雨夜, meaning “night rain”. Anyways, in the absence of any actual kanji, I just put it in hiragana. Aiko is pretty straightforward: 愛 means “love/affection”, and 子 means “child”. Put together, it translates to something like “child of love”, which is ironic considering what we know about her home life. But I digress.

Fumiko Rikona - 富美子 璃來那

This is about the point I started getting tired. The kanji picks here aren’t TOTALLY random, but I definitely didn’t put as much thought or effort into them as the previous ones. Anyways, 富 means “wealth”, 美 means “beauty”, 子 means “child”, 璃 means “crystal”, 來 means “come”, and 那 means “beautiful”. Her last name can apparently be translated as “child of beautiful wealth”, which was an intentional pick considering her life goal. I just sort of grabbed a kanji spelling based on vibes for her first name though.

Sunako Ayano - 砂子 綾乃

砂 means “sand”, 子 means “child”, 綾 means “design” and 乃 means “my”. A first name meaning “my design” felt pretty appropriate for Ayano, and the last name was pretty much just the first spelling I found.

Tsunade Miko - 綱手 実康

綱 means “rope”, 手 means “hand”, 実 means “fruit/good result/truth”, and 康 means “peace”. Tsunade is apparently the name of a character from a Japanese folktale and also a Naruto character, so I just stole the spelling from there. Meanwhile I picked the kanji for Miko’s first name myself, partially because I wanted to and partially to try and avoid accidentally giving him a girls’ name. I’m not actually sure if 康 can be put at the end of a name, but frankly it’s worth it to stick “peace” in his name.

Aishi Saiko - 愛志 最浩

This one was actually pretty fun. 愛 means “love/affection”, 志 means “will/purpose”, 最 means “most/greatest”, and 浩 means “prosperous”. I really like the kanji I ended up with here, even if I’m not sure 最浩 is a viable spelling. That said, the alternative was 最子, which is a girl’s name, so I’m happy I came up with something better.

Anyways, hope you liked this? Figured I might as well do something to commemorate the fact that these characters are once again living rent-free in my head. Have a nice day!

~~~~~~~

Ooooooohhhhh I love these so much!!!!

Japanese kanji and names are so interesting to get into and I love seeing your take on my characters! Ty!!

[gunnerpalace]

Can I ask your opinion on Fade to Black? I just rewatched it and my Ichiruki heart is just overflowing with feels! But anyways I love your analysis and opinions on all things Bleach.

I am that rare IR who does not actually like Fade to Black very much. I can see what it was trying to do, and I appreciate the idea in concept (and some little moments here and there) but I am not at all a fan of how it was actually put together and executed. I guess I’ll do this as a pros and cons list:

PROS:

I don’t like Mayuri but I sort of like how he was handled in this movie. Him keeping a physical backup of his brain is a cool sci-fi idea for dealing with advancing the plot later.

Dark Rukia’s design is fairly cool. Especially in the little promo book that came with the movie, which you sometimes see screenshots of floating around.

The degree of attachment Ichigo shows toward Rukia is endearing.

The scene where Kisuke asks what Rukia is to Ichigo is cute and pretty spot-on.

Kisuke showing up in his old captain’s uniform for seemingly no reason other than to tweak Yamamoto’s nose is pretty funny. Him and Yoruichi basically alluding to the Soul Society arc is also kind of cute.

Ichigo using some special technique that’s unique to him in order to find Rukia (because it ain’t reiraku) is great.

The fight scene between Ichigo and Dark Rukia, and how Ichigo solves it and saves her, is well done and engaging.

Their little hug scene that’s gif’d on here a lot is sweet.

The ending where they have this discussion about how maybe this isn’t the first time they’ve met feels a little underplayed (they’re real far apart and stoic for people discussing such mushy things) but it’s still nice.

CONS:

I’m really tired of arcs about rescuing Rukia and reducing her to a damsel in distress, because she’s better than that. The Soul Society arc was the first time, and it was set up well and worked just fine—it’s classic. Fade to Black’s reasons are contrived (more on that later) and derivative. Then Hell Verse did it again and it was just stupid by that point. There should’ve been a rescue Ichigo movie instead, and the Xcution arc doesn’t really count since that’s presented as a horror story mostly from his perspective.

Rukia’s has had a hard life as a character and has been dumped on consistently, so I view adding yet more misery and pain onto her as gratuitous and frankly kind of insulting in general.

While Dark Rukia’s design is cool, it’s not really Rukia at all. It is very clear she’s an unwilling participant. It kinda looks like her, but it’s all Homura and Shizuku, they’re just forcing her along into it. And you know what? That’s basically rape, even if it’s not sexual rape. It’s still a total loss of consent and bodily autonomy. I’m pretty not cool with a plot that boils down to Rukia being raped.

I just hate the visual design of the kids. I can’t explain why beyond saying they just look out of place in the setting. Homura in particular looks like she walked off the set of Yu-Gi-Oh.

The backstory with the two kids frankly doesn’t make much sense. She meets Renji when she’s seemingly somewhere around the age of Karin or Yuzu (like 8-12) and they and their friends are together for ten years. At the end of that, she enters the Academy. In the flashbacks with these kids, she looks indistinguishable from how she does in the present? When exactly was this supposed to be happening?

The entire plot of Soul Society not knowing who Rukia is is stupid. Soul Society is a bureaucracy. From what we are shown, the majority of what they do every single day is paperwork. Just like Japan still to this day loves forms in triplicate, Soul Society fucking loves paperwork. And they love records and archives. And all Byakuya can do is find one lone book that references Rukia? There would be literally hundreds and hundreds and thousands of documents referencing her, or signed by her. The most casual search would indicate she was real.

Kon is annoying as hell in this movie. Like, he’s usually annoying, but not as much as he is here. It’s distracting and grating.

Ichigo is a continual disappointment in this movie. There are so many things that I will give them their own entries denoted by letters below:

A. People say he remembers Rukia when everyone else forgets. He doesn’t. Only Kon remembers Rukia. Kon jogs Ichigo’s memory. Ichigo does admittedly remember fully and quickly, which puts him ahead of everyone else, but he still forgets to begin with. That’s stupid.

B. Ichigo is extremely wishy-washy in this movie. He requires a speech from Kon, can’t or won’t beat Shuhei of all people even with his mask on, and loses to Toushirou. It’s pathetic. I get it, he’s a sad puppy without Rukia. It’s still pathetic to watch. The only time in the manga canon where his confidence wavers when it comes to trying to get to Rukia is during the Soul Society arc, when he wants to stay and wait for Ganju so they can settle their quarrel, and you can read that as being unique because it turns out they’re cousins and Ichigo may know something is unique, even if he doesn’t know it. This shit of him becoming discouraged and sad when trying to get to her is out-of-character.

C. This is an extension of (B), but like. Okay, when Orikasa Fumiko is voicing Rukia, and she screams in agony or despair, it chills me to the bone. I cannot explain to you how much I don’t like hearing it. It makes me anxious and makes me angry. She did it on the Senzaikyu when Gin broke her resolve to face death, and she does it in this movie when the Hollow fusion starts. And all Ichigo can do… is stand there uselessly going “Rukia…” like it’s nothing unusual. If he had been on the Senzaikyu bridge when Gin had done what he’d done, and he’d heard Rukia scream like that, he’d have fucking murdered Gin right then and there in cold blood. And here he faces the equivalent and does nothing. That’s not my boy. That’s not Ichigo.

D. When Rukia is crying over the deaths of Homura and Shizuku, Ichigo just stands there uselessly beside Renji and Byakuya and does nothing to console her. Renji and Byakuya at least have an excuse because they still don’t remember her. What’s Ichigo’s? Again, not him. Go to her you moron. At least grasp her shoulder. Not the Ichigo I know.

The fight scene with the goo monster is dumb as hell. Yamamoto should be able to solo it. He activated Ryuujin Jakka and… completely disappears from the fight. He just straight up vanishes. Because you can tell they realized he should be able to solo it and that would deprive them of everyone else getting a fight too. So he just instant transmissions out of the entire movie. And we get contrived shit like the monster being faster than Yoruichi and Soi-Fon so that Kisuke can heroically save Yoruichi (because him doing it in the Yammy fight wasn’t enough already). It’s just contrived, gratuitous, and pointless.

While the IchiRuki moments are very cute (if a little overly restrained, in my opinion) I feel like the rest of the movie that is set up to make them happen is a hot mess. Things happen because they need to for the plot to work, not because it makes sense or is in character for them to happen. I can’t stand movies that are made that way for any franchise, and seeing characters I care about deeply behave in such ways really just kinda pisses me off. The story beats are derivative and generally inferior versions of things we’ve already seen.

Movie Ichigo is generally out-of-character as fuck (and not just in this movie!) in a way that reminds me of like, Jean-Luc Picard in the Star Trek: The Next Generation movies (wherein he acts basically nothing like he does on the TV show). And Movie Rukia seems generally reduced to a background character.

I said recently that Rukia and Doomguy would be friends, and you know what? I would watch that movie instead of Fade to Black or Hell Verse, to be honest. Let’s do an outline. 

Ichigo is kidnapped by some denizen of Hell (Kokutou and Shuren and company, I guess? they can still be anime pretty boys even if they’re damned souls, maybe they have terrible demonic forms or something) to be used as a reiatsu battery or some shit for evil purposes. (Breaking out of Hell to overrun the other worlds?) Ichigo’s energy running wild causes some kind of temporal and dimensional vortex which draws in the Doomguy. He finds himself in the upper levels of Bleach’s Hell and does what he does, methodically murdering his way about.

Rukia is sent to investigate Ichigo’s disappearance and eventually figures out Ichigo is in Hell, and so goes to save him (against orders, with the help of Kisuke and maybe the others). There she encounters Doomguy, and is at first horrified, but she notices the rabbit’s foot he keeps on him. She decides to help him, and they’re left alone for a minute, assessing each other.

Despite their initial lack of a shared language (maybe his helmet can translate Japanese?), she communicates to him (with Chappy drawings!) that she has to go deeper into Hell to save Ichigo. Given their shared love of bunnies, Doomguy is down with that. She rides on his back as she did with Ichigo, working some of his spare guns as they go. (Imagine Rukia cocking a shotgun meaningfully tho…) Along the way Rukia freezes some dudes and Doomguy punches their heads off. The usual stuff. She tells him about Ichigo as they go, like she did to Hanataro. Doomguy says nothing because he’s Doomguy, but he seems to listen.

They eventually get to Ichigo and liberate him through the judicious application of firepower. His raging reiatsu causes a lot of damage to the surrounding environment. Doomguy takes advantage of the chaos to commit more murder, giving Ichigo and Rukia time to have a tender reunion moment. The three then team up to take on Kokutou, Shuren, and the other baddies, possibly over the course of several different battles. (Probably like a third or so of the movie is this, and maybe the others show up to pair off and get some screen time. Doesn’t really matter.)

Eventually Shuren and the other chumps die and Kokutou becomes the big bad. Ichigo and Rukia do a big tag-team bankai attack to kill him after Doomguy provides them with an opening with a BFG9000 shot (as he is mostly doing add-clear).

Victorious, the three escape to the upper levels of Hell again, where they are met by reinforcements from Soul Society and explain that Doomguy is a friend. Eventually, Kisuke does some technobabble shizzlewizzle to send Doomguy back to the dimensions he more properly belongs to. Rukia gives him a parting gift of a drawing of him and Daisy in happier times. Ichigo gives him a fistbump and a CD player with some punk music, or a collection of edgy Shakespearean poetry or something.

Ichigo and Rukia share an epilogue to decompress and have some playful banter about how she’ll always be there for him just like he’s there for her.

Roll credits to At Doom’s Gate or BFG Division. Mid-credit sequence is Doomguy sitting on a massive demon corpse, making a detailed Chappy drawing of himself, Rukia, and Ichigo killing demons together as friends. End-credit sequence is Ichigo and Rukia playing an FPS game together on a console in pajamas or lounging clothes while laughing and bantering.

Like, yes, this idea is pretty stupid (although I am increasingly tempted to write it) and a frankly bizarre crossover. But you know what? It feels truer to the characters to me, and less contrived and dumb in setting up why what is happening is. It doesn’t really make the characters needlessly helpless or incompetent to generate those good moments of interaction.

And that is really my problem with Fade to Black: what it has to do to get the good moments outweighs them, for me. Maybe it’s because I just can’t turn my brain off and can’t stop doing critical analysis, but I always feel like the juice ain’t worth the squeeze. (And I kinda feel that way about all the animated movies. I was really surprised by how much I liked the Live Action: it nailed handling things perfectly.)

Other people like it, and that’s fine, but I don’t really intend to ever watch it again.

[tackyink]

The making of Anomaly, chapter 3

Link to chapter 3

I’ll openly admit that, at this point, I had no idea what I was doing, but I was in a YYH mood and Makoto seemed to have piqued people’s interest, so I thought I might as well keep going.

The chapter opens with Makoto and Yuusuke trying not to die as they run laps around the lake. That’s Amemasu’s home, so when she sinks her head in the lake, there’s a good chance they saw her for the first time in many years.

I didn’t know yet what lived in the lake, and neither did Makoto, but Amemasu had been aware of Mako as early as Nana first brought her to the temple and was shown around the lake. At this point in the story, she hasn’t been in the forest in a long time, so Amemasu probably had a very confusing moment as to who this young Nana lookalike with youki was.

"There is something odd about his aura. I cannot pinpoint it, but it's there."

"As I understand, he died and came back to life."

This is Makoto actually sensing Yuusuke’s weird wavelength that almost got him stuck in the afterlife. Genkai offers a passable explanation, but what Makoto’s picking up isn’t due to his resurrection, it’s the budding demon genes that are still obscured by Yuusuke’s very human… everything.

He wasn't supposed to be there. That's why Kurama's death had been so clear to her, it had to be. Her prediction hadn't accounted for this guy because he just wasn't supposed to be there, wrecking everything he came in contact with. He was tearing down the very paths of fate.

Plucked from the river of life and thrown back in without a care, the ripples he caused were affecting the people he crossed paths with.

The mother of all anomalies. The source of her headaches for over a week. It had been his fault all along.

I cannot stress enough that this wasn’t planned and I was just following Makoto’s thoughts to their logical conclusion. Luckily for me, Makoto turned out to be a very reflexive character, and I think a lot of Anomaly’s charm is due to this: we as fans know the story in a way that is hard to be surprised anymore, but re-experiencing these events through the eyes of someone with inside knowledge of how things work in-universe and no idea of how events will play out opens up many avenues for analysis. She notices things that our familiarity or ingrained first impressions make us overlook. At least, that’s how it worked for me.

And Anomaly could very well have ended here, with its main mystery resolved, but I was having way too much fun to let go yet.

I didn’t expect Mako and Yuusuke to get along so well. I honestly thought she’d just write him off as dumb and loud and he’d think she was off-putting and had a stick up her ass. I didn’t realize until I had them alone in the same room that Yuusuke and Fumiko are not so different, and Mako was used to dealing with her more than with anybody else. I think she finds some comfort in people who are so radically different to her, who’s always gone through life restraining herself. And after his trip through the afterlife, Yuusuke is not the judgmental type, so when he brings up her oddities, he does so in the same straightforward way Fumi does, with no ill intent. She knows how rare that is and appreciates it.

The other thing that I cannot stress enough is that Kurama is a nightmare to write. Their little back and forth after school was torture to write because I can never figure out what is going through his head. Rereading this with some perspective, I’d say that he found her funny and he was very curious about Makoto’s power. He’s taken a liking to her, of course, since she was worried about him and his mother back at the hospital, but at this point she’s a bit of a sociological experiment to him. Though, to be fair, all the connections Kurama forms along YYH have that feel. Human World relationships are a novelty he hasn’t experienced much.

"I'm sure you look fantastic when you exercise. Not a hair out of place, all prim and proper with your clothes neatly pressed."

I just want to point out that I share Makoto’s saltiness regarding this matter.

"Good morning, Makoto," he said amicably.

She refused to take her eyes off the road. "Are you a stalker?"

It’s fun to write people with little regards for social conventions.

At any rate, the entire conversation they have during the run was me trying to set the inner workings and limits of Mako’s ability for my own benefit as much as for the readers.

By the time Mako’s back to the temple, Yuusuke has surpassed her, maybe not in energy reserves, but 100% in technique. He’s a prodigy and she’s slow, she’s assumed that there are some things she simply cannot do, and this is why she won’t catch up to the others in terms of battling skill for the rest of the fic.

Mako’s habit of counting to three fit so well with it being a habit from training as a child, like a ballerina counting steps, that when I thought of it I was like, ‘Oh, so that’s why she does that!’

Genkai hummed and, after a few seconds, she said, "You should also know that you are always welcome here."

This small remark was, in the end, what decided Makoto’s fate at the end of the fic. I kept coming back to this sentence, thinking of how Genkai wanted the temple grounds to become a refuge for non-humans. She knew that Makoto was bound to feel out of place no matter where she went and wanted to help with that in her own way. It sort of worked, in the sense that it became Mako’s home down the line, but Makoto never felt it hers. She always felt like she was just the keeper of the grounds, waiting for the true master to come back, and she sticks to the philosophy of welcoming everyone, first to honor Genkai’s wishes, later on because she realizes that it is important for everybody to have a place like that. This is something I would love to explore in the sequel, if I ever get around to writing it.

As for her parents, they are just regular good people. They aren’t very interesting, nor were they meant to be. Mako’s home life is the model of what a nuclear family is supposed to be: happy suburban couple with a kid, a two story house, stable jobs, a nice car, and not a worry in life other than doing too much overtime. Makoto is weird enough for all of them, so her family didn’t need to be.

[iinuyashaa]

The Lessons in Memories

Daisuke-  The Great Help

Kouga remembers the softness of his mother’s hands.

He remembers whining irritably within her grasp, wriggling with all of his childish might to escape the repeated tugs at his brown locks with a brush made of bone from the tribe’s last hunting haul. Sitting in his mother’s lap had made him feel like a cub again, and at fifty years old, Kouga was no cub; his father had affirmed as such. Fumiko, his father’s mate, with all of the grace of a confident mother and sharpness of the demon that dwelled within her being, continued to entrap her son in a strategic hold in order to finish combing his unruly hair. This was certainly not the first time this had occurred.

“An Eastern Prince should take care of his appearance more, Kouga,” she had chided softly, ignoring the petty snort in response and his latest attempts of leaping out of her hold. Kouga remembers her voice; it was one of a natural, ethereal timbre that could have calmed the wind from howling or the earth from shaking. It contrasted highly against his rough struggling to be relinquished from her hands. The prior admonishment was delivered in a thoughtful tone that hid a darker side of his mother, one that had killed and pillaged, but also one that had defended her tribe and family. She had, after all, fought alongside his father to secure their title as alphas of the Eastern Wolf Tribe. His mother was supposedly a tyrant upon the battlefield, and as a cub he had heard stories of her victories against the Birds of Paradise. He had beamed with wolfish excitement at accounts of her ripping the fiendish beings limb from limb and bathing in their blood, releasing a passionate cry while doing so. Perhaps that last part had been a tad bit embellished by the elders, but it was nonetheless a worthwhile story to tell around the fire in the darkness of night. His mother had possessed a fire of her own, different from his father’s but just as strong. She had been a female few chose to reckon with.

But with him, Kouga remembers his mother almost always being soft.

He remembers huffing at her words and dismissing them. He was going to be alpha one day regardless of whether or not his pack-mates perceived his hair to be presentable.

“Let me go! I don’t care what others think- I always tie my hair back anyway, mother!” His younger self had countered indignantly, finally hooking his claws into the soil beneath them and hoisting himself away from her. Scrambling to his feet, he had a moment to take inventory of her own appearance, quickly noting the tan skin that glistened with sweat under the heat of the afternoon sun and knowing orbs the same dark shade as pebbles near the river eyeing his form. The look of disdain that unfolded upon her features was a sure sign that his mother was not happy about the arrangement. 

To Kouga’s surprise, Fumiko only allowed a sigh of resignation to escape her before she herself rose to stand. Brushing off any unwanted dirt from her dark pelt- an identical match to his father’s own, he remembers- Kogua had groaned in irritation as his mother plucked his cheeks between her index finger and thumb and brought him closer to her. The two wolf demons were suddenly face to face as she leaned down in front of him. The arch of his mother’s eyebrow before she spoke dared him to speak, but even Kouga at select times such as these had understood when to keep his mouth shut. 

“I care.” She began slowly, and instinctively Kouga felt his insides flicker with nervousness at the softness of her voice. His mother was a champion at maintaining a serene tone while being angry with him. “I care because I birthed you, nursed you, and now you choose to not take care of yourself. Brush your hair. Clean your kills. Wash yourself regularly. This laziness will come to an end, my son.” Kouga heard the sizzling heat of irritation drip from her words, a snapping and popping akin to the crackles of firewood as they are engulfed by greedy flames. Still, her voice was smooth as always.

Had he the power to wither away at that moment, Kouga was sure he would have with his mother peering down at him as she was.

Fumiko continued, but this time her eyes had softened to the same extent as her voice. Her next words were quieter, and she began to speak from the heart she, according to humans, did not possess. “I care because one day you are going to be the alpha of our tribe, and if you do not respect yourself enough to take care of yourself, no one here will respect you. Do you understand that?”

No. Kouga had not understood completely at the time, given that he had been a mere child in youkai years; regardless, however, the young ookami had slowly nodded his head, and his mother had relinquished her hold upon his cheeks, which were now puffy from her squeezing fingers. He then gazed up at his mother expectantly, waiting to be told to sit down again so she could finish brushing his hair.

But once again his mother surprised him.

“Now, go play. I believe Ginta and Hakkaku are waiting for you. We’re finished here.” Blinking, Kouga had taken a hesitant step back, pausing to ensure that his mother was being truthful. A moment passed between them before Fumiko smiled and waved her hand, urging him to go on. Looking back, Kouga supposed that she wanted him to enjoy at least one day of youth; desire for him to relish the feeling of not having the weight of their world on his shoulders. One day of bliss wouldn’t harm his future.

Kouga had released an exhilarated laugh before taking wide leaps into the forest.

That day, Kouga had learned the importance of enjoying the small things.

He remembers to do so.

--*~*--

Kouga remembers the thundering anger quaking from his father’s voice; the sound bouncing off the walls of the inner chambers of the den and making his head spin. Kouga felt red and blistering with shame, and his tail lay limply along the cave’s stone floor as he kneeled before his mother and father. The minor cuts and bruises upon his arm thrummed with the absence of poultice on them, but it was a burden he had to carry until his parents inflicted a wound even greater. Time passed before a seventy-five year old Kouga felt brave enough to raise his head and meet Katsuro’s- his father’s- seething gaze. Kouga remembers never having seen his father so irate until this point in his entire existence. The chamber felt suffocating; too much anger swirling around, too much doubt, too much disgust.

Katsuro himself was having a hard time controlling his temper, and Kouga had wanted to sink into the floor when their eyes locked. The dark blue hues belonging to his father churned, resembling the turbulent ocean waters of the eastern sea.

“What were you trying to prove, Kouga?” His father questioned through grit teeth. Kouga parted his lips, but firmly clamped them back shut.

“I forbid you from venturing into the valley. You know well enough what lurks there- and yet here you are- sitting in front of me in disgrace.” The words were hissed out, but there was a twang of worry to them that Kouga would only be able to comprehend when he himself was older. “Allow me to educate you on what has happened today, and perhaps you will then have a clearer understanding of your disrespectful- and dangerous- actions.” Katsuro began, cracking his knuckles. Kouga felt himself sink closer to the floor.

“I am out traveling with the hunting party when I am told news from a scout about a few wolves being chased and attacked by Birds of Paradise down in the valley. But surely, I thought to myself,” Katsuro paused, allowing his sarcastic tone to permeate for a moment, “Kouga would know better than to be one of those idiotic wolves. My son, he knows better. I have told him to never go to the valley! He knows how many have been lost there...” His father’s voice trailed off, tempting Kouga’s gaze to flicker down to the floor once more. He could sense the grimace that flashed upon the elder’s face.

“I am soon told that you were spotted struggling to defend yourself against three Birds of Paradise. Three. Do you know how fast I ran, thinking that I might not make it to you in time?” Katsuro’s voice went quiet with his question, but Kouga dared not raise his head. “I prayed to the Ancestors as I ran- prayed that I could make it to you before you were torn apart. That’s what they do to us. You know that. You knew that before you disobeyed me and went there. Not only that- you took Ginta and Hakkaku with you. You endangered your own kin because of your foolish actions!” He yelled, the timbre of his voice rough with displeasure. It felt that with each sentence, Kouga’s mind and heart were getting clawed out of his body. He could hardly stand it.

“Father, I-” Kouga croaked as he attempted to explain himself, unbothered at the fact, for once, of how much he sounded like a flustered cub.  

“I did not permit you to speak!” Katsuro had roared, slamming his fist against the stone throne below him.

Life appeared to stand still. One could have heard a feather floating to the ground.

“When I reach the valley, I find you still fighting. Only the Ancestors know how you survived that long- but it did not matter anymore. A quarter of the pack had to be brought in to fight against enemies that you enticed into attacking merely by venturing into their territory. You placed many lives in danger today, Kouga. How can I trust you to take over once I am gone if you perform in this fashion?” Katsuro glared down at his son and released a deep sigh. “I am more than disappointed.” Finally raising his head, Kouga swallowed the lump in his throat. His father had been right; Ginta and Hakkaku had hardly stood a chance against the one bird they had been fighting, and once they had been knocked out, it was left up to Kouga to not only protect himself but also his comrades. He had put his family in danger. Kouga felt his cuts sting again, and he clenched his hands into fists to block out the internal and external pain.

His father slowly stood before stepping over to stand in front of him, for once wearing the full regalia of his pelts. If it had been any other situation, Kouga would have remarked at the uncanny timing for his father to suddenly be wearing his ornate furs and gems and discipline him like a true Alpha.

“Why did you disobey us, Kouga? Why did you not listen to me?” Katsuro asked, his voice uncharacteristically gentle and lacking the teasing tone it typically possessed.

“I…” Kouga started, glancing at his mother, who stared at him with a concerned gaze. “I knew that you and mother had defeated the Birds of Paradise, and… and I wanted to defeat them too. I wanted to prove that I am strong. Strong enough to be Alpha one day.”

Katsuro parted his lips and shook his head, releasing a deflated scoff before dropping to his knees and wrapping his arms around his son. “You are strong, Kouga. You did not have to prove anything.”

The younger ookami felt his father take his chin and lift it up so that their foreheads touched, and suddenly the shame that had plagued his soul from the very beginning of the exchange was flushed away when his mother’s arms wrapped around the two males, encompassing them as best as she could in a tight grasp. He had not even noticed her come closer.

“We could have lost you, Kouga.” Fumiko whispered, her voice silken with longing as she nuzzled her head against his own, and his father let out another deep, shaky sigh against the skin of Kouga’s cheek.

“I am sorry for disgracing you, mother, father…” Kouga whispered eagerly, physically relieved to have the atmosphere more tame, but his monologue was silenced by his father clamping a hand over his mouth.

“I accept your words, Kouga.” Two pairs of blue irises met, one just a darker shade than the other and holding, fortunately, a greater amount of wisdom. “But do not ever do something so reckless again. At least while your mother and I are still alive.” He finished, adding his jest for the sake of lightening the mood.

Kouga pulled his head back and allowed a quavering, grateful smile to form across his features. His father matched his expression.

He learned on that day to never endanger the pack as a means to prove something, especially for the sake of personal pride.

Kouga remembers to do so.  

--*~*--

Kouga remembers the winter of his one hundred and thirty-eighth year being the most bitter he had ever experienced. Hunger had run rampant among the pack. They had lost two elders to starvation and a cub to an unusually aggressive ogre that had been spying on them. The morale of the tribe was low, so downtrodden that even the presence of spring had not been able to lift some spirits. Offerings had been given to the Ancestors as a last resort to at least bless them with a plentiful hunt, but the winter had been so frigid that the spring hunting was not as bountiful as the years before.

He remembers his parents being blamed for the misfortune.

He remembers the scent of blood and death assaulting his senses, the scent of moist iron infiltrating his nostrils and causing every fiber within his being to howl as he walked back to the den from an unsuccessful hunt one day in late spring. The scent quickly spurred him into motion. The wet, green grass beneath his feet squished furiously as his legs carried him, quicker and quicker  until he reached the entrance of the den, his eyes widening in horror as he took in the sight before him. The water from the waterfall was stained a hellish, ruby color as blood passed through its system; the red substance covered any rock, tree, or grass nearby, coating the world around him in a demented nightmare. Bodies- both in humanoid in form and in their primitive wolf form- lay all around, unmoving, unwavering. His mind raced as he tried to piece together what had possibly happened, but all he could smell was the stench of wolf blood; no other creature’s scent could be traced by his seasoned nose. A panicked howl had escaped his body as he examined the carnage, and in the back of his mind he knew he heard Ginta and Hakkaku respond back with their own, but he could not reply when he scented the blood of two wolves in particular.

“Mother!” Kouga had shouted, his throat thick and voice hoarse with distress, “Father!” He had screamed, desperation flooding his being as he raced up the stone walkway, passing by the bodies of his brethren until he reached the mouth of the cave. He grunted as he scrambled through the bodies and weapons and entrails, clawing his way to the inner chambers where his parents resided-

The spectacle before him had made Kouga fall to his knees with a cry of pure agony.

Fumiko and Katsuro lay in the middle of their chambers, piled on top of each other as though they were nothing more than sacks  of rice. Clambering over disheveled furs, jewels, and the few personal belongings his parents owned that had been thrown to the floor, Kouga felt himself heaving in sheer panic and despair and anger. From their lifeless forms, he could almost pick up the faint scent of lilac that had belonged to his mother, but the kill was fresh and the scent of blood continued to suffocate him. He had felt like vomiting, but the tears that spewed from his eyes relentlessly had clogged his vision as he moaned, “No, no, no… No..” The following howling of their names came out in a crazed yell while his mind attempted to wrap around the blank stare of his mother’s hazel eyes and pale skin; his father had fared no better, his stare was as cold and lifeless as his mother’s, but along his throat a deep, uneven gash portrayed the gruesome manner of his death.

Kouga does not remember the next few months very well. It is almost as though his mind will not allow it, but he is able to pick apart bits and pieces from the depths of his youthful memory.

Kouga remembers later learning of a plot to kill his parents that was sparked to life by his father’s most trusted beta, Daisuke, one of the wolves to even save Kouga’s life by the Birds of Paradise less than a century prior. He remembers rounding up anyone who was left alive and perturbed by the manner of this savage attempt at grabbing power and taking back what was his birthright.

Suddenly, Kouga remembers too much. He remembers the stench of entrails, the sound of splattering blood, the mournful and pained howls of wolves; he remembers the chill of winter, and then the blistering, searing pain of Daisuke’s fangs tearing through his flesh, and it burns and burns and burns until he feels like he is engulfed in fire, or he’s being harangued by his father again. He remembers hating dogs- he hates them for not stepping in and supporting him; for allowing the wolves of the tribes to slaughter each other for his birthright, for allowing a civil war to ensue where brother fought against brother. Those damn dogs, the damn dogs, his mind repeats, swirling and churning with one unhappy memory after another. Flickers of memories flash across his eyes and dance in his mind; the last hunt with his father, the sweet caress of his mother, but they are quickly replaced by the agonizing sight of their blood and lifeless eyes and the pain, oh, the pain is too much, and even the clear sky he spies above him does nothing to cool him, and every emotion sprouts in his soul in the midst of what feels like moments, joy and panic and love and fury until it is too much and Kouga feels as though he is dying-

Cerulean hues snap open wide as the reigning Alpha of the Eastern Wolf Tribe releases a breathless, choked gasp, and scrambles to sit up under his furs. Chest heaving, Kouga stares at the stone wall ahead of him, and the flicker of firelight goes unnoticed by his usually acute senses. He feels a bead of sweat- sweat?- roll down the side of his face, but what makes him nearly jump is the light touch of his bed-mate. A delicate, silken palm rests softly against his chest and the owner’s concerned voice calls out to him.

“Kouga?” Kagome asks gently, her own eyes misty from being asleep just moments before, but the worry is evident in her voice, and the wolf-demon is so rattled it takes him a moment to assess the situation. The smell of sweet, youthful citrus enters his nose, and Kouga turns to face his mate.

“I…” He begins, his voice wavering as he attempts to pick up the pieces of his masculinity, and embarrassment rolls over him in waves. His eyes are wide with terror, but his body is beginning to come down from the rush of chaos. Kagome brings her hands to his cheeks, brushing her thumb along the tough skin beneath her hands.

“It’s okay,” She whispers, calming the frightened demon before her. Never before has Kagome seen the absolute, internal distress in his eyes present now. Instinctually, she reaches out for him, wrapping her arms around his form and tugging him close, “I’m here. Everything’s okay.”

Kouga allows himself to relish in the small moment, closing his eyes in grateful comfort. What did he ever do to deserve someone like Kagome? Here she was, clutching a frightened demon to her to make him feel better. He almost wants to laugh, but instead chooses to stay silent and envelop her in his own arms. Deep, solemn breaths are shared between the two of them in the silence of the night, but it eases the stress of his memories.

“Are you alright now?” Kagome murmurs against the skin of his shoulder, brushing her fingers slowly through his hair. “I’ll be fine,” He retorts, his eyes still shut.

“Do you want to talk about it? You were really shaken up, Kouga…”

He pauses.

“No, no, I just…” Kagome lifts her head, and Kouga can see his woman is not going to take no for an answer. “Ah,” He nervously states, preparing himself for his defeat. “Fine. Fine. You sure you want to hear it?” The demon acquiesces with a grunt.

Kagome scoffs and takes his hands into her own. “Of course I do. I’m your woman, aren’t I? I’m always going to be here to listen to you. Accordingly, of course.” A sheepish smile graces those beautiful, rosy lips.

Kouga feels his heart nearly burst before he begins to speak, and he rolls his eyes before flashing back a toothy half-grin of his own. “Alright, alright..”

That night, Kagome teaches him the importance of opening up and discussing one’s vulnerabilities and that it is acceptable to vent to a trusted advisor.

Kouga remembers to do so. He remembers, indeed.

-

-

      --*~*--

-

- 

[Hello, it’s me! Thank you so much for reading my story. It means so much! I just thought it would be nice to give some more stories about Kouga’s childhood and the things he’s been through, since the anime and manga don’t go that much into detail. 

Also, the part where Kouga gets in trouble with his father? Does it seem familiar? That’s because if you’ve watched the Lion King, it is based from there! I have always had a hc that Kouga could find himself in a similar situation as Simba, with wanting to prove something to himself but doing it recklessly. I in no way mean to copy that trope as my own; I just wanted to put a personal twist on a well known tale from the Lion King. Creds to Disney for making such a good scene! 

I hope you enjoyed. It was really fun to write this and somehow I completed it in one day. Please let me know what you guys think! I hope I wrote Kouga alright lol. PS: here you go, guys, a little treat from me :’) @kouga-appreciation @nikkxb @writingsomestupidshitlovelies ]

[sugar-grigri]

Fujimoto has never talked so much about love as in this chapter 

This chapter is incredible, not only for the multitude of answers it offers but also for the beauty of its writing on first reading alone. 

It opens with a man who appeared in chapter 101 of CSM, as passers-by passively walked past him, this stranger was actually right: humans, one of whose major causes of death are demons, are leading to a cold war (ironic to talk about a Cold War for a manga set in the 90s)

But it's as if the whole of society refuses to notice, that everyone hides behind Chainsaw Man and consumes all these derivative products like lucky charms. Chainsaw Man embodies a demonic anomaly, a demon at the service of the people who make them forget this war. 

And that's exactly why Yoru has a grudge against him. Chainsaw Man is an instrument of peace, wielded in times of peace and sacrificed in times of war. Chainsaw Man is there to make us forget the conflicts or become the scapegoat, in either case, he is there to make us forget the war in which humanity is trapped.

A machine into which all hopes are projected, cries of suffering directed, whose childlike quality is seen only by the predators who exploit him constantly. 

What we need to see in this dialogue between Nayuta and Fumiko is a struggle for domination. As we have seen, Fumiko is someone who, despite her aggressions, drowns them in a constantly contradictory protection: she wants to protect a child, but moleste Denji, plays a game in which she places him as older in order to hide her predation, and has saviour syndrome.

Fumiko thinks she's easily understood the nature of weapons, she's sensitive to Quanxi's bodily sacrifices and only repeats to the one she's abusing like an unrestrained fan of a child. Fumiko is the symbol that even when she belongs to the same camp as those she intends to protect, she still can't understand them.

She thinks it's either Nayuta who finds humans weak, or the fact that Barem supports Denji's demonic quality, that they are threats to his well-being when they are the ones who know him best. This is normal, because the strategy of public hunters is to bank on Denji's human side, but this strategy is not enough.

In chapters 136 and 137, Denji is mistreated when he's playing as a human being, getting into fights at school, being treated badly by his teachers, molested when he was thinking about a date at the cinema, and the closer he gets to normality, the more he suffers.

She symbolises not only Denji's sexual trauma, but also the paradox of the hunter system: a system that intends to offer Denji a family framework, but which is not only failing but also traumatising.

Nayuta says she wouldn't kill humans because they're weak compared to demons anyway. It would be as boring as killing ants! It's a continuation of Makima's point that the demon of control isn't interested in things that can be mobilised or easily controlled, it's powerful demons like Pochita that she wouldn't be able to control. Because the only way to establish a link for this demon is to find a demon as powerful as her, of her rank. Nayuta's superiority complex is always balanced against Denji's inferiority complex.

While the demon of control is only interested in demons, the demon who was martyred by humans cannot conceive of himself without them, but we'll come back to that later. 

I just want to point something out: isn't it paradoxical to reproach Denji for the education he gives Nayuta when Fumiko is supposed to regard him, as she claims, as a child? Once again, Fumiko is in constant contradiction, protecting by controlling and attacking, conceiving of a child as an adult, she is the hold over a child she can't help but see as a weapon while vouching for his condition. 

What's more, Fumiko's thinking is purely human, not universal like Denji and Nayuta. For them, feeding the dogs and their cat is a mission of the utmost necessity, it's like acting to protect one's family, whereas Fumiko refutes this.

Denji has been considered a dog for part of his life, and has bonded and merged with a demon in the shape of a dog, which is the first form of love he received: it was not humans who first gave Denji love, but animals. In the same way, the demon of control likes to form a relationship with dogs who take pleasure in their domestication, either as a form of denunciation or as a clearly established hierarchy. 

Fumiko proves that human sensitivity only stops at their peers, while the rarer demonic sensitivity is more universal and intense, whether it's treating animals as precious beings or forgiving unforgivable acts like Denji's continued love for Makima.

The fact that Denji and Nayuta appear to have no moral barriers is what allows them not to be prisoners of their own, and to conceive of love more extensively, whether it be harmful or inter-species. 

All this just goes to prove Barem's point that, as a weapon, he has a very good understanding of the different species and what they have in common: death is what binds us together.

When humans no longer find interest in a figure, it is destruction that attracts them. In other words, it's intrinsic to them. Even when they have been spared the demon of fire, they intend to spread it. Isn't it ironic, then, that Fumiko intends to protect two demons at the expense of their animals? Humans only see the world in terms of hierarchy, whereas demons and animals recognise that there is more to it than just a food chain. 

Nayuta's emphasis on the exhilaration that comes from abusing and killing demons is spot on. In chapter 137, Denji had fun beating up all those men, even concluding that "this" normal life wasn't so bad. Why was that? Because it's the daily life of a demon.

Denji, who belongs to both camps, has human needs just as much as he has demonic needs, so Nayuta has a point. But just as living solely as a human doesn't satisfy Denji, acting solely as a demon doesn't work any better. 

Denji works through the concrete, through sensations, and what he materialises through his senses, the fact being that he's had at least one kiss without any major damage with a human his own age.

Just a harmless touch is what allows Denji to connect with humanity as a whole, to be sensitive to their plight, even though he has no morals and takes pleasure in human suffering.

It wasn't until Denji struck up a relationship with Aki and Power for the first time that he was able to feel human and stop feeling like an animal. We are empathetic to the fate of those who resemble us, Denji is a universal being, animal, human and demon, he is the one who brings these different worlds together. Barem is right: death is what binds species together. But Pochita and Denji are the symbol that love can also be a common denominator. 

The fact that he thinks of Asa is symbolic because, without knowing it, she is the one who understood the plurality of species in Denji. She began by dehumanising him, Denji's animal phase, placing him below the cat (proof that she too places animals before men), then she had budding feelings for Denji before being disturbed by Chainsaw Man. 

That's why Chapter 101 is so important to understanding this chapter: because in it, Asa makes friends with both humans and demons, getting to know Yuko just as she does Yoru. She is not outraged by the idea of killing, as Yoru asks her to do, having put aside her human nature and accepted the world as it is, which is ruled by death.

But she is no fatalist, and in the face of a demon, she protects Yuko, continuing to love despite her mistakes "as long as her heart is in the right place". What matters is not so much our actions as the cursor through which we place ourselves to apprehend the world. 

Relationships are full of mistakes, imperfections, misunderstandings and a game of dominance. Denji doesn't realise it, but the one who kissed him wasn't Asa but Yoru, and it was for a bad purpose: to turn him into a weapon. Paradoxically, in wanting to make Denji a weapon, Yoru conceived him as he was, a hybrid being, a weapon. It was the first kiss in which he was seen for what he was.

But not only that, just as Asa loves the different natures of the multi-species being that is Denji, so Denji loves Asa's dual nature, what holds him together is as much the memory of the human in the aquarium as the physical contact with the demon inside her.

While Asa, in her desire to protect Denji, was distancing herself from him, hurting him and making him doubt himself, it was paradoxically the demon, with evil intentions, who gave him some peace of mind.

The chapter is called Devil's choice, an expression which means that we only have two choices, that we can't have everything. In this case, that would mean choosing a species, a side. But what Asa and Denji still represent in this Shakespearean symbolism is not belonging to any side, but loving in a universal way.

The rejection of men has opened up other perspectives for both of them, be it the animal or the demonic connection. 

Once again, the answer lies in plurality, in what begins with two: Asa and Denji decide, on the contrary, to have it all, there is no Devil's choice. 

By deciding to bond with animals rather than humans when they lost their parents, Asa and Denji forged a destiny guided by love without barriers.

Their bad experiences - sexual harassment for Denji and bullying at school for Asa - at the hands of adults have naturally created a distrust of humanity that is rekindled by contact between the two of them. It's when Denji and Asa come together that they regain hope, because they are the definition of loving each other fully.

Those who stand in the way of this universal love are the public hunters who avoid this natural crossing.

The public hunters are there precisely to fuel the fight against humans and demons, the link they carry is not love but the other common denominator, death, destruction. Even if it means crossing the moral barrier to exploit children with Yoshida by forcing them to harm other children like Asa, Fumiko being once again the symbol of this danger.

Denji has both human and demonic needs, so he's destined to love Asa because she's both human and harbours a demon with a thirst for violence. Chainsaw Man was used to make us forget the war, but by loving the demon of war, they both unravel.

Only Chainsaw Man and the demon of war can conquer death, because love is the second common denominator that links the species. Why? Because everyone has a heart. Even demons. Who not only have one, but become one.

[sugar-grigri]

If you haven't done one before, could you do an analysis of Denji's use of sexuality as the only form of love he still has untouched?

Sex and love, two bets Denji wants to take

At first, touching breasts, getting close to a girl, was a way for Denji to fill something he didn't understand. Projecting his lack of relationships, and affection, into what was visible, represented on those posters and magazines, through all those sexual images. Denji is someone who reasons through his senses, his intuitions. For him, pure physical contact was love.

When he loses Pochita for the first time, Denji doesn't immediately place his feelings in the abstract. He's sad, having just lost his family, but physically, organically and symbolically, he remains in his heart, he is his heart. It's only afterwards, as Denji experiments, that he understands the ambivalence of relationships: things don't turn out as we'd hoped, we can even have bad experiences, be violated against our will even when we were convinced we'd get a reward, a pleasant, harmless act.

Proposing a carnal act is not necessarily an act of kindness; on the contrary, it's often a way of dominating and manipulating the other person. Falling in love and sleeping together isn't as simple as cooking and eating. It's a risk before it's a pleasure.

Then there was Aki and Power. The symbol of platonic family relationships. For whom Denji didn't realize his attachment until after their loss. To the point of understanding that losing someone isn't as simple to resolve as sleeping when you're sleepy. That it follows us without solution.

Denji understood this plurality of love, he also understood that sex, or one's own body, is a currency of exchange, as his dialogue with Yoshida had shown. A body can be bruised, sex can be non-consensual. These aren't just abstract concepts, Denji doesn't think like that; if he's understood them at all, it's through his own experiences.

In chapter 127, Denji catches up with Asa, subjected to the Falling Devil, who argues that life is only pain. What Denji is trying to do is reassure her, which is not easy for him as speech is not his strong suit. But he puts himself in her place anyway, and it's one of the rare times when CSM expressly and voluntarily helps someone simply to help them, without projecting anything behind it (he wasn't supposed to see Asa anymore).

He then talks about cats and dogs, because he knows that universally they are beings that bring us happiness. But he also evokes all his traumas: ice cream (Aki), cats (Power), but above all hamburgers (representing his mourning when he gave up control of his being to Pochita). Denji evokes them all positively, yet symbolically, they are all finely chosen elements that will evoke negativity.

But in the end, Denji says he's moving on to have sex one day. I know this isn't the right way to reassure Asa, but Denji wanted to help her, to comfort her, and he did it sincerely, because he can't change what he says if it's what he thinks. Wanting sex is what a teenager wants. It's also a desire for Denji not to compartmentalize growing up and not to pay attention to his needs.

Denji is attracted by what he can touch directly, by pure sensations. So it's natural that he only talks about sex. That's not to say he'll reduce his girlfriend to that, he just doesn't know what envelops the act, feelings, love. He's never had a girlfriend!

Denji was abandoned by his parents, dehumanized, having grown up with a demon, behaving like an animal. So he answers his questions with this latest experience, a sensation not yet acquired: the origin of humanity, his own, Asa's. If everyone's doing it, it must be good!!!

Sex is presented as two sides of the same coin in this part, as a kind of naive claim for Denji to move forward, to get out of his pain, but something that is constantly used against him, to manipulate him, that puts him in danger.

And once again, he begins to spot the danger, but can't fight it. Fumiko is the perfect example, a symbol of his sexual trauma to which Denji is completely subjected.

Denji is beginning to know that sex can be both positive and negative. But he also doesn't know how to discuss it, how to talk about it, especially to the girl he's interested in. As he thinks sex is something universally pleasurable so talking about it had to resonate in Asa as much as cats, dogs, ice cream. He presented something that was also traumatic in a beautiful light.

Denji wants a girlfriend, he wants to be loved and to love, yes. Even though love is rarely a pleasant experience, even a factor of despair.

Denji also wants to sleep with someone, yes something just as risky, or he consciously knows he can be used and manipulated for it.

Sex isn't Denji's way of being loved, it's like love, something as beautiful as it is traumatic. And Denji wants to experiment. Even if it means suffering. Because in suffering, there will always be pleasure.

CSM, the fruit of an act of love for Pochita and mourning for Denji, is above all the chimera of trauma.

Denji doesn't think he can get out of the trauma. He has experienced it so much that he now sees it as something necessary to experience. He doesn't confront suffering, he deflects it, even if it means suffering more.

How could Denji break out of this cycle?

By learning to trust.

And that's something he'll experience with a teenager who's distrustful, his opposite.

Both the attraction and the rejection of sex are normal reactions for two teenagers. But they are also two responses from the two protagonists to their own suffering.

Denji's obsession with sex is a desire to move forward, to tie the knot to the point of putting himself in danger. Asa's absolute rejection of contact is also symbolic of the fact that she no longer wants to suffer by connecting with others, even if it means suffering from her loneliness.

One is literally swept away by his suffering, while the other cuts off his own head to get some hope, accepting his suffering as necessary, even if it deprives him of his loved ones. And the result will be the same: solitude.

You can't throw yourself into someone's arms, just as you can't isolate yourself.

Loneliness will devour them if they don't bond with each other.

A relationship with someone you trust is enough.

[hellmouth-manor]

The Star, Reversed || Chapter 3 Motive

It was not long ago that another person died. The loss of Cedric surely made its rounds in upsetting friends and disturbing acquaintances. Knowing that if you step too far off the beaten path and see something you are not supposed to the demonesses will take the most care into bringing you into their flock. So, it would only be natural if you feel uneasy being called into the garden by your hostesses.

The three demons are there when the group arrives, each looking amused, neutral, and displeased as they lounge among the beautiful flowers. Breaking the silence, Pheo claps her hands together and stands up straight.

"Looks like everyone is here! Let's start- We have something very special this time around for all our precious little stars here! Take it away, Fumiko!"

She clears her voice,

"A murder for a wish. As you seen already Hell has powers beyond your means and with such magic we have the ability to pull strings in the mortal world. We are offering you one wish if you kill someone. It can be anything within reason. Do you want someone dead? Do you want someone's business to go under and ruin their life? Do you want someone to inherit a lot of money and be set for the rest of their days? We can make that happen."

Fumiko eyes Aya, who finishes up the speech.

"Of course, there are limits. As we said, it has to be within reason. There are such rules like no bringing back anyone from the dead or getting you or someone else out of here. Any wishes that make it easier to escape this place or the likes are not allowed, among other things. For the mean time, that is all. Good luck in your depravity but also shoo."

All the power of Hell at your fingertips. One death for a wish, albeit with limits, but beyond those restraints you could wish for nearly anything. Someone is going to die for this. There is no escaping that reality.

[tackyink]

The making of Anomaly, chapter 2

Link to chapter 2

Fumiko didn’t exist in the first chapter.

In fact, there was a line in the original version that said that Makoto didn’t have any friends, so like a thief in the night, I changed it for “Makoto didn't have friends in class” while nobody was looking.

Fumi came to life because I didn’t want to fall into the trope of OC having no friends until they meet the main cast. If Makoto was going to be her own person outside of a one-shot, she needed a life, and people usually know other people.

I also gave her a black cat because that’s the pet a witch needs and Makoto relishes in the aesthetic. I don’t know if it fully comes through how eerie Makoto seems to the people around her, since the story is written from her point of view and the people she ultimately surrounds herself with don’t pay any mind to it, but it isn’t just the gloomy appearance or the blunt personality that throw people off. By virtue of her power, Makoto knows way more than she should about other people, and they sense that at an unconscious level. Human danger alarms react to Mako’s paranormal antenna. She’s dangerous, whether she wants or not, so regular humans and weaker demons identify her as a threat.

(There’s a chapter in the sequel where she’s described from some else’s point of view that I enjoyed writing a lot because of all this, but it’ll still be a while until I can post any of that.)

But back to Fumi: she’s such an over-the-top character because so is Makoto, if in the opposite sense. I got curious as to how those two started to get along, and that’s how I got the idea for the side chapter The Witch, The Hero and The Cat, though that would happen further down the line. They work as friends because they seem to be physically incapable to pull their punches. They appreciate each other’s honesty and, most importantly, they accept each other for who they are. Fumi is under a lot of pressure from her parents, and since she got into high school, her schoolmates tend to steer clear away from her because she hangs out with the wrong crowd. If she does something dumb, they blame her for it. Meanwhile, Mako tells her she’s dumb but also asks whose kneecaps need to be broken. This works both ways.

I also get the sense that, when they were little, Fumiko used to get into fights to defend Makoto from kids who badmouthed her, and Mako feels that if Fumi doesn’t have as many friends as before is partly because of her.

We meet in this chapter the two half-demons forever known by the nicknames Yosuke and Kazama. They are to blame for Anomaly and Makoto’s character concept. In one of my manga rereads, I started thinking about that chapter where they reunite the entire population of half-demons in Sarayashiki, and… they were a lot. It was just guys, too, so the women were probably doing something productive with their lives, instead of messing with the current Spirit Detective. It was a part of canon that was never explored and I never thought much about, but the fact was that it was canon. There were half-demons living among humans, and they weren’t as uncommon as it could seem.

This is also the chapter were I lowkey panicked because I realized that Makoto’s power could get out of hand very easily. You can’t just throw a character with future sight in the middle of a preexisting story and expect it to go like the original. I could say that I spent a lot of time thinking of how to make it work, but truth is, it happened organically, which, I suppose, is the result of being a living repository of YYH information. I just needed to fill in the gaps, and since I didn’t have any ideas set in stone, it was easy to go with the flow.

In this case, Mako talks about fate for the first time:

"That is not what I mean." She hung her schoolbag on her wrist and started explaining with more intensity than usual, "Fate is like this sort of path we all have," she gestured with her hands apart, drawing lines in the air, "and we all take the one that is wider and marked for us. It's like a highway with a single destination. People don't deviate from it. In your case, it was either you or her, no way around it. If we follow the highway analogy," she furrowed her brow, and drew another, smaller path with her hands that branched out from the other, "you took the car with your mother inside it, swerved it out of the road and onto a goat path, found another highway at the end of it, and reincorporated to traffic as if nothing had happened." She looked up at him, befuddled and very relieved that she was being able to put into words the thoughts that had plagued her mind since that night. "Only you could have done it because… because…" She threw her arms in defeat. "You can't do that!"

Note the amount of contractions. She’s confused and thinking out loud and she doesn’t like it. She has a rigid view of the world, and this doesn’t fit it.

Towards the end, we arrive to Genkai’s temple.

I was very unsure about this part. I thought letting Makoto have a previous connection to Genkai, on top of the one she had just stablished to Kurama, would trip off readers’ Mary Sue alarms. I hadn’t imagined back then that their relationship would become so central to the story and to Makoto’s eventual path in life.

The way I described the temple and its surroundings was the way I had always imagined them. We know from Genkai’s tournament that the forest and the battlefield where the final matches take place is brimming with power, and Makoto, who is attuned to energies more than the average psychic, is especially sensitive to it, and the wild energies swirling around make her feel not so out of place as in the city.

Genkai is a bit of a second grandma to her. I didn’t know yet that Genkai and Nana had been fighting companions in their youth, but I did know that Nana had psychic powers, just not the extent of them, and that she brought Makoto to Genkai because she didn’t think she could help her manage them properly. She had already failed and lost a daughter to her inability, so she wasn’t going to repeat that mistake. Fortunately for her, it worked, because Mako turned out to be way more powerful than she had anticipated.

[tackyink]

Anomaly trivia! Under a cut, because spoilers.

(If you are curious about anything, the ask box is open!)

Fumiko has spent the entire fic without a surname.

She eventually becomes a professional athlete.

Fumiko’s and Makoto’s parents are well-off. That’s the only reason they ended up at Meiou.

Yuusuke was definitely not supposed to get along so well with Mako. He does what he wants.

Nana chose to retire and get married after the Toguro brothers asked to be turned into demons, to stay away from that world and keep her future children out of danger.

Mako’s biological mother had psychic powers too, although much weaker than her daughter’s. She never learned how to deal with them, cut off ties with her family, and never contacted them again until she dropped off Mako with her brother.

She left Mako with him because she knew he would take care of her, even if they hadn’t spoken in years.

Makoto’s future sight comes from her biological father. If I get to write the sequel, it will probably be explored there.

Makoto goes to Fushimi Inari twice because that friend of mine who lived in Kyoto for a year first suggested she went there on the school trip, then demanded that she went at night. I was happy to comply. Apparently, it’s an otherworldly sight.

Fumiko/Shizuru also happened because she shipped it.

The next thing she does after checking on Amemasu when she moves to Genkai’s temple is plant the seed Kurama gave her, just in case. A few hours later, around the time Kurama should get home from work, it sprouts again.

Mako was looking for some peace and quiet by moving to the mountains, but she actually gets so many visitors that she doesn’t have time to rest.

Makoto has huge amounts of non-verbalized respect for Hiei for not revealing his identity to Yukina. She knows how hard it is to keep important secrets from the people you love.

She also has mad respect for Yukina for not confronting Hiei about his identity, because she knows, oh yes she does, but she will wait until he is ready to speak, if ever.

The furry demon Makoto meets at Fushimi Inari is actually the travelling demon that aids Yuusuke during the haunted dorm case in the last manga volume. I know at least one person got the reference.

Doraemon is a normal cat, but who’s to say normal cats can’t see things we don’t?

That’s all for now. I’m sure more will come to mind.