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sugar-grigri · 8 months

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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.

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