what is love? a boy loves his dog. a boy will feed a girl to his dog

idol or a commodity, it ceases to be interesting."

i feel like this book is going to give me a lot to think about

glad you enjoyed the thread! these days the prospect of denji dying feels ever more likely

better tl;dr: part 2 is a critique of part 1.
post-hoc disclaimer: having nostalgia for part 1 does not make you reactionary, obviously. when i think of the panels that give me chills, nearly all are from part 1. i loved part 1 to hell and back. i miss it too.

i have a headache and i'm barely awake. i hope this thread was comprehensible. i feel like my thesis changed several times as i was writing, so even i'm not sure fully what's in it. cheers.

tl;dr i reread part 2 a few weeks ago and it was way better and put together more intentionally than i remember when i was reading the chapters weekly. still have a lot of problems with how it was told, but i still think that it's a necessary continuation of 1, without which 1 would be incomplete

story, for instance. but my point, if any, is that the way in which part 1 is told much more legibly, such that you're able to follow the threads as they go instead of having to go back and put them together like part 2, makes it the nostalgic, reaction-attracting "myth" that part 2 takes apart.

political commentary, for all those people who whine about things being "made" political.
i realize this thread may come across as an insane reach to defend writing decisions, which is not my aim; i still have a lot of problems about how asa was handled that can't be rectified this late into the

war between the us and the ussr was probably going on the whole time in the background in part 1, now that i think about it. the pure comfort of part 1 does not exist, it is in truth just as messy and complex as part 2 is, save for the illusion of structure. it's certainly got just as much real

deeply uncomfortable way. it holds a mirror quite directly to everyone who "wants to be chainsaw man". it says not only that the simple/good life is not as it seems, but that wanting simplicity itself is incredibly dangerous. you cannot yearn for simpler times, they don't exist and never have. the

part 1 is good, but it's also not perfect. there's quite a bit that it handles insensitively or desists on fully exploring, and part 2, flaws and all, is the space for exploring that. in doing so, part 2 directly undermines the conclusion of part 1, takes it apart and reveals its ugly spots in a

many don't, they take the simple conclusion at face value even now (see responses to denji's breakdown in the forest).
what's this to do with reaction? i think i'd describe reaction as nostalgia taken literally, making the simple world of your dreams into something you think is actually achievable.

really inspiring but has so many terrible implications we're still unraveling in part two right now. because The Makima (abusive parent/respectable liberal/fascist) is there, it feels safe, it feels like you can just ignore what's messy or confusing or uncomfortable. even if you choose to engage,

also we know part 1 isn't "pure". we know the characters aren't all they seem. we know the more subtle politics can serve to bury meaningful challenges to readers' worldviews. we know the broader emotional beats lead to really questionable places; "the truth is, i want to be chainsaw man" feels

for chuds this manifests as "man i wish it wasn't woke" (news flash it was always woke) but even i feel this way wrt the emotional bonds and stuff. not saying foregoing setup/payoff and emotional connection in part 2 is all just genius writing, but it's not like i'm not still invested in part 2? idk

because makima's there, it still feels like you know who's who, and what to do with who. thus, part 1 functions as the simple, "pure" section of the story to which nostalgia is directed to, regardless of how pure it really was. you start thinking, "man, if only we could go back to how it was then".