Fujimoto's chosen words in chapter 177 highlight the tragic fate children in Chainsaw Man have always faced

Modified Sep 21, 2024 04:08 GMT

Throughout the entirety of mangaka Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Chainsaw Man series, one of the core narrative aspects of the series is abuse. While it’s taken many different forms, many major plot points can be traced back to abuse, and specifically parents abuse at that. Chapter 177 drives this home once again with War Devil Yoru’s words to Asa Mitaka regarding children being their parents’ property.

This further highlights the series’ abuse of children, which is pervasive throughout the entirety of both Chainsaw Man Part 1 and 2. Likewise, it’s made clear that both parental figures and those who don’t take on that role alike will abuse children for their own gain, with Yoru’s words driving home that all children will face this fate.

Children in Chainsaw Man are destined to be abused by those older than them for their own gain

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One of the most obvious uses of this narrative thread in Chainsaw Man comes via Denji, who is abused by both parental figures and others. For parental figures, Denji’s father physically abused him to the point of Denji killing him in order to survive. This event traumatizes Denji even contemporarily in the series, with chapter 155 being the most recent and a very clear example of this fact.

Denji is also abused by both Makima, Public Safety, and the Chainsaw Man Church throughout both the Public Safety and Academy Sagas. Each has either their own goals they want to use Denji to achieve or a reason to keep Denji under their control, which often leads to him being emotionally hurt and abused.

The Church also shows how general children can be abused even if there’s nothing particularly special about them. The Church’s practice of recruiting high schoolers and eventually marrying them in order to facilitate Fire Devil contracts, as well as enlisting them to fight against Public Safety, highlights this.

This even extends to the Church’s so-called leaders and poster children, with both Haruka Iseumi and Asa Mitaka/War Devil Yoru being abused by them for Famine Devil Fami’s own gain.

The guilt Denji feels regarding his deaths is a key aspect of this narrative thread (Image via MAPPA Studios)

On the topic of Asa, she also highlights both forms of children being abused in-series. She receives abuse from a parental figure in the form of the orphanage caretaker who drowns the cat she saved the day her mom died. There’s also the fact that Asa is being abused by Yoru throughout the Academy Saga, essentially being held hostage in her own body and sacrificing it to the point of losing both her arms.

The latest chapters have also seen Yoru become a vessel for highlighting parental figures’ abuse of children in the series via her weaponization of the Tank and Gun Devil. She values her desire to defeat Chainsaw Devil Pochita higher than the safety of her comrades and children, which is what she originally told Asa she was fighting for.

There are two final major examples of this narrative thread which highlight the abuse of children from non-parental figures specifically. The first is Public Safety’s enlistment of children, such as Aki Hayakawa in the aftermath of the Gun Devil’s attack. The second is the Japanese government’s currently pending deal with the Aging Devil, which sees them preparing to sacrifice 10 thousand children with Japanese citizenship.

Final thoughts

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Clearly, Fujimoto is deliberately writing this plot point into his series, using it to guide the major beats and serve as a general framework for the central characters’ primary struggles. While there is hope that Denji, Asa, and others can eventually find a way to break this cycle, the manga’s bleak world suggests otherwise.