14jul24

posted on July 14, 2024

warn: csaw man (up to ch. 170) / fire punch spoilers !!!

today ‘a comfy sunday, i guess. had a pretty shitty sleep on paper, but in practice i feel great for once, the fuck. guess every once in a while the planets align.

guess for today im drinking coffee, reading manga, and playing some vidya. idk what else i could do on a lazy summer sunday. the weather definitely ain’t helping, it’s kinda warm.

speaking of warm, i guess you can officially call it summer when the cicadas come out and start making an absolute ruckus. those little bugs just don’t shut the fuck up. not that i mind, i guess i like the sound. and they also just sound summer-y, maybe because of anime? idk, guess they’re pretty common there.

i’ve been re-reading chainsaw man from scratch. tbh i kinda stopped being obsessed with it at the start of arc 2. i still read the weekly chapters because i cant avoid it (series is too good), but in general i like enjoying manga all at once.

so, i guess once in a while i reread from scratch until the last chapter. it’s… actually not a drag, like at all. i enjoy it a lot with this series. the characters in arc 1 are very interesting, and most interesting of all are their flaws (and how easy some are to hate, e.g. makima)

i don’t know what exactly it is about characters in the chainsaw man world, but they are pretty easy to get attached to. they have understandable flaws and motivations. fujimoto has a great way of drawing their faces and expressions, they’re flat as fuck but they still convey so much. they also have a sort of minimalism, which in some cases can be equated to shitty-looking drawings, but i think they have so much sovl. sometimes, less is more.

and, he can definitely draw extremely detailed panels.

i enjoyed fire punch a lot, so i guess i kinda know fujimotors modus operandi. he has no issue killing off characters, even important ones, as long as it keeps the history alive. he avoids killing them off “just because”, to some extent.

but i think that’s a good thing in the context of the world they live in. and, it actually keeps you on edge and coming back for more. an awful lot of manga (i’d say the ULTRA VAST majority) is utterly boring, with either little development or plot armor thick as hell.

and, circling back to the characters being loveable/easy to grow attached to, when they die, it hits EVEN HARDER. and i think this aspect of “suffering” is thematically consistent with the entire premise of the series, which is awesome.

there are a few more manga series that I REALLY like. i’d say 99.9% of manga series are unworthy of your time, they’re just unoriginal garbage. some of my favs that come to mind, incomplete list:

Solanin (one shot (?), i just LOVE it so much. if you’re in your [early] 20’s, plz read.)
Frieren (ongoing, the translation is also top notch.)
It’s Just Not My Night (its just so vile, stupid, and degenerate; but also a fairly short read. i liked it)
Happiness (oshimi shuzo is an absolute degen. sometimes he makes really great shit, i think this is his best, tbh.)

id like to eventually make a more thought out post on my fav manga tbh, just to keep track of ’em. it’s hard to list shit when i havent read it in years, i easily forget.