With the airing of the season 1 finale, at this time marks the ultimate Chainsaw Man Tuesday of the yr. Though our squad of dirtbag most important characters have been by way of so much by way of the 12 brief episodes of the sequence, none of them have suffered as a lot as Kobeni Higashiyama.
Chainsaw Man is the story of Denji, a down on his luck teenage boy who, up till just a few weeks in the past, thought he’d die with out ever touching a boob. In the intervening time, he’s merged with the Chainsaw Satan and has been employed beneath risk of demise by the Japanese authorities to battle different devils. Denji is a most important character, and whereas lots of horrible issues have already occurred to him, there’s no less than the pretense that he’ll study from it.
Kobeni Higashiyama will not be a most important character. She’s a fellow satan hunter alongside Denji, however she doesn’t have his powers of the Chainsaw Satan — no less than, none she will share or wield in the intervening time. The truth is, she doesn’t appear to have any powers in any respect. Kobeni spends most of her time screaming and crying when confronted with the ultraviolence Denji turns into accustomed to. If Denji’s journey is of discovering what fashionable life is all about, Kobeni’s life is a slapstick routine. She’s already trapped within the rat race. She doesn’t wish to be there, however she doesn’t have a alternative. Her dad and mom instructed her she wanted to become profitable to ship her brother to varsity, and she or he had a alternative between being a satan hunter or a intercourse employee.
Though I really feel unhealthy for Kobeni and the never-ending stream of distress she experiences, having her round in Chainsaw Man is like having a personality from a Coen brothers film in my fashionable, hyper-violent anime. She’s kind of like Brad Pitt’s character in Burn After Studying, in that she has no concept what’s happening and is consistently in nice hazard, or like Barton Fink, in that she largely makes the mistaken selections and is consistently, inexplicably moist with sweat, tears, or some combination of each. Not like her fellow satan hunters, she will’t even hold her cool upon seeing the eldritch terrors she’s purported to battle. She reacts like several common schmuck would; screaming, crying, and begging for mercy.
What’s most hilarious about Kobeni’s struggling to me is she doesn’t even get to die. As her colleagues drop like flies round her, Kobeni, for no matter motive, stays alive. By the point this season ends, virtually each one of many satan hunters Kobeni is aware of have been killed. However not Kobeni. Although she longs for the candy embrace of demise, she as an alternative has the privilege of waltzing as much as the season’s closing confrontation, and will get blood splattered on her face for her hassle. When her fellow satan hunter Aki asks her why she’s nonetheless doing this job, she solutions bonuses are developing quickly.
What Denji learns about all through Chainsaw Man is the mundanity of the trendy world. Issues that appeared magical, virtually mythological to him earlier than turning into a satan hunter, like touching breasts and hanging out with ladies, prove to not be as life-changing as he assumed. However whereas Denji is likely to be on a journey of self-actualization, most of us watching are like Kobeni. Nothing particular occurs to us. The universe doesn’t bend itself towards ushering alongside our private growth. All of us simply need to hold going to our shitty jobs till they kill us, or we get our bonuses. Kobeni could also be handier with a knife on the finish of the season than the beginning, however no grand future awaits her. Along with her luck, she’ll by no means die.
