Food, Intimacy and power in Chainsaw Man

“The new restaurant by my house is delicious! Yes!”

Here’s some quick thoughts on how food and power functions in Chainsaw Man. I’ll add to it over time and add textual references once i feel like going through the text for references. Also let me know if i get any events wrong this is all based off memory.

IMO, Fujimoto’s author’s notes almost entirely being about food is not just because he’s quirky. Fujimoto uses food, eating, cooking, regurgitation, and cannibalism to illustrate the networks of power, love and intimacy between his characters. His author’s notes are about food because the whole story is about food, and the food tells the story.

Part One

EARLY STUFF

Pochita and Denji's friendship is sort of the cornerstone of Denji's character. While Pochita isn't present for most of the story, he was Denji's first friend, and is both literally and figuratively Denji's heart. When they first meet, Denji allows Pochita to drink his blood. This act of charity cements their friendship and their contract, creating the possibility for Chainsaw Man's existence, and gives us the first example in the story where eating someone/being eaten by someone is an act of love.

Pochita and Denji go on to eat together, and to share the most fundamental love in the series.

When Denji moves in with Aki, one of the first things he does is eat a wonderful meal of bread and jam. He is overjoyed at what the reader understands to be a pretty basic meal. In the same way, having someone to live with him and help take care of him is pretty normal for a teenager, but Denji feels that his new life is luxurious. Aki cooks for Denji and Power regularly, which cements his role as an older brother figure, a protector, and a caregiver. Power is childish with her food the way she is with everything, and she mistreats it the way she mistreats everyone.

After Makima finds Denji, like the third thing she does is withhold food.

In the anime, the made it so that Denji and Makima don’t eat together because he fell asleep, but in the manga she makes him go fight a devil before he can come back and eat his food. Either way, they DO NOT EAT TOGETHER. She learns quickly that she can use food and affection to control Denji.

THE PUKE SCENE

The Puke Scene is one of my favourite parts of Chainsaw Man bc a) it’s funny b) it’s gross and c) it is horribly sad and encapsulates the way the characters relate to each other wonderfully.

Before they ever get to dinner, Himeno has promised Denji a kiss. Obviously Denji is excited, because he is desperate for any attention or affection he can get. Dinner is being paid for by Makima, but she is late and DOES NOT EAT WITH EVERYONE.

The dinner introduces everyone and establishes their new and preexisting relationships. This ensures that we feel sad when they all die a few chapters later. Everyone learns how young Denji is and is shocked. Power hogs the food, Denji can’t read the menu (!!!) (as in he’s actually illiterate but also doesn’t even have the tools required to get food on his own) (and food is a metaphor for emotional intimacy) and Himeno drinks a little too much.

Makima shows up. She finds out about the imminent kiss. She orders beer, despite the fact that she can’t get drunk. I've heard people posit that she was intentionally trying to get Himeno drunk to sabatoge the kiss. I think this is also plausible, but it's also worth mentioning that in chapter 20 Himeno says that she wants to get Makima drunk to try to find out why she's so interested in Denji. I totally forgot that until I was rereading to find panels! Either way, Himeno and Aki get fucked up while Makima remains completely sober.

Himeno finally kisses Denji, and vomits into his mouth.

Vomit in Chainsaw Man indicates wrongness, on an obvious and a not-obvious level. It’s not right that Himeno is kissing Denji (his adult colleague), and it’s not right that she’s this drunk (Makima’s influence?).

Power immediately predicts that Denji will swallow the vomit; she knows him this well already. He swallows the vomit the same way he accepts sexual advances from adult superiors. It feels like a tongue going down, until he realizes it’s not right. Who else ends up feeling that way to him?

He throws up after the kiss, he realizes it’s wrong once it hits his stomach. This scene is played as more humorous in the anime and more sad in the manga, I found, but maybe the manga is just easier to project my own emotions onto. Denji is reminded of seeing rats eating vomit. It’s at this point in the manga when Denji starts seriously doubting his own humanity; to be like an animal is an important feeling in this momen.

Makima controls rats. To be made to feel like an animal is a degradation that works in her favour. Another step towards becoming her dog.

Afterwards, Makima gives Denji a lollipop. She treats it as both a gift of food and a sex act; she calls it an “indirect kiss”. This lollipop is the reason he doesn’t sleep with Himeno.

Obviously it would be bad for several reasons if Denji slept with Himeno, but for Makima, it would loosen her grip on him. She sabotaged the kiss for the same reason. If Denji starts getting affection elsewhere, he might not need her so badly. So he finds the lollipop in his pocket while Himeno comes onto him, and he remains a virgin. Makima keeps her leverage to get him to do her bidding.

REZE

Frankly I find Reze boring but here’s what I’ll say very quickly: Denji regurgitates a flower when he first meets her (wrongness), he goes to where she works all the time but they never eat together (so so close to connecting but never getting there), she bites off his tongue (simultaneously dominating him and creating intimacy with him) aaaaand everything goes poorly. Most importantly why does her butt stick out like that and why did she have to be in the silly little outfit the whole fight.

INTERNATIONAL ASSASSINS

The first scene with the American brothers whos name i forget? They eat spaghetti together. They are a team. The first scene with Tolka and his at the time unnamed mentor, they intimately kill something together. The brothers messily eat a meal together, while the Russians slowly and carefully kill and eat something. They work differently. As mentioned above, that one brother throws up when they commit murder. He’s not made for the scene. Quanxi et al are introduced with a sex scene, which functions the same as an eating scene. They do also go out for sushi later. There is no question that their connection is real.

The one american brother throws up after they murder together, his head was never in the game. Why are these guys so fluent in Japanese that they can identify and copy specific accents and dialects? I don't know but it's funny. Also, Violence buys Kobeni ice cream! Awwwww

also totally unrelated but I just rlly like this panel I think it's cute

Denji and Power eat several times together at the beginning of the arc, while everyone else stands around and comments on their manners. I genuinely just think this is because Denji and Power are besties and they are fun.

Tolka and Santa Claus eat together at the same restaurant. They have a genuinely nice meal. Their connection is real, and that’s what makes Santa Claus so powerful. She eats the burger and says “it’s wonderful!” Does Tolka taste wonderful too?

Here we start to really get into the complexity of eating another person. The immense intimacy of it and the inherent domination of it. Santa Claus essentially devours Tolka. Denji drinks Makima’s blood. The intimacy of the act makes the exchange of power that much more intense.

IN BETWEEN

After everything, while Power is still taken over by fear, she asks Denji to drink her blood so that he won’t hate her. It’s extremely intimate, almost uncomfortable to look at. It looks like a sex scene. Denji almost begins to understand that he can be intimate with someone, even with a girl, without it being sexual.

On the trip to Hokkaido, the group eats together. Power doesn’t throw her food, she just gives what she doesn’t like to Denji and Aki. She drinks Denji’s blood. They are in a kind of harmony in this chapter.

But the incoming danger is alluded to. Power throws up twice on the trip, and Aki throws up when they get back. It’s all played off as jokes, but I think it indicates that something is about to go wrong.

LATER STUFF

Speedrunning the finale stuff i might expand more later but i feel like you can get the picture

The moment when Denji realizes who is behind the door is one of my favourite pages in the series. His face, the door, the laundry, the cat, the dishes. Pictures of a domestic life together the moment before is is shattered forever. It feels like a distillation of the intimacy Fujimoto is trying to paint in part 1; the sharing of the basic necessities and the creation of a family through domestic banality. You know?

During the fight with the Gun Fiend, the people feed Denji their blood- the beginnings of the relationship between Denji and the public that’s built up during part 2.

“Afterwards, Power and I ate every delicious thing we could find.” Power and Denji try to fill the hole left by Aki. He cooked for them, so they eat delicious food to replace him.

In chapter 80, Denji throws up the popsicle. His relationship to food, ie his relationship to relations, is damaged by the loss of Aki.

Makima names her dogs after food - this is the closest she gets to a real connection. She gives Denji tiramisu, and she gives the dogs a treat. It’s the same function, the same relationship based on ownership and control.

When Power dies, she is holding a cake that is never eaten.

Makima eats in front of Denji without acknowledging him at all. An ultimate rejection of him and of his humanity.

Family burger is a facsimile of real connection, a fake “family”- the mascot of the burger indicates how they pretend at intimacy. Pochita tries to go on a date here because he wants to give Denji the real connection of sharing a meal with someone, but he can’t have that connection in his state at that time.

Denji longs for steak and for fame and for sex. He is raising his standards a little beyond the bare minimum standard of living, and setting up the Denji of Part Two.

The fact that Denji drank Power's blood saves his life. THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP, BABY!!!!!!

Denji eats Makima. He cooks her carefully and it is the only meal they ever share together.

Nayuta comes into Denjis life and asks for bread- the bare minimum. They share this meal together as the basis for a real relationship. Maybe this time she can figure out how to have real love.

Part 2 !!!!

Asa brings Yuko snacks. They never eat them, as they are derailed by the news of Yuko’s contract.

Yoshida tries to withhold food from Denji- he’s sort of trying to be Makima, but it’s not working. Denji eats the food anyway.

Denji and Asa catch, cook and eat food together. This is the best part of their date.

OTHER STUFF

My understanding of cannibalism in Chainsaw Man was really enriched by reading Fire Punch. If you haven’t read it, Fire Punch is a very violent post-apocalypse story. The main character, Agni, is constantly burning and constantly regrowing his burned flesh in a freezing wasteland with very little food. FP is not nearly as good as CSM, but you can see Fujimoto trying out a lot of the same ideas that he executes a little better in CSM. The immortal main character, the very weird sister relationship, the people with objects for heads, the importance of movies, and the presence of cannibalism. At the very beginning of FP, Agni cuts off body parts to give to his neighbours, and later in the story he has a part of his head repeatedly chopped off to feed a large group of people. Some characters question the line that is crossed by eating human flesh, but many characters see it as an act of supreme love, charity and generosity. People treat Agni like a god for his ability to feed people with his body, and believe that they will absorb some of his strength by eating of his body. I wonder what real life religion Fujimoto might have been inspired by! (That is a joke). Anyways it really drove home for me that Fujimoto sees cannibalism as a form of intimacy and I thought it was interesting. Also if it seems weird that Denji and Power are supposed to act like siblings and yet also the toilet scene happened, it’s because it is weird. It’s weird. Fujimoto writes insane sibling relationships. Recently read his short story “Sisters”. It was good but like jesus, dude.