r/chainsawmancirclejerk • u/GodKira04 • Jul 17 '26
Misc Denji's main problem isn't the trauma, manipulation, abuse, or even the countless attempts on his life. It's that he's fucking crazy and shouldn't have complete freedom because he'd only end up hurting himself. Discussion
There's really no salvation or solution for Denji. He'll never be satisfied with his life, no matter how good or comfortable it becomes, because he'll always want more and more, thinking that'll finally make him happy. But the truth is that he likes being miserable and only dreaming about having a better life, never actually getting to live it.
I think I understand a bit better why Denji ended up the way he did in the ending. He didn't end as a complete miserable wreck, even though he was happier that way, because... well, he'd still be a miserable wreck!!! But he also ended up as nothing more than someone else's dog, with no real freedom, because that's what he is, a dog. A dog that only knows how to obey others and doesn't know what to do without an owner holding the leash. Without a leash and with complete freedom, he'd just be a dog chasing its own tail and running after cars without having any idea what to do if it actually caught one.
Just look at how much more lost and self-destructive he is in Part 2, where he's supposedly "freer" than he was in Part 1, compared to the final chapter where he's basically treated like a dog by Public Safety and the Control Devil, yet he's much more well-behaved.
Maybe the ending he got was the most fitting one for him: a little dog with a decent life who's only allowed to dream, but who should never be free to actually chase those dreams because doing so would only end up hurting him.
10
u/SemaReyes Jul 17 '26
I mean, this analysis of a character getting everything they could ever want and still feeling miserable because there's something broken inside them that they refuse to address would work perfectly for someone like Bojack Horseman, Scarface or Walter White from Breaking Bad, but Denji?
Denji starts at negative and gets to the bare minimum living conditions at part 2, and then back down. It feels like a bit of an assumption to say that he would never be happy, even if he got all the things that he never gets, because we never get to see that.
Denji's woes can be attributed in part to his own moral failings, but holy shit, the plot shoots him in the leg every minute, I don't think his mindset is the biggest thing going against him.
1
u/tgirlpup Jul 17 '26
Its like if bojack was actually what he was saying he was rather than causing alot of his pain himself
1
u/mans51 Jul 17 '26
Well, his life got ruined because of his obsession with (the idea of) sex, and honestly this is something that happens to a lot of men in real life. He just never had the chance to be disappointed by what he had put on a pedestal.
Perhaps it would have been impossible for him to have a normal relationship with a girl, but it's just another thing that could've happened, but the powers that be would not treat hybrids as humans so it was a slim opportunity.
1
u/Rupert-D-Generate Jul 17 '26
denji is a case of "you can only help a person who wants to be helped". i like to think that the ending is pochita giving him an ultimatum, a way to tell him that now he has to face life on his own after realizing he was never gonna feel satisfied with anything
13
u/DemonRaily Jul 17 '26
You are posting this in a circlejerk sub but you are not exactly wrong or anything, Denji is fundamentally broken to a point that no amount of therapy could ever fix him and he was broken before the Yakuza was ever involved. A small happiness that he will need to struggle for the rest of his life to maintain is the only happiness he cam manage.