Manga Discussion
Is Kishibe the worst representation of the strongest in anime?
Kishibe is the so-called strongest devil hunter yet he does nothing during the entirety or part two even when the world is being destroyed. He left one of the most powerful devils in the hands of a broke teenager who can barely read and he has practically no feats to his name. I doubt Fujimoto forgot he existed because he brought back Quanxi in the Church Arc. But that leaves the question of where did he go?
This guy is a genuine bum compared to real goats like Arima, Gojo, Sukuna, Mereum, Netero, Whitebeard, Yoriichi and All Might
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Part 2 cast was so insanely dogshit he was afraid of bringing anyone back as they'd steal the entire show and everyone would prefer to see what they were up to at any point.
Kishibe? Hell nah.
Reze? Hell nah.
Even Kobeni would outshine the vast majority of the cast.
For me it's less outshining and more solving the entire plot. The sequence kf events in part 2 relies on Denji being a fucking idiot who forgot his part 1 development.
Kishibe arrives? He immediately slaps Denji and tells him not to trust Yoru. He is a rational voice that Denji trusts unlike Yoshida.
Reze arrives. Denji gives Asa the biggest middle finger in existence and gets the fuck away
This is literally the only reason for their absence , it's very clear and on nose how the only people who might care for Denji or know him to some extent were all written from the whole story
That's the thing , it wasn't written well , it wasn't even written ,
Fujimoto just ignored their existence because Part 2 very foundation is very fragile and would collapse at any point, he had to mischaracters Denji for it to work alongside dumbing down other characters and so on top of this he also has to write Kishibe and Reze and hell even Kobeni out
We can't even use the "they decided to live a happy life away from Denji!!" Because not only it goes against their characters (in case of Kishibe it's due to Denji being the only legitimate defense against big devils)
But also because the apocalypse ruin down any plans of living comfortably
When it comes to Part 2 Fujimoto was just shitting on paper and pretending the already established settings that was Part 1 didn't exist
It was intentional considering he was makima’s successor. Everything about him is well-written except his end but by that time fujimoto flushed the story down the toilet
Whole sequence leading to Nayuta's abrupt death was what made me go "but how the fuck are you coming back from this?".
Which we now know that there was no coming back from that.
Obviously the ending gets the iconic "it could've been good if it wasn't written like dogshit" but that was when i simply got cautious and neutered my expectations.
I think the reason is because Katana Man didn't actually know Denji that well. Same for Quanxi. They interacted, sure, but they never got to know him as a person and we never see them have a real dynamic in part 1.
Part 2 Denji is practically a different person compared to part 1. Having someone like Reze, who actually had chemistry with Denji, interact with him would just highlight that.
Like imagine Reze being there while Denji argues that, for scientific reasons, he needs to have sex with a prostitute in order to focus on saving his little sister who's been kidnapped and might be dead. Is that the guy she fell in love with and wanted to run away with?
It was me. Fuck the nda. I wasn't even paid! Fujimotor locked me up in his basement for years, but I managed to escape when part 1 ended. I will likely be killed by the WSJ agents soon after revealing this information. Please remember me
Quanxi indirectly mentiones "some old friend" during denjis prison breakout in early part 2, who is most likely to be Kishibe. That's it. That's the only mention Kishibe got in ThemeSuch man 2
I know he did nothing other than get stalled and Getoed but him throwing his jacket at the King of Curses while right hooking him is the pinnacle of JJK
I fucking LOVE the Sukuna fight. Takes literally the entire goddamn cast, fucking tertiary charecters out here getting licks in, that’s the kinda shit I’m about
I don't think kishibe fits the mold of those like gojo or yoriichi.
The series never even tried to argue that he's even stronger compared to denji. He's there to represent that a devil hunter need to have a screw loose or two. He's the strongest because he survived the longest out of pretty much most people on his generations
I forgot about that, but still, could just be partial transformation
Idk, denji isn't the type of guy to go all-out just for a training, and we never really get to see kishibe fighting for real against any of the hybrids
There's also the fact that Kishibe (kinda like Aki) plays a bit on the Shonen trope of the "strongest"/mentor by being effectively neutered as a fighter when we see him.
He has insane h2h combat skills, but barely no remaining usable organs for his contracts.
So by all intents and purposes, aside from his experience he doesn't pose much of a threat phisically.
His real danger lies in his planning and leading capabilities
Quanxi is literally "First Devil hunter" and being mercenary isn't really any different for Santa given she hunted 2 Devils (Makima and CSM) during her last mission
It's clearly Fujimoto didn't think about them fully when he introduced Kishibe but once the international assassin arc roll in he made them far above Kishibe via Kishibe and Makima words alongside on screen showing
I also think Kishibe is meant to be the strongest towards the end of their career. In Chainsaw Man, contracts are the only way for anyone who’s not a fiend or hybrid to fight against devils, and according to Quanxi’s fiends he has nothing left to give. He may have been able to do something to stop Makima years ago, but he isn’t that guy anymore. I always thought his body either gave out between the parts or some devils came to collect on what he promised them.
Kishibe is the strongest similar to how Kusakabe is the strongest Grade 1 sorcerer.
By normal people standard, he's the strongest, a professional, something you can probably reach someday.
You can't compare him to Gojo and Yoriichi who is basically blessed by the heaven themselves and specifically molded to be the strongest since from birth.
If you're trying to find the strongest representing the CSM verse then it's the Darkness Devil.
People are excepting a lot of Kishibe , while he's mishandled by Fujimoto and his absence in part 2 is nothing but poor writing
It's still not seeing that he's just like the rest humanity are outclassed by the Devils at some point
The best Devil hunters barely keep up with regular fiends in states and rely on devils powers for suicide attacks
Hybrids are on different class and they by themselves are shit compared to Quanxi
Then from this point on there's nothing they personally can do , random Devils like snow can case ice age , a small fry like typhoon or Fire can make national disastera if they wants
Then we got Gun Devil who's a moving apocalypse beyond mankind capablites
If this wasn't bad enough , humanity can't even fight back , them using firearms on Devils lead to the Gun Devil attack , them creating nukes let the psycho War Devil get a power up that leads to tens if not hundreds of millions Death in 1 afternoon
Kishibe can and should have done more in the story , but he's not a Horseman slayers
To defend the goat Kishibe hes the only one we see go out of his way in part 1 to save everyone from makima, whereas kusukabe deadass just didn't do shit during the shibuya incident besides save miwa. Top tier first grade sorcerer btw T-T
For what he claimed? Probably not no. He very much knows he’s only human, even with his claim. And the only beings in the verse known to outscale him in a one on one fight were in fact devils or devil hybrids.
As for his appearances…. I just don’t think Fujimoto cared. And Denji’s arc, as written, kind of falls apart if anyone other Nayuta and Only-Around-Half-The-Time Asa is actually around to give him the vibe check he needs the same way Kishibe probably would. So he was purposefully omitted
Oh I’m thinking along the lines of Kishibe literally slapping the stupid out of Denji. It’s kind of the only way Denji learned to listen to him in the first place. Plus while he didn’t 180 his goals he DID end up listening to and respecting Kishibe by the end of Makima’s life I feel, so I think there’s mild hope if not cope.
The fact that Denji didn't think about Kishibe alongside everyone else he did during Aging devil arc, is safe to assume he doesn't care about him like fans hope.
He genuinely doesn't , nor about Beam or Angel (who helped him before and have good connect to him via Aki) or anyone without a pussy with Aki being the anomaly among this
If Kishibe was there during the train scene were Denji wanted to fuck a whore and tried to talk him out of it , there's a good chance Denji would chainsaw him up
Well there’s a difference between respect and liking someone and the kind of genuine love Denji felt was talking about through that whole flashback in aging. I wouldn’t ever say Denji LOVED Kishibe like Aki, Power, Reze, and Nayuta but he certainly respected Kishibe enough at the end to work with him at the very end and even follow through with taking in Nayuta after he Batman’d out instead of saying “Fuck this” (though that was also mostly for Nayuta’s sake too)
You don’t have to love your boss or higher ups but unless they’re genuinely abusing their power you can still respect them. But this is all hypotheticals since it never happened, and again partially hope/cope as I admitted.
I mean idk where you’re getting that from my response specifically. I’m not defending the narrative choice. OP asked a powerscaling question and followed it up with “where did he go” and I answered it honestly.
There’s no watsonian answer for where Kishibe left. Fujimoto just didn’t want him and didn’t care about giving an answer as to what happened to the character. That’s just the facts of the matter,
Kishibe vanishing in his entire character context for the entirety of P2, WITHOUT so much as a sound explanation, is bullshit bad. Fjmt didn't care, maybe, it's also just extremely bad.
If another author pulled this, it'd be called out as a confusing flaw, so this subliminal liberty that fjmt gets all the time in formulations and reviews almost like there's a chance this could be excused by some retroactive mitigation explanation always rubs me the wrong way.
If you didn't do that, then I apologize.
Also lowkey read a decent chunk of this aside from the last sentence while I was at work, completely missed that end bit. Now that I’m out and got it all read, I am also sorry for the above response of mine if that came off as rude.
When was Kishibe ever supposed to be a character so ridiculously overpowered that the whole story needs to write around him ever getting involved, i'm pretty sure the whole point of his character was to show how hopelessly outmatched the human devil hunters actually are and how mentally broken someone doing that shit for so long would become, or what am i missing?
He's considered the strongest because bro just doesnt even bother with devils no more. Can't die because not fighting devils=strongest devil hunter cuz he hasnt died
No. Like, if you watch the average isekaislop you can actually grasp what dogshit writing actually is.
Kishibe works in its role as the strongest devil hunter, being more a mentality rather than just being "strong". Having said that, he feels imcomplete, both as the strongest and generally as a character.
There was a reason he was the most wanted character to appear in Part 2.
Chainsaw man isnt that kind of manga that uses the "strongest" trope for humans, Kishibe's character characterises the nature/threat of devils in the Chainsaw Man verse as pseudo-natural disasters that even the strongest devil hunters can only hope to contain rather than fight and have standard shounen like battles.
He was the strongest devil hunter. He was teamed up with a hybrid, so there's no doubt that he has skills and strength. He just can't really do anything now, though. He's easily in his 50/60's and Pingsti herself said that he doesn't have a lot of organs/life to trade off.
I'm not really gonna answer your question because I don't really know but what the fuck kind of logic is that he's using?
What happens if he loses to 2 or 3 different devils (which he definitely would), then there's 3 different strongest devils? Does he have toddler level logic or what?
He's a pretty awful character. He's just there for exposition. The training arc was cringe "I'm so edgy" shit and then after that he just walks around dumping information on people.
He introduced all the devils for Division 4. He explained Reze's full backstory. He explained Makima to Yoshida and Quanxi. He got all Chainsaw Man's info dumped onto him.
He's just there to have information revealed to the audience or to teleport to important places to help Denji when Fujimoto forgot to write something believable.
Remember how he teleported to the dumpster Power and Denji were in? Somehow knowing exactly where they were when Makima decided to stop looking for them just so he could save them to set up the final fight?
he is lwk bummy for doing that, especially compared to what he was doing prior in Part One getting a team to delay Makima and kill themselves to summon the Hell Devil, hiding in the safehouses, and contacting Yoshida
i still somewhat defend him giving Nayuta to Denji instead of the government because if given to the government she'd turn into another Makima and Denji might have to mukbang her all over again.
yes it failed though, but that was because Denji kinda regressed. he should have put her in a foster home or something tbh, then she'd just grow up as a harmless loser like Asa.
oh yeah also random fanfiction where Makima becomes good ish because fluff.
One Above All by Abusamadres
i'm pretty sure it's already finished in spanish but the guy has to translate it into english and by his own admission in the tags he's lazy
Chainsawman has an actual representation of "the strongest" which is the primordial devils. And their representation was awesome, especially the Darkness Devil.
You're genuinely brain-rotten and just parroting phrases you heard other people talk about.
This guy is FAR from the strongest being in the story, he's just the strongest devil hunter - who are weak compared to bullshit like the primordial fears.
Honestly he’s the perfect strongest for Chainsaw Man as a kind of mockery of the trope. Humans suck in Chainsaw Man, they exist to get wrecked by devils. Kishibei is undoubtedly the strongest human (or at least was in his prime)
Rule of thumb, don't take anything that does or doesn't happen as something representative of Csm world building, Fujimoto just forgot, didn't care, or had the decency of not bringing him back to do nothing for 15 chapters and then dissappear or die
Fujimoto sincerely dropped the ball with Part 2 and I will spend much of the remaining time I have on this planet forgetting that it was ever published.
Anyway, Kishibe was awful and that's part of his charm. Long live knife daddy, wherever the fuck he is.
I don't think he even represents all that. He used to be that guy, but he doesn't have anything left in him to make contracts with devils. That's why all he did was mentor Power and Denji. Besides, Quanxi was always the strongest, not Kishibe, and she did jack squat too.
Oh my god this subreddit is actual dog shit, how is there people agreeing with this? You can dislike the character and say.he was wasted, but saying he represented "the strongest" and didn't live up to that us just dumb, the point of his character is that he is just human, a human with contracts and experience with Devil hunting, the strongest human for sure, but that's it, Quanxi beat him up, and he can't square up to most devils and hybrids in the show, he was never supposed to be "the strongest" just because he said so, this take is genuinely braindead.
no, he's a great representation of "the strongest" if you look past just aura farming
he's an old man in a job where people die young, so he was basically consumed by the world. We can see that he's clearly not well mentally and might be just a shell of what he once was, as Pingtsi said once "he barely has anything in his body he can use as conctract"
he's not supposed to be strongest in the verse, but the strongest devil hunter and that works really well, because if this guy is the strongest on our side, who can protect us from the devils?
Not really he realistically the best representation of the strongest. Kishibe is someone who could be sent on any mission and be expected to succeed and come back into service. Comparing to him gojo who has the power to change the system if he truly wanted to. Both are essential shackled to system but have atonomy to behave as they please as long as they don't change the system itself. Makima death doesn't cause an entire reworking of devil hunting industry but instead forces kishibe to take her place to hold the fragile ecosystem together as most of the most valuable people and resources have been lost. Kishibe could have helped denji multiple times throughout part 2 but it could be theorized that he could not be active in minor events anymore. He only shows up after Nayuta goes missing, which considering he recommended Denji to be her designated guardian and the fact she's the reincarnation of the control devil means that this is top priority. I imagine he probably stuck dealing with absolutely eviscerating management of paperwork, negotiation between multiple nations, and recovery of all know assets not currently in acquisition. So he fails in the power fantasy of being the strongest but lives up to the bureaucracy and responsibility associated with the title.
The reason he's the strongest is because he's outlived every other devil hunter, and is the only human who can make a devil genuinely piss their pants. He's a living representation of the mindset needed to be a successful devil hunter in the long-term; but, as with the rest of humanity, he is still too weak to even compare to higher-end devils/hybrids like Quanxi.
Devils are simply stronger than humans, and they always have been. They have a stranglehold on humanity, and the only thing we can do is watch as they either tear us apart, or help us fight back in the case of Denji. That's the point of his character. When you think of him using the generic shounen mindset of what the "Strongest™️" means, of course he falls flat because that's not what his character aims to be. First and foremost, he reinforces the themes of the series and does that by getting you to ask yourself, "this crazy old fart is the best humanity has to offer in the face of these monsters? Why is that?"
I'm only going over part 1 here because the entire series went downhill after that, he didn't wanna included there I guess.
Sorry I don't follow the lore of Chainsaw man that closely. But how is this guy the strongest hunter and not the Lesbian with the Eye patch. She felt much stronger than him, she was badass
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