u/MrChainsawHog

No shade to Jjk or anything, I just like devils (there designs are fire asl)

To preface this, in my opinion one of the strongest parts of UnO was how interesting John's character and dynamics were. His internal struggle with his hatred of himself with his hatred of everyone else was really interesting, as well as his constant mood swings from being extremely cunning and poker-faced to rage filled and crazy.

However I think in some respects whilst the conclusion to John's arc was largely good, it did doom the rest of the story a bit, because it removed one of the most interesting elements of the story. Sure, John still struggles a bit, but he's largely fine with using his ability, and he doesn't have to lie to anyone anymore. It seems like the majority of the problems, especially for John, are now external, which can work in some respects but I think it is significantly less interesting than what John had going for him before

So that said, would there be anyway to continue the story in a way where Sera/John didn't rekindle their friendship, or John refused help, or whatever? The story could diverge at any point in time but I think the end of season 1 or early season 2 makes the most sense.

What other conflicts could arise from this? Could John have been forced or decide to leave Wellston in some capacity (because really, whats in it for him? He doesn't seem to have any particular job aspirations) , and if so then what? If John left school for whatever reason, what would happen then? Could John become some sort of Vigilante? He could easily come in conflict with both Spectre and or Ember or something, idk.

Any thoughts?

The way I see it, this scene is just meant to

1. Show that Remi is incredibly Naive and doesn't really know jack shit about diddly squat
2. Reinforce that John isn't looking for a solution, he just wants to tear it all down

However John is not just disregarding everything Remi is saying, he is providing actual counterpoints to what she says, and he has pretty good reason to suspect her of being fake (even if we know she's actually just naive and kind of stupid)

Could Remi admitting that she was a vigilante or something have changed anything?

On one hand, it could make John believe she's more authentic and perhaps have a more meaningful convo with her

On the other hand, John could easily believe that Remi is doing it for her own ego instead of actual altruism, plus his hatred/anger is very deep seated so he could try to use anything to post hoc justify it to himself

any thoughts?

I haven't seen people talk much about this before but on reread it is just so compelling, and it makes the catharsis of when John does get a one up over Arlo even more compelling

I honestly think Season 1 of UnO is really REALLY good, mores than most people think, because the story creates one of the strongest senses of catharsis I've seen before.

There are so many good qualities to talk about, but this is just one I wanted to mention.

Based off this, do you think that if Blyke saw Stephen hawking being beat up , he would bash Stephen in the head before telling everyone to "knock it off" ?

Theres not many Matchups for them I've seen that present a way to bypass Yoru/Makima's contract. Off the top of my head,
-WoU from JJBA
"independent"/Calamity WoU probably(?) doesn't have intent so it should bypass Makima's contract. Not Tooru WoU though since Tooru views WoU as a force to dispatch his enemies+he'd have ill-intent towards Makima.

-Angela from Library of Ruina.
Apparently she can conceptually create wounds, so yeah that'll do it.

-Fuuko + Andy from Undead Unluck.
Undead Unluck bullet. Normal unluck is an attack so it shouldn't bypass her contract, however Undead Unluck bullet would be a constant source of damage for Yoru. Though this might not even work depending on if Yoru can either just out-heal or tank it, also Fuuko doesn't even have access to it since it requires Andy, but whatever.

What else?

Heavy Weather allows WR to use subliminal messaging to turn things into snails. This includes all animals, not just humans

This isn't an attack, rather just a natural response your body has to seeing/touching these rainbows, so it should bypass the contract.

However, you could argue Makima's ability to "take control of herself" would negate this (since she is the CONTROL DEVIL) so it arguably wouldn't work anyway. Additionally, we do see devils can resist transmutation to some extent (stone devil petrification didn't do shit to darkness, Pochita healed from being turned into a tree, fiends/devils/hybrids couldn't be turned into dolls) so you could also argue it wouldn't work on that basis

Heavy Weather allows WR to use subliminal messaging to turn things into snails. This includes all animals, not just humans

This isn't an attack, rather just a natural response your body has to seeing/touching these rainbows, so it should bypass the contract.

However, you could argue Makima's ability to "take control of herself" would negate this (since she is the CONTROL DEVIL) so it arguably wouldn't work anyway. Additionally, we do see devils can resist transmutation to some extent (stone devil petrification didn't do shit to darkness, Pochita healed from being turned into a tree, fiends/devils/hybrids couldn't be turned into dolls) so you could also argue it wouldn't work on that basis

-Makima kills Tooru (control, non-physical attacks, doesn't matter)
-WoU revives as its own entity independent of Tooru that can "attack" without being perceived as an attack, giving WoU a wincon
-Makima just revives Tooru via control so she can control WoU...

-while retroactively mischaracterizing pt1 dennis and claiming pt2 is flanderization

Obligatory mention that pt2 is flawed (though we probably disagree on what those flaws are), and this is not a "defense" of the ending (i think it does matter but we can argue later)

Denji struggles to maintain happiness without being Chainsaw man, and Chainsaw mans existence brings hell. The usual rebuttal to Pochita's "...only find heaven when you're in hell" claim is any panel with Denji looking content or happy, hanging around Aki, Power, Reze, or Asa but that surface level observation is ignoring the fact that just being with them isn't (inherently) at odds with his dreams or wanting to be Chainsaw man.
The tragedy is, if he was told to stop being Chainsaw man to be with them (before his "I want to be chainsaw man...!" moment at the end) he could've probably attempted to move past needing Chainsaw man; Unfortunately with everyone wanting his heart, and his own desires, this likely wouldn't've lasted.
He is forced to be Chainsaw man due to his circumstances, getting to chase his dreams of sex and fame, and the thrill of violence ultimately outweighs any notion of family- even one with Nayuta- or properly confronting his guilt.

"I would probably be depressed for a bit, but after three days or so i'd probably be back to enjoying my life"

"And if they die too! I'll find another new family!" Tough luck bad guys! I Can make a perpetual motion machine!"

"...Which side is heavier"

"Somebody like me shouldn't be allowed to be happy!!"

Denji's entire life is built on unfair circumstances, and having to pick between two choices is just another facet of that. This is a deliberate writing choice, there is no "correct" answer.
These bad circumstances lead to bad choices and bad outcomes, whether this makes Denji a 'bad' person or not is really up to your own ability to sympathize with him, even at his lowest and most selfish moments.
But for better or worse he'll pick a third option, he'll always get back up, even in the face of guilt or loss he can always fall back on the high of chasing his dream of having tons of sex while he gets to carve up bad guys. The only way for someone in Denji's shoes to move past this, was to have never had it at all. This is not a moral to be taught or a nihilistic world view, this is a story about a character.

(or fujimoto couldve just decided hed get better because thats whats supposed to happen to the hero at the end duh)

I can understand Denji not being able to grow is frustrating (and the release schedule didn't help) but that's what the entirety of part 2 was telling us- even with his moments of clarity, guilt, maturity, or suffering and at the end of the world, he couldn't break from his vices- but even if he could it would probably be too late.

obviously its fine if you dont like it and "it being the point doesnt automatically make it good" but disliking Sisyphus for rolling his boulder or disliking a tragedy for being tragic isnt really a "valid criticism" i dont think

thanks for reading maybe

Personally I'm interested in seeing how the Kris jealously plot will be handled, since it's fairly evident that Kris is interested in Susie and feels bad about how close Susie and Noelle are getting.

At the same time, I'm pretty disappointed in the lack of exploration Kris had this chapter.

Consider this: Dark worlds reflect the one who made them, right? We see this in chapter 4, with Susie's church dark world being super different and Gerson being changed because Susie knows he's dead now. So, we have Kris make a dark world in his dad's flower shop (Which Kris obviously has a strong connection to), and in this dark world
-Everyone is dedicated to keeping Asgore away from his family, notably away from Kris, to try and make Asgore happy
-The flowers that get anthropomorphised all view themselves as "human." That's strange, right? I mean, being "human" is not the norm, being a "monster" is, so why don't they view themselves as "monsters?" Yes, obviously it's an allusion to undertale, but Allusions still need to make sense WITHIN THE STORY.
-Flowery himself also has a really weird interaction with Kris. Notably, when Flowery says"you know how I feel about you"

That comes off as very forbidding. It honestly makes it look like Flowery has some sort of vendetta or resentment towards Kris. Since this is Kris' dark world, this has to be a manifestation of Kris' subconscious in some capacity.

So, to summarise: Kris is the one who made the dark world. Dark Worlds are the manifestation of one's subconscious, and the dark world Kris created for his dad was one where
-Everyone is trying to keep Kris away from their dad.
-The flowers want to be human.
-Flowery seems to resent Kris.
And from what we know about Kris, they have a lot of guilt, self-hatred, and want to be a monster (not a human).

So I'm thinking "oh ok, so all of this is set up for something to do with Kris psychologically. Maybe Kris hates himself and sees himself as unworthy of being in his family, or maybe Kris resents Toriel for leaving Asgore, or maybe Kris blames himself (cuz he's implicated with Dess' disappearance in some way), or maybe Kris wishes there were more humans around him, or anything."
And did it mean anything? NOPE! WE GET FUCK ALL.
We have all this weird set up shit and it means precisely dick. What the fuck was the point of any of that? Why have all that weird shit if it meant nothing? THIS IS ASGORE'S CHAPTER, Why didn't we EXPLORE HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH KRIS A BIT MORE, MAYBE?

I understand that Maybe Toby wanted to save exploring more of Kris' pscyhe for the last two chapters...but even if we can't have any explanation yet, you can still save it for later whilst bringing attention to Kri's psychology. We don't need an explanation for it yet, but there should have been something more with the flower humans thing. Make Flowery have some consistent unique/weird relationship with Kris, just something.

Like Chapter 2 expanded on Kris' psychology without revealing too much through Spamton, with Spamton reflecting Kris' own fears about the soul and his role or whatever. Why couldn't this chapter do the same? Idk.

Like I don't see why this chapter couldn't have explored some of this stuff. Even if it gets explored in a very interesting manner later, why not now anyway?

So overall I wish Kris had more to 'em this chapter but I'd like to hear other thoughts.

Nayuta weaknesses:
-known weakness to beheading

Japanese soldier strength
-Known propensity to beheading Chinese heads

idk gang I think the Japanese guy might win

Counter arguments:
-Anytime Makima/Yoru heals, infinite spin will just re-apply itself. Even if they could theoretically heal from it, they'll continue taking damage so it doesn't matter
-Infinite spin will spin until you are erased. However, even though they can't be erased, when they regenerate, Infinite spin will still be on their bodies

Supporting argument:
-Makima/Yoru's contract can only be overpowered by a continuous physical source off damage, like the blood saw or the locust devil's attacks. However, Yoru/Makima can still heal from status effects (Makima not being effected by alcohol poisoning) and even stuff that specifically negates regen (nuke punch not stopping Yoru's regen but stopping Pochita's). Infinite spin is not a physical object repeatedly applying an effect, instead it is a status effect applied to Makima/Yoru, therefore it will be redirected to someone else and healed.
-Infinite spin will eventually destroy Makima/Yoru, and the spin will be gone. They will then heal and be back to normal.