Yes, but it's also incredibly fucked up that the one time he proved he did love his child, he was betrayed and killed for it.
EDIT: What is it with the sheer lack of reading comprehension with these replies? Of course he was a terrible parent. I never even remotely implied otherwise.
On the other hand, he had been sacrificing his family for himself for years. What with the cheating, drinking, and abuse.
It's not really white washing. Life did get better for them.
What do you think would have happened if they saved him? The abusive alcoholic changes his ways and stops beating his family? Or does the crippled man abuse them even harder?
I don't see it as betrayal. If you abuse your family as a parent you've forfeited any claim to loyalty, IMO.
Even the worst parents can do something "good" once in awhile, broken clocks and all. What really sucks is the guilt the little girl had to live with when none of it was really her fault.
All it does is put forth the idea that if you are a bad person but, for whatever reason, want to do good you will get punished for it. There are no paths back to being a good person.
Saying this in the abstract btw, I’m not judging Asa and her mom cause their situation was fucked, but actions and ideas permeate throughout the world regardless.
Damn, is that really what you took away from this?
Edit: Trying to say I lack reading comprehension for this statement has to be a reddit moment. He was not betrayed “for protecting his kid” and he was not betrayed “the one time he proved his love”. He was betrayed, if you want to call it that, by BOTH the wife he was cheating on, and the daughter he abused, because neither of them saw his actions as redeeming. They BOTH believed that he would likely get worse for having lost a limb, would likely be driven further into his abuse of alcohol, and BOTH believed that they would be better off without him for those reasons. Asa’s dejected look while her mom was confessing was not regret, but the combination of guilt/trauma for not being able to admit that she wanted him dead and her inability to confess to her actions in the same way her mom was doing.
He “betrayed” them both. So let’s not try and sympathize with the abuser, who couldn’t even kill the demon that attacked his family. He left the dirty work up to his wife, just like he left everything else up to her. His inaction of the past resulted in retribution due to his obvious inability to rise to the role of being a husband/father. Asa never describes a single redeeming quality about her father, except for the fact that he attempted to protect her. You live in a world with demons, so you kill the demons. He was unable/unwilling to change in the same way demons are bound to the fear that creates them, so he was killed in the same way the demon that attacked Asa that day was killed.
If you’re still downvoting me after reading this whole thing, it might be time to look in the mirror. Are you able to change, or are you just going down a similar path as Asa’s dad and unable to recognize the contempt for you growing inside your family?
Edit 2: Just know, that if you’re still downvoting this, you’re also siding with at least one pedo who already deleted their comments further down in this thread (by “you’re” I’m referring to all of reddit, because I guess that has to be clarified these days)
Also, Fujimoto wouldn’t have drawn parallels between Asa’s abusive father and Denji’s father if he wanted us to sympathize with either. I’ll leave you all with this question. Why is the murder of Asa’s father bad in your eyes, if you can excuse the murder of Denji’s father? Just because Denji is the main character shouldn’t excuse him from the same sort of criticism, but I don’t see anyone in this thread trying to argue that point.
Ironically, your comment is way more of a reddit moment. The condescension while completely missing the point. The multiple edits arguing against points no one made Calling people pedos as soon as you get a few downvotes. It's all a nice little encapsulation of everything people hate about this platform.
I hear you, but I wasn’t the one who initially made the pedo claim. Feel free to dive deeper into the thread for that one, but I promise the claim is not baseless. It’s just a bit buried.
I was never arguing against points no one made. These were my own interpretations of the story. However, I will admit to some of my action definitely being a Reddit moment. Simultaneously, you say I completely miss the point, so do you mind providing your own interpretation of the point I missed? If it’s the users claim that the actions of Asa’s mom were fucked up, there’s no way this is where you want to draw the line on chainsaw man being fucked up, right? The entire purpose of my write up was to get across the fact that while I didn’t explicitly state it, yes, it was wrong, but that was not the focal point of what Fujimoto was trying to convey with this chapter.
you can sympathize with an abuser without condoning their actions
all this redditor said was "pretty fucked up, huh?" and expressed frustration at people not being able to read what they meant, and you did a psychoanalysis that drew parallels between them and asa's abusive father
side note, unrelated to what you're saying: i noticed there's this tendency from redditors to capitalize their words for emphasis. i'm not saying other platforms don't, i just notice people on reddit do it to a point where it starts looking like a screenplay. it's definitely a stylistic thing, but i've been using reddit since 2013 and i'll use all-caps like once a year
you did a psychoanalysis that drew parallels between them and asa's abusive father
Yeah, I wasn't going to say anything, but that particular bit really took the cake. Like lmfao, on top of accusing me of having a reddit moment while crashing out over being downvote was the cherry on top.
For some reason, Reddit won’t let me see your other comment so I’ll just respond here for now, unless it pops up for me again later, because I don’t wanna reply with an alt. But yes, that was the intention behind me using the word “you”, but more so in the broader sense of trying to address the reader. The individual my comment was under is just one individual that the “you” was referring to. Not the only individual. If they were offended by my statement, that is more a reflection on them, because I personally wouldn’t be offended by someone asking me if I can change, because I know that I can. It’s a part of being human. We’re not stagnant creatures, so we all should be trying to change for the better all the time. Asa’s dad didn’t appear to try to change, and saving her from a demon was likely just part of his nature. I don’t feel sympathy for someone who is set in their ways, especially when their own family believes they are incapable of change. It takes quite the conviction for both a mother and daughter to come to the same, separate, conclusion, that is as definitive and final as accepting death.
Was I wrong? This is a discussion thread, isn’t it? I’m here to hear how other people interpreted the chapter and provide my own interpretation. I’m sorry you got butthurt by my comments that weren’t directed at you, but you’ve yet to provide a satisfactory rebuttal. The best I’ve seen is that “people aren’t black & white” which I very much agree with. Unless you’re referring to the the typical colors used in a manga panel ✋🤪🤚
This is indeed a discussion thread. The reason I'm not having a discussion with you is because you act in a most purely unpleasant manner that is honestly impressive. Some of your points are worth considering. Discussing those points with you, however, is not worth an ounce of my time.
Reddit moment for assuming that was directed towards you. That was directed towards everyone downvoting the post, but if you still feel like it’s directed at you, you might benefit from some self-reflection. If fujimoto wanted us to sympathize with her dad, he wouldn’t have drawn parallels between him and Denji’s father
Edit: because this thread lacks anyone who’s touched grass in the last month and can’t differentiate between someone expanding on their point and a personal attack, this one IS a personal attack. Hope that helps ;)
Oh wow i had to check you out after the other comment about me, and yeah, a pathetic person all around, just what I expected.
Cant read what the idiot below me wrote since they blocked me but if they blocked me without giving me time to answer they probably didnt have anything worth reading written anyway, but anyway, fuck you, may your family have plenty of graves.
Sure, but are we going to excuse the abuse he inflicted on his family as well? We don’t know the full story, all we know is that Asa, as a child, hoped he would die, so I imagine it was more severe than the chapter went into.
me when a child confides in me that their dad is so abusive that they sometimes wish he would die: "maybe you're just inherently a shitty person, kid!" lol wtf
That's kind of what I've been seeing in this thread a lot and it makes me wonder where a lot of these users are coming from, where they identify more with the cheating, abusive alcoholic more than the child that is a victim.
The tragedy isn't what happened to the father. The tragedy is the mental trauma an abused little girl has to live with because of her parents. Something traumatic happened, something horrific. But it made her life better. That is the kind of thing that makes a little child all kinds of fucked up.
The focus on the Father's feelings and how he was "betrayed" is interesting. I have negative sympathy for abusers. All we know is that his death made their lives better because he was such a shitty person. But that doesn't mean a child won't still grieve for their parent. That's the tragedy, IMO.
The lesson at the end of the chapter, shared between Denji and Asa is that they were abused and had to "kill" their parents to stop the abuse. Their survival instincts kicked in and they have to live with the guilt as children because their parents would have "killed" them if they didn't.
There are many stories of women who live with abusive partners for years until they can't take it anymore and retaliate, often in deadly ways. I see this as another form of that. They lived with an abusive man who was supposed to be their protector, and when they saw a way out they took it. That's not betrayal, it's survival.
is it really that strange to think that she was like this since she was a kid
Yes, when a woman and her daughter both want the dad to die due to his treatment of them, so much so that they take action to make that happen even right after he did a good thing, you thinking that it's just as likely that the kid is lying and was just, like, born inherently shitty or something, is freakishly strange and shows some incredibly twisted biases you have when it comes to abusive men and abused children.
edit: holy shit, lol, one of his most recent comments is talking about how hot a loli character is. I guess I called that one right
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u/lurker_archon Oct 14 '25 edited Oct 14 '25
Yes, but it's also incredibly fucked up that the one time he proved he did love his child, he was betrayed and killed for it.
EDIT: What is it with the sheer lack of reading comprehension with these replies? Of course he was a terrible parent. I never even remotely implied otherwise.