Punching Fire
He won. Tatsuki Fujimoto won.
I maligned Fire Punch for years because of its reputation for being ridiculously crass and disgusting and frequently insisting on using sexual violence as a device to show that “the world is fucked up man”. I don’t really care for that to be honest and reading it makes me check out pretty hard. This is a story that starts with the main character leveraging his extreme regenerative abilities to continuously chop off his limbs to feed to the people of his village because they can't grow any food in the perpetual winter this world is stuck in. We know the world is fucked up man it came with the Xbox. But that was the only thing I really knew about apart from some stuff about Togata, who has made the rounds for being a really great character for people that have concerns about the gender they’re perceived as by most. (Fujimoto you can let the two lesbians out of the trenchcoat whenever you want.)
So I went into the manga a little apprehensive but hoping that it would bear fruit in the long run and well… You’re reading this so I can’t build any suspense. What can I say, man? It’s good. All the stuff that makes Fujimoto's work so compelling is here in an even rawer form than usual. Real OG Fujimoto heads often scoff that Fire Punch is so weird it makes Chainsawman read like Demon Slayer and you know, it's an obvious exaggeration but I do see where they’re coming from. This series is fucked up man. At least Chainsawman is a regular(ish) version of the world but this story starts with an Ice Age and only gets worse from there.
Agni’s power being extreme regeneration and running into a guy with fire that never stops until it's done burning the target is such a ridiculous stroke of misfortune for our protagonist it’s almost funny. Fujimoto’s style of comedy can be a little hit or miss but Fire Punch did manage to get a chuckle out of me through all the horror. And to address the elephant in the room, yes I’ve become a movie guy and this series is Fujimoto getting into his movie bag crazy style. There’s so many references in here, movies are an important cultural touchstone, character motivations, and even metaphors for heaven. The way that this manga contextualizes movies as relics of the past is really interesting. There's a whole character whose main motivation for helping is to rectify this broken world enough that they make another star wars movie. The reverence Fujimoto has for film is honestly really cool to see, especially given how “cinematic” some of his pages and chapters can be. I’d love to see him direct a film one day. Although it would have to be a doozy of a film given what we know about him. Maybe he can be the guy to direct the “Goodbye, Eri” adaptation. I think I’d quite like that.
For all its depravity and despair, Fire Punch is pretty honest in its positive messaging. You have to live, you just have to. There is no nuance or subtlety; it's not a suggestion but an instruction. You have to keep going. It might be a message that's a little too simple to necessarily resonate with everyone but if you’ve ever entertained the idea that you shouldn't be here anymore, it's a deeply necessary thing to hear. And it's about more than that too, y’know. Like how movies are the coolest thing in the universe and that love is a stronger metaphysical force than even gravity.
So I’ve now read all of Fujimoto's major works, there's a few stray one-shots I haven’t read or read so long ago I barely even remember them so maybe I’ll go and catch those but I’ve run the gamut at this point. I like him, man. I tried to resist but I really do like him. I have my gripes with Fire Punch but I did enjoy it overall and especially towards the endgame. The story comes full circle in a way that is very satisfying and is just so damn cute you really gotta give it to him. It’s one of those things you see and you go, oh I get it. And I really did get it. This is Fujimoto most divisive work and I got it. So I don't have much more ground to stand on, I've become a Fujimoto head. People have called us twin and I can’t get too mad anymore, that might be another me.
