I’m (Not) In Love With America: Chainsaw Man Essay Footnote
Asa Mitaka hides her guilt and her malice by disguising it as tripping. She trips to kill her father, she trips to kill her mother, and she trips to kill herself against the Bat Devil. Even when others trip her, like when the class president makes her kill Bucky, she felt a jealousy and desire for it to happen anyway (Chapter 101). She stores her internal agony, her feelings of loneliness and yet simultaneous superiority, her likely symptoms of autism spectrum disorder; she stores all of it in the act of tripping. Tripping is likely the most common accident a person experiences in their day to day lives next to stuttering or dropping something on the floor. It’s so mundane and so devoid of intent. One does not blame the person who trips, but rather the sidewalk or the carpet or even their own feet. This doesn’t change when Asa’s body is taken over by Yoru, the War Devil. In some ways, Yoru is a manifestation of her worst impulses and her desire to dissociate. She leaves her body...
