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Capturing Disasters in Motion

[Content Warning: Cartoon graphic gun violence, natural disasters, death, and spoilers for Chainsaw Man Volume 9.]

Chainsaw man is a manga (Japanese comic) written and illustrated by Fujimoto Tatsuki and published by Shueisha Incorporated. The story centres a young boy, Denji, who breaks out of a cycle of poverty by becoming the Chainsaw Man and pledging himself to the Japanese anti-devil public defence agency. As Denji navigates the new world opened with his powers he is tasked with one goal – to defeat the Gun Devil.

Demons are real and their power is relative to the levels of fear and anxiety held in the public consciousness – the zeitgeist, the structure of feeling (Williams 2015). The more an object or idea is attributed to hurt, pain, and death, the stronger its devil will be. Needless to say the Gun Devil is established to be naturally powerful due to humanity’s fear of gun violence and history of war and oppression. As the story develops, aside from one flashback explaining a character’s motivations, the sheer power of the Gun Devil is not shown. That is until, in Volume 9, contact is finally made. And then this happens. 

Again, warning for strong illustrated violence, and a note that manga is read from right to left, so that’s the primary direction of the action.

First of all I hope you’ll forgive me for cheating a bit. What I actually find so interesting and so devastating about this set of images is the text. Sorry for being so predictably awestruck by the use of language to enhance expressions!

To start, the text overlaying these images is a matter-of-fact, dispassionate report. It starts simply by stating the time and place of the Gun Devil’s appearance, and refers to the following events as 挙動記録 (recorded behaviour), not an act of terror, violence, or mass murder. It’s so disconnected from reality that it highlights to the reader how disconnected to the human cost some people in this world have become. It juxtaposes the Media and Journalism spheres of communication effortlessly (Strahan 2020).

By calling attention to the event’s duration (12秒間, twelve seconds) it also highlights how what you’re about to see takes place in almost an instant.

The Gun Devil descends from seemingly nowhere. Only its lower half is visible, resembling machine gun links for a heavy machine gun. Before any more can be seen, a nearby church is demolished by heavy gunfire.

Amidst a montage of heavy wreckage and human casualties the names start piling up. The report lists the names of seventy-five human lives lost on the first spread of pages. On the second spread, as the Gun Devil is finally shown for the first time, its arms and face resembling melted gun-metal and its scale established by the curvature of the earth behind it, one hundred and forty-four more names are listed – casualties of its terror even in a moment where it appears to be doing nothing. fifty-two names follow as the frame pans in on the Gun Devil’s chest showing the anguished faces of hundreds of people. The montage continues, the text shrinks smaller than any text in any moment prior in order to fit another two hundred and seventy-six names. On the following page more details of events caused by the Gun Devil’s “recorded behaviour” are shown. Another one hundred and sixty-four human names. Yet more destruction, and another dispassionate list of one hundred and forty-three names. As the Gun Devil approaches its destination¹ one more list of names is started. Nine names, five of which share a surname, are listed as we see a family look over at gunfire raining over a lookout. On the penultimate page another twenty-two names are listed. This list includes one prominent character in the series, whose name is listed as dispassionately as any other, sorted with the rest in alphabetical order. The final page presents the last thirty-four human casualties. In total nine hundred and nineteen names are printed on the nine double-spread pages.

三浦コウタ (Miura Kouta)

So with that out of the way let’s go over why this set of images, which I read over a year ago in August 2022, has stuck with me all this time.

田村ウミ (Tamura Umi)

The Chapter title, 9.12, is an allusion to 9/11 and other human-created disasters of the 20th and 21st centuries, many of which are known primarily by the date of their occurrences. Connections to mass disasters such as the nuclear bombs dropped at Nagasaki and Hiroshima also have to be acknowledged. While the language of the report treats the event as natural or inevitable, the framing obviously references man-made violence and terror common in the last century, particularly since the acceleration of firearm development after World War I. This context primes you to understand this as not a random act of nature. What we are seeing is violence, by people with a lot of power against multitudes with none.

阿部キイコ (Abe Kiiko)

It can’t go without repeating that it was a clearly intentional decision to frame the names of victims in a particular way. It’s evident immediately that the names are listed in alphabetical² order. To list deaths chronologically or randomly would be ineffective at portraying just how immediate death was. A difference of seconds between all nine hundred and nineteen. Each name tells of a son or daughter, of a wife or husband, of a history of love and grief. Each name listed as a casualty of a disaster is a story lost that can never be returned. A quote often attributed to Joseph Stalin³ goes, “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” With the proper framing, the tragedy of the death of multitudes can weigh heavily as well.

早川アキ (Hayakawa Aki)

Many of the moments displayed would be impossible or near-impossible to capture in real life. For anyone who did, it would be tantamount to capturing 9/11 at ground zero. Surviving such an experience would leave one with a harrowing sense of survivor’s guilt. The way scenes rapidly move from one disaster to the next, with the context that all of this takes place in under 12 seconds, emphasises the sheer shock wave of destruction experienced. Each frame bursts with rubble and mangled bodies, captured instances of violence.

麻井ユウスケ (Asai Yusuke)

It’s interesting that the Gun Devil is not shown performing an action until the eighth spread. The first establishes its presence, the second shows a rain of gunfire with the Devil out of frame, the third and fourth establish it in character shots, presenting it objectively. Spreads five, six, and seven each drag the reader across Akita prefecture along the wave of destruction. Once again the Gun Devil is out of frame while bright yellow streams litter the sky, violently disassembling a city that was in peace just seconds earlier. Only in the eighth spread do we get anything like an “action shot” for the Gun Devil, and the way the action is framed by the text is 停止 (ceased movement). Its principal on-screen action is stopping temporarily. Rather than focusing on the Devil as an actor, it is framed as a natural (or at least indirect) disaster, which juxtaposes it against its own existence. The Gun Devil could not exist if not for man’s own cruel imagination, just as guns (or the violence produced by them) could not exist if not for the same reason.

森口マナ (Moriguchi Mana)

When crafting a scene intended to feel violent and destructive in a way we can hardly imagine, it can be easy to focus simply numbers, action, or scale. What makes this particular set of images stand out for me is the focus on names and faces. Even as a dispassionate list of casualties, as a human with context and compassion, each name haunts me.

Every single person you’ve ever photographed, every single face captured in a moment has a name and a story.

Footnotes:
¹ The red-haired Makima, the Control Devil. Though this information isn't strictly necessary to understand the scene, she is largely responsible for the Gun Devil's appearance here.

² Alphabetical is perhaps a misnomer. Japanese sorts lists according to an order called 五十音順 (standard syllabary order) which follows the pattern "A,K,S,T,N,H,M,Y,R,W".

³ Some report that the first use was by Erich Maria Remarque in All Quiet on the Western Front.

References:
  Williams R (2015) 'Structures of Feeling', in Bachmann-Medick D and Tygstrup F (ed) 'Structures of feeling : affectivity and the study of culture', Walter de Gruyter GmbH, New York.

   Strahan L (7 September 2020) 'storytelling and communication', Prezi website, accessed 21 October 2023. https://prezi.com/50g8onf7wfek/storytelling-and-communication/