Stop me if you’ve heard this one: there’s a new anime protagonist who finds himself in possession of some kind of evil power, and he now plans to use that evil power to fight similar evil demons/devils/curses, etc. Lately this has become a new trend among Shōnen shows especially. Fire Force, Jujustu Kaisen, and Chainsaw Man come to mind, but they’re not the only ones. It’s a curious enough new storyline that’s gotten me thinking.
This new pattern is nothing like the antihero craze of the 1990s; unlike heroes such as The Punisher, Judge Dredd, or Wolverine (I could list more, but we’d be here all day), these new anime heroes aren’t sociopaths who speak in grunts, don’t have a permanent stubble, and they don’t wear too many belts and pouches. Instead, they’re usually pretty ordinary, relatable teenagers with fairly normal personalities and problems.
The first on our list is Fire Force, in which Shinra Kusakabe is a pyrokinetic who joins the titular fire force. Said fire force is tasked with handling “infernals:” people who spontaneously combust and become effectively fiery demons who have lost their minds and simply try to burn and kill anything nearby. It might be weird to include this show as part of this new trend, but in addition to literally fighting fire with fire, it turns out that pyrokinetics get their powers from the same source as people who spontaneously combust. (Spoiler alert: it’s hell).
As one would expect when living in a world where spontaneous combustion turns people into literal demons and nobody seems to know why, it’s understandable that people are not always keen to have someone around who can create and control fire from their body. Shinra in particular gets a lot of heat for it, because his mother and little brother reportedly died in a fire that he caused with his powers. And yet, the primary people that their society turns to when a person turns into an infernal are usually pyrokinetics, partly because they’re immune to fire themselves.
Later on, we find out that there are infernals who are actually referred to as demons due to the fact that they’re a lot more powerful, and ultimately the root cause of all of this fiery madness is a malevolent goddess in hell who wants to turn the world into a new sun. There is never a divine entity to keep her in check, or any corresponding angels to counter the demons.
The second show is Jujutsu Kaisen, a show that’s essentially about curse-sorcerers harnessing the energy of negative emotions to fight monsters made of human fears and curses. Essentially, the entire show is about fighting negative emotions with negative emotions. The big issue here is that the curse sorcerers are keeping their negative emotions under control, so the fights are partly about order versus chaos, but still wielding curses against curses. A theme shows up in which the only way to defeat the monsters born of human negativity is to get your own negativity under control. If a sorcerer is really skilled, they can even use the highly difficult “reversed curse flow” technique to heal missing body parts.
We never see anyone harness positive emotions or similar benevolent energies to fight curses; there are no manifestations of people’s best wishes or blessings that fight against the curse monsters. The only thing stopping curses from overrunning the world and killing as many humans as they can purely for the fun of it is a secret organization of people who utilize the same negative power as a weapon against the monsters. That “weapon” part might be a clue to what’s going on behind all of this.
The final show to look at is Chainsaw Man. This anime is very similar to Jujutsu Kaisen, except that all normal humans can see the devils that are running around in plain sight, rather than just the curse-energy attuned, and there’s one big twist: someone actually does try to use the power of friendship/love. But they’re a villain, and they use these “benevolent” emotions as a weapon against the hero.
Other than that, it’s the same as the examples above: there are devils running around born out of human fears, a hero with devil-powers (fear of chainsaws) serves as the main protagonist, and there are (almost) no angels fighting alongside the other devils and fiends working to kill the monsters. I say “almost,” because there is a devil born out of people’s fears of angels who takes the form of one and does help the heroes, but there aren’t any “real” angels fighting these monsters.
So why is this becoming so common? Why is there a repeating trend of using “evil” powers to fight other evil creatures? It was one thing in the 90s when the answer could just be written off as “because it’s edgy.” These shows aren’t that much edgier than anything else in Shōnen series. And perhaps the fact that this is so common in Shōnen and not other demographics, such as Seinen, adds to the mystery. Why is it that the Japanese have started targeting this sort of story at 12-18 year-old-boys, but it’s curiously absent from more adult demographics like Seinen (which is aimed at adult men) and even Josei (which is aimed at adult women). It’s not like adult men wouldn’t be a good fit for watching such a dark show as Chainsaw Man, when lots of adult men do, and Seinen is usually darker and edgier than typical Shōnen series because they can get away with it. Josei has no shortage of brooding, bad boy male figures, either, especially as love interests for the female protagonists, who might also rely on unholy power to fight demons. So why is this particular trope being aimed so directly at boys going through puberty?
Hear me out, but I think the answer lies in Thor’s hammer. Not the Marvel version, mind you; the Norse mythology one.
To the Vikings, metal hammers were not a weapon usually brought on the battlefield. They’re expensive to make, not as easy to wield as a mace, and the usual weapon of choice was either an axe (which could be used to gather wood and make repairs for longships) or the spear. And of course, swords have been the primary weapon of legendary heroes for as long as people have had the means to make reliable swords (blame the Roman gladius for that). The biggest selling point of a hammer is that it pretty much ignores enemy armor, especially iron or steel armor, but most of the people Vikings raided couldn’t afford metal armor, and there’s no reason a mace can’t be used to do the same. So why was Thor depicted with a hammer? Even Odin usually carried a spear.
The reason was that the hammer was a symbol of Thor’s masculinity. Unlike a mace, a hammer can be used to both create and destroy. You can use a hammer to build a house, or you can use it to bash some skulls. You can subtract some of that masculine power by shaving metal off of the hammer head, but all this does is remove the ability to create. The resulting tool can still be used to maul someone, but it cannot be used to lay any nails. Even if you take the hammer head off completely, you’re still left with a stick. A stick can be used to crack skulls, but you won’t be able to build much with it.
The bottom line is that the Vikings saw masculinity as something that could always be used to destroy, especially when it was sick and weak, but it could only be used to build things when it was allowed to be strong and intact. If you try to weaken masculinity because you want to remove its destructive capabilities, you don’t actually get rid of the ability to break things. It turns out, breaking, killing, and general destruction is a lot easier than building and fixing things. Chaos is easy to produce and requires no skill; just ask any parent with small children. Order, on the other hand, is hard, and requires a great deal of self-control.
Speaking of which, self-control is an important component in all three of the above-listed anime series. Shinra has to go through a great deal of training in order to control the flames coming from his feet, develops his powers, and has to grow up quite a bit as he finds out his little brother is still alive (Fire Force is the weakest in this department, but it’s also arguably the lowest rated of the three). Yuji Itadori in Jujutsu Kaisen initially doesn’t have too much trouble with the evil sorcerer’s ghost living inside of him, but he eventually has to fight to keep this spirit under control. Denji in Chainsaw Man is a bit of an exception; he starts out as a mal-adjusted kid raised by a pathetically bad single-father and is a hormonal teenager lead like a dog on a leash by his libido. But he pays dearly until he gets this under control, and not seeing through pretty-faced girls nearly costs him everything, including his soul.
With these kinds of stories, I’m reminded of a report on riot control, and the general rule for stopping violent riots: the only thing that stops a violent mob is overwhelming force. Like a demon made from negative emotions, you cannot stop a riot with good vibes. You can’t beat a monster made from human fears by thinking good thoughts at it. You can’t stop an invading army of violent barbarians with kind words. You stop violent invaders with violence.
None of this is really all that new, any more than a wise old mentor figure who teaches a young man how to use violence to protect the people he cares about from other violent men. The use of curses to fight curse-monsters is novel, but it all comes back to the idea that you cannot defeat evil by smiling at it. What stands out about series like this is that they seem to almost be an inversion of a lot of modern trends in fiction. In real life, there is no “care bear stare” that stops bad guys with the power of friendship.
In the end, the only thing that stops “toxic” masculinity is positive masculinity.
