Although the final chapter of Edgerunners had wrapped up, its subsequent hype and shockwaves showed zero signs of receding.
A heavy contribution to this sustained noise was Aoyama himself; his "mental patient" persona had exploded into viral status following the signing session and the "Subway Judge" incident right after.
In the manga industry, it was common for the work to gain fame while the author remained relatively obscure. Several mangaka enjoyed breakout hits while their personal fame sat at zero.
In summary, the creation being more famous than the creator was standard metric.
But Edgerunners and Aoyama were different; currently, Aoyama was easily as famous as Edgerunners itself.
One stunt video, one signing session snippet, and one subway judging clip, combined with the erratic storyline of Edgerunners, left Aoyama firmly branded as a mental patient and a crazy genius.
Due to the setting of his work, fans had affectionately gifted him the title of "Cyberpsycho."
Right at this boiling point, Aoyama launched his new manga, Chainsaw Man, executing a seamless transition from Edgerunners in the pages of Manga World GoGo.
Due to the massive momentum trailing Edgerunners, Chainsaw Man immediately secured the magazine cover for its debut chapter.
The banner text on the cover explicitly read: "Manga's young freak Aoyama strikes again! The new series 'Chainsaw Man' launches today!"
Akane sat holding this exact issue in her hands. While Aoyama had been drafting pages for Chainsaw Man for a long time, this was her first time viewing the actual work.
On the cover, a humanoid monster with a chainsaw projecting from its head and both hands stood emerging from countless corpses of enemies beneath its boots.
'Is this... the protagonist of Aoyama's new manga?'
A trace of curiosity flashed in Akane's eyes, and she flipped to the corresponding page layout. However, the narrative opened with a slap to the face.
A young boy with a yellow buzzcut and an eyepatch walked down a spacious street, muttering into the open air:
"Chopping lumber rewards 60,000 Yen a month..."
"The kidney I sold previously cleared 1,200,000 Yen."
"The right eye cleared 400,000 Yen."
"And my left nut sold for... how much was it again? I think it sat just under 200,000 Yen."
"And I still owe someone 36.4 million Yen."
What a disaster of an opening. Chainsaw Man's protagonist started in a state this miserable?
He was selling off his organs to repay debt directly. A kidney was still explainable, but his right eye and a testicle? What kind of setup was this?
Continuing down the panels, Akane spotted a tiny creature with a miniature chainsaw sticking out of its forehead... an orange puppy.
"Woof~"
"I know, I know~ Pochita, let's get to work!" The yellow-haired boy spoke to the puppy named Pochita.
'Wait. Pochita? Pochita?' Akane sat completely paralyzed.
'Did Aoyama... just draw his own dog into the comic?'
'Then does this protagonist named Denji... operate as Aoyama's self-insert?'
'If Aoyama loaded himself and Pochita into the panels, is there a chance that he loaded her in as well?'
'What kind of role would I occupy in this narrative? Could it be...'
Akane's cheeks flushed a shade of red. 'Would she be the heroine? Aoyama's romantic interest inside the manga?'
She continued reading with a heavy trace of anticipation, promptly downloading the world blueprint of Chainsaw Man.
This was a world where Devils existed. But this world housed zero angels, zero gods descending to save them.
Humanity had to feed off Devil contracts and fight against them, and Pochita sat in the category of "relatively weak" Devils.
The baseline opening for this protagonist, Denji, was truly bottom-tier.
Readers previously thought David from Edgerunners was miserable,raised inside a single-parent layout supported only by his mother, Gloria, who worked exhausted metrics for municipal cleanups.
Then his mother died, leaving David alone in the dark.
But they didn't anticipate Aoyama making his new lead, Denji, even more broken.
Not only was he parentless, but he also had to work off a crushing debt left behind by his father for a heartless yakuza crew.
Leaving aside lethal fighting with Devils item by item, he had to carve off his organs for debt clearance, all while living in filth.
His supreme dream on the board was just to eat bread with jam Spread over it every morning? And... dreaming of touching a woman just once before dying...
Cough cough.
Putting that detail aside, Denji sat in pure, unadulterated misery.
Fortunately, Denji raised a Devil puppy,Pochita,to share his life with. It was only due to Pochita that he possessed the capacity to fight lower-tier Devils.
However... he still lived completely sub-human.
The yakuza subjected him to heartless exploitation. The scum didn't even care for entertainment; playing with him, they offered him cash to swallow lit cigarette butts, which he executed on the spot without single refusal.
Just for a 200-Yen coin on the table, allowing Denji and Pochita to secure an extra loaf of bread for the week, Denji dropped his dignity and obeyed like a dog.
But despite his obedience, never swinging a counter-strike, Denji was still sold out by the yakuza boss. They summoned him to a warehouse in the dead of night.
A flash-attack from a puppet controlled by the Zombie Devil pierced into his and Pochita's frames, followed by a wave of puppets entering the grid, ripping Denji's body into chunks.
Denji clutched Pochita, desperate to escape the layout.
Simultaneously, a roar of pure grievance echoed in his heart: "Just visualizing holding a normal life inside my head sat adequate inside my dreams..."
"But even that metric demands too much to ask for?!"
His roar couldn't save his components. Trapped in agony, Denji was killed and dismembered, and like garbage, his body sat dumped inside a dumpster.
But inside that dumpster, Pochita,who had also been chopped into pieces,suddenly twitched.
And simultaneously, memories of continuous past intervals between Denji and Pochita triggered into the timeline.
"Pochita... when fighting Devils, a timeframe will likely arrive where I die..."
"If that happens, my sole worry is you, Pochita."
"You might starve to death, or get hunted by other Devil Hunters."
"I heard... some Devils can occupy dead corpses. If you know that skill, Pochita, I am absolutely giving my body over to you."
"Once I'm dead, the yakuza won't chase down the line anymore. You can just leave this place..."
"You live out a normal life, and die a normal death. Make my dreams manifest for me."
Denji raised Pochita into his arms, speaking with hope anchored in his voice.
---
'Dreams again...'
Edgerunners' fans sat fully acquainted with that concept now. It was bordering on a continuous stress trigger for many.
Akane felt slightly suffocated watching the panels down the grid.
However, Pochita didn't follow Denji's instruction to occupy his corpse. Instead, it chose to sacrifice itself, restoring Denji back into the grid.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]