Once upon a time I listed Fire Punch as a manga to take a look at during one of of manga Spotlights and back then Fire Punch was a manga with a pretty basic revenge plot that had some interesting quirks. Now Fire Punch is a completed manga with 83 chapter story spanning 8 volumes and what that story become is something I don’t think anyone could have predicted. Let me lay out the basic rundown by saying that Fire Punch is set in a world which is filled with snow and an environment so harsh that people struggle to survive. In this world certain individuals are born with “Blessings” which are some kind of supernatural ability and our protagonist Agni and his sister is gifted with the power of regeneration. Both essentially can heal from any wound and regrow limbs though the sister has a slower regeneration rate. The village which they live in has decided to use this ability to produce a near limitless supply of food by the Agni chopping his arms off to use as meet. He does so willingly and despite circumstances lives rather happily with his sister. However a group attack the village and a man with the power to shoot flames out of his hands that will never go out unless the target is dead, burns his village to the ground, killing the Agni’s sister and leaving him burning alive. However his regenerate manages to make it that the fire never truly kills him and he becomes a man constantly burning alive. With time he comes to bear the pain and use his new status as a source of strength to seek out the one that killed his sister.
Now what I stated here isn’t really anything that groundbreaking and while there are some odd elements we do still have a standard revenge plot. But it is at this point where I will go into spoiler territory as to discuss just what happens after this as I think that I cannot really express my feelings about this story without going into detail so if you have any intention of reading this I would suggest stopping here and doing so. But if you don’t really care to read this manga then continue reading this post and you may change your mind. So what I have stated so far has been straightforward but the game changer is when Agni confronts the target of his revenge, Domu and during the fight we are are given one of the most jarring character introductions in manga. During the fight we are shown panels of a girl named Togata speaking directly to the reader in documentary style. She’s a movie buff, a girl whose spend hundreds of years alive and finds everything boring besides movies. Unfortunately someone burned down her house and her collection of movies which has caused her to lose her will to live. However upon hearing of a man constantly on fire she decides to seek him out, in order to film him and create a brand new movie. Togata manages to not only find but save Agni after his humiliating defeat at the hands of Domu but then starts grooming him to become an action star for her new movie. To put things quite frankly, Togata is completely and absolutely insane which causes the narrative to turn from predictability to utter chaos.
How does one even put into context just what this story becomes? Almost a game of the author working to pull as many things out of left field to throw the reader off balance as possible. We have a man declaring to two people that he has decided their new job will be to have sex with two dogs. We have a man on fire seemly playing in the water with a girl carrying a severed head. We have Agni defeat an enemy, only for her to lose her memory which cause both of them to go into a nearby house where she then tries on a bunch of outfits to see Agni’s opinion. Halfway through the story the main villain who supposedly caused the destruction of the entire world and plans to rebirth it, declare that her primary motivation was because she wants mankind to create a new Star Wars movie for her to watch. It is completely ridiculous and yet through all this the story somehow remains engrossing and even progaint at times. It’s hard for me to look at Fire Punch and call it a good manga. Interesting, unique, and addressing fascinating issues yes. Good? hmmm…The pacing tends to be jumpy and you hit climaxes and anticlimaxes with sudden immediacy. It’s hard to get a grasp of an overarching goal or even a plot and while characters have some degree of interesting traits but a tendency to act randomly. It’s tone can be slapstick and shift to dire dark straits within moments. Most of minor antagonists are ridiculously cartoonishly evil to a comical degree. However despite all this one can see that the mangaka can pull these story elements off well but it’s just that the story he has chosen has kind of run away from him. There is a few pages of the manga which were dedicated to a joke where Togata was driving a truck and was repeatedly getting attacked which has minimal dialogue and is one of the funnest scenes of slapstick in manga I have seen in a long time. There is also a scene of Domu discussing with Agni about the need for righteous education which was excellent. When looking at things, the mangaka’s next work ChainSaw Man does a much better job of juggling his strengths and looks to be a stronger story than this one. Yet…there is something distinctly fascinating about Fire Punch.
Film seems to be a primary theme of the story as a whole as it influences many of the characters. Togata is the obvious example but may of the characters have motivations tied to film. Our main villain’s motivation for a new Star Wars movie is one and as silly as it sounds I think many of us could go to absurd lengths if it meant getting more of a show we loved. Domu who acted as main antagonist for a time reveals that his actions were in service of his god whom he watched a video of him fighting demons and he later came to realise that his god was from a B-movie that Togata claims was a piece of utter crap. Upon being asked about Heaven, Togata claims that it is a cinema, something which Agni takes very to heart. Even the main character Agni is influenced by movies as he claims that most of his life he has been acting and is pushed to act more by Togata. Throughout the story he begins to try to act in a manner that he would believe the protagonist of a movie would act only to find that his real feelings push him towards something more nefarious. People build a religion around him based on a boy that saw him like an action hero which turns into a cult of desperation. The utter hopelessness of Agni who has long gone insane and just wants to die, constantly being told to live by those he cares about. Nihilism runs through the story with peoples gods being fake illusions to avert their eyes from the most certain death of the world and Agni’s once righteous crusade being revealed to be something more selfish and personal that breaks him down into a sad shell of a man. This manga is a mess really but there is something honestly genuine about it that I think makes for a interesting read and I can be sure it will never get an anime adaption. It’s not a manga for everyone or even many people but upon finishing it I found it rather cathartic and it’s given me hope that the Mangaka can really take ChainSaw Man to interesting places. Well…provided that he doesn’t go completely insane.
On a completely unrelated note I would like to give a call out to Spy X Family. A brand new series with just two chapters out so far but I have a feeling this one might turn out to be something quite special. I wouldn’t see surprised to see an anime adaption in a few years time.
