Introduction

Ever since Chainsaw Man's first part of the manga, I grew a deep fascination with the author who wrote it, Tatsuki Fujimoto. I was engaged by how he wrote the main character because of his desire for a normal life, despite knowing that it won't be possible. As a result, I decided to look at his other works which includes this manga, Fire Punch. As Fire Punch was written before Chainsaw Man and for the sake of this review, I will not be mentioning it and/or making any references to it.

Fire Punch takes place in a world that has been covered in harsh ice. Food is scarce, travel is difficult, and sickness is everywhere. In this world, however, people have powers known as blessings, with one of these people being responsible for covering the world in ice.

Agni, our main character, lives with his sister Luna in a village. Despite the cruelness of the life around them, as long as their together, they're both happy..but that soons proves to be impossible. Agni and Luna both have a blessing of regeneration, meaning that if they're injured, they regenerate. Unfortunately, Luna's ability to regenerate is slow, compared to Agni's almost instant regeneration. Knowing this, in order to keep the village out of famine, Agni constantly severs his arms off to be used as food for him, his sister, and the rest of the village. It helps them all.

That is until another man with another blessing arrives. Doma and his eternal flame.

Upon seeing the village rely on Agni's flesh to fend off the hunger, Doma is disgusted and without hesitance, burns the entire village. Everyone perishes as Agni yearns for it to end, screaming in pain, but accepting that it's his time to die. Until Luna says one more thing before she dies,

"Live."

For years, Agni lays on the ground, the fire never ceasing and him never dying due to his regeneration ability, instantly healing himself every time the damage is done. After eight years of pain and torture, Agni manages to stand, finally being able to live with the fire without feeling the pain. And so he walks forward, to kill Doma and get revenge for Luna's sake. And, thus, begins Fire Punch.

Fire Punch is..well, a story. Throughout my reading of it, I felt a mix of emotions: anger, disgust, sadness. Not once when reading this did I feel happy. And you're not supposed to. With Fire Punch, Fujimoto wrote it in a way where there is no concept of "good". These characters do horrible things and every one of them try to justify it. For example, Doma is someone who viewed women as nothing more than vessels for babies, forcing young girls to become these vessels. Doma and most of the cast view people who have any sort of ability, such as an entire laboratory using people who have the blessing of electricity as endless resources to power their homes until they die. People who have the blessing of fire? Same thing, resources to keep cities and homes warm. To be blessed is a curse.

So, what about our main character, Agni? As our main character and someone simply wanting to avenge his sister, surely he can't be a bad person, right?

Unfortunately, that is far from the case.

The more Agni ventures on, the more he begins to question himself. He thought that bad guys deserved to die, but hates seeing someone die. Before he started cutting his arm off to feed his village, he always felt guilty for killing animals to feed others. Is it..just? Is it right to do this because it's just the way the world is? This begins when he sees people stuck behind a cage, imprisoned. He has no connection to them, so why should he care? All he wants to do is kill Doma, and then it'll all be good, right?

No, Agni says,
"I want to save them because I don't want this world to beat me."

He wants to do the right thing.

But how long can he keep doing so?

Agni saves more and more people as time goes on, creating a village of people he's saved. It feels good. People are grateful to him. He saved children from illness, he saved people from slavery, he's the reason why people get to live another day. To others, he is a God. But Agni..what is Angi to himself?

Agni essentially becomes this caregiver to them. All he wanted to do was save them, but now, all of their lives are in his hands. Without Agni, they'll all perish. This isn't what he wants to be. He just wanted to do the right thing, but now, it's become his entire life. What about what he wants? How is he anything different to what those laboratories did to those who had blessings? Is he Agni or just a resource now?

But he can't. He can't say no to them. If he doesn't do what they want, they'll get angry. They'll feel betrayed by Agni, and will either run away or turn against him. He does want to help them all, he really does, but is he really in the place to do so? He's killed so many people who were "just trying to live", right?

His life no longer belongs to him. His worth as a person is now fully dependent on what he can do for others. He is no longer allowed to care for himself. He is no longer Agni, he's Fire Punch.

And this leads to his entire dynamic with a certain character, Togata.

To me, Togata is the most fascinating character in the manga. She's..weird and crazy. She has a deep obsession with movies, and views people as characters and problems as plots. In one chapter, she sees a character getting sexually assaulted, and what does she do? Records it and laughs. She views this entire situation where the bad guys are hurting a poor a girl and wants it to happen and when it does? She'll kill them so it looks good! So she'll be the hero of this movie!

She's a direct contrast of what Agni represents: whereas Agni questions his morals, Togata doesn't care about the history or the actual events of things. As long as it looks cool, it's okay.

As I stated earlier, there is no such concept of "good" in this manga. And the dynamic these two have simplify why.

Togata serves as this mentor type character towards Agni. Teaching him things such as english, having conversations with him about things besides being Fire punch, and, most importantly, movies.

In this world, movies have become nothing but remnants of the past. Togata, with her ability of regeneration, has allowed her to live for 300 years now. We don't necessarily get confirmation when the ice age on this Earth started, but it's safe to assume that Togata was born before it since she mentions a lot of well known actors that had popular movies, such as Emma Watson. Because of how long she's lived, she knows an uncomfortable amount of things and since she's been so alone until Agni, she's hated herself.

Agni, wanting to distract himself asks Togata this question. Before Togata gives an answer, she straight up tells Agni "you think I know anything?" to which Agni says "you don't?". Togata looks disappointed, maybe even somewhat sad, before she tells him,

"A movie theater."

Not having heard of such a place before, Togata explains what its like to Agni. A place where you go into a screening, with popcorn and soda, and find your seat. You sit down, the lights dim, and begin watching movie trailers. And then, a really interesting movie plays forever.

That's probably not true. But it's something that Agni needed to be told. Regardless of it being a lie, that answer gives so much comfort to Agni. After all, being given something nice like that after enduring and living in such a cold and cruel world doesn't sound so bad.

In the end, that's all that people need. Something or someone to believe in, regardless of whether it's real or not. They need something to keep going.

Although I think Fujimoto just wanted to go crazy with his thoughts, there are times when this story feels messy, and there's a lot of things that would make it "better". More depth into the other characters besides Togata and Agni, or perhaps more of background into the main antagonists. Nonetheless, this was a great (yet uncomfortable) quick read. Would I read it again? No, I'm good. Am I glad I read it? Absolutely. It was great to see his first major series and how he portrayed a lot of his thinking into his writing and it makes me want to read his first one shots.