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__sol__ 's review for:
Fire Punch, Vol. 1
by Tatsuki Fujimoto
Full series review
I read all of Fire Punch in one sitting about 6 months ago, and it left me feeling sick and weak for days. It's been on my mind almost continuously since then. Sometimes I wish I could forget it. It's one of the best manga I've read, and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.
As the story nears the conclusion, the lies become ever more powerful, and painful. Agni lies to Judah that she is his sister, putting him on the final road to his destruction. Agni lies to Dowa's daughter, insinuating himself in her life, and becoming a surrogate big brother to her child. Finally, he lies to Dowa's daughter, by trying to her convince her that he hated her all along, and everything he had done was for the purpose of destroying her. A desperate attempt to save Dowa's daughter from her association with him. After that point, Agni does not speak much.
What are all these lies for? Mostly for comfort, sometimes for control. Sometimes these lies go on so long, the liars forget they aren't true. The lesser lies of fiction, another recurring theme throughout the manga, provide for our lives everything from structures to understand the world, to aspirational models to live by, to shields that help buffer us from the harshness of life. Togata is the exemplar here - everything in her life is mediated through the lens of movies and film quotes, or the obfuscating roles of director and actor in her movie project. She never allows people to simply be people - always actor, protagonist, villain, cameraman. But of course, as useful and comforting as we find fiction to be, it breaks down. It isn't real, and as much as we might pretend otherwise, there is something out there. The lies we tell and the stories we love can't protect us forever. Togata sees this at the moment of her death. She mulls over her last words, thinking of various film inspired final lines. She settles, however, on "Agni, live." The final words of his sister that have been driving him since that moment. Why choose those? Togata doesn't say, but I think it is because she wanted something unmediated by constructed stories.
Can we find truth anywhere? If we tell ourselves a lie long enough, does it become true enough? Would we even want it if we found it? There are no answers here. Agni's psychotic hallucinations of his sister suggest that Dowa's repentance is false. We have no way of knowing.
Structurally, Fire Punch is very odd. As I noted above, it seems to change genres on a dime in between volumes, but maintains the same story the whole way through, always centred around the core of Luna/Agni/Dowa/Judah, with San and Togata as little satellites. It's a revenge story where the revenge is completed halfway through, and there's a long way downhill from there. It's a twisted love story between a man who cannot grow up past the moment of his childhood trauma, and a woman he should by rights hate more than anything. It's a story where the protagonist we follow becomes the villain, and we're relieved when he can finally die and forget himself. Nothing I've read is like it. Many will dismiss the first volume as edgy garbage, and it certainly is edgy. But if you're willing to look past that and continue on, you'll get a truly unique, inspired story. That's not to say the structure is perfect - plot elements outside the core get picked up and dropped unceremoniously, which will likely annoy many readers. But the things that are important to the story are treated with all the gravity they need and deserve.
Artwise, Fire Punch is surprisingly pleasing to the eye. Most of the younger characters have a smooth and healthy look to them, and even Agni has an innocent seeming face. This is contrasted by the sometimes quite extreme gore, and the emaciated bodies of slaves. Agni's body is appropriately chaotic looking, and in any pose other than straight up with his limbs stretched out, it can look like a formless mass, making for some strange action scenes. The compositions are usually clear enough to convey what's going on, however, even when Agni has torn off his own arm and thrust it through a man's stomach, turning them both into a mass of fire.
In the end, the acute suffering throughout this manga was what left me feeling sick. It's one of the worst forms of suffering - the kind that comes from within, as characters are driven to do terrible things to themselves and others by their own natures, rather than having suffering thrust upon them by outside forces.
I read all of Fire Punch in one sitting about 6 months ago, and it left me feeling sick and weak for days. It's been on my mind almost continuously since then. Sometimes I wish I could forget it. It's one of the best manga I've read, and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody.
Spoiler
Fire Punch wears a lot of masks over its run - absurdly edgy revenge story, screwball comedy, somber tragedy, uplifting and seemingly fated love story. But there is something running through the entire manga, consistently, waxing and waning. Lies. From the very beginning, we are lied to - there is no Ice Witch, the world is dying quite naturally. Agni lies to his little sister about having seen the warm world, and about his pain, in order to cheer her up. Together they lie to their mother to stop her from worrying. San is lied to about his expulsion from his village to keep him from despair. Judah lies to Dowa and all her citizens about hearing the voice of God to keep her kingdom running. Her father came to believe those same lies he had taught her when she was a child. Togata lies by omission, keeping her hatred of her body a secret, until it is exposed.As the story nears the conclusion, the lies become ever more powerful, and painful. Agni lies to Judah that she is his sister, putting him on the final road to his destruction. Agni lies to Dowa's daughter, insinuating himself in her life, and becoming a surrogate big brother to her child. Finally, he lies to Dowa's daughter, by trying to her convince her that he hated her all along, and everything he had done was for the purpose of destroying her. A desperate attempt to save Dowa's daughter from her association with him. After that point, Agni does not speak much.
What are all these lies for? Mostly for comfort, sometimes for control. Sometimes these lies go on so long, the liars forget they aren't true. The lesser lies of fiction, another recurring theme throughout the manga, provide for our lives everything from structures to understand the world, to aspirational models to live by, to shields that help buffer us from the harshness of life. Togata is the exemplar here - everything in her life is mediated through the lens of movies and film quotes, or the obfuscating roles of director and actor in her movie project. She never allows people to simply be people - always actor, protagonist, villain, cameraman. But of course, as useful and comforting as we find fiction to be, it breaks down. It isn't real, and as much as we might pretend otherwise, there is something out there. The lies we tell and the stories we love can't protect us forever. Togata sees this at the moment of her death. She mulls over her last words, thinking of various film inspired final lines. She settles, however, on "Agni, live." The final words of his sister that have been driving him since that moment. Why choose those? Togata doesn't say, but I think it is because she wanted something unmediated by constructed stories.
Can we find truth anywhere? If we tell ourselves a lie long enough, does it become true enough? Would we even want it if we found it? There are no answers here. Agni's psychotic hallucinations of his sister suggest that Dowa's repentance is false. We have no way of knowing.
Structurally, Fire Punch is very odd. As I noted above, it seems to change genres on a dime in between volumes, but maintains the same story the whole way through, always centred around the core of Luna/Agni/Dowa/Judah, with San and Togata as little satellites. It's a revenge story where the revenge is completed halfway through, and there's a long way downhill from there. It's a twisted love story between a man who cannot grow up past the moment of his childhood trauma, and a woman he should by rights hate more than anything. It's a story where the protagonist we follow becomes the villain, and we're relieved when he can finally die and forget himself. Nothing I've read is like it. Many will dismiss the first volume as edgy garbage, and it certainly is edgy. But if you're willing to look past that and continue on, you'll get a truly unique, inspired story. That's not to say the structure is perfect - plot elements outside the core get picked up and dropped unceremoniously, which will likely annoy many readers. But the things that are important to the story are treated with all the gravity they need and deserve.
Artwise, Fire Punch is surprisingly pleasing to the eye. Most of the younger characters have a smooth and healthy look to them, and even Agni has an innocent seeming face. This is contrasted by the sometimes quite extreme gore, and the emaciated bodies of slaves. Agni's body is appropriately chaotic looking, and in any pose other than straight up with his limbs stretched out, it can look like a formless mass, making for some strange action scenes. The compositions are usually clear enough to convey what's going on, however, even when Agni has torn off his own arm and thrust it through a man's stomach, turning them both into a mass of fire.
In the end, the acute suffering throughout this manga was what left me feeling sick. It's one of the worst forms of suffering - the kind that comes from within, as characters are driven to do terrible things to themselves and others by their own natures, rather than having suffering thrust upon them by outside forces.