My biggest problem with the ending of [CSM] isn't the abandoned plot lines or the pacing or characters disappearing. It's the lack of a thematic conclusion.
Planned to make this rant earlier but I let the steam of the ending run off a bit to think about it better.
Anyway what is the main theme of CSM? Well in part one it was clear: You might watch hundreds of bad movies, but the one good movie you'll watch will make all the other worthy. A life without bad things only exists in dreams. You might not have sex with a hundred women, but you might have with one. You might not eat steak every day but maybe once a month, and that will make the month worth living. You might live trough hardships, problems, traumas. But you will be happy once and that will make life worth living. The bad things in life are necessary to understand the good ones.
This was established in multiple scenes in part 1: the cinema scene in the reze arc served it as a basic explaination which was then well established more later with the graveyard convo with Makima and the one with Kobeni. Denji's arc from this was obvious: accepting that he cant have everything. He cant be happy with Makima and has to kill her. He cant have sex with hundreds of women nor eat steak every day. He can try to do his best and accept what he has.
In part 2 this was well, less developed. Denji kept spiraling back into his old self, which could fuck 10 super models and not be satisfied until he fucked the 11th. I kinda lost hope for a while.
Then volume 20 and thus chapter 183. That chapter by its own recovered my love into the series. It just made me remember everything I love about the series. Denji's speech about food and girls being what made him go on was oddly in character for part 2. Him rememebring what feeling loved means. The Reze coffee panel, without a single line of dialogue, spoke so many words, and it made me tear up. Everything I loved about CSM flowed back into my mind.
And then, after endless chapters of the worst fight I've ever seen, a bunch of plot twists and characters dying, we get to the finale. So what happened to the themes? Denji's development? Did he reach his peace and acceptance? Did the message of the story get delivered?
Of course not. Of course fucking not. The first fucking line of the final chapter is "I wish I could only have gokd dreams"
It's all gone. There is no development. No theme. Nothing. Everything you hoped for is gone. All the hours you spent enjoying the message of the series are gone. Denji is just the same trauma bonded person who has no brakes on his search for pleasuee. What Reze, Aki, Power and Kishibe thought him is gone. He is the same as chaoter 1. There is nothing and there will be nothing. Your journey trying to empathise with a protagonist on a thematic level was useless.
As I said I could acroll over the plot holes, the characters disappearing, the pacing, everything. All I needed was a thematic conclusion to Denji's chatacter, someone I always empathised with in his rush for pleasure. All I needed was the story to end telling me something.
But what is the message of CSM after considering the ending? What was Denji'a character supposed to convey in these 223 chapters?
What was it all for?