This bizarre fluidity in the narrative, which has been described as a “plot twist,” is precisely what reveals Tatsuki Fujimoto’s indifference to the subject matter in the story.Īt the same time, it is important to note that the fluidity of the narrative in Fire Punch is optimized for the so-called “buzz marketing strategy,” which increases the number of views by inducing communication on SNS.

Such interchangeability is also evident with regard to the multiple female characters surrounding the protagonist, and the overall structure of the story is barely stabilized by the half-forcible maintenance of their one man-one woman relationships that the protagonist and female characters have.

This kind of his artistic quality is demonstrated in a paranoid sort of way in his first full-length work, Fire Punch, in which the protagonist is an avenger, a hero, a god, and nobody at the same time, changing his name and even his identity from time to time. Rather, it seems as if he sees a story as an interchangeable tool for developing his storytelling skills and achieving great success as a manga artist. Even taking into consideration the fact that in the realm of shōnen manga, a “one-shot” manga is basically a stepping stone to forthcoming serialized manga in a magazine, it is clear that Fujimoto is not afraid to generate one pattern after another without regard to the subject matter of his own stories. These facts and anecdotes demonstrate Fujimoto’s precociousness as a full-length manga artist and at the same time clearly show his lack of attachment to the subject matter of his stories.

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