Another Thing I Like About Chainsaw Man: It Has "fanservice Scenes" That Aren't Sexualized. Alright,

Another thing I like about Chainsaw Man: It has "fanservice scenes" that aren't sexualized. Alright, hear me out, I have examples. (Some of which are light spoilers, but I'm pretty sure I talked around anything serious.)

"Flashback to a naked devil chick wandering around the wilderness with a cat" sounds like a fanservice scene...but the framing of the panels/shots, the visible parts of Power, and the fact that Makima hadn't started hosing her down every other week means that it's not sexy.

"Said devil chick takes a bath with the main character" definitely sounds like a fanservice scene...but the framing, Power's emotional state, and Denji's lack of reaction (despite being an infamous horndog) means that it's not sexy.

"Mostly-human (it's complicated) chick turns her school uniform into a sword and fights a devil in her underwear" sounds like a fanservice scene, and it definitely comes closest out of these. You can clearly see sexy bits like her chest and midriff, for instance. But Asa isn't fighting in sexy poses, the panels focus on the action rather than trying to make her sexy, and of course it isn't long before she's splattered in devil blood.

Now, let's clarify what I'm saying. I'm not saying nobody could find these scenes sexy; I don't think it's possible to create such a scene. And I'm obviously not saying CSM never has fanservice scenes; Quanxi and her (harem? polycule? squad?) have multiple...lesbian orgy panels?* framed in a sexual manner. What I'm saying is, it's obvious that the orgy panels were drawn sexy for a reason, because they're contrasted with an extended sequence of a very un-sexualized naked Power.

Fanservice scenes are omnipresent—not just in Japanese media, but in the West, too. As a sex-repulsed asexual, this is very obvious to me in a way I assume it isn't for most people...but as someone who exists in the same world as all you allosexuals, I've grown numb to it unless it's really obvious. I'm used to artists in a visual medium leveraging any scene where an adult woman partially disrobes for titillating viewers who are into that, and I've made my peace with that. Fuck, I'm not even surprised when artists do that with sexual violence or minors or whatever. It's a bad thing, but it's a fact of life.

And here we have Tatsuki Fujimoto, with scenes of naked or near-naked women which aren't sexualized. And I'm pretty sure† it's not just my ace brain not recognizing what heterosexual boys are expected to like about the scene, or some artistic or technical deficiency obscuring the intent, because look at Quanxi.

Power being naked in the wilderness could have been sexualized, but it was just a signifier that she's wild and uncivilized. Power being emotionally vulnerable in the bath could have been sexualized, but it was just a signifier of that vulnerability. Asa stripping off her uniform to use it as a weapon could have been sexualized, but it was just a signifier of her desperation.

* Hell, even the Quanxi orgies have a purpose beyond titillation. She's obviously a foil for Denji, living the life he thinks he wants. The scenes with her fiends emphasize the lust that she and Denji share. It's not a creative decision I'm 100% comfortable with, but Quanxi's sexuality is obviously not just an attempt at shoehorning some lesbian sex into the manga to draw in horny teenaged boys.‡

In a world with so much female nudity thrown in for mere fanservice, I feel like it's worth pointing out artists who do better. Mangaka don't need to write pure Christian stories without anything vaguely sexy in them to appease us social justice warriors; they just need to have a point beyond sex appeal when they draw naked women. And it doesn't have to be a deep point! It just has to exist!

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† Though not certain—part of me expects to hear back from people who're confused about how someone could think those scenes weren't sexualized.

‡Why are straight dudes into lesbians, anyways? Is that weird? It seems weird.

BELATED EDIT: Of course, right before this popped off my queue, chapter 110 had to have some panels of Asa's de-uniformed body that feel like they were framed for fanservice. I thought that it was a Denji's-gaze sort of thing and it would lead to his horniness driving him to do something, but it didn't really?

It could still be a Denji's-gaze thing and not a bog-standard male-gaze thing, but the only reason I'm giving this possibility any weight is the previous 109 chapters.