Fire Punch, Vol. 6

ファイアパンチ [Fire Punch] #6

by Tatsuki Fujimoto

In a frozen dystopia where inhabitants eat flesh to survive, can the destructive powers of fire bring salvation?

In the not-too-distant past, the Ice Witch blankets the world in snow, starvation, and madness, leading the inhabitants to seek their salvation in fire. With that, an unusual destiny unfolds for two young orphans, Agni and Luna, blessed with the ability to regenerate. But will this ability prove to be more of a curse than a blessing?

In order to absorb all life, Judah has been turned into a massive tree by the Ice Witch. And just as Agni loses all will to live, Judah’s sorrowful pleas for death echo in his ear. What will await the world after its destruction and rebirth is complete?

Genres: Manga, Comics, Horror, Action, Fantasy, Fiction, Dystopia

208 pages, Paperback

First published August 4, 2017

About the author

Tatsuki Fujimoto 藤本タツキ (Fujimoto Tatsuki) is a Japanese manga author, mostly known for Chainsaw Man.

Awards:
- Shōgakukan Manga Award: Shōnen category for Chainsaw Man (2020)
- Harvey Award: best manga for Chainsaw Man (2021-2022)

Chinese language profiles: 藤本樹 and 藤本树.

Reviews

[Keiko, the manga enthusiast ♒︎ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, let me take a moment. I'm kinda confused.

[Alexandra Elend Wolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I’m not Agni. I’m not the hero. I’m not a god either. Other people have always decided for me who I am. So now, I’m Fire Punch.”

TW: Gore, graphic violence, death, body horror, mentions of sexual abuse, mentions of cannibalism, madness.

This was very disturbing. Which really shouldn't come as a surprise at this point in the series, and it doesn't, but the way that Fujimoto draws certain expressions upped the ante for disturbing.

While at the beginning I did not have a lot of faith in Agni's character development, or in him as a character that could carry the weight of the story alone, he really has come a long way since then and become a very interesting individual to follow.

Moreover, the deconstruction of Agni's character is something that is beyond fascinating to see. We've peeled so many layers only to find that it wasn't the last one and there is still something more there to explore, and that needs to be understood in order to really get a grasp of his motivations and psyche.

The turn it all takes in this volume was so straightforward it was a surprise it went so deep.

Getting to focus mostly on Agni felt like a return to form that grounded the story well, and the breathing room offered complexity in exchange.

“You can’t forget painful memories. So always remember doing this.”

Regardless of the focus of the story, there was still a lot happening, and the ever-changing gears of the plot continue to astound me.

As the plot progresses, the need for a trustworthy narrator increases and the mystery created by so many different, opposite, and contradictory ideas and ideals sharpens and crystalizes. The scope of things, however, remains exuberantly big.

Last, but not least, the beautiful and cinematic panels continue to give the story a powerful air and atmosphere that really sucks you into the story; but the use of black panels is something that I never thought could be so effective. I could stare at their compositions for ages.

“Miracles exist. Like how I’m engulfed in flames and yet somehow still alive. I’d always thought that my own existence was a miracle. But now, at last, this stupid head of mine is starting to understand. There’s no such thing as miracles.”

[The Book Dragon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Agni fights a tree, somehow puts out his fire, and gets his sister(?) back...

Yeah I have no idea what's going on. I'm starting to think this entire thing is just some fever dream. It's the dead of winter; Agni is delirious with a high fever; the series will end with him waking up or dying. I'm calling it now.

This series has 8 volumes.

[Rod Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot takes another sudden left turn, this time into stupid, and it gets more than a little creepy and pathetic. But there are only two volumes left, so I'm sure more swerves are coming.

[Kristian Dobson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series has been reinventing itself since the beginning but it keeps on surprising me. This is probably it’s biggest narrative shift yet and I love it. This series has more going on in six volumes than most do in sixty. And that’s a good thing. I also feel like a lot of the reviewers here are missing the point of the series (or at least the point I’m getting so far).
With that said, only two more volumes left. Excited!

[ege · Rating 5 out of 5]

when ur whole crew doesn't know a damn thing

[Alberto Palomino · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuamos con nuestra travesía en la vida de Agni. En este volumen ocurre un giro de guion bastante sorprendente con respecto a lo que nos estaba contando el manga hasta ahora. Es complicado hablar de la historia a partir de ahora porque se podría hacer spoiler fácilmente, pero digamos que el tono oscuro se ha suavizado un poco porque la historia ha pegado un rumbo radical. Aunque me huelo a que es la calma antes de la tempestad.

No comentare mucho más, solo me quedan dos volúmenes, y supongo que en el último hare una reseña más extensa sobre la obra en sí.

[Suppi · Rating 4 out of 5]

help! help! help! help!

[Aimé · Rating 3 out of 5]

Todo ha cambiado tan rápido que es que no sé ni qué decir.
Resulta casi imposible predecir qué es lo que va a suceder en este manga, se le puede llamar una virtud.

[R · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll quote another review
Agni fights a tree, somehow puts out his fire, and gets his sister(?) back...

Did I say the series was random? Understatement.

[elif sinem · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine a thought experiment titled "what if the story can't progress because the main character's motivations are too benign so the thrill-seeking author has to switch up and live with the consequences". That's this volume.

[Dannie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somehow this manages to be even more messed up than the previous chapters. I'm enthralled and can't look away.

[Waldkauzz]

What is going on.

[Luc Retour · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, here we go again! Fire Punch, it's like the dumpster fire you can't look away from. The story is so completely insane, my curiosity of the ending is all that has kept me tentatively coming back.

Is this series good? For me, no. However the uncomfortableness and darkness of the story is probably its biggest strength and it's rare to see a series commit so hard to something that makes the series less marketable.

Lastly, to Fujimoto's credit - more has happened in 6 volumes of Fire Punch than in 27 volumes of Komi Can't Communicate and so at least I've been 'entertained.'

[Joshua Jonah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume is confusing, only because things happen so quickly. As another user said, it feels like a fever dream and with all the events coming into play like Judah and Luna, this makes for something not easy to follow, I am curious to know the ramifications of these actions and especially the reveal of one of the newer characters being related to someone. I’m wondering what’s next given the final line of this volume.

[Aida · Rating 3 out of 5]

End. 1401/4/24
نمره ۳/۵ یا ۴؟

فقط میتونم بگم، وای!
وای!
وای!
وای!

[Danny™️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fire punch is really good

[Recep · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Matthew · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fire Punch, by volume 6, has descended deep into surrealism, the distinction between reality and hallucination no longer apparent. The author, bored by his own story, time and again destroys what he has built and moves off in a different direction, abandoning narratives before they can come to fruition. It is part deconstruction of storytelling tropes, part existential commentary on religion, philosophy, and meaning, part acid trip.

Unfortunately, it’s all boring. I no longer care about the characters and my only question is wtf is going on? Reminiscent of some of hideo kojima’s stranger turns or any number of pretentious films too clever for their own good.

[Luno del Fuego Puño · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cuando el pavo que iba en llamas coje a la pava que se parece a su hermana muerta tiene amnesia y la gaslightea para poder tener la vida de hermanos que siempre quiso ah pero genocidar a toda una civilización no sale gratis y ahora no sabe si lo que vive acaso es real.
Bueno el caso es que ha prometido matarse a sí mismo porque ya no es ni Agni, ni el Fire Punch, ni el Protagonista ni na. ¿Qué nos depararán estas magicoaventuras?
(aquí ya observamos como fujimoto tiene alergia a las palabras y como mucho hay bocadillos con más de 5 palabras cada 3 páginas) (es cine no pidan explicaciones)

[Kiki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This volume was engaging and disturbing, something normal for Fire Punch at this point. In this volume, I really think Agni hits rock bottom. I was on edge all the time, just waiting for him to snap, but his resolution on the last chapter was something that I was expecting.
I’m looking forward to the next installment.

[Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting developments, even though they are just slightly different versions of prior plot devices. Still, I can't stop reading.

[Mahdiye HajiHosseini]

.

[Sofya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring yawning

[DonutKnow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Amidst the violence, there is a lot of self-reflection in this manga that I hadn’t expected 🤔

[Michael Sorbello · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a review of the entire series.

One day, a miracle happened. A new breed of children called gifted ones were born into the world, each with their own bizarre powers. In the distant past, an evil gifted one known as the Ice Witch unleashed a never-ending blizzard upon the world which led to a new ice age and the near-extinction of all life on Earth. Humanity returns to their primal nature, surviving only by cannibalizing, pillaging and enslaving each other.

Agni and Luna are orphaned siblings, gifted ones with the power of regeneration. They can regrow any limb they lose and heal from any injury. Agni's powers are nearly unlimited while Luna requires much more recovery time. Their fellow villagers take advantage of this by repeatedly chopping off their limbs and cooking them over a fire for daily nourishment. They're treated like fuel and life is bleak for the brother and sister, but they find comfort in surviving together.

That all changes when an army of wicked gifted ones raid their village for slaves and resources, only to misinterpret them as maniacal savages who torture and cannibalize their own people. They burn the entire village down along with everyone who lives there. Luna's powers are too weak to fully resist the might of the flames, leaving Agni the only survivor of the massacre. His gift becomes a curse, as the flames that consume his body can only be extinguished upon death, which his unlimited regenerative powers prevent. Unable to die, he becomes a walking inferno that's in constant agony of being devoured by fire. With nothing but pain and hatred consuming him, he turns his fiery rage into a weapon to take revenge on the ones who took his sister away and the Ice Witch that caused the destruction of the world.

Fire Punch is an insanely edgy dystopian thriller with a unique ice age setting. The first volume alone contains torture, cannibalism, incest, extreme child abuse, genocide, slavery and just about every other nightmarish thing you can imagine. Most of the disturbing content is purely for shock value, along with the characters all being very over-the-top twisted. Agni is your typical edgelord antihero, there's a wannabe film maker girl who likes to record real murder and tragedies for her own entertainment, there's cultists who worship fire, constant gore and death all over the place, it's wild and shocking all the way through.

It's the type of series you read just to see how weird, disturbing and shocking it can get. It's definitely not for everyone, only fans of extreme shock horror would probably find any enjoyment from it. The plot and characters are passable, but neither have much depth to them. It's still entertaining for the shock-value alone and the entire second half of the series reaches levels of absurdity that I can't even begin to properly describe. I honestly have no idea what the hell happened because it was so ridiculous, surreal and just barely coherent.

That's Fire Punch in a nutshell. It's edgy and absurd for no reason, but it's so weird, gruesome and over-the-top that it still manages to be entertaining so long as you have a strong stomach and a dark sense of humor.

***

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[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Which is the real me again?”

I take back what I said in a previous review. NOW I have no idea what is happening. I am so confused, to the point where I don’t even know where to begin.

As another reviewer so eloquently put it, Agni fights a tree and gets back his sister(?). Then they meet up with another group that hates men, but they make an exception for Agni after he helps them. Things happen and now Agni has promised to kill “Fire Punch.”

For the first half of this volume, I honestly thought Agni was having another dying dream. I was waiting for him to snap out of it, but the story kept going, so I think this is actually reality. The plot has taken such a detour that it’s almost a completely different story.

Despite my confusion, I am enjoying Fujimoto refocusing on Agni. He is not doing well and doesn’t appear to be improving, even though the danger of the Ice Witch is gone for now. I really liked the end of the volume, where he finally realizes how he’s being used by everyone around him. And now he’s just…no one. But now that Agni has had this revelation, will he be able to move past it? Will he be able to kill Fire Punch?

[Casper Paaske · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book series is still amazing, if you like so far. It is a very acquirer taste, that does not serve you what you think you want, instead it serves what it wants to serve you. It’s seems like an action manga at times, but I actually think this is some of Tatsuki Fujimoto most philosophical work to date. If you don’t like that, I fully understand not liking this series. I happen to love it. Or at least find it very intriguing. As always, the series keep throwing me for a loop, and I never know what’s gonna happen next. Heck, I don’t even understood what happened at the second half of the this novel, yet. But it sure had me intrigued.
At this point, I’m so curious as to how the series will end!
The one thing I’ve noticed as a criticism is the pacing. It is a little too slow a times, and now that I’m six novels in, it is starting to feel noticeable. It feels like it should rise the pacing and tension, not drop.
Other than that, I’m loving this, and am sure the ending itself will be memorable and thought provoking!

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, starting to lose me a bit. To get out of a plot jam where no further character development could really happen, Fujimoto does a bunch of inexplicable "manga nonsense" to change the status quo and push the main character into a new direction. Pretty much none of the plot developments that occur in this and the previous volume make any sense or are given even the remotest explanation, so there's this constant feeling, even after the plot moves on, of having no idea why anything you're reading is happening. It's really weak writing and starting to hit a bunch of really obvious "live long enough to see yourself become the villain" tropes. In fact, Agni commits acts of violence in this book that fully make zero sense for his character and only happen because he essentially blacks out, making none of it feel earned or like a genuine part of his character development.

Sorry, but this series needs to do a TON of retroactive explanation in the following volumes to even come close to winning me back. Woof.

[Marc D. ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5 estrellas.

INCREÍBLE.

Esta historia se ha reinventado por completo y aún así no ha dejado de sorprenderme en ningún momento, ¡incluso lo leí de un tirón! Cosa que no hago nunca, pero la incertidumbre sobre lo que pasaba y lo que estaba por pasar era tanta que no lo podía soltar.

Tenía mis dudas sobre si Agni era un protagonista potente que podría desarrollarse por su cuenta y llevar la historia solo, pero me ha cerrado la boca de una manera... ufff.

No sé qué más decir, es todo TAN LOCO que no puedo hablar sin hacer spoiler de nada, así que prefiero quedarme acá.

Me alegra que haya tenido mi cuota de ternura por parte de uno de los personajes (también inesperado), y ver tan reflejada la locura en los rostros, como sabe hacer Fujimoto.

En fin, creo que muchas reseñas por acá perdieron el punto de esto, pero no les culpo, porque es normal estar perdido con todo lo que pasó 😅

¡Ya solo quedan 2 tomos! No sé qué me espera, qué miedo 😂