This paper reinterprets "innocence" in shōnen manga as a narrative immunity apparatus—a structural device that suspends ethical accountability and enables readers to empathize with protagonists who commit extreme violence. Using Chainsaw Man as a case study, the paper shows how Denji's radical simplicity and limited awareness externalize responsibility and stabilize reader alignment. As readers mature and internalize evaluative norms concerning responsibility, power, and institutional violence, this immunity collapses. What once appeared as purity becomes legible as structural risk. The study conceptualizes this shift as a phase transition in reception, driven not by changing taste but by the evolution of internalized evaluation. By linking narrative structure with latent evaluative cognition, the paper proposes a broader model for understanding how reader maturity reorganizes empathy and interpretive frameworks over time.
Setsu KONO (Fri,) studied this question.