Praying Astronauts

Submission 33,441

Part of a series on Chainsaw Man. [View Related Entries]

About

Praying Astronauts is a memorable manga panel from Chapter 64 (titled "Welcome to Hell") of the manga series Chainsaw Man in which 10 dead astronauts, all cut in half, are arranged opposite their bottom halves, their hands folded in prayer with their legs stuck in the air. Starting in 2020, the panel has been used in memes as an exploitable and referenced and reimagined in various ways, including redraws.

Origin

On May 30th, 2020, chapter 64 titled "Welcome to Hell" of the Chainsaw Man manga series was released.^[1] In the chapter, Denji, Aki and several other characters find themselves in Hell. The group almost immediately encounters The Darkness Devil as the darkness surrounds them and a row of 10 astronauts cut in half appears. The dead astronauts hold their hands together, as if in prayer (panels shown below).

Spread

Immediately following the release of the chapter, the panel became a subject of discussion in manga communities online. For example, in late March 2020, it was brought up in Chainsaw Man threads on 4chan's /a/ board.^[2]^[3] On July 17th, 2020, Redditor Ahedala100 posted a fan-colored version of the panel to the /r/ChainsawMan^[4] subreddit, where it received over 1,600 upvotes in six months.

On September 18th, 2020, following the explosive popularity of the multiplayer video game Among Us, Redditor Therealestprofoak posted the earliest found meme based on the pane, adding a caption referencing the game (shown below, left). The post received over 200 upvotes on /r/ChainsawMan^[5] in six months. On November 9th, 2020, Redditor^[6] Snowball-XD posted a fan remake of the panel switching the Darkness Devil with the astronauts, with the post gaining over 360 upvotes in the subreddit in the same period.

Starting in late 2020, the panel has been actively used in various Chainsaw Man communities, such as the /r/ChainsawMan subreddit on Reddit and Chainsaw Man Pochitaposting on Facebook, for memes and references. For example, on March 8th, 2021, Redditor^[7] kingbonobo posted an Among Us redraw of the panel that gained over 6,600 upvotes in the subreddit in six months (shown below, left). On May 29th, 2021, Facebook user Vasko Asenov made a bait post^[8] referencing the song ""Astronaut in the Ocean": https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/astronaut-in-the-ocean" that gained over 440 reactions and 180 shares in the Facebook group in one year (shown below, right).

On January 16th, 2022, Twitter^[9] user @xinohpp posted another Among Us redraw that received over 16,600 retweets and 134,200 likes in eight months. More viral memes based on the panel and referencing it were posted on various websites in 2022.