Spaghetti Man
Spaghetti Man (スパゲッティ・マン, Supagetti Man) is the main antagonist of the short story Blackstar., that is part of the Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan: Short Story Collection.
It causes individuals to disappear, leaving behind their belongings, eerily distorted into twisted, spaghetti-like shapes. Contrary to what its name suggests, Spaghetti Man does not refer to a single entity but rather encompasses multiple phenomena that are theorized by the Speedwagon Foundation to be bait used by a higher dimensional creature to lure humans into another dimension.
Appearance
In reality, Spaghetti Man is the mouth of a wormhole known as a naked singularity. However, a gravity-warping illusion makes it take on a masculine human appearance in order to lure humans toward it. Each Spaghetti Man is cloaked in an unkempt suit paired with a crumpled hat. It has bushy eyebrows, protruding eyes, and a semi-open mouth resembling a faint smile. Its drooping face and features reminds Rohan Kishibe of the actor Benicio Del Toro. It doesn't look like an illusion, as it has shadows from the sun, and its body has a definite sense of mass to it. Underneath its blazer is an unbuttoned shirt, but rather than its chest having skin, there is a profoundly dark, gaping hole in place of a heart.
In photographs, Spaghetti Man often blends within crowds, though paradoxically isolates itself through its direct, unsettling stare. Its intense gaze directed at the camera is as if it is directly staring at the viewer.
Spaghetti Man isn't visible to ordinary people unless they have a "sixth sense" or predisposition for seeing paranormal things.[1]
Personality
Spaghetti Man is an eldritch entity who doesn't communicate directly, but its disconcerting presence is felt by those who encounter it. It has a sinister intent, as those who come into contact with it or become aware of its existence go missing, excluding Rohan who is its sole survivor. Once choosing a target, it persistently goes after them, making its first approach by appearing in every ordinary photo they take. Eventually, it appears in front of them in reality after a few days. It tends to make its victims disappear as soon as they tell someone else about it, or if someone investigates or pursues it like Chan or Rohan. When appearing in front of someone, it always stands still. Its expression doesn't change, and Rohan describes it to be like a machine repeating the same preprogrammed actions.[1]
Abilities
Spaghetti Man is extremely powerful, being able to easily consume humans into wormholes. Rohan considers it to be a manifestation of misfortune, with its ability being more horrifying than any Stand or mystery he has come across. It acts automatically, appears anywhere in the world with unlimited range, and has numerous ways to hunt down its prey.
Naked Singularity
Spaghetti Man is primarily a naked singularity, which is concealed due to a gravity-warping illusion giving it a human appearance. It reveals its true form by taking off its blazer, exposing its chest. The hole is small, but the gravity it emanates warps space all around it. Initially, Rohan assumes that it is a black hole with an event horizon.
Spaghetti Man, acting as a potent gravitational well, draws everything within a certain radius towards it. It is capable of pulling in anything that is at least up to 50m away, based on how far it was from Rohan. For example, branches of trees and blades of grass contort into strange shapes to point toward Spaghetti Man. The moment an object or individual nears the void, they undergo spaghettification due to the overwhelming tidal gravitational forces, becoming elongated and compressed until vanishing. When being pulled toward the hole, Rohan initially describes the experience as feeling as if he was shot out of a cannon and that invisible hands are dragging him down. He then realizes that there is no pulling sensation, but rather a natural feeling of falling down.
It is unknown what happens to those that are fully sucked into the hole, but Agent Gabriel and the Speedwagon Foundation assume that they are brought into another dimension.[1]
Multiplication
When Spaghetti Man is set on capturing its target, it infinitely appears to multiply by summoning its allies to gather at one point around the target. Akin to a colony of ants swarming around food, each being works together to pull the target toward them. With each of them having their own naked singularities, the holes combine and merge into one, intensifying the gravitational pull.[1]
Wormhole Manipulation
Spaghetti Man exists throughout all of spacetime simultaneously, traveling to other dimensions by using wormholes. This allows it to pursue its target in any timeline, no matter where they are. This also makes it capable of appearing in photographs, even if it wasn't there before in reality when the person initially took the photo.
Spaghetti Man uses wormholes like telephone wires to communicate with its allies, immediately transmitting information to each Spaghetti Man throughout space and time so they can all gather at one point. Since each Spaghetti Man uses wormholes to stay in sync with each other, a command from Heaven's Door written on one of them would immediately be transmitted to all of them.[1]
History
Background
The Speedwagon Foundation theorizes based on the superstring theory in astrophysics that Spaghetti Man is ordered by a mysterious creature from a higher dimension to lure humans into their dimension. Their origin and motives are unknown, but Spaghetti Man eventually became an urban legend, traced back to three specific encounters.
First, an American journalist named Charles discovered Spaghetti Man in photos of an abandoned city and subsequently disappeared after his article gained widespread attention. In Japan, a university student named Kanako ceased posting photos on her social media after seeing a progressively approaching strange man both in her photos and peripheral vision; she eventually vanished while on the way to her parents' home after experiencing intense fear and psychological trauma. Lastly, a Shanghai-based student, Chan, verified the prior incidents and dubbed the entity "Spaghetti Man" due to the peculiar spaghettified state of the victims' belongings. Chan disappears after a paranoid spree wherein he perceives the entity everywhere, assuming that multiple government spies are trying to oppress him.
The Speedwagon Foundation investigated these incidents and shared leaked information on Chan's forum to try gaining more evidence or learn about new sightings. Rohan Kishibe discovered Spaghetti Man while researching about urban legends. Suddenly, when sorting his reference photos which were ordinary photos of Morioh and other locations like Italy, Rohan saw Spaghetti Man in all of the photos looking directly at him. Intrigued, Rohan decided to research about Spaghetti Man to see if he had a stalker or if it was a supernatural entity.[1]
Blackstar.
Rohan takes a photo of Kanako's disappearance site. Although nobody was there before, Spaghetti Man appears in the photo standing by a utility pole. As soon as Rohan wonders whether it is a hallucination, Rohan sees the man in the corner of his eye. Since then, Spaghetti Man would continue to approach Rohan.
Rohan heads back home, taking random photos of the city along the way. Spaghetti Man appears even closer in his photos and then eventually appears in front of him in reality, about 50 meters away from Rohan's house. Spaghetti Man takes off its blazer, revealing its naked singularity in its chest. Suddenly, Rohan's body starts being pulled toward Spaghetti Man. However, he activates Heaven's Door on a flock of crows who are flying past him at the right time, writing that they would carry him and fly away. Rohan manages to grab a tree branch and lands on a tree trunk. He notices that Spaghetti Man is still standing in the middle of the street without moving, but all of the tree branches and grass near the man are stretched out as if they are being pulled toward him.
Spaghetti Man then summons its allies by first duplicating into two men and then constantly multiplies. Each of them expose the naked singularity on their chest, merging together into a large hole which sucks every object in their surrounding into them. The flock of crows that helped Rohan suffer the same fate and are pulled into the hole. The tree could not withstand the force of Spaghetti Man's gravity and Rohan's body starts being flung toward the black hole. As he falls into the pitch darkness, Rohan is suddenly enlightened as to how he could survive. Rohan activates Heaven's Door, turning Spaghetti Man into a book. Before Heaven's Door is completely destroyed, Rohan writes a command stating that Spaghetti Man could no longer recognize Rohan Kishibe. Due to the wormhole, the information that one Spaghetti Man receives is transmitted to all of them. Spaghetti Man disappears along with their abnormal gravity, as they could no longer recognize Rohan as a human. Rohan reveals that he noticed Spaghetti Man's book only had a string of unintelligible letters written in a foreign language, but he could make out the word "Bait".
After recovering and drawing a sketch of Spaghetti Man for Agent Gabriel, Rohan heads out to the street where he continues to see Spaghetti Man. Spaghetti Man no longer looks toward Rohan's direction, but instead out into space.[1]
Novel Appearances
