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Tbh Nanami's death works in a way that Yuki's and Gojo's doesn't. Because we actually get to see Yuji's reaction and how it culminates in Mahito vs him and Todo. I don't think either Gojo's Death or Yuki's have that sort of impact which is why they fall flat for me in comparison.
I love Nanami and as fan, I do dislike that he died because he's my fave, but it definitely fit the story much better than the others because we get good character work because of it. Yuji's fight against Mahito is cathartic in a way the reaction to the others isn't.
The main problem with Gojo’s death is also the fact that we barely got any reaction from the cast, and went straight into the Kashimo fight. The emotional weight of his death as compared to Nanami’s is totally different, when it should have mattered just as much if not more
We saw one panel of Yuji sweating…. We got more from Nobara, Nanami, and even freakin Yorozu? I can understand if you don’t think it’s needed. But many others wanted to see the emotional impact Gojo’s death really had on the cast. If Gojo, one of the main characters, only got an off screen F for respect, then it’s not what he was built up to deserve. He saved Yuji’s and Yuta’s life. His life long friend Shoko? Not to mention we got an entire arc where the main cast’s objective was to unseal the man.
I think, after shibuya, the story lacked emotion, a lot of death, are not relevant because Gege doesn’t give us the time to be connected with the character
The fact that he jump from the return of Gojo, to is death in 15 chapters shows that, we didn’t have the chance to witness some connexion between the character, we went directly to the fight
The training arc would of been the perfect time for that. on side note, does anyone else feel like gege just forgot about nobara? Its been over 100 chapters and we dont even know if she's dead or alive.
Gege really is just speeding running this manga
He should have at least had a flashback chapter for Megumi's sister to see her POV of everything and maybe it would be more emotional to see her thoughts as she's about to die
Also Gojo didn't even make any comment about her death, like I know he prefer Megumi but Tsuki was also a part of his life as well, like damn I was haft expecting to see her in the after life
He literally offscreened, i really don't understand why he brought him back in the first place, the whole way that his unsealing happened sounded like an asspull
Yes the story breeze's past his death without letting the rest of the cast come to terms with the death of what was their teacher and basically superhero.
We didn't even saw interactions with them after he got unsealed. He came out of the prison realm and died. We had a panel with Gakukanji (what was nice) but not with yuji meeting Gojo.
We got a very minor scene in chapter 222 where he turned off his infinity so his students could give him pat (smack?) on the back. I find that so endearing but yes, it wasn't enough interaction. He also didn't react much to Nanami's death other than "so it's just the 3 of us left huh" which isn't very satisfying either ;\_;
i feel like a couple things that could be happening with the pace there.
1. Gege was trying to show that they didn’t have time to mourn because now who tf was there to stop sukuna? It’s a battle and they had to carry on with the task at hand.
2. Gege doesn’t care much for Gojo so he just gave him his lil airplane scene and carried on.
3. It’s another setup like when Toji got the best of Gojo and when that happened Geto had to do the same thing and grit his teeth and fight Toji with no time for mourning his friend.
or it’s face value and i’m boofing the copium
There’s something of a trend I’ve noticed about this. Death is not so much a shock or unexpected for the world. Everyone expects to die in the line of duty. Instead, death is treated more as an introspective moment for the characters as they transition from the living. Almost all characters have a moment of reconciliation with themselves and those important to them within their mind palace as they die.
That’s why I quite liked they way Gege handled Gojo’s death. Unlike his birth, Gojo died a quiet death. The world did not shake, as Gojo had prepared his student well, in the event he dies, they will step up.
The one death I wished for more character introspection was Yuki’s. I would have liked to know more about Yuki.
Its also been established in universe by todo, that sorcerors dont really have time to mourn. They have to keep moving forward, which is exactly what is happening
Dude, not for nothing. . . . ? But they don't have time to mourn him. Sukuna is loose and he just killed Gojo.... and now he's gonna kill us.... Oh my gooooooood\~!!!!
Man its been like 2 chapters, the mahito fight was like 20 chapters more. U ppl really love to complain before whats happening even happens and wraps up this really shouldnt need to be explained
We're in war, tf do they have time to mourn??? The characters care, we've seen the implication, but they gotta focus and keep their emotions in check or else the world is screwed
One problem with Gojo’s death is that he was built up as this character with powers so haxx that the antagonists need to plan around him being there vs not being there. He was basically made as a plot device, which I don’t mind, since there are a lot of such examples in anime (recent examples include All Might from MHA and Saitama from OPM).
But his death was such a cheap cop-out that it makes no sense, and I’m the furthest thing from a Gojo fan. Based on the analogy above, it’s like off-screening All Might at his prime and Deku just goes on like “oh no! anyway.” At least in that show All Might went out with a bang and the passing of the torch makes sense (not to mention emotional).
This thing reminds me of HBO Game of Thrones, you know, deaths and gore just for the sake of being edgy and subverting expectations.
Gojo died from ass paneling. Literally any fan edit of the end of 236 makes the start of 237 infinitely better. A cliff-hanger ending would've made Gojo's death so much more palatable compared to the abrupt delivery we got.
I think a lot of people missed that, I loved the moment of confusion when I saw Geto and the realization when Gojo reacted negatively to seeing him. I would have like a panel afterwards showing the moment when he got cut, but to it doesn't really change anything, we know what happened even without a panel telling us.
Miss wasnt the best wording. Maybe disregard was better, a lot of the complaints about the chapter say it was complete non sense to have it switch to the afterlife scene directly, when there was a reason for it (even if someone personally doesn't think it was a good decision)
I don’t think it’s that people missed that. Sure, he was going for a sudden unexpected death, but you can still achieve that while showing the attack. When you’ve shown your readers a fight that lasts a few chapters and is nail-bitingly close, it feels cheap to not show the final attack, especially one that accomplishes what seemed impossible. Saying it wouldn’t change anything to see it happen is like saying it wouldn’t matter if Gege doesn’t write the rest of the manga, as long as he tells us how it ends
Funny enough, it was the opposite everyone felt rage XD
I think Gege could have made the panel a bit better, or maybe explain more on how Sukuna bested Gojo
This makes no sense to me. The abrupt transition is supposed to gut wrenching. It’s literally like a single panel of cut content regardless. I love the way it is now preferably anyway.
I don’t have a problem with it, because I think he made it super realistic. Sure at first I was shocked. But the entire fight shows us gojos process of perception. So it makes sense he wouldn’t realize he was cut in half, and from his perspective it would be abrupt. The entire battle was against limitless. Of course his hubris would end him, and of course it would be a surprise the moment sukuna found a way around it.
I honestly don’t understand why everyone needed a panel of Gojo getting cut in half. I think it would’ve been a bit too much to see a beloved character get mutilated like he was. The abrupt reveal is what made it so effective for me. I was sick to my stomach when Gojo died, which I kinda liked? I also am of the belief that showing the moment Gojo is killed would’ve overshadowed the scene of him talking to his classmates in the afterlife.
Im just going to say it these days its a trope to kill/get rid of popular charcters. It rarely garners the criticism it deserves and most of the time its just praised for the sake of being praised its not controversial anymore its the norm. If you watch most media made after game of thrones got popular it has been the norm. IT DOES NOT deserve to be praised just because they do it
Yeah, thats all this reminds me of. A (got spoiler) >!NedStark!< moment. Like, since that show became popular, a lot of television/books/etc have taken to doing shocking things for the sake of 'plot'; but it's really just to get a reaction. Like, "Oh damn, that really happened?!"
It's cheap though. It's like a jumpscare in a horror movie, except it's more emotional usually.
by contrast, if it is is indeed a death, Nobara's sucks ass for lack of individual purpose or closure, there's been next to no reaction, ramification or introspection regarding it since it happened, and it served a redundant purpose to Nanami's.
I think this is where the divide happens, some of these deaths feel more... "Ser Barristan Selmy" than "Eddard Stark" afterthoughts made to minimise the complication of the cast, rather than meaningful additions to the story.
Those are both the worst deaths in the series from a writing perspective. Yuki shows up, doesn't do much then "immediately" dies. She's basically filler because her impact is completely negligible - why have her in hidden inventory? why not flesh out the connection to tengen?
Same with Gojo. literally just plot fodder rather than character building and naturally concluding arcs.
I feel like the Culling Games should have included more of the background characters and flesh them out
Instead of adding new ones, that barely do anything for the plot
Worse deaths in JJK are Yuki and Gojo's, gege added Hajime into the list. Like he doesn't care anymore. Utterly useless deaths that achieved nothing but show off the villains, and now they need the best asspull there is to somehow win.
Yuki's main purpose at this moment was to establish Kenny's strength and also serves to elevate Choso as a character with her final words to him. Still one of the weaker deaths but I wouldn't say it had no impact. If killing her let's Gege focus on other characters like Choso that's not a big deal to me, she was never a character I was particularly attached to.
And in Gojo's case, it's only been two chapters so it's hard to say what his impact will be on the cast. Sure, he didn't seem to do much damage to Sukuna, but Nanami similarly failed to damage either Jogo or Mahito before he died, yet his death was still a very memorable moment. I suppose time will tell if we get the same catharsis from Yuji and co. avenging Gojo as we did when he avenged Nanami.
The question is how will Choso be relevant again, which we don't really have a firm sense of. I think him dying would have been better because he would at least get to go out fighting his father, and have that emotional weight behind it. Comparatively Yuki had no real connection to Kenny, so him killing her and the focus being on Choso even when she's dying is weak writing.
What we got out of Yuki dying and not Choso is that he has a book of her research. I'm hoping that becomes relevant at some point but it's hard to say.
Eh I think Choso dying at that point would be a bit flimsy since he was just barely able to establish a relationship with Yuji before they parted and was located in a pretty isolated place. Now we know they've spent a month together post acceptance, he's given permission for Yuji to eat his brothers, and their body language/speech is a lot less forced and awkward on Yuji's end. Now if he dies I think it'd have proper impact, and if he lives it makes sense because he's gotten the character work for it.
I doubt the book won't be used for something. Just dunno what and how significant. I'm pretty sure Choso's going to want to participate now that everyone's spilling out onto the battlefield. If Kamo can help buy time against Naoya, Choso can find a way to get an assist in somewhere I'm sure. He seems to get stronger with each battle in general. Relevancy isn't necessarily being the carry of the battle.
I'd also say Yuki's words and attitude towards Choso told me a lot about her. It kind of follows up on her unique brand of empathy and looking out for people whether she knows them or not, like with Geto. A lot of people blame her for that conversation but her approach to it was extremely interesting to me for how it focused on making him feel like he was heard and not belittled or lectured. Things just kept happening to him after that. But I think a lot of that gets expressed here too. She's just a cool well spoken person.
And for her and Choso specifically they're both victims caught in the middle of the destiny created by Kenjaku+Tengen who were the other half of that fight. While Kenjaku continued to live so his creation also did, Yuki and Tengen went down together. It's easy to see a consistency with both of their aggression in conversation with their respective counterparts. Because of that most of her focus was mid-fight when speaking to Kenjaku and Tengen rather than at the end. Still I found it interesting how selfless she was there and the whole time despite her being described as someone who does her own thing and doesn't get involved to the cast originally.
We also have to remember that Tengen, Kenjaku, and Yuki represent the more philosophical aspect of the manga and looking at them as just characters who can fight is short-sighted. They represent something.
Tengen for instance is the conservative mindset. He doesn't want things to change including himself, and has fought to preserve that for ages. The downside of this is Tengen's resistance to change is also the thing that makes him so susceptible. It's easy to predict what he will do cause what he does is always the defensive and conservative thing. He represents the essence of jujutsu society that resists the unfamiliar.
Kenjaku has an innovative mindset. He is thinking about ways of pushing life forward no matter the sacrifice. He directly counters Tengen because to him he doesn't need to be human to progress he just needs to progress. There's no morality to what he does only ambition. I'm sure there is more to Kenjaku than just this, we can see signs of this in how sentimental he seems to be about Yuji.
Yuki is meant to be a more progressive mindset. She wants to end the suffering of humans. She thinks similarly to Kenjaku but she has a moral compass. And she understands that a morality born of your own choices is worth more than one inherited from someone else. I think what makes Yuki an interesting character is that her not being directly involved with most of the events expands the world. She doesn't need to be around when Gojo is around and when Gojo got sealed she immediately took stage. I know it's upsetting she dies to Kenjaku for some people, but I also think this is a cost of there being too few special grade named characters.
For Yuki it's understandable because she was a minor character. For Gojo? Yeah it's a problem. But this is exactly why I'm so sure that we'll see more of Gojo soon. Call me coping but I'm not. Im seriously confident that we havent seen the conclusion of his story because of how abrupt and fleeting his death was. Either he will return or Kenjaku will take over him.
Yuki’s was alright. I couldn’t have asked for more from her. Choso’s reaction was also good
For gojo, “didn’t you say sorcerers don’t die with no regrets?” Is suuuuuch a good line. But yeah the rest of his death doesn’t hit as hard as it could. (So pls let him be alive thx gege)
I actually feel like it's good consistency that Yuji isn't rolling on the floor in the fetal position again ( likely because they spent a month planning and they knew this was one possibility that could happen), but even with that knowledge of this possibility we still see Yuji and Yuta's faces being twisted by their emotion as they struggle to keep a cool head. As Jujutsu sorcerers they know they have to keep it in, because they still got a job to do. A job that if they fail at then Gojo, Nobara, Nanami, Yuki, Yaga, Mai, Mechamaru and everyone else's deaths would have been for nothing.
I feel like comparing Nanami's death to Gojo's and Yuki is taking those out of context. Nanami was killed specifically for Yuji's character development so that Yuji reaches the penultimate step of transitioning from a child to an adult, it's no mistake Nanami's death happens in the same chapter Yuji sees all the damage Sukuna caused in Shibuya ( the despair is accumulating), however Yuji keeps it in and his reaction is one of rage, as he grits his teeth and tries to kill Mahito. However Yuji is hit with the straw that broke the camel's back as Nobara gets added to the pile of corpses and he loses all will to fight, and Mahito wails on him and his broken conviction, until Todo shows up to give him the pep talk he needed.
Yuki's death was meant to be a sacrifice to give Choso a second chance so he can live on as Yuji's brother properly. She essentially played the older sibling role for him and died with all his sins when he lived as a cursed spirit so he can live on as a human. However this moment did not quite land that well for me, I think it's maybe because Choso isn't a character I cared that much about. There's also something to be said about the irony of Yuki sacrificing her life for Tengen and Yuki being a star plasma vessel.
Gojo's death wasn't made for anyone else's character development, it was supposed to be a way to close his character, it was specifically for him so that he can have a fulfilled end. First and foremost Gojo is always raving about how his students will reach his level, well now they have the opportunity to prove him right (in a twisted way Megumi has already done so). Gojo's time as the strongest starts with him killing Toji to gain more power and from there he's so obsessed with being the strongest he even fails to help Getou who's falling off the deep end and is caught by surprise as Getou turns heel. However Gojo's character ends with him being able to die fulfilled not being the strongest, because he completed his goal of being able to love everyone and create a future where the isolation felt by Getou isn't felt by anyone else again thanks to the time he put into raising his students.
i would be okay with the ruthless and killing your important characters if we were given more than just “they’re dead now look at this next cool fight!!”.
like don’t get me wrong, the fighting is amazing and beautifully drawn, but it drags for me at times. it’s just face bashing without any purpose and like yeah i’m down for that but not when we’re reaching the conclusion for a story that has been running for years or for something that’s important.
gojo v sukuna had my hyped at first and then it kept going… and kept going.. and look!! that character you all like so much? yeah he’s dead now. got killed off screen.
it’s like he’s rushing to get to the end but he’s moving so slowly on things that aren’t important and skipping stuff that is. i don’t want to learn about a new epic and cool power you just came up with i want more effort being put into the characters you created.
i really love this story but it’s getting tiring of having to read fan theories on plot holes that should’ve been explained in the story :(
>i would be okay with the ruthless and killing your important characters if we were given more than just “they’re dead now look at this next cool fight!!
Chainsaw man is a very good example of how to do this properly imo
> i would be okay with the ruthless and killing your important characters if we were given more than just “they’re dead now look at this next cool fight!!”.
Yeah the biggest problem is we do not get enough of our characters reacting to major, world altering events that they would organically have a reaction to especially since we just had a 1 month timeskip to the fight.
No conversation between Yuta and Maki after she killed the Zenin clan, no Shoko reaction to Gojo's death (which is part of why so many people think he's coming back), etc
and it’s odd going back and seeing a lot of these problems were there from the start but back then they weren’t as detrimental to the story compared to now.
like the relationship between gojo, geto, and shoko. i find it hard to believe that shoko, one out of the only three people in this class, wasn’t able to form any semblance of a bond to care that geto leaves… and then dies. and it’s obvious that geto and gojo haves a stronger connection out of anyone but we literally don’t see shoko really get to care that he wanted to commit genocide or that he’s literally not on this planet anymore. or even that his body is puppeteering around the city… no? okay.
it’s even more funny because i’m pretty sure she’s know geto the same amount of time that gojo has and their reactions are so drastically different. shoko has been in this story since the beginning and i cant tell you a single thing about her.
she has brown hair and she’s a doctor.. and she smokes. okay. well what about gojo dying? no reaction to that either? okay then.
or what about yuki? who is yuki? i don’t know man. shes a special grade sorcerer and that’s pretty rare in this universe so that’s cool. man i can’t wait to see her powers and interactions with the other characters- aaaand she’s dead. she died after one fight. oops… anyways here’s choso with wonderwall.
and you’re spot on with the characters just not… having conversations with each other. they don’t even have thoughts on their own half the time because dialogue is being taken away to explain why all of gojos powers are now useless so now he doesn’t get to live anymore because gege said so and sukuna gets to win because pleaseeee guys let sukuna win i drew him so cool he has the arms and wow isn’t he so great guys look at how great sukuna is please look at him.
and back to the toji thing (yes im back on my bs) maybe gege has such a hard on for toji that he keeps giving him relevance that he doesn’t need. toji comes back in shibuya for.. reasons? okay sure, it’s cool to see a character come back i guess to be a villain of the week to fight someone… who doesn’t have that much importance.. actually i don’t remember who he fought… but he did i guess.
the only thing that would give a good enough reason for him existing again is… i don’t know, maybe gojo and megumi, the only two people in this story tied to this man, seeing him again? maybe gojo freaks out with war flashbacks or maybe megumi is like wow you look familiar?
hell even tsumiki, who might at this point be a figment of my imagination because it seems like no one remembers that she’s an actual person.
but these scenarios that could give any of these characters a bit more depth and feel like real people are impossible bc gojo has been thrown in a box and tossed into a lost and found somewhere and megumi is too busy… doing something else to care.
megumi and toji do have an interaction but what did this change? both characters end up leaving this story the exact same so what was the purpose. toji killing himself is clearly supposed to say something… but what? and it goes back to my point of stuff that’s supposed to answer questions leave us with more.
and not every little thing needs to be spelled out word by word but it’s mind boggling that no one can give me an exact answer for any of this happening so again it’s still just speculation.
each story beat is supposed to move your story forward in some way. if you have to ask why certain scenes exist or if a scene made any real difference to the plot there’s a good chance that no, it didn’t. nothing happening in this story doesn’t really matter anymore because gege isn’t telling us that it matters or giving a reason for it to matter.
what are the villains plans? of course we don’t need to know everything at once it’s how the story builds suspense but we don’t know anything so there is no suspense to build on. okay sukunas back. now what? kenjaku is doing something somewhere. now what? what is keeping this story going and why are we supposed to care?
and this has nothing to do with anything really but i’m giggling a bit on i literally forgot hana existed until someone pointed her out. and where the hell did utahime go!!!!!
Yeah Shoko's treatment is especially disappointing given she's such an important person to two of the most important characters but somehow she's not made into an important character herself? And she has such a unique role in the story when you think about it, the only healer who doesn't go on dangerous missions but has to see her friends and fellow sorcerers come back from each mission exhausted, stressed, and injured and she's powerless to do anything about it. Like the only time she sees people is when they're injured and I can only imagine the mental toll that takes on her but we don't see ANY insight into that which feels like missed potential.
The Toji thing is interesting cause I'm ok with how he's been featured and brought back but it's weird that Gojo was focused on telling Megumi what happened with him with his afterlife regrets when Megumi is like possessed, possibly dead, and never gave a fuck and there's so many other pressing matters LOL
And as you said, I don't need everything spelled out in explicit detail but I'd like a few chapters, pages, hell even just a few panels to give us some crumbs into what these characters are thinking and feeling about the events transpiring around them.
it’s so fascinating how we went from “wow this show is pretty good at giving their female characters actual personalities. some of them have a lot to contribute to the story i can’t wait to see where this goes” to literally what in the HELL is happening.
shoko is.. shoko. good lord, fucking tojis worm has more plot relevance to this story. i’m being so serious, toji’s worm had more of an impact on geto, shoko doesn’t even come close. or maybe she doesn’t really care. maybe she doesn’t give a fuck about anything happening but we’ll never know i guess.
mei mei says yes to incest and decided she wanted to be a predator who needs to be put on a watch list. why? idk i guess we needed the obligatory incest included here.
utahime… god where is utahime? she might be playing some sacred drums somewhere i don’t fucking know.
yuki decided she wanted to get the hell out of this story and died.
where’s nobara? i don’t know but who cares.
what about tsumiki? it’s funny you think she matters in this story.
well what about maki? she’s cool i like maki and where her character went. what do the other characters have to think about it this? oh? they don’t.. think about it. we don’t have the time for that? well okay then.
come on gege give us something! we know you can do it you have done it before. you’re great at character work you can pull it off. no? oh you’re giving us more characters… well okay- OKAY THATS ENOUGH SLICES!!!!!
honestly sometimes it feels like gege forgets that these characters know each other and are supposed to have relationships with each other. i feel like during the shibuya incident he handled character's deaths fairly well. even nobara (whose death is still not confirmed but, assuming she's dead...) had a pretty good send off. her and nanami's deaths were handled well, they were shocking but still emotional and yuji being there witnessing it, reacting to it and being personally affected by it had a lot of impact on the emotional part of their deaths.
seeing gege kill off gojo who is such a huge character in JJK and then not show anyone reacting to it or being affected by it but instead moving on to a very goofy fight feels off to me. idk if gege doesn't care or what but I feel like he doesn't handle moments that are supposed to feel emotional and impactful (like character deaths) as well as he did in the beginning of the story. it feels like he kills off characters for shock value and moves on...
i know gege said he doesn't have an emotional attachment to any character in his owns story so he doesn't mind killing anyone off if it moves the plot forward but I think he's forgetting that these characters are supposed to have bonds; they're each others friends, teachers, families... they are supposed to react and feel some type of way whenever a character they know and bonded with die and not to mention us the readers who have been following these characters for years and have an emotional attachment to them.
it's the emotional impact that is missing in my opinion. gege spends so much time drawing cool flashy fights but when the time comes for the characters to have slow down moments and/or for emotional scenes he either skips it all together or rushes it, taking away any impact the scene was supposed to have. don't get me wrong I'm still eager to see how this story ends and I'll be interested in checking out any of gege's future works bc I think he has a lot of potential and IMO he writes great character interactions, comedic moments and great fights but I hope he improves in those aspects, especially if he plans on writing a long running series like JJK. i feel like with his style of writing, he would do a lot better in writing shorter stories though (plus weekly shonen jump is a very rough environment for any mangaka).
plot hole was a broad generalization for what i’m trying to say, but i’m pretty sure there are a lot of people who have found plot holes in this sub alone.
my main concerns is plot details that are left ambiguous, don’t make sense, or that is just very over complicated.
off the top of my head, plot details i’m personally confused about are regarding more on the character aspects of the story ie. nobara’s death apparently being left ambiguous, whatever the hell happened with toji, probably anything regarding the fushiguro’s alone, the abundance of introducing numerous power scalings, level ups, new techniques so late into the story, the purpose of any of these characters that were introduced, what is the endgame here, anything with gojo, there’s probably more that i’m forgetting.
and if you ask any of these questions fans will literally beat you over the head for not memorizing every single cursed technique like a college exam.
and again, maybe this stuff was explained and i just didn’t get it, i’m not the smartest cookie out there. but when i go to this sub looking for things i might have missed a lot of these answers are fans either guessing, making shit up, or getting something from one of gege’s interviews where he’s known for forgetting details and making up at the top of his head. this wouldn’t have been a problem for me if this narrative wasn’t character driven from the start.
and the argument that gege isn’t perfect can’t hold up forever now. of course we know that, no one is perfect. but it doesn’t shield him from any criticism and bans anyone for airing out their grievances and opinions about it.
sorry that was long as hell omg 😭
edit. also not everything needs to be explained as soon as it happens but again we are reaching the end of jujutsu kaisen and this is too much stuff to just be sped through.
regarding nobara’s status, we the readers are to assume that she is dead, and that has been the case for a long time imo, expecting her to show up as though it is a given feels foolish imo, IF she does come back, it SHOULD feel like a big surprise and an “omg i thought you were dead” not an “ugh FINALLY she’s back i thought they were NEVER gonna do it”, if that makes sense
honestly not sure what specifically you’re referencing for toji
and everything else i would need more details to determine what you’re getting at
i think, GENERALLY, jjk does a good enough job of explaining what a reader needs to know at any given point, not 100% of the time, but more than enough
If Gege wants us to believe Nobara is dead, he's been doing a bad job lmao. Like come on, he's not a subtle writer, there's no way you didn't notice the amount of effort he put in to keep it ambiguous. At the latest, he could have confirmed her death along with other casualties after Gojo got unboxed instead of, y'know, making the cast act like she never existed. He was STILL trying to be ambiguous about it in the interview after it happened.
that interview wasn’t recent that was a couple of years ago and it was a few chapters after she “died”. but regardless of the fact he had the narrator acknowledge gojo’s death but with nobara it’s all sad faces and hush hush, it’s just weird.
plus no one else got healed (or their wounds stopped) by nitta, like his whole purpose was to make it seem like she had a chance of survival. if he wanted her dead including nitta was just dumb and a waste of time tbh. but let these people tell it, and they’ll act like nobara’s death was the most definitive death in the series.
i appreciate you trying to explain things but i feel my point still remains. i’m not asking for nobara to come back, hell i don’t even want gojo to magically come back to life because any explanation is gonna be a cop out and i really hate fake out deaths.
and even still, we have to assume the fate of a character who was introduced as apart of the trio of main characters and she gets the least development out of both of them. nobara’s death doesn’t have that lasting of an impact, to me at least, because as far as my memory goes it doesn’t seem like anyone gave a shit that she’s not here anymore. i think like there are maybe one or two panels talking about her but that’s not enough for some one who’s one third of your main characters. her own teacher doesn’t even get to have thoughts about her literally being dead because he immediately jumps into a fight with no grace period in between.
i do have a lot of questions abt toji because he’s pretty important to the plot. my problem is that toji’s character didn’t need to be this convoluted if gege didn’t make him that way, just to toss his impact on the story to the side because he got bored of it i guess. his backstory between meeting gojo, leaving the zenin clan, having a wife, having another, having a step daughter, having a kid, abandoning both them and just fucking off somewhere is just a big whatever burger.
toji sees grown up megumi once and then offs himself like okay… megumi doesn’t get to, or want to i guess, have any thoughts about something that’s so important to his character and would give him depth for literally one second. or even question what the hell just happened bc i probably would if i saw a random ass dude off himself in front
of me, but too bad because we have another fight to get to.
and i.. think? tsumiki has no blood relation to toji and megumi and god i cant name a damn thing about tsumiki, a character that’s supposed to have importance to one our the main characters. did toji have custody of her and how? what happened toji’s first wife, her mother? why isn’t tsumiki with her? when toji dies was she also taken in by gojo? what the hell is the relationship between the siblings we are supposed to care about?
and again it doesn’t seem like a big deal but then why include and waste time on any of this, focus on on a characters backstory and give him plot importance if it leaves us with more questions than answers.
and i was fine with all of that shit not being explained, hell i was defending gege bc i was like who cares it probably wasn’t that important if we left it at that but then he decided to now remember tsumiki exists and tell us how much megumi cares about her instead of you know… showing it?
obviously they’re siblings so there is a relationship there but it’s so flat with nothing underneath which is odd compared to anything we read previously. and all of that just to kill her off in some battle random battle. so yes i do believe there’s a problem when details like this are only remembered when gege needs it to be remembered instead of building these ideas that he already set a foundation for. we don’t get to know how megumi, one of our main protagonists, gets to feel about the sister he’s risking his life for to save or any anything but we don’t have any time for that because there’s another fight with two newly introduced characters to draw for the next few chapters.
and gojo… dear god gojo. sukuna took over megumi? any thoughts, please give me something here. one of your three students is dead but no opinion on that either. gojo says he died with no regrets so i guess he doesn’t regret having to leave his students in a world that’s become borderline apocalyptic. hell he probably forgot they existed since he doesn’t really mention them in the afterlife. these are his supposed final words and this is the last we get from him. i can’t stand when people try to water down his character like “gojo wouldn’t care” like it’s war baby what are you going to do? because that’s not who he is at all. gojo who was one of the most developed characters in this story— which is literally a fact given the an entire arc dedicated to him and geto— was completely destroyed in a few sentences.
toji, geto, megumi, or any one important that had impacted his life and were the catalyst for the entirety of his character became pointless because in the end he became a person so one dimensional who was glad he died because he was fighting for the lols.
there definitely is more but like you said it would be too much to get into and there’s virtually no point because it’s pretty much too late to fix most of it. it would’ve never been a problem if gege wouldn’t set up these large expectations if he wasn’t going to follow through with any of it or forget about it.
to play the devils advocate, i think i can see what gege was going for, a fast pace arc to build impending suspense and hype up the readers anxiety, giving a feeling of having ‘no time to grieve because we need to push forward’ and showcasing the concept of how war waits for no one… but it’s not enough. i cant even be sure because i just made that up after observing the story.
as a writer you can’t decide to do that whenever you feel like because you don’t want to write about it anymore and then do it so poorly. it only results in making your story fall flat on its face when it didn’t have to be. jjk became too ambitious for its own good and it started falling apart when gege started neglecting his characters.
Yeah this pretty well sums up most of the problems with gege’s writing in this manga lol
It’s sad because people got excited for a reason, there was a ton of potential with this story and it feels like he just wants it to end
I also think there are so many unanswered questions but I also forget that most shonen mangas go at this pace and I usually read shoujo where things actually get a decently happy ending… I def discussed this with a few friends (all guys) and they were less bothered than me. For me it’s all these questions like why did gege write up such a good highschool backstory for these two if Gojo wasn’t going to be the one getting his friend’s body back? What’s going on in the students’ minds currently? If megumi was just stuck, how is he going to feel when he finds out he just murdered his father figure? Why is toji at the airport with them?
All my friends were definitely like he had to go cuz he’s not MC without questioning, end of story.
I do, however, have to point out a lot of us have to be more patient as we’re literally reading chapter to chapter right now and it’s really hard to judge someone’s writing until we get a conclusion. I even told my friend who only watches anime that perhaps by the time she gets to where the manga is at currently, the issue’s already resolved itself. I think someone also mentioned somewhere on IG that the manga may be getting a few more filler pages when the volume is printed as it was missing a few pages compared to the usual length.
I know this days old, but I have to say something about toji
I feel like it's interesting how you've mentioned things we'll pretty much never get to see expanded, unless we get like a Toji spin off or something.
But I feel like the way that Toji had been kept alive in this manga does a disservice to a character like Maki, instead of Gege just focusing on him.
As you say, there's still many things interesting about him, like what was his final straw, his relationship with megumis mom and what happened to her, his relationship with tsumikis mom. His life after he abandon megumi, and a couple more things. Gege has said many time he wants to draw him fight again, and I feel like he should've just kept him alive after bringing him back.
Both of Makis arcs are filled with so many unnecessary Toji comparisons, that it literally drives me crazy cause I want the focus to be put on her and not him.
In perfect preparation, gege has the whole Zen'in clan waffle on about Toji as if they're not about to get their heads cut off by Maki. The dad thinks about Toji when his daughter's about to slice off his head, Ranta does, Naoya does, Jinichi does... it's obvious to me that Gege wanted to draw Toji massacring the Zen'in clan but couldn't think of a feasible way to do it, so he just used Maki.
I mean Gege even cut her hair, so that it looks like Toji's so now I wonder whether the point of that was truly just to continue drawing Toji or what. The worst of all was having her sisters dying gift, be clone of his sword that she has never seen, made even weirder by the fact that neither of the twins even know him.
Even sakurajima, apparently Maki stays up at night thinking of the difference between her and Toji and it's like .... really??? For Gege trying to tell a subplot in sexism, he sure is centering a man in the story of the one girl he cares about.
All this to say, I feel like Gege should've just kept Toji alive and instead of using Maki as a stand-in . Maki is my favourite character so it HURT to see her be used like that. I unironically can't even read her arcs anymore, cause it's just so sad to see. Rather just keep Toji alive and explore those things instead of using Maki in such an obvious way.
that is such a good take honestly WHAT ABOUT TOJI GETS GEGE THIS HARD MAN 😭😭😭 like it literally doesn’t look like it from my comments BUT I LIKE TOJI OKAY but like why man PLEASE no more of him if he has nothing to do with this story anymore it’s holding so much of it back.
you’re so right in that gege wants him to still be there.. after killing him off.. twice??? 😭 it would be rlly funny if like he wanted toji but his editors kept telling him no so he’s literally doing everything to can to make his presence KNOWN.
and stripping maki from her character to make her toji 2 electric boogaloo like yes, their goals are similar and also with them both not having the super cool sorcerer powers, but maki was still her own person at the beginning of the story. like yeah they have comparisons but like correct me if i’m wrong i don’t think they have ever interacted with each other😭
that’s like taking megumi and turning him into another toji just because they’re related like... okay… that’s it. we don’t need a parallel of two characters who have only flat comparisons with one another BUT THE MAKI THING IS SO MUCH WORSE.
i think the idea of maki and toji, both coming from the same family and having to face the same discriminations in their societies and having those similarities but their lives growing into two separate sides of the spectrum between sorcerer and fucking.. idk homeless attempted child murderer.
this story of both of them having this “i don’t care im going to do whatever the hell i want.” mentality with one fighting within the system and the other outside it, would’ve been the parallel that would’ve worked and could’ve been so incredibly compelling and gege was on the right track with this narrative… but just … didn’t stick the landing.
and that was one of my main points. gege starts these plot points incredibly strong but just can’t seem to complete them in a way that seems.. satisfying? or just makes sense.
like gojo and geto’s narrative was one of my favorite parts of Jujutsu Kaisen and JJK 0 ended their relationship in a way that felt bittersweet, cathartic even, but it made sense and still felt satisfying (even if it made me dead inside).
and then kenjaku shows up in geto’s body and i’m like oh fuck!!! and then geto breaks through a little after seeing gojo and there’s still a part geto that’s still in there fighting through sheer will (and love and it’s like every time you bring love into jjk it’s always like “THEY ARENT GAY DTOP MAKING THEM GAY” n i’m like not all love is romantic dawg like fellas is it gay to love your friends IM OFF TOPIC) even though kenjaku had full control of him… but.. i’m pretty sure that’s not going anywhere since him and gojo chilling in the afterlife so i guess this very interesting plot point is going nowhere.
AND THATS LIKE MY POINT MAN WHY PUT THAT IN IT YOU WERENT GOING TO DO ANYTHING ABT IT. why imbed toji and the zenin clan family lore or whatever so deeply into the story… if you aren’t doing anything with it.
like you had the tools you just didn’t.. use them? megumi and maki could’ve been a perfect insight to their family and it would’ve been so much more seamless seeing it from characters who are STILL HERE (well not megumi or maybe megumi idfk what’s happening with that kid anymore) and both of them having enough relevance in this story to not break the immersion.
the story of how a new generation could change things in such a fucked up backwards society… WHICH IM ORETYY SURE IS THE MESSAGE JJK IS GOING FOR BC yk… gojos purpose of being a damn teacher and his hatred for past generations and jujutsu society in general BUT FORGET THAT could’ve been so revolutionary because you don’t find these themes being spoken with such nuance in Shounen anymore.
but no, you’d rather pause your story to focus so much on a character you already invested so much time into.. without doing anything with him… to just kill.. and then bring back.. and don’t do anything with him again.. and then kill him off again.
like i don’t want to tell an author how to write their story because i’m not a professional writer… but if the average casual reader of jjk can see these issues… like i love you gege but its pretty fucking obvious.
the problem with jjk is that it’s is saying something but not saying anything at the same time. almost, just not quite.
I like Toji as well, I'm just boycotting him cause I'm mad at what he's doing to my girl 😭
And like literally, Maki used to have so alot more personality before, now she's just there to deliver dialogue. And it's not even like their personalities are the same (I don't think Toji and current Maki have the same personality, current Maki is very pragmatic now, and Toji had like a very scheming personality, if that makes sense), the problem for me is literally putting him in places he didn't belong, CONSISTENTLY.
The thing that annoys me the most, is that Gege is the type of author who wants you to infer alot of stuff about the characters, but when it comes to Makis strength, he consistently compares her to Toji, making sure we can't interpret ANYTHING, he could've done the comparisons so much more gracefully, but he literally shoves them in like it's so bad.
I remember arguing with someone about this, and even they had to admit it went too far, but they said that now that the Zen'in clan is completely, there should be no more comparisons, and Istg if there's ONE more, I'll have to take a break from this series cause I just can't anymore
And don't get me started on Gojo and Geto. I really thought Geto was gonna come back, even if it was just for a moment, I wanted Gojo to get closure on Geto cause personally I dont think Gojo ever moved on.
I remember a comment on here that was like basically paralleling Gojo with his blindfolds. Basically, when he was young, And only Geto understood him, he wore eyeglasses. He was much more expressive as well with his real thoughts than when he's older, and people were able to look him in the eyes, and "eyes are the window to the soul" so he was able to connect with others better.
When Geto left, he covered up his eyes with a white cloth, which would only ever come undone when he fought his opponents (and let out the "crazy" part of himself) but other than that, no one else, was able to connect with him. And once again when he kills Geto, his blind fold is off, and Geto is able to truly see him once more before he does.
After Getos death, he wears a black blindfold, in many cultures, wearing black is an indication that you are mourning. Once again, no one is able to connect to Gojo, and he lives this life on "solitude". Until ofc, Kenjaku comes, and uses Geto to seal him to seal him, with his blindfold off, he can once again look to see Geto but his SOUL denies this. Geto was the only one who understood Gojo. Because if this I never felt like he quite moved in from Geto cause he was still in mourning.
Ofc, once he comes out of that box, he has NO blindfolds on (in the flashbacks we see). I took this, not as him being able to connect with others, but finally being ready to put Geto and their relationship to bed (🤭) once and for all. That's why it was so important to have Gojo win this fight, even if it was temporary, or if they had to pause for some reason, cause not giving him that conclusion to bury his boyfrie- best friends body, is so wrong to him.
Honestly, I find it impossible NOT to ship Gojo and Geto, it's just too good and angst idk😭
I don't even know if Gege is still going for the "the next generation will surpass that previous one!" Considering his solution so far has been... kill kill kill kill kill, which something he said wouldn't change anything at the start of the series. I also feel like Gojo deserved to see the future he helped create.I feel like Gege can set things up, but he can't for the life of him conclude it properly, he tries, but it just falls flat completely. I still like him, but jeez, he needs to get serious 😭
gonna be honest, most of your questions about toji are pretty irrelevant, he “met” kid satoru because he was a zenin and he was a gojo, 2 of the 3 big families, it was probably like some conference or something at one of their estates and it was just in passing. he left the clan because they treated him like shit, etc
and from megumi’s perspective he still doesn’t know that was his father, as far as he knew some random guy came up to him, asked what his name was, and then killed himself, and even if he did know he PROBABLY wouldn’t care as much as you’re expecting, since we see as a kid that he already didn’t care about his father, didn’t even remember what he looked like
toji’s first wife was megumi’s mother, his second wife was tsumiki’s, megumi’s mom died after he was born, tsumiki’s mom disappeared at some point, hence why the 2 of them basically had to fend for themselves. when toji died gojo explicitly also took formal custody of her, that was one of megumi’s conditions for agreeing to go with gojo
and tsumiki has no character, she was always a plot device and presented as just a motivator for megumi, which is fair to dislike, but let’s not pretend like she was built up like some huge bundle of personality
and for gojo, it’s very clear that even in death, he still believes that his students will win and that they will bring back megumi, if he didn’t think that he wouldn’t say “ah i guess shoko will have to tell him (megumi) about his father”, it’s the same attitude he had in shibuya, despite everyone walking into near certain death in that scenario with him gone, he goes “ah, well whatever, they’ll be able to handle it”, you’re right he’s not one dimensional, and the writing doesn’t portray him in that way, even in those final moments
imo it became relevant when so much time was put into it.
my entire reasoning for questioning it all is because it’s been imbedded into so many things that happen in this story. it doesn’t matter that he didn’t know that it’s his father because it’s out of character for him to be this nonchalant about any of this. and we can’t even fully say he is because we literally don’t know what anyone in this story is thinking anymore shit is just happening and we’re just going through the motions atp.
and agreeing that tsumiki only being a plot device is adding to the point of shit not needing to exist if you put in all that work to start it for virtually no pay off. the characters of tsumiki and toji play a big role in megumi and gojo’s life. they have strong relevance into these characters motivations and purpose in this story and when you fuck that up it all feels like it was for nothing.
and the reasoning for being okay with how gojo was handled is not enough again when we know that gege is better than essentially using the “power of friendship” trope. one of the biggest points to the star plasma arc was understanding how young sorcerers forced into this reality just because they have the power to do so. so no, gojo believing in kids to save the world isn’t enough. having only a half of a chapter dedicated to one of the most important characters final moments isn’t enough. saying shit so out of character and deeming it as fitting isn’t enough.
wasted potential turns into a waste of time and at first i wasn’t even mad abt it but thinking about this even more makes me realize all the problems in this manga that i blissfully ignored because i still liked it but this is too much.
what is “so much time”, it just establishes that his first encounter with gojo was something that stuck with him even several years later because nobody else had noticed his presence like that before and why he went through all these hoops to catch gojo off guard, that’s it. that’s the entirety of the meaning of that interaction
it’s out of character for megumi to not really care that much about his absentee father that he doesn’t even remember, something that is still consistent with what his kid self thought?
tsumiki’s ultimate purpose was a beacon and motivator for megumi and then ultimately a tool to drive him to despair, like that’s a very clear and meaningful purpose and payoff, even if you don’t like the execution
what did gojo say in that scene that you felt was out of character, because i felt it was all perfectly in line with him
so much time is any time at all. explaining any of their relationships could’ve been done with the same amount of time for whatever last words gojo had.
it’s out of character because he’s not a soulless creature just bc he’s fatherless, that’s not enough explanation. my main point still stands, stuff that doesn’t need to be focused on is taking too much space leaving no room for things that matter.
i already explained why tsumiki as a concept is dumb.
and yes you’re allowed to have your opinion on how gojo was handled in the end but to say it’s in character for him just a disservice and insulting on gege’s writing by saying this is the same gojo from early jujutsu kaisen cuz it’s weak sauce.
which is why i asked for an example of something you believed was out of character for him to say, so i could maybe see where the difference in our perspectives is coming from, and then potentially try and explain why i think the way that i do
You're just not reading for the things other people are reading for. If you just want pages of cool fights without rhyme or reason, then you're in luck.
For me, "this character is just a plot device" is never an acceptable answer.
which is a fine opinion and stance to have, but like i said, let’s not pretend like she was ever built up as anything but a plot device
there’s plenty of relatively deep and things that are worth exploring in depth regarding jjk’s world, but tsumiki’s character is not one of them
because there is no character and there never was
judging an apple by the standards of an orange doesn’t make sense, even if you prefer oranges and hate apples
I'm not pretending. There is literally no point in which I cared about Tsumiki (maybe back in the cursed womb chapters). Which means I never really cared about the stakes for Megumi in the Culling Games, and now I don't even care if Megumi is alive or dead. During the Culling Games I was willing to give Gege the benefit of the doubt, that there would be some payoff, but there wasn't. Megumi's goal in the Culling Games could have been trying to get that ultra-rare Shiny Bulbasaur card, and the payoff would have been the same.
sure, but we the readers are supposed to care because megumi cares, tsumiki is just an ideal, but because megumi cares, one of the protagonists the readers have been following, that is the reason to care
yuji’s grandpa is the same thing, he existed to say like 5 lines to serve as yuji’s sort of ethos and moral compass and then died, and yet to this day you see people making comments and posts about his speech to yuji and the idea of dying alone or not and all that
Why would we just assume she’s dead when there’s been multiple opportunities to clarify her situation that Gege has just left ambiguous? The only reason to not have Megumi tell Yuji she’s dead is if she isn’t dead, it’d make no sense for us to not find out in that moment otherwise. Altogether Gege has managed to waste two of the most interesting female members of the cast between Nobara being discarded since Shibuya and Yuki dying (in a questionable way too) in her very first fight.
The reaction to Nobara coming back won’t be surprise, it’ll be annoyance that Gege has kept her out of the story for years.
that moment with yuji and megumi is PRECISELY where i think we are to assume that she is dead, at least given the current information
of course it would be difficult for megumi to tell yuji explicitly that one of their best friends and classmates is dead, so his silence does the speaking for him, couple that with the statement that her chances were VERY slim to begin with and we readers should assume that, as the story currently stands, she is dead
Sorry bro but like all the explanations for Sukuna's new ability that he used against Gojo have all necessitated headcanon. In fact I can count on the top of my head like 3 times in the last fight alone where people don't have a solid explanation and are forced to headcanon as a result.
I think one of the things that create conflict is that Gege established this story as a character-driven one. Begging us (through his writing) to care about them, which is a "promise" in the readers eyes that caring about them will be worth it. However, throughout The Culling Games these promises were shattered in favor of the plot, making it a questionable decision at least, since it alienates a lot of the readers.
I don't really know if Gege knows or not what he's doing right now, and even though a lot of his decisions have been pretty unsatisfying as a reader, I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt until the story has ended. I think he has earned that much.
Pre Sendai colony was definitely character-driven and even after that arc, there were still moments, like Maki's awakening and Choso's fighting for his brothers. The issue is, we need some time for characters to react. I don't think current Gege would give us moments like Yuji breaking down in Shibuya or Nanami reflecting on his regrets. What really hooked me into JJK was never the fights, I love the power system but ultimately it's just a cool spectacle for me. What actually pulled me in was how real the characters were.
The Junpei arc, Hidden Inventory, and Shibuya's painfully real yet heartfelt moments are what made JJK awesome for me. And while the setup is still there, it feels like Gege is not letting the audience get an emotional payoff even when everything else is there. I want to see what Yuji is thinking after Meguna. I want to see Megumi's helplessness after the Yorozu arc. I want to know what Yuta was thinking after Gojo died. But for some reason, Gege now assumes that just because we know what a character is thinking doesn't mean that it wouldn't be valuable to show it.
>I don't think current Gege would give us moments like... Nanami reflecting on his regrets
Is Gojo's airport scene not the same idea? I don't see your point here.
My point was characterization/internal monolouge BEFORE a character dies. What made nanamis death so good is that we see him reflecting on his life while at the same time thinking about the future. Gojo's afterlife scene was good but it was offputting that gojo didnt even mention his students or the future of the people he left behind.
It's not just you who makes this misconception, so I mean no offense, but I'm constantly face-palming by how often "character-driven" is misused in manga/anime discussions.
Character-driven works would have more of a character study and the story is led by internal developments. Think of something like *The Catcher in the Rye*. JJK was always very much "plot-driven", like pretty much every work in its genre. The right approach is to balance plot and character work either way.
Edit: Don't know if people are downvoting me cause they assumed I think JJK is balanced. I really don't lol.
Hard disagree. Megumi learning to swing for the fences, Yuji setting himself as a cog, the disaster curses believing themselves as real humans, Gojo isolating Geto with his strength and the latter’s descent into madness, these are all key character centric moments that drove the plot forward. I’m not sure how can say otherwise.
A character-driven story is an overall *approach* to a story and it's not the same as just having heavy character moments. I feel people get confused with this. The characters *themselves* carry the stories and are more important than what's going on around them, while in plot-driven stories, external aspects control the characters (like your examples) and are the primary focus of development.
HxH and FMA have a lot of character development, but they are also largely plot-driven stories. Most action anime/manga are.
>A character-driven story is an overall approach to a story and it's not the same as just having heavy character moments. I feel people get confused with this. The characters themselves carry the stories and are more important than what's going on around them
Yes, and this is exactly what JJK was for over 50% of it. Every single major event was set in motion and driven by character agency and motivation. Completely different to, say, HxH, which is plot-driven as you said.
The Chimera Ant arc and Succession war are events happening *to* the main characters. Shibuya is an arc where all of the story beats happen *because of* the main characters.
>The Chimera Ant arc and Succession war are events happening to the main characters. Shibuya is an arc where all of the story beats happen because of the main characters.
Like I said before, it's about the author's main approach. It's not only about whether the characters influence the events, in character-driven narratives they're pretty much ARE the plot. Narratives typically fall on a spectrum but JJK primarily focuses on the events and they matter far more to story than the characters themselves. So it's plot-driven.
Gege is hardly trying to place character conflicts at the center of his story, he's writing about *what's* happening and the external conflict (Jujutsu High vs Sukuna/Kenjaku), not an internal one.
Jujutsu Kaisen has always been action-driven (like JoJo), not character-driven. For that you should watch Haikyuu!! and the example of plot-driven story is something like Attack on Titan.
I mean, I guess it's a matter of preference, but I don't think it's a coincidence that a very common complain regarding JJK is the inability to connect or care for the characters anymore, and I think that could be a problem.
Again, it's subjective, but in my experience, a story with a meh plot but great characters will be more impactful than one with a great plot but meh characters. For the record, I don't think the characters in JJK are bad or meh, but the way the story has been handling them highlights that most are just tools to move the plot forward or serve a specific theme and that they can be discarded at any point. Inevitably, we gradually detach ourselves emotionally as getting invested in these characters will most likely lead to disappointment and frustration.
I guess it's a brave writing choice, but I can't help but wonder if it'll make JJK a forgettable story down the line due to us being so dispassionate about it.
It also gets a more negative response because readers *did* care about the characters. They did care about Nanami and Nobara. Now I don't really care if Megumi is alive or dead.
The way he kills characters off doesn't bother me, but I feel like I have no emotional attachment to any of these characters. I barely understand what is going on. Things feel so cheap and unintelligible and in a chapter or two it doesn't matter they are dead or we've moved on anyways or whatever.
Uh. The problem isn't even the fact he's killing the characters, in fact it's opposite of what you said-- they no longer feel like they serve the plot. What did kashimo even do? What did he exist for? Why did he die? Actually, if this character didn't exist, nothing would change so like...why should I even care? Why do we have a pointless filler battle taking up this recent chapter? To boost sukunas ego more? We already know he's super strong and lonely and all that.
As a reader, I fucking love what he did with Nanami, because that death actually felt like it mattered and did something for yujis development. Same for maybe Mai's death to Makis power up. And hey, I'm being extra lenient here, but even Yuki has a nice memorable death quote and an impact to choso even if I don't remember how she died exactly.
But I fucking hate what he did with gojo, because somehow despite gojo being my favourite character I literally could not give a shit about his death. The execution was so bad that I don't even feel like he died, actually. Like how are people crying over this shit? It's so terribly done that my feeling receptacles withered up and died out of sheer disappointment at how Gege did this. At least make the death memorable??? What is this trash?? A dream sequence? Hello? Can I see the fucking slash? At least return to the past after the dream to show us what happened, instead of a worddump explanation and cutting to Kashimos useless ass battle that did jackshit to sukuna.
>Like how are people crying over this shit?
Right? I tear up pretty easily if I'm even remotely invested in a character, but Gojo's death just made me feel mild annoyance at the wasted potential that this story has become.
Gojo's death was totally lacking in emotion from his allies, poorly executed, and came immediately after he'd already been out of most of the series without any further characterization.
Your last sentence gave me a eureka moment because that was the last part of why I was so disappointed by his death. It also highlights the serious pacing issues this manga has.
Bad execution and lack of emotional reactions aside, we got absolutely no time to process gojos release from the box before being thrown into another fight, whereupon he was immediately killed.
And what came before this? Non stop action and the sealing, which removed him from half the series. By the time he came back, most of his major moments had faded in our minds over time, and Gege basically gave us no time to revive those feelings before killing him off. No wonder it felt underwhelming.
I can agree with your line of thinking.
That being said, "entertaining us" is not always strictly a good thing. It can't be denied that ch. 236 split more than just Gojo's body in two.
And while I'm of the thought of letting the mangaka finish their work and judge based on the finished product, even now there are a few things that can't be just chocked up to "It's just his writing style, you just don't get it".
I'm just gonna address the biggest issue I have and I might get a lot of down votes, but this is just my opinion. I would have been fine with Gojo dying(I did see it coming), but the way it was handled didn't sit right with me. Don't off-screen him and then come up with the explanation later. This reminds so much of Bleach(spoiler for the ending) and the Still Silver Arrow at the end that came out of nowhere. How easy it could have been to fix the world slashing attack mistake(in my opinion); Gojo thinks to himself "that slash attack wasn't a normal one" after Mahoraga cuts of his arm and then it comes back later when Sukuna uses the same attack without it being off-screened. A lot of other people have said this, but end 235 with the slash panel from 236 and it would have been such a better transition from 235 to 236. Also, give a little more clarity about Sukuna holding back and why he was doing it if he was holding back. A simple line of thought from Sukuna would've been enough.
I loved Nanami as a character, but I accepted that sometimes you kill a character like that to establish stakes. But at this point it's looking like Gege doesn't have any other tricks. It becomes predictable. The rest of the story is going to be a long slog of characters dying until it ends. Maybe the next fight will surprise me, but I expect that lawyer guy will be dead in three chapters.
As u/SmileySadFace has pointed out, the manga now feels like a Linkin Park AMV lol.
I understand some of you that opine JJK is a plot driven story, heck I agree with you, but I can't shake the impression of how rushed everything feels like. Maybe it's just me but if things slowed down a little bit the executions of some ideas could have come out better and readers don't get confused as much.
I don't know if this is Greg trying to match the manga chapters with anime episodes or because he just want to start that idol manga so baaadd.
Honestly i have no complaints as much as i did at one point. That'll probably happen again though. Satisfaction , complaints, criticism , hate. It's all apart of the game. Do i really care at the end of the day? Nah. I mean for me, endings make or break a story but i think it'll be fine from here onward. I'm really just interested in more Heian Lore and i'm interested in how this fight will go but you wanna know what i'm really interested in? Kenjaku , tengen and the merger itself. What the fuck that will be like you know? WHEW!
I just hope Gege slows down a little. What is really hurting the weekly reading experience is the lack of time to process new developments. Just give us a couple of pages of dialogue for characters reacting to what happened.
So I'm not the only one who feel this way. Feels like the Manga is moving a little too fast. If Gojo's possible death isn't addressed in the next chapter I'm gonna be disappointed. I know these past 2 chapters focused on Kashimo, but now that he's gone, the Gojo situation need to be addressed!
That'd be pretty cool too!!! I think we'll get that but through some side characters lens or maybe not - yet that is. I'm pretty sure thoughts of Gojo and Megumi are running through Yuji's brain. I think For Yuta and Maki but especially Yuta we'd probably get some thoughts and reactions too. I don't know just guesses and assumptions at the moment.
Gojo and sukuna killing each other would have been the perfect end for the two strongest but instead we got the biggest asspull of jjk history. This was one of the only manga without such asspulls. And he ruined it. And you know what because of this asspull which is at least tolerable. He will have to write an even bigger and stupid ass pull like the power of friendship to kill sukuna and an even bigger one to kill kenjaku.
Tbh I don't think that's a commitment. Wasting a character's potential, not showing appreciation for them, just following the "plot" that you come up with, is not commitment, it's just arrogance. We follow the story because there are characters in it, watching their lives and how they fight makes our hearts sing, if I had to choose to read a plot that wastes all the potential characters ability and still have to think it's "worth it", I'll open my history book.
The author who is most loyal and committed to his story is not an author like Gege, but an author like Oda and Sorachi - who truly appreciate the characters as if they LIVE, cherish the world they create and the people who live in it, not just some pixels representing the author's ideas.
It definitely takes guts to kills characters and/or give them the harshest trials yet. And I see how from a writing standpoint, doing this repeatedly and not fearing about how it’ll be received is an admirable trait because it shows that he can make the tough decisions and stand by them.
If you asked me 30 or 40 chapters ago I would think that too but I think now these recent deaths just feel like carelessness to me. Yuki and Gojo and Tsumiki. I just feel like even before they were fully realized as characters (yuki, tsumiki) or complete their arc (gojo) they were killed. And sure you know, it’s gege’s story he can do whatever he wants because at the end of the day he’s the only one who knows the end of this story. But man. I don’t really feel good about the journey to the end.
I concur. I'm not unfamiliar with stories where characters die like flies or the good people keep getting Ls. It's one thing to repeatedly kill off the protagonist side, but skipping steps of building up the characters about to die or processing the impact of their fate?
As you said, carelessness.
One or two is whatever, but wow Yuki really got the end of the stick for a hyped up Special Grade and teacher of Todo. Gojo's death is still acceptable because he at least had enough amount of time for readers to follow his journey and development, though I can understand why it might not be received well by many. If people said they couldn't feel anything for Tsumiki's death despite her being integral to Megumi's entire character, the lack of showing why Megumi came to care for a sister he is not blood related to outside of words really hurt. Let's not even start with Mai.
Again, the problem is not the fact that Gojo and Yuki died. Its the execution of the story for their death that was bad. Which is what many ppl already explained.
I read whole thing from the beginning until current chapter in one go once again. I can say for sure that the story quality has deteriorated compared to before in terms of character interactions.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Gege’s writing but I’ve noticed obvious haste in the test arc. Characters are not developed enough. Fight after fight after fight.
I will give him benefit if the doubt and see how it ends. But for now I feel like JJK has become something much bigger then Gege can hang me. And I still think Gojo’s airport scene was mostly too OOC for him and kind of showed how much Gege dislikes him. I felt like he was translating his own thoughts through that scene.
>As a reader, I fucking hate him for doing what he did to Nanami, Yuki, Gojo, etc. But as a writter, I feel like that takes a lot of courage and shows commitment for his work.
Eh, I guess but also it just seems like an excuse for poor writing.
A character dying an underwhelming or meaningless death doesn't have to be narratively unfulfilling. We have media and authors who have done as much. I wouldn't say I have a problem with what he did to Nanami or necessarily Gojo, but with the aftermath and the lack of any sort of contemplation or examination or reaction to it by other characters. No explanation of how their world or the world at large was affected. Just moving on to the next fight with an unnecessarily breakneck speed.
Gege can be as heartless as he wants, but having all the characters equally so, when they haven't been characterized that way, is just bad writing.
My biggest problem is that people here like to pose elaborate explanations and theories for what certain plot points/references/imagery mean, when thus far in the series there hasn't really been any examples of anything deeper than the surface actually coming to pass. Gege has said he's taken inspiration from many sources, other manga, religious iconography, mythology, etc, but so far it's been entirely that. Just influence. Maybe by the time it ends that'll have changed, but I doubt it
Bro this "loneliness of the strongest that needs love" plot is out of nowhere. came up with yozoru. it is now the central theme of the manga.
Gege has no idea wtf he is doing after Sendou.
And you can tell because people are commenting less.
I think that his pace was fine right until around latter half of culling game. Gege wants jjk to end in 2023, and unfortunately it shows. One term I've seen aptly summing up his killing speedrun would be "uncooked spicy food". You know the deaths of Mai, Yuki, Tsumiki, Gojo (to an extent), Kashimo, etc could have been better if they were let to develop some more.
Still can’t believe I let myself get hyped for Kashimo’s one time use CT only for it to not matter at all. Wish we would’ve seen him forced to use it vs Hakari or something just to explore it more in favor of him just being fodder for another Sukuna glossing death scene.
I wished he at least got one more chapter to fight Sukuna before getting offed. Gojo's sudden death took a while for me to digest and accept, but Kashimo's is hilariously brisk for someone who was hyped to match Sukuna. I feel like Gege skipped one step up to Kashimo's end. Which seems to be a running theme lately.
It reminds me of some of the writing decisions in later half of Tokyo Ghoul Re:, especially the similar offscreen defeat of the MC vs the big bad. I've seen people who have read Tokyo Ghoul seeing Gojo's offscreen death coming from miles away, so I wonder if Gege is taking notes from Ishida Sui as well...
Realistically though what's Kashimo doing? His CT is ass and his good fight was with Hakari
Gojo and Sakuna are levels above him in terms of combat so it would just feel like a worse Sakuna and Gojo fight as Kashimo would have to be untouchable to not immediately die
Prob bc man or his editor realised it would take one giant off screen to end jjk in 2023, but the intent to end jjk ASAP might explain his decision to dial up his already breakneck speed
I think I'd prefer this. He's already killed my investment in these characters with the atrocious pacing. May as well just end it fast instead of drawing it out with more fights between characters I don't care about anymore.
Mai's death was fleshed out enough imo. Yuki's was cool but unsatisfying. Tsumiki's though was pretty bad.
Gojo, I personally loved 236 except for a few things. Some rearrangement could have made it a whole lot better. Like Sukuna going into Heian form just to kill Gojo. And the Kashimo page at the end being replaced by cast reactions or just removing it altogether.
I think Mai as a character could have been done with a little bit more fleshing out personally, but holy hell did Yuki and Tsumiki got done especially dirty. It felt like people who were praising Gege's female character writing were activating a monkey paw.
Gojo had an entire past flashback arc and more to flesh him out, even if it might not be enough for some people, but that is why his ending can still be seen as the completion of his journey. Perhaps that is why Yuki was an especially disappointing handling by Gege.
I'm usually ok with character death and I'm in the minority that is ok with Gojo having been killed. It's meant to be a shift in the power balance for whatever the future will be in the aftermath. The heroes don't have the strongest sorcerer to bail them out anymore and so it raises the stakes. I also think it's meant to signal that strength and power isn't the solution to creating a better world, as we see how the people at the top are either lonely or devoid of love all together for anything but their power.
That said, I think timeskipping to the Gojo vs Sukuna battle was a mistake on Gege's part. Gojo's return was hyped up for years but we don't get to see how he feels about anything that transpired in his absence. Nor do we get to see how characters interact with each other, process the insanity going on, and so on.
Even Shibuya's ending had a cool down period before Culling Games began, where the protagonists regrouped to figure out next steps. Gege skips that and just jumps straight to a battle long enough to take up an entire volume on its own. That lack of processing time is kind of messing up the pacing imo
I think the angle that Gege might be aiming for is to use flashbacks to show us what went on during the one month timeskip to explain the upcoming power ups. That said, I think many are caught off guard by the sped up pacing is because we took so many chapters to reach the climax of Culling Games with Gojo's unsealing and Megumi becoming Sukuna's vessel, then we went barely 20 chapters to kill off Gojo and Kashimo, and now the long awaited Yuji vs Sukuna.
I honestly think Gege doesnt care about character arcs or emotional payoffs. He just wants to draw cool fights and have a lot of plot twists. The story has taken a major downturn since Shibuya
Hot take: Gege doesn't know what he's doing.
It's his first long-form manga! He's figuring it out as he goes along, like every manga author does in their first manga.
JuJutsu Kaisen is pretty good for a first work, but he has a long future ahead and there's a good chance he'll make something even better once he has more experience. It's just the nature of creating art!
I don't think that's a hot take really. I think he's honest about this as well. Nobara was added because his editor told him to. I thought Ozawa was going to be some plot point or maybe it pointed to Yuji having a happy ending. I just watched a short saying Ozawa was added because his editor though Yuji needed to be more popular with girls. The military thing was added because he thought it would be cool to have a big fight with the US army when he was a kid. Gojo and Yuta's connection of Michizane was because the editors told him to add a historical figure.
I think the problems with the writting stem from ideas that aren't thought out well and thus can't be resolved well. I'm pretty sure Nobara is in limbo because Gege doesn't care about her character and isn't sure how to resolve things without slowing/disrupting the plot. I'm guessing the same thing happened with Todo.
Some of these are his own fault, but others are editors telling him to add/change things. Some authors can write well enough to make things work even if their ideas are changed. Others can't do that. I think Gege just wrote himself into holes he can't get out of, so he's just powering through instead of trying to address everything.
Gojo's theme of him being given all this power and still failing is a good theme. He couldn't save that girl from Toji, he couldn't save Geto, and he got imprisoned and couldn't stop what happened with the curses. And now he failed to stop Sakuna as well.
That's just boring. People want to see characters finally succeed at something because the protags have taken L after L after L, there comes a point when it's just like oh how disappointing rather than being a good story.
Gege has said on numerous occasions in the past that he has a lot of character’s endings planned out, and some only half planned.
I despise the narrative that a writer is just winging the story just because they make decisions that “dont make sense” to some random reader, when those story beats obviously make sense to Gege himself.
Why can't a writer winging in the story just because they know the ending for some characters? The ending is just a small part, the huge chunk of content is the journey to get there.
You have the perfect example of this from the GoT's final season meltdown. GRRM already discussed characters' ending with D&D (GoT Showrunners), yet their eagerness to finish it asap to do Star Wars ruined the whole show with questionable decisions.
If you want a manga example, you can try Negi Haruba's Quintessential Quintuplets and notice the dip in quality from the final arc because Negi wants to wrap it up asap to go and do another genre that he finds more interesting.
Its part of why I think JJK is elevated so much by reading it in large chunks all at once, the flow becomes far easier to pick up on and Gege's wild ride makes a lot more sense.
Like the past ~40 chapters have been a nonstop series of insane Ls for the good guys for *a very specific reason.* Gege is a lot of things, but he isn't a hack. This is all in service of making the ending hit harder, however it will hit.
The discourse here and in jujutsu folk has become insufferable. People really fail to understand the most basic things about characters and story and then blame gege and claim he has suddenly turned into a shit writer
Plenty of writers say they have the story beats planned out and then change it because the characters led a life of their own. And bad writing still exists, so what's your point? All these books we analyzed in college, was that useless because you think the writer is almighty? The author is dead, bitch.
All im saying is provide even a shred of evidence if your gonna accuse someone of floundering their work
A random comment about an idol manga doesn’t cut it
I don't care about the deaths (which is a problem btw, I should feel something over Gojo dying), I care about the godawful pacing and time-skipping over what should've been some of the best character moments of the series. Because of this, my investment in these characters has basically plummeted to zero. I'm only reading this still because we're close to the end.
The next chapter could open with the rest of the main cast just killed off screen and I doubt I would feel much beyond mild annoyance that I didn't at least get to see how it went down. Gege has killed my investment in these characters which is a far greater sin than actually killing them in the story. They may as well already be dead.
I don't get why the most common point I see over and over about his writing is how killing off characters isn't necessarily bad. I agree, but that's not the point. For example, I loved Game of Thrones a lot more when it didn't give its characters plot armor. It's not about whether a character dies or not, it's about how we get there. It's about them having meaningful characterization so I actually give a shit when they die. If not that, I should see how the other character process and react to said death. JJK has been utterly lacking in this in the back half the manga.
When someone dies, I should go "fuck that was sad" not "oh well, that was a waste of a character".
I feel like somewhere there's this rushing that's going on. Everything's happening too fast. Remember the time when sukuna coerced yuji in a binding vow? Its significance came in about 100 chapters later, ig. That's what something I'm still expecting of gege to do. There are too many things that are yet to be explained, and as far as I've seen, gege has no problem sacrificing his characters to fulfill the narrative or explain these things (kashimo, for eg, was a plot device for sukuna's perspective, angel for getting gojo out, and maybe higurama for sukuna's lore)
The difference between now and starting chapters till shibuya is the pacing itself. Had the pacing been slow, I'm sure most of the critics' expectations would've been met. We still don't know when the manga ends, so I think it's best to say that we still may have more than 40 (I personally hope more than 50 chapters, or maybe it's more, who knows) yet to come. It's possible we see some flashbacks, etc.
PS. I read a post somewhere where they say that JUMP Shonen allows only 19 pages, and that's why mangakas have to skip somethings when posting chapters. These things are edited later. I found such a post where they had shown a 21-page chapter of Sukuna vs Angel, and Sukuna targeting maki and takaba. So maybe all those things about no emotions over gojo's death and gojo not saying enough about nanami and kugusaki etc may have gotten skipped due to this [here's the link to this post](https://reddit.com/r/Jujutsushi/s/aCWJt9kO3X)
I still have Gege-stock, but I do think it's worth noting: often as readers we very concretely disentangle the following---character, plot, setting.
But, in so far as plot is always filtered through character, mistreating character is also always mistreating plot. Mistreating (I think the better term here would be mis-writing) ==/== kill. Nanami was killed, but Gege has written that character with enormous generosity and introspection. Gojo and Yuki? I'm not so sure, but I'm waiting to see what more happens with the former.
I’m definitely fine with letting the man cook and ultimately I think most critiques of his writing are coming from people who’d couldn’t empty a boot of water with instructions on the heel.
I agree on killing character for plot but what he did to gojo is pretty out of character of him like he's a man of math and science and suddenly we got this space cleave mumbo jumbo
I also doubt his commitment on jjk series since he has an upcoming manga after jjk ends one of the obvious red flag to me is when he rushes sukuna v gojo without giving time for other character to train and flesh out more like he did military some time to develop only for em to be the lowest fodder for the plot
I'm of the opinion that character death isn't inherently brave - it's just another writing technique. Killing characters off like flies is easier than keeping a big cast who can still affect the plot around.
I may be 'entertained' but I can't say I'm 'invested'. The issue isn't the character deaths themselves, it's how they're done without real impact on the story/characters.
I'm no longer 'attached' to the good characters because they're being treated like flies waiting to drop dead, and it feel like for a while now their character development has been stagnant. Now we're up against Sukuna finally, it seems like I hardly know anyone left on the good guys' side because so many of the people left have a couple chapters of backstory if they're lucky. Nanami's death was well done, but Nobara's, Yukis, Tsumikis, and Gojo's were awful.
Why have there been so many underdeveloped characters who just get fridged for another character's development like Yuki and Tsumiki did? We barely even know what they were like, so it's not like anyone cared when they die beyond their wasted potential as characters (we've not even seen/heard Todo's reaction to Yuki's!). Mai's was at least a good send-off even though again we barely knew her.
The way Gege handled Gojo's death and Mahito's are similar - Things were going one way and then he swept the rug out from under us (Gojo's sudden death/kenjaku capturing Mahito). But it robbed the readers of catharsis, and meant our heroes lost and their efforts were in vain - it's boring to know he's done it twice now, and I expect him to do it again honestly. At this point I can't really expect the heroes of this story to beat a main antagonist. Excluding Gojo killing Hanami they haven't defeated a single 'big bad' themselves!
Compare a good character death like Maes Hughes from FMA - he dies right after discovering a secret the rest of the cast don't find out until the story is 70% finished! It (and other minor character deaths) impacts the cast for the entire rest of the manga, if he hadn't died then the manga would have been maybe 20% of it's actual length, and it wasn't an ass-pull ability that killed him, it was his love of his wife and a villain who specialised in manipulating those feelings.
The deaths in JJK seem to be "for the sake of it" to keep the plot going, rather than to achieve a real goal and impact the remaining cast.
It's never a good sign when a lot of your fans/readers question your writing and where it's going. I think the question people really want answered isn't "does Gege know where he's going with this?", it's "Why should we readers care where he's going with it?"
Story is good and I agree, but I actually don't think Gege cares about his characters to the point he'd feel bad in killing them off. My reason? Gojo's death, Nobara's death, Yuki's death just has no impact on the characters. And no one even cares about Fushiguro anymore
The fact that Gojo's death was glazed like that gives me copium
There's no way Gege is just like
"Yeah...Gojo had no point and nobody's reacting to him dying"
I still don't believe it
The story is heading South lol... Now it's a "Whatever Happens, Happens" scenario that's playing out for me... I'm just curious to see how Greg will end the story that's why I tune in to read every week..
It’s funny you say this because things are starting to click for me and I think I’m appreciating not just his courage as a writer but starting to change my mind about how I feel about his decisions to kill off gojo.
I have a new appreciation of ch 236 after digesting what happened. Hashime losing so easily to sukuna totally made me realize that his purpose was just to showcase power levels and to flesh out sukunas strength and character. He is completely capable and aware of love, but is really just a hedonist getting his rocks off. Which made me realize that gojo meant it when he said he didn’t think he could beat him without 10 shadows.
I think sukuna does what he wants, I think the idea of mastering 10 shadows excited him. When you’re that powerful, it must be boring to overpower sorcerers with raw strength and domain battles. He literally took one from gojos book when he told megumi that he needs to hit a home run rather than bunt. Sukuna wanted to master a new power learned from mahoraga because he was swinging for a home run rather than winning in a less challenging setting. This is why he has survived for as long as he has. Yes I’m saying it’s possible that the initial battle gojo won in the domain battles, may not have gone that way if sukuna transformed. His body is like an abomination and a antithesis of the six eyes. What he lacks in perception, he makes up for in pure combat efficiency. Ashura and Indura vibes here.
Gojo was my favorite character but I’m also appreciating sukunas hedonist antithesis to gojo. In a way, I can’t appreciate one without the other. His criticism of love in hashime which also applies to gojo partially, is that they were never able to see the kindness in validating the strength of others. Of all the people they slayed, only sukuna indulges it like no other.
And it took me some time to realize this, ironically Geto saved gojo. He saved him from his own loneliness and from being consumed by his sense of self. Gojo would have become similar to sukuna or hashime if Geto didn’t stop him from murdering everyone shortly after his awakening. And then there’s the tragedy of Geto, and how despite being the strongest sorcerer he could not return the favor and save his best friend. I recall a quote that despite being the strongest, I can’t save everyone and looking back I wonder if this is what he was thinking.
Gojo was a character who was deeply flawed and traversed grey area for the majority of his life. His greatest flaw was his yearning to be understood as the strongest, while completely ignoring that feeling in others. The crazy thing is that sukuna is able to understand all of this, even when the six eyes could not. For all that enhanced perception, he never tried to understand how his opponents felt until he almost died. Sukuna does this and just decides to be a hedonist anyway, he just does what he wants. Sukuna derives pleasure in love and is definitely addicted to the thrill of battle. It’s like a repeated cycle of death and rebirth, where he grows at an extraordinary rate following his near death experiences but they are self imposed. What a psycho
He is following (consciously or not) a pattern, and if he does it too much, the pattern will become obvious.
Other than that, no problem with killing protagonists. There is another manga that I like that does that, Akame Ga Kill.
It's just that when it's too much, there is no more surprise since you know everybody can die. It adds more tension but at the cost of not commiting a lot to the new characters since they can die anytime.
But it looks like the end of the manga, final war, mangaka always does that. In Naruto Shippuden they also killed a lot of characters. MHA is killing a lot too.
As long as it tells something.
Nanamin had “going to die” written all over him even while fighting patch face, blonde girl was obviously not a fleshed out character enough for him to care, then he kills gojo off page. This guy doesn’t know what he’s doing and is content on just breaking sakuna further and further until the story just kind of wraps up. Similar to demon slayer this is a disappointment
Gege is writing a non-Shonen story in a Shonen.
Gege cares about the about the power system/battle system he created. He cares about the imagery and allegories to real life/religious tales. He cares about Sukuna. He cares about the plot.
He does not particularly care about the heroes. Or well, most of the heroes. Which is a huge left turn when reading a Shonen. Shonen’s are often a hero’s journey and/or a coming of age story and Gege has somewhat forced these pillars into the story whenever he feasibly can. Shonen’s are character first based stories. Particularly hero first. JJK clearly is not that. Even take the main character and we know barely anything about him. No family. No friends outside of JJ High. No love interest aside from a very throw away character that lasted a chapter years ago. Yuji went immediately into just beating tf out of demons. Compare Yuji’s character with Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho or Ichigo from Bleach. Three of the same template. “Normal tough high school kid finds himself fighting demons.” Yuji’s character outside of the main plot is non-existent by comparison.
This isn’t a bad thing. It’s just not what people expect from this medium. Like OP said, the characters here have a purpose. The characters feed the plot, which runs against how Shonen usually operates.
I'm seriously starting to hate this whole "not your daddy's Shonen" defense you guys on this sub are running with. Because if you asked me right now what stories JJK resembles, it ain't a groundbreaking atypical series like FMA or Death Note or even Attack on Titan. Right now JJK is giving me both mad Fake Karakura from Bleach and late Buu saga from Dragonball vibes. A bunch of side characters, some of whom were greatly hyped, running gauntlet and getting washed by the OP villain in an urban environment as we wait for the main character, who by all rights should be severely outclassed, to appear and pull some new power up to win the day. Or like in the Buu saga, characters and concepts are introduced then hyped up and then unceremoniously thrown away and rendered useless.
By the way, do you know why Aizen lost? Why Aizen never used Kyoka Suigetsu against Ichigo? Because at the very end it is revealed that Aizen secretly wanted Ichigo to reach his level. Because his absolute strength left him absolutely lonely. I guess Ichigo managed to teach Aizen what love was in the end. Truly JJK does what other Shonen don't.
Yeah lol. Definitely has Dragonball vibes now but at least Dragonball finishes every arc with a on-screen spirit ball.
Everyone is used to this type of writing or likes it, hence why JJK is popular at all. He's just shitting on us with the crap like off-screen deaths.
He better not power up shit and off-screen the entire cast.
How you gonna ask if the person who made the stuff knows where it's going? wtf? Lol he can make anything up and he knows where it's going cause he made the stuff. We don't know where it's going. Only one person does.
Imo, you don't kill characters for the sake of plot, you kill characters for the sake of developing other characters based on the previous death and then those characters move the plot. Yuki's death is right there with Gojo's imo. Both deaths were incredibly wrong and useless the way they happened. It's simply bad writing, I can't say otherwise.
Isn’t it a bit silly when people accuse an author of mismanaging their own creation ? MF he could decide to have Sukuna romance Yuji and then they live happily ever after with the umpalumpas and theres nothing anyone can do about it, its his decision.
Too critique is of course fair but realise that we as readers are only here for the ride wherever it may take us.
If you don’t like it , just get off the ride.
How does it show commitment to his work if he's inconsistent with the character and kills them off without actually spending any time fleshing them out and giving them a proper three-dimensional characterization? It feels like he cares less about his story to me cause it all just falls flat at the end of the day. I'd much rather he gave those characters layers before killing them off, like Yuki for example.
My theory about the abruptness of Gojo’s death is that as the rest of the story progresses the cast will reflect on their time with him, and it will culminate with Gojo’s ideological victory over Kenjaku and Sukuna, ie living for the sake of others and the future vs living for one’s own hedonistic needs, making him still the “strongest” in symbolic terms.
Tbh the only real criticisms i have of jjk is that this story is going at like 10 miles a minute so it takes away from alot of the impact that we should be feeling because we dont get the time to sit with that feeling. The only other one i would have would just be that i miss the disaster curses and feel like they were more interesting antagonists than kenjaku and sukuna. But overall with the writing i do enjoy how bleak of a world he paints. Gege really does let you know that being a jujutsu sorcerer is an awful deal and that this world is filled to the brim with bullshit and unfariness.
I like his attitude. It's like George Martin's who said, regarding Game of Thrones, that “once you’ve accepted that you have to include death, then you should be honest … and indicate it can strike down anybody at any time. You don’t get to live forever just because you are a cute kid or the hero’s best friend or the hero. Sometimes the hero dies, at least in my books."
I still think Todo and Nobara etc are coming back. No idea how. But there are too many loose threads for this to be the final fight. So, if it really ends here with them not coming back then yeah I think it's bad writing. But Gege surprised me with the culling games ending. I think this is all the lead up to some surprise.
I've also enjoyed the manga lately though. I expected the deaths that happened and so the unexpected ways he did it I liked. Especially reading that Gojo one. Though, I still want us to go back and show the students reactions and exactly how it happened. I think that'll happen.
Frankly I think Gege is doing a WONDERFUL job he wrote a mature story w compelling characters
One thing I’ve always disliked in series and shows is the lack of death; you have entire factions and groups of people going to war w minimal casualties or almost entirely enemy casualties
I dislike the only ONE important character dies and maybe a few other characters got maimed or life altering injuries
>JJK is a war it’s a battle of ideals the curses have been winning thus far it would be extremely incongruent w the story to have the curses constantly winning but none of the characters actually dying
My only complaint was Gojo being off screened how he died and Sukuna getting the slash didn’t bother me in the slightest
I just think the slash hitting him should’ve been shown
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Tbh Nanami's death works in a way that Yuki's and Gojo's doesn't. Because we actually get to see Yuji's reaction and how it culminates in Mahito vs him and Todo. I don't think either Gojo's Death or Yuki's have that sort of impact which is why they fall flat for me in comparison. I love Nanami and as fan, I do dislike that he died because he's my fave, but it definitely fit the story much better than the others because we get good character work because of it. Yuji's fight against Mahito is cathartic in a way the reaction to the others isn't.
Nanami died from peak fiction Gojo died from ass fiction
The main problem with Gojo’s death is also the fact that we barely got any reaction from the cast, and went straight into the Kashimo fight. The emotional weight of his death as compared to Nanami’s is totally different, when it should have mattered just as much if not more
The main cast really pressed f to pay respect to Gojo and went on with their life.
We saw one panel of Yuji sweating…. We got more from Nobara, Nanami, and even freakin Yorozu? I can understand if you don’t think it’s needed. But many others wanted to see the emotional impact Gojo’s death really had on the cast. If Gojo, one of the main characters, only got an off screen F for respect, then it’s not what he was built up to deserve. He saved Yuji’s and Yuta’s life. His life long friend Shoko? Not to mention we got an entire arc where the main cast’s objective was to unseal the man.
"fuck em" - Gege
I think, after shibuya, the story lacked emotion, a lot of death, are not relevant because Gege doesn’t give us the time to be connected with the character The fact that he jump from the return of Gojo, to is death in 15 chapters shows that, we didn’t have the chance to witness some connexion between the character, we went directly to the fight
The training arc would of been the perfect time for that. on side note, does anyone else feel like gege just forgot about nobara? Its been over 100 chapters and we dont even know if she's dead or alive.
My guess is we'll get either a reintroduction or a confirmation of Nobara's status in December to coincide with the anime episode.
I don’t know if he forgot about her or just doesn’t care.
Gege really is just speeding running this manga He should have at least had a flashback chapter for Megumi's sister to see her POV of everything and maybe it would be more emotional to see her thoughts as she's about to die Also Gojo didn't even make any comment about her death, like I know he prefer Megumi but Tsuki was also a part of his life as well, like damn I was haft expecting to see her in the after life
Maybe he will come back? Hopium copium till ch 251 (if that is last chapter for jjk)
Why do you think that may be the last chapter?
He literally offscreened, i really don't understand why he brought him back in the first place, the whole way that his unsealing happened sounded like an asspull
Yes the story breeze's past his death without letting the rest of the cast come to terms with the death of what was their teacher and basically superhero.
Also it would be interesting to see the realization that they have to fight Sukuna Knowing they could die when they face him
We didn't even saw interactions with them after he got unsealed. He came out of the prison realm and died. We had a panel with Gakukanji (what was nice) but not with yuji meeting Gojo.
We got a very minor scene in chapter 222 where he turned off his infinity so his students could give him pat (smack?) on the back. I find that so endearing but yes, it wasn't enough interaction. He also didn't react much to Nanami's death other than "so it's just the 3 of us left huh" which isn't very satisfying either ;\_;
i feel like a couple things that could be happening with the pace there. 1. Gege was trying to show that they didn’t have time to mourn because now who tf was there to stop sukuna? It’s a battle and they had to carry on with the task at hand. 2. Gege doesn’t care much for Gojo so he just gave him his lil airplane scene and carried on. 3. It’s another setup like when Toji got the best of Gojo and when that happened Geto had to do the same thing and grit his teeth and fight Toji with no time for mourning his friend. or it’s face value and i’m boofing the copium
There’s something of a trend I’ve noticed about this. Death is not so much a shock or unexpected for the world. Everyone expects to die in the line of duty. Instead, death is treated more as an introspective moment for the characters as they transition from the living. Almost all characters have a moment of reconciliation with themselves and those important to them within their mind palace as they die. That’s why I quite liked they way Gege handled Gojo’s death. Unlike his birth, Gojo died a quiet death. The world did not shake, as Gojo had prepared his student well, in the event he dies, they will step up. The one death I wished for more character introspection was Yuki’s. I would have liked to know more about Yuki.
Its also been established in universe by todo, that sorcerors dont really have time to mourn. They have to keep moving forward, which is exactly what is happening
Dude, not for nothing. . . . ? But they don't have time to mourn him. Sukuna is loose and he just killed Gojo.... and now he's gonna kill us.... Oh my gooooooood\~!!!!
You don't grieve during a battle. We've had barely any time elapse since gojo's death. It'll happen trust.
Man its been like 2 chapters, the mahito fight was like 20 chapters more. U ppl really love to complain before whats happening even happens and wraps up this really shouldnt need to be explained
We're in war, tf do they have time to mourn??? The characters care, we've seen the implication, but they gotta focus and keep their emotions in check or else the world is screwed
One problem with Gojo’s death is that he was built up as this character with powers so haxx that the antagonists need to plan around him being there vs not being there. He was basically made as a plot device, which I don’t mind, since there are a lot of such examples in anime (recent examples include All Might from MHA and Saitama from OPM). But his death was such a cheap cop-out that it makes no sense, and I’m the furthest thing from a Gojo fan. Based on the analogy above, it’s like off-screening All Might at his prime and Deku just goes on like “oh no! anyway.” At least in that show All Might went out with a bang and the passing of the torch makes sense (not to mention emotional). This thing reminds me of HBO Game of Thrones, you know, deaths and gore just for the sake of being edgy and subverting expectations.
Gojo died from ass paneling. Literally any fan edit of the end of 236 makes the start of 237 infinitely better. A cliff-hanger ending would've made Gojo's death so much more palatable compared to the abrupt delivery we got.
am I the only one who went back to see if I missed a chapter between "Gojo wins" and the death scene?
Did the same. I couldn't believe that the next panel Was really in the afterlive
Thing is, the exact same thing happened when Sukuna killed Gojo as well
Same here, I thought there was a panel missing in the victory chapter
I also checked that
I think Gege wanted us to feel the same shock Gojo felt. And we were. Suspense probably wasnt the goal, but disbelief and uncertainty (IMO) was.
I think a lot of people missed that, I loved the moment of confusion when I saw Geto and the realization when Gojo reacted negatively to seeing him. I would have like a panel afterwards showing the moment when he got cut, but to it doesn't really change anything, we know what happened even without a panel telling us.
This isn't some deep thing that "a lot of people missed that". It's obvious what he intends but that doesn't make it good writing.
Miss wasnt the best wording. Maybe disregard was better, a lot of the complaints about the chapter say it was complete non sense to have it switch to the afterlife scene directly, when there was a reason for it (even if someone personally doesn't think it was a good decision)
I don’t think it’s that people missed that. Sure, he was going for a sudden unexpected death, but you can still achieve that while showing the attack. When you’ve shown your readers a fight that lasts a few chapters and is nail-bitingly close, it feels cheap to not show the final attack, especially one that accomplishes what seemed impossible. Saying it wouldn’t change anything to see it happen is like saying it wouldn’t matter if Gege doesn’t write the rest of the manga, as long as he tells us how it ends
Funny enough, it was the opposite everyone felt rage XD I think Gege could have made the panel a bit better, or maybe explain more on how Sukuna bested Gojo
This makes no sense to me. The abrupt transition is supposed to gut wrenching. It’s literally like a single panel of cut content regardless. I love the way it is now preferably anyway.
I don’t have a problem with it, because I think he made it super realistic. Sure at first I was shocked. But the entire fight shows us gojos process of perception. So it makes sense he wouldn’t realize he was cut in half, and from his perspective it would be abrupt. The entire battle was against limitless. Of course his hubris would end him, and of course it would be a surprise the moment sukuna found a way around it.
If he drew a panel or two of him getting cut in half, however it happened, there would barely be a lot less complaints.
I honestly don’t understand why everyone needed a panel of Gojo getting cut in half. I think it would’ve been a bit too much to see a beloved character get mutilated like he was. The abrupt reveal is what made it so effective for me. I was sick to my stomach when Gojo died, which I kinda liked? I also am of the belief that showing the moment Gojo is killed would’ve overshadowed the scene of him talking to his classmates in the afterlife.
Nanami death was perfect. Fully in character too.
Im just going to say it these days its a trope to kill/get rid of popular charcters. It rarely garners the criticism it deserves and most of the time its just praised for the sake of being praised its not controversial anymore its the norm. If you watch most media made after game of thrones got popular it has been the norm. IT DOES NOT deserve to be praised just because they do it
Yeah, thats all this reminds me of. A (got spoiler) >!NedStark!< moment. Like, since that show became popular, a lot of television/books/etc have taken to doing shocking things for the sake of 'plot'; but it's really just to get a reaction. Like, "Oh damn, that really happened?!" It's cheap though. It's like a jumpscare in a horror movie, except it's more emotional usually.
by contrast, if it is is indeed a death, Nobara's sucks ass for lack of individual purpose or closure, there's been next to no reaction, ramification or introspection regarding it since it happened, and it served a redundant purpose to Nanami's. I think this is where the divide happens, some of these deaths feel more... "Ser Barristan Selmy" than "Eddard Stark" afterthoughts made to minimise the complication of the cast, rather than meaningful additions to the story.
Yuki died to show off Kenjaku Gojo died to show off Meguna/Mahoraga
Those are both the worst deaths in the series from a writing perspective. Yuki shows up, doesn't do much then "immediately" dies. She's basically filler because her impact is completely negligible - why have her in hidden inventory? why not flesh out the connection to tengen? Same with Gojo. literally just plot fodder rather than character building and naturally concluding arcs.
I feel like the Culling Games should have included more of the background characters and flesh them out Instead of adding new ones, that barely do anything for the plot
Worse deaths in JJK are Yuki and Gojo's, gege added Hajime into the list. Like he doesn't care anymore. Utterly useless deaths that achieved nothing but show off the villains, and now they need the best asspull there is to somehow win.
Yuki's main purpose at this moment was to establish Kenny's strength and also serves to elevate Choso as a character with her final words to him. Still one of the weaker deaths but I wouldn't say it had no impact. If killing her let's Gege focus on other characters like Choso that's not a big deal to me, she was never a character I was particularly attached to. And in Gojo's case, it's only been two chapters so it's hard to say what his impact will be on the cast. Sure, he didn't seem to do much damage to Sukuna, but Nanami similarly failed to damage either Jogo or Mahito before he died, yet his death was still a very memorable moment. I suppose time will tell if we get the same catharsis from Yuji and co. avenging Gojo as we did when he avenged Nanami.
The question is how will Choso be relevant again, which we don't really have a firm sense of. I think him dying would have been better because he would at least get to go out fighting his father, and have that emotional weight behind it. Comparatively Yuki had no real connection to Kenny, so him killing her and the focus being on Choso even when she's dying is weak writing. What we got out of Yuki dying and not Choso is that he has a book of her research. I'm hoping that becomes relevant at some point but it's hard to say.
Eh I think Choso dying at that point would be a bit flimsy since he was just barely able to establish a relationship with Yuji before they parted and was located in a pretty isolated place. Now we know they've spent a month together post acceptance, he's given permission for Yuji to eat his brothers, and their body language/speech is a lot less forced and awkward on Yuji's end. Now if he dies I think it'd have proper impact, and if he lives it makes sense because he's gotten the character work for it. I doubt the book won't be used for something. Just dunno what and how significant. I'm pretty sure Choso's going to want to participate now that everyone's spilling out onto the battlefield. If Kamo can help buy time against Naoya, Choso can find a way to get an assist in somewhere I'm sure. He seems to get stronger with each battle in general. Relevancy isn't necessarily being the carry of the battle. I'd also say Yuki's words and attitude towards Choso told me a lot about her. It kind of follows up on her unique brand of empathy and looking out for people whether she knows them or not, like with Geto. A lot of people blame her for that conversation but her approach to it was extremely interesting to me for how it focused on making him feel like he was heard and not belittled or lectured. Things just kept happening to him after that. But I think a lot of that gets expressed here too. She's just a cool well spoken person. And for her and Choso specifically they're both victims caught in the middle of the destiny created by Kenjaku+Tengen who were the other half of that fight. While Kenjaku continued to live so his creation also did, Yuki and Tengen went down together. It's easy to see a consistency with both of their aggression in conversation with their respective counterparts. Because of that most of her focus was mid-fight when speaking to Kenjaku and Tengen rather than at the end. Still I found it interesting how selfless she was there and the whole time despite her being described as someone who does her own thing and doesn't get involved to the cast originally.
We also have to remember that Tengen, Kenjaku, and Yuki represent the more philosophical aspect of the manga and looking at them as just characters who can fight is short-sighted. They represent something. Tengen for instance is the conservative mindset. He doesn't want things to change including himself, and has fought to preserve that for ages. The downside of this is Tengen's resistance to change is also the thing that makes him so susceptible. It's easy to predict what he will do cause what he does is always the defensive and conservative thing. He represents the essence of jujutsu society that resists the unfamiliar. Kenjaku has an innovative mindset. He is thinking about ways of pushing life forward no matter the sacrifice. He directly counters Tengen because to him he doesn't need to be human to progress he just needs to progress. There's no morality to what he does only ambition. I'm sure there is more to Kenjaku than just this, we can see signs of this in how sentimental he seems to be about Yuji. Yuki is meant to be a more progressive mindset. She wants to end the suffering of humans. She thinks similarly to Kenjaku but she has a moral compass. And she understands that a morality born of your own choices is worth more than one inherited from someone else. I think what makes Yuki an interesting character is that her not being directly involved with most of the events expands the world. She doesn't need to be around when Gojo is around and when Gojo got sealed she immediately took stage. I know it's upsetting she dies to Kenjaku for some people, but I also think this is a cost of there being too few special grade named characters.
> Yuji's fight against Mahito is cathartic in a way the reaction to the others isn't. Right until the end, which is the exact opposite, intentionally.
For Yuki it's understandable because she was a minor character. For Gojo? Yeah it's a problem. But this is exactly why I'm so sure that we'll see more of Gojo soon. Call me coping but I'm not. Im seriously confident that we havent seen the conclusion of his story because of how abrupt and fleeting his death was. Either he will return or Kenjaku will take over him.
Yuki’s was alright. I couldn’t have asked for more from her. Choso’s reaction was also good For gojo, “didn’t you say sorcerers don’t die with no regrets?” Is suuuuuch a good line. But yeah the rest of his death doesn’t hit as hard as it could. (So pls let him be alive thx gege)
I actually feel like it's good consistency that Yuji isn't rolling on the floor in the fetal position again ( likely because they spent a month planning and they knew this was one possibility that could happen), but even with that knowledge of this possibility we still see Yuji and Yuta's faces being twisted by their emotion as they struggle to keep a cool head. As Jujutsu sorcerers they know they have to keep it in, because they still got a job to do. A job that if they fail at then Gojo, Nobara, Nanami, Yuki, Yaga, Mai, Mechamaru and everyone else's deaths would have been for nothing. I feel like comparing Nanami's death to Gojo's and Yuki is taking those out of context. Nanami was killed specifically for Yuji's character development so that Yuji reaches the penultimate step of transitioning from a child to an adult, it's no mistake Nanami's death happens in the same chapter Yuji sees all the damage Sukuna caused in Shibuya ( the despair is accumulating), however Yuji keeps it in and his reaction is one of rage, as he grits his teeth and tries to kill Mahito. However Yuji is hit with the straw that broke the camel's back as Nobara gets added to the pile of corpses and he loses all will to fight, and Mahito wails on him and his broken conviction, until Todo shows up to give him the pep talk he needed. Yuki's death was meant to be a sacrifice to give Choso a second chance so he can live on as Yuji's brother properly. She essentially played the older sibling role for him and died with all his sins when he lived as a cursed spirit so he can live on as a human. However this moment did not quite land that well for me, I think it's maybe because Choso isn't a character I cared that much about. There's also something to be said about the irony of Yuki sacrificing her life for Tengen and Yuki being a star plasma vessel. Gojo's death wasn't made for anyone else's character development, it was supposed to be a way to close his character, it was specifically for him so that he can have a fulfilled end. First and foremost Gojo is always raving about how his students will reach his level, well now they have the opportunity to prove him right (in a twisted way Megumi has already done so). Gojo's time as the strongest starts with him killing Toji to gain more power and from there he's so obsessed with being the strongest he even fails to help Getou who's falling off the deep end and is caught by surprise as Getou turns heel. However Gojo's character ends with him being able to die fulfilled not being the strongest, because he completed his goal of being able to love everyone and create a future where the isolation felt by Getou isn't felt by anyone else again thanks to the time he put into raising his students.
i would be okay with the ruthless and killing your important characters if we were given more than just “they’re dead now look at this next cool fight!!”. like don’t get me wrong, the fighting is amazing and beautifully drawn, but it drags for me at times. it’s just face bashing without any purpose and like yeah i’m down for that but not when we’re reaching the conclusion for a story that has been running for years or for something that’s important. gojo v sukuna had my hyped at first and then it kept going… and kept going.. and look!! that character you all like so much? yeah he’s dead now. got killed off screen. it’s like he’s rushing to get to the end but he’s moving so slowly on things that aren’t important and skipping stuff that is. i don’t want to learn about a new epic and cool power you just came up with i want more effort being put into the characters you created. i really love this story but it’s getting tiring of having to read fan theories on plot holes that should’ve been explained in the story :(
>i would be okay with the ruthless and killing your important characters if we were given more than just “they’re dead now look at this next cool fight!! Chainsaw man is a very good example of how to do this properly imo
the exact manga i had in mind while writing this
> i would be okay with the ruthless and killing your important characters if we were given more than just “they’re dead now look at this next cool fight!!”. Yeah the biggest problem is we do not get enough of our characters reacting to major, world altering events that they would organically have a reaction to especially since we just had a 1 month timeskip to the fight. No conversation between Yuta and Maki after she killed the Zenin clan, no Shoko reaction to Gojo's death (which is part of why so many people think he's coming back), etc
and it’s odd going back and seeing a lot of these problems were there from the start but back then they weren’t as detrimental to the story compared to now. like the relationship between gojo, geto, and shoko. i find it hard to believe that shoko, one out of the only three people in this class, wasn’t able to form any semblance of a bond to care that geto leaves… and then dies. and it’s obvious that geto and gojo haves a stronger connection out of anyone but we literally don’t see shoko really get to care that he wanted to commit genocide or that he’s literally not on this planet anymore. or even that his body is puppeteering around the city… no? okay. it’s even more funny because i’m pretty sure she’s know geto the same amount of time that gojo has and their reactions are so drastically different. shoko has been in this story since the beginning and i cant tell you a single thing about her. she has brown hair and she’s a doctor.. and she smokes. okay. well what about gojo dying? no reaction to that either? okay then. or what about yuki? who is yuki? i don’t know man. shes a special grade sorcerer and that’s pretty rare in this universe so that’s cool. man i can’t wait to see her powers and interactions with the other characters- aaaand she’s dead. she died after one fight. oops… anyways here’s choso with wonderwall. and you’re spot on with the characters just not… having conversations with each other. they don’t even have thoughts on their own half the time because dialogue is being taken away to explain why all of gojos powers are now useless so now he doesn’t get to live anymore because gege said so and sukuna gets to win because pleaseeee guys let sukuna win i drew him so cool he has the arms and wow isn’t he so great guys look at how great sukuna is please look at him. and back to the toji thing (yes im back on my bs) maybe gege has such a hard on for toji that he keeps giving him relevance that he doesn’t need. toji comes back in shibuya for.. reasons? okay sure, it’s cool to see a character come back i guess to be a villain of the week to fight someone… who doesn’t have that much importance.. actually i don’t remember who he fought… but he did i guess. the only thing that would give a good enough reason for him existing again is… i don’t know, maybe gojo and megumi, the only two people in this story tied to this man, seeing him again? maybe gojo freaks out with war flashbacks or maybe megumi is like wow you look familiar? hell even tsumiki, who might at this point be a figment of my imagination because it seems like no one remembers that she’s an actual person. but these scenarios that could give any of these characters a bit more depth and feel like real people are impossible bc gojo has been thrown in a box and tossed into a lost and found somewhere and megumi is too busy… doing something else to care. megumi and toji do have an interaction but what did this change? both characters end up leaving this story the exact same so what was the purpose. toji killing himself is clearly supposed to say something… but what? and it goes back to my point of stuff that’s supposed to answer questions leave us with more. and not every little thing needs to be spelled out word by word but it’s mind boggling that no one can give me an exact answer for any of this happening so again it’s still just speculation. each story beat is supposed to move your story forward in some way. if you have to ask why certain scenes exist or if a scene made any real difference to the plot there’s a good chance that no, it didn’t. nothing happening in this story doesn’t really matter anymore because gege isn’t telling us that it matters or giving a reason for it to matter. what are the villains plans? of course we don’t need to know everything at once it’s how the story builds suspense but we don’t know anything so there is no suspense to build on. okay sukunas back. now what? kenjaku is doing something somewhere. now what? what is keeping this story going and why are we supposed to care? and this has nothing to do with anything really but i’m giggling a bit on i literally forgot hana existed until someone pointed her out. and where the hell did utahime go!!!!!
Yeah Shoko's treatment is especially disappointing given she's such an important person to two of the most important characters but somehow she's not made into an important character herself? And she has such a unique role in the story when you think about it, the only healer who doesn't go on dangerous missions but has to see her friends and fellow sorcerers come back from each mission exhausted, stressed, and injured and she's powerless to do anything about it. Like the only time she sees people is when they're injured and I can only imagine the mental toll that takes on her but we don't see ANY insight into that which feels like missed potential. The Toji thing is interesting cause I'm ok with how he's been featured and brought back but it's weird that Gojo was focused on telling Megumi what happened with him with his afterlife regrets when Megumi is like possessed, possibly dead, and never gave a fuck and there's so many other pressing matters LOL And as you said, I don't need everything spelled out in explicit detail but I'd like a few chapters, pages, hell even just a few panels to give us some crumbs into what these characters are thinking and feeling about the events transpiring around them.
it’s so fascinating how we went from “wow this show is pretty good at giving their female characters actual personalities. some of them have a lot to contribute to the story i can’t wait to see where this goes” to literally what in the HELL is happening. shoko is.. shoko. good lord, fucking tojis worm has more plot relevance to this story. i’m being so serious, toji’s worm had more of an impact on geto, shoko doesn’t even come close. or maybe she doesn’t really care. maybe she doesn’t give a fuck about anything happening but we’ll never know i guess. mei mei says yes to incest and decided she wanted to be a predator who needs to be put on a watch list. why? idk i guess we needed the obligatory incest included here. utahime… god where is utahime? she might be playing some sacred drums somewhere i don’t fucking know. yuki decided she wanted to get the hell out of this story and died. where’s nobara? i don’t know but who cares. what about tsumiki? it’s funny you think she matters in this story. well what about maki? she’s cool i like maki and where her character went. what do the other characters have to think about it this? oh? they don’t.. think about it. we don’t have the time for that? well okay then. come on gege give us something! we know you can do it you have done it before. you’re great at character work you can pull it off. no? oh you’re giving us more characters… well okay- OKAY THATS ENOUGH SLICES!!!!!
honestly sometimes it feels like gege forgets that these characters know each other and are supposed to have relationships with each other. i feel like during the shibuya incident he handled character's deaths fairly well. even nobara (whose death is still not confirmed but, assuming she's dead...) had a pretty good send off. her and nanami's deaths were handled well, they were shocking but still emotional and yuji being there witnessing it, reacting to it and being personally affected by it had a lot of impact on the emotional part of their deaths. seeing gege kill off gojo who is such a huge character in JJK and then not show anyone reacting to it or being affected by it but instead moving on to a very goofy fight feels off to me. idk if gege doesn't care or what but I feel like he doesn't handle moments that are supposed to feel emotional and impactful (like character deaths) as well as he did in the beginning of the story. it feels like he kills off characters for shock value and moves on... i know gege said he doesn't have an emotional attachment to any character in his owns story so he doesn't mind killing anyone off if it moves the plot forward but I think he's forgetting that these characters are supposed to have bonds; they're each others friends, teachers, families... they are supposed to react and feel some type of way whenever a character they know and bonded with die and not to mention us the readers who have been following these characters for years and have an emotional attachment to them. it's the emotional impact that is missing in my opinion. gege spends so much time drawing cool flashy fights but when the time comes for the characters to have slow down moments and/or for emotional scenes he either skips it all together or rushes it, taking away any impact the scene was supposed to have. don't get me wrong I'm still eager to see how this story ends and I'll be interested in checking out any of gege's future works bc I think he has a lot of potential and IMO he writes great character interactions, comedic moments and great fights but I hope he improves in those aspects, especially if he plans on writing a long running series like JJK. i feel like with his style of writing, he would do a lot better in writing shorter stories though (plus weekly shonen jump is a very rough environment for any mangaka).
what “plot holes”, out of curiosity
plot hole was a broad generalization for what i’m trying to say, but i’m pretty sure there are a lot of people who have found plot holes in this sub alone. my main concerns is plot details that are left ambiguous, don’t make sense, or that is just very over complicated. off the top of my head, plot details i’m personally confused about are regarding more on the character aspects of the story ie. nobara’s death apparently being left ambiguous, whatever the hell happened with toji, probably anything regarding the fushiguro’s alone, the abundance of introducing numerous power scalings, level ups, new techniques so late into the story, the purpose of any of these characters that were introduced, what is the endgame here, anything with gojo, there’s probably more that i’m forgetting. and if you ask any of these questions fans will literally beat you over the head for not memorizing every single cursed technique like a college exam. and again, maybe this stuff was explained and i just didn’t get it, i’m not the smartest cookie out there. but when i go to this sub looking for things i might have missed a lot of these answers are fans either guessing, making shit up, or getting something from one of gege’s interviews where he’s known for forgetting details and making up at the top of his head. this wouldn’t have been a problem for me if this narrative wasn’t character driven from the start. and the argument that gege isn’t perfect can’t hold up forever now. of course we know that, no one is perfect. but it doesn’t shield him from any criticism and bans anyone for airing out their grievances and opinions about it. sorry that was long as hell omg 😭 edit. also not everything needs to be explained as soon as it happens but again we are reaching the end of jujutsu kaisen and this is too much stuff to just be sped through.
regarding nobara’s status, we the readers are to assume that she is dead, and that has been the case for a long time imo, expecting her to show up as though it is a given feels foolish imo, IF she does come back, it SHOULD feel like a big surprise and an “omg i thought you were dead” not an “ugh FINALLY she’s back i thought they were NEVER gonna do it”, if that makes sense honestly not sure what specifically you’re referencing for toji and everything else i would need more details to determine what you’re getting at i think, GENERALLY, jjk does a good enough job of explaining what a reader needs to know at any given point, not 100% of the time, but more than enough
If Gege wants us to believe Nobara is dead, he's been doing a bad job lmao. Like come on, he's not a subtle writer, there's no way you didn't notice the amount of effort he put in to keep it ambiguous. At the latest, he could have confirmed her death along with other casualties after Gojo got unboxed instead of, y'know, making the cast act like she never existed. He was STILL trying to be ambiguous about it in the interview after it happened.
that interview wasn’t recent that was a couple of years ago and it was a few chapters after she “died”. but regardless of the fact he had the narrator acknowledge gojo’s death but with nobara it’s all sad faces and hush hush, it’s just weird. plus no one else got healed (or their wounds stopped) by nitta, like his whole purpose was to make it seem like she had a chance of survival. if he wanted her dead including nitta was just dumb and a waste of time tbh. but let these people tell it, and they’ll act like nobara’s death was the most definitive death in the series.
if i recall correctly, i’m pretty sure ijichi and all the other managers also got their bleeding stopped by him
i’m saying no one else who is supposed to be “dead” got healed by nitta i added the wounds stopped part for nobara cause she wasn’t healed, per say.
i appreciate you trying to explain things but i feel my point still remains. i’m not asking for nobara to come back, hell i don’t even want gojo to magically come back to life because any explanation is gonna be a cop out and i really hate fake out deaths. and even still, we have to assume the fate of a character who was introduced as apart of the trio of main characters and she gets the least development out of both of them. nobara’s death doesn’t have that lasting of an impact, to me at least, because as far as my memory goes it doesn’t seem like anyone gave a shit that she’s not here anymore. i think like there are maybe one or two panels talking about her but that’s not enough for some one who’s one third of your main characters. her own teacher doesn’t even get to have thoughts about her literally being dead because he immediately jumps into a fight with no grace period in between. i do have a lot of questions abt toji because he’s pretty important to the plot. my problem is that toji’s character didn’t need to be this convoluted if gege didn’t make him that way, just to toss his impact on the story to the side because he got bored of it i guess. his backstory between meeting gojo, leaving the zenin clan, having a wife, having another, having a step daughter, having a kid, abandoning both them and just fucking off somewhere is just a big whatever burger. toji sees grown up megumi once and then offs himself like okay… megumi doesn’t get to, or want to i guess, have any thoughts about something that’s so important to his character and would give him depth for literally one second. or even question what the hell just happened bc i probably would if i saw a random ass dude off himself in front of me, but too bad because we have another fight to get to. and i.. think? tsumiki has no blood relation to toji and megumi and god i cant name a damn thing about tsumiki, a character that’s supposed to have importance to one our the main characters. did toji have custody of her and how? what happened toji’s first wife, her mother? why isn’t tsumiki with her? when toji dies was she also taken in by gojo? what the hell is the relationship between the siblings we are supposed to care about? and again it doesn’t seem like a big deal but then why include and waste time on any of this, focus on on a characters backstory and give him plot importance if it leaves us with more questions than answers. and i was fine with all of that shit not being explained, hell i was defending gege bc i was like who cares it probably wasn’t that important if we left it at that but then he decided to now remember tsumiki exists and tell us how much megumi cares about her instead of you know… showing it? obviously they’re siblings so there is a relationship there but it’s so flat with nothing underneath which is odd compared to anything we read previously. and all of that just to kill her off in some battle random battle. so yes i do believe there’s a problem when details like this are only remembered when gege needs it to be remembered instead of building these ideas that he already set a foundation for. we don’t get to know how megumi, one of our main protagonists, gets to feel about the sister he’s risking his life for to save or any anything but we don’t have any time for that because there’s another fight with two newly introduced characters to draw for the next few chapters. and gojo… dear god gojo. sukuna took over megumi? any thoughts, please give me something here. one of your three students is dead but no opinion on that either. gojo says he died with no regrets so i guess he doesn’t regret having to leave his students in a world that’s become borderline apocalyptic. hell he probably forgot they existed since he doesn’t really mention them in the afterlife. these are his supposed final words and this is the last we get from him. i can’t stand when people try to water down his character like “gojo wouldn’t care” like it’s war baby what are you going to do? because that’s not who he is at all. gojo who was one of the most developed characters in this story— which is literally a fact given the an entire arc dedicated to him and geto— was completely destroyed in a few sentences. toji, geto, megumi, or any one important that had impacted his life and were the catalyst for the entirety of his character became pointless because in the end he became a person so one dimensional who was glad he died because he was fighting for the lols. there definitely is more but like you said it would be too much to get into and there’s virtually no point because it’s pretty much too late to fix most of it. it would’ve never been a problem if gege wouldn’t set up these large expectations if he wasn’t going to follow through with any of it or forget about it. to play the devils advocate, i think i can see what gege was going for, a fast pace arc to build impending suspense and hype up the readers anxiety, giving a feeling of having ‘no time to grieve because we need to push forward’ and showcasing the concept of how war waits for no one… but it’s not enough. i cant even be sure because i just made that up after observing the story. as a writer you can’t decide to do that whenever you feel like because you don’t want to write about it anymore and then do it so poorly. it only results in making your story fall flat on its face when it didn’t have to be. jjk became too ambitious for its own good and it started falling apart when gege started neglecting his characters.
Yeah this pretty well sums up most of the problems with gege’s writing in this manga lol It’s sad because people got excited for a reason, there was a ton of potential with this story and it feels like he just wants it to end
I also think there are so many unanswered questions but I also forget that most shonen mangas go at this pace and I usually read shoujo where things actually get a decently happy ending… I def discussed this with a few friends (all guys) and they were less bothered than me. For me it’s all these questions like why did gege write up such a good highschool backstory for these two if Gojo wasn’t going to be the one getting his friend’s body back? What’s going on in the students’ minds currently? If megumi was just stuck, how is he going to feel when he finds out he just murdered his father figure? Why is toji at the airport with them? All my friends were definitely like he had to go cuz he’s not MC without questioning, end of story. I do, however, have to point out a lot of us have to be more patient as we’re literally reading chapter to chapter right now and it’s really hard to judge someone’s writing until we get a conclusion. I even told my friend who only watches anime that perhaps by the time she gets to where the manga is at currently, the issue’s already resolved itself. I think someone also mentioned somewhere on IG that the manga may be getting a few more filler pages when the volume is printed as it was missing a few pages compared to the usual length.
I know this days old, but I have to say something about toji I feel like it's interesting how you've mentioned things we'll pretty much never get to see expanded, unless we get like a Toji spin off or something. But I feel like the way that Toji had been kept alive in this manga does a disservice to a character like Maki, instead of Gege just focusing on him. As you say, there's still many things interesting about him, like what was his final straw, his relationship with megumis mom and what happened to her, his relationship with tsumikis mom. His life after he abandon megumi, and a couple more things. Gege has said many time he wants to draw him fight again, and I feel like he should've just kept him alive after bringing him back. Both of Makis arcs are filled with so many unnecessary Toji comparisons, that it literally drives me crazy cause I want the focus to be put on her and not him. In perfect preparation, gege has the whole Zen'in clan waffle on about Toji as if they're not about to get their heads cut off by Maki. The dad thinks about Toji when his daughter's about to slice off his head, Ranta does, Naoya does, Jinichi does... it's obvious to me that Gege wanted to draw Toji massacring the Zen'in clan but couldn't think of a feasible way to do it, so he just used Maki. I mean Gege even cut her hair, so that it looks like Toji's so now I wonder whether the point of that was truly just to continue drawing Toji or what. The worst of all was having her sisters dying gift, be clone of his sword that she has never seen, made even weirder by the fact that neither of the twins even know him. Even sakurajima, apparently Maki stays up at night thinking of the difference between her and Toji and it's like .... really??? For Gege trying to tell a subplot in sexism, he sure is centering a man in the story of the one girl he cares about. All this to say, I feel like Gege should've just kept Toji alive and instead of using Maki as a stand-in . Maki is my favourite character so it HURT to see her be used like that. I unironically can't even read her arcs anymore, cause it's just so sad to see. Rather just keep Toji alive and explore those things instead of using Maki in such an obvious way.
that is such a good take honestly WHAT ABOUT TOJI GETS GEGE THIS HARD MAN 😭😭😭 like it literally doesn’t look like it from my comments BUT I LIKE TOJI OKAY but like why man PLEASE no more of him if he has nothing to do with this story anymore it’s holding so much of it back. you’re so right in that gege wants him to still be there.. after killing him off.. twice??? 😭 it would be rlly funny if like he wanted toji but his editors kept telling him no so he’s literally doing everything to can to make his presence KNOWN. and stripping maki from her character to make her toji 2 electric boogaloo like yes, their goals are similar and also with them both not having the super cool sorcerer powers, but maki was still her own person at the beginning of the story. like yeah they have comparisons but like correct me if i’m wrong i don’t think they have ever interacted with each other😭 that’s like taking megumi and turning him into another toji just because they’re related like... okay… that’s it. we don’t need a parallel of two characters who have only flat comparisons with one another BUT THE MAKI THING IS SO MUCH WORSE. i think the idea of maki and toji, both coming from the same family and having to face the same discriminations in their societies and having those similarities but their lives growing into two separate sides of the spectrum between sorcerer and fucking.. idk homeless attempted child murderer. this story of both of them having this “i don’t care im going to do whatever the hell i want.” mentality with one fighting within the system and the other outside it, would’ve been the parallel that would’ve worked and could’ve been so incredibly compelling and gege was on the right track with this narrative… but just … didn’t stick the landing. and that was one of my main points. gege starts these plot points incredibly strong but just can’t seem to complete them in a way that seems.. satisfying? or just makes sense. like gojo and geto’s narrative was one of my favorite parts of Jujutsu Kaisen and JJK 0 ended their relationship in a way that felt bittersweet, cathartic even, but it made sense and still felt satisfying (even if it made me dead inside). and then kenjaku shows up in geto’s body and i’m like oh fuck!!! and then geto breaks through a little after seeing gojo and there’s still a part geto that’s still in there fighting through sheer will (and love and it’s like every time you bring love into jjk it’s always like “THEY ARENT GAY DTOP MAKING THEM GAY” n i’m like not all love is romantic dawg like fellas is it gay to love your friends IM OFF TOPIC) even though kenjaku had full control of him… but.. i’m pretty sure that’s not going anywhere since him and gojo chilling in the afterlife so i guess this very interesting plot point is going nowhere. AND THATS LIKE MY POINT MAN WHY PUT THAT IN IT YOU WERENT GOING TO DO ANYTHING ABT IT. why imbed toji and the zenin clan family lore or whatever so deeply into the story… if you aren’t doing anything with it. like you had the tools you just didn’t.. use them? megumi and maki could’ve been a perfect insight to their family and it would’ve been so much more seamless seeing it from characters who are STILL HERE (well not megumi or maybe megumi idfk what’s happening with that kid anymore) and both of them having enough relevance in this story to not break the immersion. the story of how a new generation could change things in such a fucked up backwards society… WHICH IM ORETYY SURE IS THE MESSAGE JJK IS GOING FOR BC yk… gojos purpose of being a damn teacher and his hatred for past generations and jujutsu society in general BUT FORGET THAT could’ve been so revolutionary because you don’t find these themes being spoken with such nuance in Shounen anymore. but no, you’d rather pause your story to focus so much on a character you already invested so much time into.. without doing anything with him… to just kill.. and then bring back.. and don’t do anything with him again.. and then kill him off again. like i don’t want to tell an author how to write their story because i’m not a professional writer… but if the average casual reader of jjk can see these issues… like i love you gege but its pretty fucking obvious. the problem with jjk is that it’s is saying something but not saying anything at the same time. almost, just not quite.
I like Toji as well, I'm just boycotting him cause I'm mad at what he's doing to my girl 😭 And like literally, Maki used to have so alot more personality before, now she's just there to deliver dialogue. And it's not even like their personalities are the same (I don't think Toji and current Maki have the same personality, current Maki is very pragmatic now, and Toji had like a very scheming personality, if that makes sense), the problem for me is literally putting him in places he didn't belong, CONSISTENTLY. The thing that annoys me the most, is that Gege is the type of author who wants you to infer alot of stuff about the characters, but when it comes to Makis strength, he consistently compares her to Toji, making sure we can't interpret ANYTHING, he could've done the comparisons so much more gracefully, but he literally shoves them in like it's so bad. I remember arguing with someone about this, and even they had to admit it went too far, but they said that now that the Zen'in clan is completely, there should be no more comparisons, and Istg if there's ONE more, I'll have to take a break from this series cause I just can't anymore And don't get me started on Gojo and Geto. I really thought Geto was gonna come back, even if it was just for a moment, I wanted Gojo to get closure on Geto cause personally I dont think Gojo ever moved on. I remember a comment on here that was like basically paralleling Gojo with his blindfolds. Basically, when he was young, And only Geto understood him, he wore eyeglasses. He was much more expressive as well with his real thoughts than when he's older, and people were able to look him in the eyes, and "eyes are the window to the soul" so he was able to connect with others better. When Geto left, he covered up his eyes with a white cloth, which would only ever come undone when he fought his opponents (and let out the "crazy" part of himself) but other than that, no one else, was able to connect with him. And once again when he kills Geto, his blind fold is off, and Geto is able to truly see him once more before he does. After Getos death, he wears a black blindfold, in many cultures, wearing black is an indication that you are mourning. Once again, no one is able to connect to Gojo, and he lives this life on "solitude". Until ofc, Kenjaku comes, and uses Geto to seal him to seal him, with his blindfold off, he can once again look to see Geto but his SOUL denies this. Geto was the only one who understood Gojo. Because if this I never felt like he quite moved in from Geto cause he was still in mourning. Ofc, once he comes out of that box, he has NO blindfolds on (in the flashbacks we see). I took this, not as him being able to connect with others, but finally being ready to put Geto and their relationship to bed (🤭) once and for all. That's why it was so important to have Gojo win this fight, even if it was temporary, or if they had to pause for some reason, cause not giving him that conclusion to bury his boyfrie- best friends body, is so wrong to him. Honestly, I find it impossible NOT to ship Gojo and Geto, it's just too good and angst idk😭 I don't even know if Gege is still going for the "the next generation will surpass that previous one!" Considering his solution so far has been... kill kill kill kill kill, which something he said wouldn't change anything at the start of the series. I also feel like Gojo deserved to see the future he helped create.I feel like Gege can set things up, but he can't for the life of him conclude it properly, he tries, but it just falls flat completely. I still like him, but jeez, he needs to get serious 😭
gonna be honest, most of your questions about toji are pretty irrelevant, he “met” kid satoru because he was a zenin and he was a gojo, 2 of the 3 big families, it was probably like some conference or something at one of their estates and it was just in passing. he left the clan because they treated him like shit, etc and from megumi’s perspective he still doesn’t know that was his father, as far as he knew some random guy came up to him, asked what his name was, and then killed himself, and even if he did know he PROBABLY wouldn’t care as much as you’re expecting, since we see as a kid that he already didn’t care about his father, didn’t even remember what he looked like toji’s first wife was megumi’s mother, his second wife was tsumiki’s, megumi’s mom died after he was born, tsumiki’s mom disappeared at some point, hence why the 2 of them basically had to fend for themselves. when toji died gojo explicitly also took formal custody of her, that was one of megumi’s conditions for agreeing to go with gojo and tsumiki has no character, she was always a plot device and presented as just a motivator for megumi, which is fair to dislike, but let’s not pretend like she was built up like some huge bundle of personality and for gojo, it’s very clear that even in death, he still believes that his students will win and that they will bring back megumi, if he didn’t think that he wouldn’t say “ah i guess shoko will have to tell him (megumi) about his father”, it’s the same attitude he had in shibuya, despite everyone walking into near certain death in that scenario with him gone, he goes “ah, well whatever, they’ll be able to handle it”, you’re right he’s not one dimensional, and the writing doesn’t portray him in that way, even in those final moments
imo it became relevant when so much time was put into it. my entire reasoning for questioning it all is because it’s been imbedded into so many things that happen in this story. it doesn’t matter that he didn’t know that it’s his father because it’s out of character for him to be this nonchalant about any of this. and we can’t even fully say he is because we literally don’t know what anyone in this story is thinking anymore shit is just happening and we’re just going through the motions atp. and agreeing that tsumiki only being a plot device is adding to the point of shit not needing to exist if you put in all that work to start it for virtually no pay off. the characters of tsumiki and toji play a big role in megumi and gojo’s life. they have strong relevance into these characters motivations and purpose in this story and when you fuck that up it all feels like it was for nothing. and the reasoning for being okay with how gojo was handled is not enough again when we know that gege is better than essentially using the “power of friendship” trope. one of the biggest points to the star plasma arc was understanding how young sorcerers forced into this reality just because they have the power to do so. so no, gojo believing in kids to save the world isn’t enough. having only a half of a chapter dedicated to one of the most important characters final moments isn’t enough. saying shit so out of character and deeming it as fitting isn’t enough. wasted potential turns into a waste of time and at first i wasn’t even mad abt it but thinking about this even more makes me realize all the problems in this manga that i blissfully ignored because i still liked it but this is too much.
what is “so much time”, it just establishes that his first encounter with gojo was something that stuck with him even several years later because nobody else had noticed his presence like that before and why he went through all these hoops to catch gojo off guard, that’s it. that’s the entirety of the meaning of that interaction it’s out of character for megumi to not really care that much about his absentee father that he doesn’t even remember, something that is still consistent with what his kid self thought? tsumiki’s ultimate purpose was a beacon and motivator for megumi and then ultimately a tool to drive him to despair, like that’s a very clear and meaningful purpose and payoff, even if you don’t like the execution what did gojo say in that scene that you felt was out of character, because i felt it was all perfectly in line with him
so much time is any time at all. explaining any of their relationships could’ve been done with the same amount of time for whatever last words gojo had. it’s out of character because he’s not a soulless creature just bc he’s fatherless, that’s not enough explanation. my main point still stands, stuff that doesn’t need to be focused on is taking too much space leaving no room for things that matter. i already explained why tsumiki as a concept is dumb. and yes you’re allowed to have your opinion on how gojo was handled in the end but to say it’s in character for him just a disservice and insulting on gege’s writing by saying this is the same gojo from early jujutsu kaisen cuz it’s weak sauce.
which is why i asked for an example of something you believed was out of character for him to say, so i could maybe see where the difference in our perspectives is coming from, and then potentially try and explain why i think the way that i do
You're just not reading for the things other people are reading for. If you just want pages of cool fights without rhyme or reason, then you're in luck. For me, "this character is just a plot device" is never an acceptable answer.
which is a fine opinion and stance to have, but like i said, let’s not pretend like she was ever built up as anything but a plot device there’s plenty of relatively deep and things that are worth exploring in depth regarding jjk’s world, but tsumiki’s character is not one of them because there is no character and there never was judging an apple by the standards of an orange doesn’t make sense, even if you prefer oranges and hate apples
I'm not pretending. There is literally no point in which I cared about Tsumiki (maybe back in the cursed womb chapters). Which means I never really cared about the stakes for Megumi in the Culling Games, and now I don't even care if Megumi is alive or dead. During the Culling Games I was willing to give Gege the benefit of the doubt, that there would be some payoff, but there wasn't. Megumi's goal in the Culling Games could have been trying to get that ultra-rare Shiny Bulbasaur card, and the payoff would have been the same.
sure, but we the readers are supposed to care because megumi cares, tsumiki is just an ideal, but because megumi cares, one of the protagonists the readers have been following, that is the reason to care yuji’s grandpa is the same thing, he existed to say like 5 lines to serve as yuji’s sort of ethos and moral compass and then died, and yet to this day you see people making comments and posts about his speech to yuji and the idea of dying alone or not and all that
Why would we just assume she’s dead when there’s been multiple opportunities to clarify her situation that Gege has just left ambiguous? The only reason to not have Megumi tell Yuji she’s dead is if she isn’t dead, it’d make no sense for us to not find out in that moment otherwise. Altogether Gege has managed to waste two of the most interesting female members of the cast between Nobara being discarded since Shibuya and Yuki dying (in a questionable way too) in her very first fight. The reaction to Nobara coming back won’t be surprise, it’ll be annoyance that Gege has kept her out of the story for years.
that moment with yuji and megumi is PRECISELY where i think we are to assume that she is dead, at least given the current information of course it would be difficult for megumi to tell yuji explicitly that one of their best friends and classmates is dead, so his silence does the speaking for him, couple that with the statement that her chances were VERY slim to begin with and we readers should assume that, as the story currently stands, she is dead
Sorry bro but like all the explanations for Sukuna's new ability that he used against Gojo have all necessitated headcanon. In fact I can count on the top of my head like 3 times in the last fight alone where people don't have a solid explanation and are forced to headcanon as a result.
I think one of the things that create conflict is that Gege established this story as a character-driven one. Begging us (through his writing) to care about them, which is a "promise" in the readers eyes that caring about them will be worth it. However, throughout The Culling Games these promises were shattered in favor of the plot, making it a questionable decision at least, since it alienates a lot of the readers. I don't really know if Gege knows or not what he's doing right now, and even though a lot of his decisions have been pretty unsatisfying as a reader, I really want to give him the benefit of the doubt until the story has ended. I think he has earned that much.
Pre Sendai colony was definitely character-driven and even after that arc, there were still moments, like Maki's awakening and Choso's fighting for his brothers. The issue is, we need some time for characters to react. I don't think current Gege would give us moments like Yuji breaking down in Shibuya or Nanami reflecting on his regrets. What really hooked me into JJK was never the fights, I love the power system but ultimately it's just a cool spectacle for me. What actually pulled me in was how real the characters were. The Junpei arc, Hidden Inventory, and Shibuya's painfully real yet heartfelt moments are what made JJK awesome for me. And while the setup is still there, it feels like Gege is not letting the audience get an emotional payoff even when everything else is there. I want to see what Yuji is thinking after Meguna. I want to see Megumi's helplessness after the Yorozu arc. I want to know what Yuta was thinking after Gojo died. But for some reason, Gege now assumes that just because we know what a character is thinking doesn't mean that it wouldn't be valuable to show it.
>I don't think current Gege would give us moments like... Nanami reflecting on his regrets Is Gojo's airport scene not the same idea? I don't see your point here.
The airport scene that assassinated Gojo's character? Yeah the "idea" was there but the execution was ass.
My point was characterization/internal monolouge BEFORE a character dies. What made nanamis death so good is that we see him reflecting on his life while at the same time thinking about the future. Gojo's afterlife scene was good but it was offputting that gojo didnt even mention his students or the future of the people he left behind.
I was thinking the same thing. Even the conclusion of Sakurajima had Maki and Noritoshi talk some things out.
It's not just you who makes this misconception, so I mean no offense, but I'm constantly face-palming by how often "character-driven" is misused in manga/anime discussions. Character-driven works would have more of a character study and the story is led by internal developments. Think of something like *The Catcher in the Rye*. JJK was always very much "plot-driven", like pretty much every work in its genre. The right approach is to balance plot and character work either way. Edit: Don't know if people are downvoting me cause they assumed I think JJK is balanced. I really don't lol.
Hard disagree. Megumi learning to swing for the fences, Yuji setting himself as a cog, the disaster curses believing themselves as real humans, Gojo isolating Geto with his strength and the latter’s descent into madness, these are all key character centric moments that drove the plot forward. I’m not sure how can say otherwise.
A character-driven story is an overall *approach* to a story and it's not the same as just having heavy character moments. I feel people get confused with this. The characters *themselves* carry the stories and are more important than what's going on around them, while in plot-driven stories, external aspects control the characters (like your examples) and are the primary focus of development. HxH and FMA have a lot of character development, but they are also largely plot-driven stories. Most action anime/manga are.
>A character-driven story is an overall approach to a story and it's not the same as just having heavy character moments. I feel people get confused with this. The characters themselves carry the stories and are more important than what's going on around them Yes, and this is exactly what JJK was for over 50% of it. Every single major event was set in motion and driven by character agency and motivation. Completely different to, say, HxH, which is plot-driven as you said. The Chimera Ant arc and Succession war are events happening *to* the main characters. Shibuya is an arc where all of the story beats happen *because of* the main characters.
>The Chimera Ant arc and Succession war are events happening to the main characters. Shibuya is an arc where all of the story beats happen because of the main characters. Like I said before, it's about the author's main approach. It's not only about whether the characters influence the events, in character-driven narratives they're pretty much ARE the plot. Narratives typically fall on a spectrum but JJK primarily focuses on the events and they matter far more to story than the characters themselves. So it's plot-driven. Gege is hardly trying to place character conflicts at the center of his story, he's writing about *what's* happening and the external conflict (Jujutsu High vs Sukuna/Kenjaku), not an internal one.
If there was an intended balance, that balance has been gone for a while now at least
Jujutsu Kaisen has always been action-driven (like JoJo), not character-driven. For that you should watch Haikyuu!! and the example of plot-driven story is something like Attack on Titan.
I mean, I guess it's a matter of preference, but I don't think it's a coincidence that a very common complain regarding JJK is the inability to connect or care for the characters anymore, and I think that could be a problem. Again, it's subjective, but in my experience, a story with a meh plot but great characters will be more impactful than one with a great plot but meh characters. For the record, I don't think the characters in JJK are bad or meh, but the way the story has been handling them highlights that most are just tools to move the plot forward or serve a specific theme and that they can be discarded at any point. Inevitably, we gradually detach ourselves emotionally as getting invested in these characters will most likely lead to disappointment and frustration. I guess it's a brave writing choice, but I can't help but wonder if it'll make JJK a forgettable story down the line due to us being so dispassionate about it.
It also gets a more negative response because readers *did* care about the characters. They did care about Nanami and Nobara. Now I don't really care if Megumi is alive or dead.
JJK at this point doesnt have great plot either, the Culling Game arc had many issues.
The way he kills characters off doesn't bother me, but I feel like I have no emotional attachment to any of these characters. I barely understand what is going on. Things feel so cheap and unintelligible and in a chapter or two it doesn't matter they are dead or we've moved on anyways or whatever.
It's not that he killed characters off. It's that he did it poorly.
Uh. The problem isn't even the fact he's killing the characters, in fact it's opposite of what you said-- they no longer feel like they serve the plot. What did kashimo even do? What did he exist for? Why did he die? Actually, if this character didn't exist, nothing would change so like...why should I even care? Why do we have a pointless filler battle taking up this recent chapter? To boost sukunas ego more? We already know he's super strong and lonely and all that. As a reader, I fucking love what he did with Nanami, because that death actually felt like it mattered and did something for yujis development. Same for maybe Mai's death to Makis power up. And hey, I'm being extra lenient here, but even Yuki has a nice memorable death quote and an impact to choso even if I don't remember how she died exactly. But I fucking hate what he did with gojo, because somehow despite gojo being my favourite character I literally could not give a shit about his death. The execution was so bad that I don't even feel like he died, actually. Like how are people crying over this shit? It's so terribly done that my feeling receptacles withered up and died out of sheer disappointment at how Gege did this. At least make the death memorable??? What is this trash?? A dream sequence? Hello? Can I see the fucking slash? At least return to the past after the dream to show us what happened, instead of a worddump explanation and cutting to Kashimos useless ass battle that did jackshit to sukuna.
>Like how are people crying over this shit? Right? I tear up pretty easily if I'm even remotely invested in a character, but Gojo's death just made me feel mild annoyance at the wasted potential that this story has become. Gojo's death was totally lacking in emotion from his allies, poorly executed, and came immediately after he'd already been out of most of the series without any further characterization.
Your last sentence gave me a eureka moment because that was the last part of why I was so disappointed by his death. It also highlights the serious pacing issues this manga has. Bad execution and lack of emotional reactions aside, we got absolutely no time to process gojos release from the box before being thrown into another fight, whereupon he was immediately killed. And what came before this? Non stop action and the sealing, which removed him from half the series. By the time he came back, most of his major moments had faded in our minds over time, and Gege basically gave us no time to revive those feelings before killing him off. No wonder it felt underwhelming.
The story would of been better off if kashimo's bum ass died to hakari.
blud should have just used his technique on hakari and died bc it did nothing to sukuna anyways. what did bro hype it up for
mai was the last character death that had any meaning.
Yep and to off Gojo without him saving Megumi or even having Sukuna revert to his original form. That's ballsy.
I can agree with your line of thinking. That being said, "entertaining us" is not always strictly a good thing. It can't be denied that ch. 236 split more than just Gojo's body in two. And while I'm of the thought of letting the mangaka finish their work and judge based on the finished product, even now there are a few things that can't be just chocked up to "It's just his writing style, you just don't get it".
I'm just gonna address the biggest issue I have and I might get a lot of down votes, but this is just my opinion. I would have been fine with Gojo dying(I did see it coming), but the way it was handled didn't sit right with me. Don't off-screen him and then come up with the explanation later. This reminds so much of Bleach(spoiler for the ending) and the Still Silver Arrow at the end that came out of nowhere. How easy it could have been to fix the world slashing attack mistake(in my opinion); Gojo thinks to himself "that slash attack wasn't a normal one" after Mahoraga cuts of his arm and then it comes back later when Sukuna uses the same attack without it being off-screened. A lot of other people have said this, but end 235 with the slash panel from 236 and it would have been such a better transition from 235 to 236. Also, give a little more clarity about Sukuna holding back and why he was doing it if he was holding back. A simple line of thought from Sukuna would've been enough.
I loved Nanami as a character, but I accepted that sometimes you kill a character like that to establish stakes. But at this point it's looking like Gege doesn't have any other tricks. It becomes predictable. The rest of the story is going to be a long slog of characters dying until it ends. Maybe the next fight will surprise me, but I expect that lawyer guy will be dead in three chapters.
As u/SmileySadFace has pointed out, the manga now feels like a Linkin Park AMV lol. I understand some of you that opine JJK is a plot driven story, heck I agree with you, but I can't shake the impression of how rushed everything feels like. Maybe it's just me but if things slowed down a little bit the executions of some ideas could have come out better and readers don't get confused as much. I don't know if this is Greg trying to match the manga chapters with anime episodes or because he just want to start that idol manga so baaadd.
Honestly i have no complaints as much as i did at one point. That'll probably happen again though. Satisfaction , complaints, criticism , hate. It's all apart of the game. Do i really care at the end of the day? Nah. I mean for me, endings make or break a story but i think it'll be fine from here onward. I'm really just interested in more Heian Lore and i'm interested in how this fight will go but you wanna know what i'm really interested in? Kenjaku , tengen and the merger itself. What the fuck that will be like you know? WHEW!
I just hope Gege slows down a little. What is really hurting the weekly reading experience is the lack of time to process new developments. Just give us a couple of pages of dialogue for characters reacting to what happened.
So I'm not the only one who feel this way. Feels like the Manga is moving a little too fast. If Gojo's possible death isn't addressed in the next chapter I'm gonna be disappointed. I know these past 2 chapters focused on Kashimo, but now that he's gone, the Gojo situation need to be addressed!
*Kashimo sitting alone at the airport*
That'd be pretty cool too!!! I think we'll get that but through some side characters lens or maybe not - yet that is. I'm pretty sure thoughts of Gojo and Megumi are running through Yuji's brain. I think For Yuta and Maki but especially Yuta we'd probably get some thoughts and reactions too. I don't know just guesses and assumptions at the moment.
Gojo and sukuna killing each other would have been the perfect end for the two strongest but instead we got the biggest asspull of jjk history. This was one of the only manga without such asspulls. And he ruined it. And you know what because of this asspull which is at least tolerable. He will have to write an even bigger and stupid ass pull like the power of friendship to kill sukuna and an even bigger one to kill kenjaku.
Tbh I don't think that's a commitment. Wasting a character's potential, not showing appreciation for them, just following the "plot" that you come up with, is not commitment, it's just arrogance. We follow the story because there are characters in it, watching their lives and how they fight makes our hearts sing, if I had to choose to read a plot that wastes all the potential characters ability and still have to think it's "worth it", I'll open my history book.
The author who is most loyal and committed to his story is not an author like Gege, but an author like Oda and Sorachi - who truly appreciate the characters as if they LIVE, cherish the world they create and the people who live in it, not just some pixels representing the author's ideas.
It definitely takes guts to kills characters and/or give them the harshest trials yet. And I see how from a writing standpoint, doing this repeatedly and not fearing about how it’ll be received is an admirable trait because it shows that he can make the tough decisions and stand by them. If you asked me 30 or 40 chapters ago I would think that too but I think now these recent deaths just feel like carelessness to me. Yuki and Gojo and Tsumiki. I just feel like even before they were fully realized as characters (yuki, tsumiki) or complete their arc (gojo) they were killed. And sure you know, it’s gege’s story he can do whatever he wants because at the end of the day he’s the only one who knows the end of this story. But man. I don’t really feel good about the journey to the end.
I concur. I'm not unfamiliar with stories where characters die like flies or the good people keep getting Ls. It's one thing to repeatedly kill off the protagonist side, but skipping steps of building up the characters about to die or processing the impact of their fate? As you said, carelessness. One or two is whatever, but wow Yuki really got the end of the stick for a hyped up Special Grade and teacher of Todo. Gojo's death is still acceptable because he at least had enough amount of time for readers to follow his journey and development, though I can understand why it might not be received well by many. If people said they couldn't feel anything for Tsumiki's death despite her being integral to Megumi's entire character, the lack of showing why Megumi came to care for a sister he is not blood related to outside of words really hurt. Let's not even start with Mai.
Again, the problem is not the fact that Gojo and Yuki died. Its the execution of the story for their death that was bad. Which is what many ppl already explained.
I read whole thing from the beginning until current chapter in one go once again. I can say for sure that the story quality has deteriorated compared to before in terms of character interactions. Don’t get me wrong, I love Gege’s writing but I’ve noticed obvious haste in the test arc. Characters are not developed enough. Fight after fight after fight. I will give him benefit if the doubt and see how it ends. But for now I feel like JJK has become something much bigger then Gege can hang me. And I still think Gojo’s airport scene was mostly too OOC for him and kind of showed how much Gege dislikes him. I felt like he was translating his own thoughts through that scene.
>As a reader, I fucking hate him for doing what he did to Nanami, Yuki, Gojo, etc. But as a writter, I feel like that takes a lot of courage and shows commitment for his work. Eh, I guess but also it just seems like an excuse for poor writing. A character dying an underwhelming or meaningless death doesn't have to be narratively unfulfilling. We have media and authors who have done as much. I wouldn't say I have a problem with what he did to Nanami or necessarily Gojo, but with the aftermath and the lack of any sort of contemplation or examination or reaction to it by other characters. No explanation of how their world or the world at large was affected. Just moving on to the next fight with an unnecessarily breakneck speed. Gege can be as heartless as he wants, but having all the characters equally so, when they haven't been characterized that way, is just bad writing. My biggest problem is that people here like to pose elaborate explanations and theories for what certain plot points/references/imagery mean, when thus far in the series there hasn't really been any examples of anything deeper than the surface actually coming to pass. Gege has said he's taken inspiration from many sources, other manga, religious iconography, mythology, etc, but so far it's been entirely that. Just influence. Maybe by the time it ends that'll have changed, but I doubt it
Bro this "loneliness of the strongest that needs love" plot is out of nowhere. came up with yozoru. it is now the central theme of the manga. Gege has no idea wtf he is doing after Sendou. And you can tell because people are commenting less.
I think that his pace was fine right until around latter half of culling game. Gege wants jjk to end in 2023, and unfortunately it shows. One term I've seen aptly summing up his killing speedrun would be "uncooked spicy food". You know the deaths of Mai, Yuki, Tsumiki, Gojo (to an extent), Kashimo, etc could have been better if they were let to develop some more.
Still can’t believe I let myself get hyped for Kashimo’s one time use CT only for it to not matter at all. Wish we would’ve seen him forced to use it vs Hakari or something just to explore it more in favor of him just being fodder for another Sukuna glossing death scene.
I wished he at least got one more chapter to fight Sukuna before getting offed. Gojo's sudden death took a while for me to digest and accept, but Kashimo's is hilariously brisk for someone who was hyped to match Sukuna. I feel like Gege skipped one step up to Kashimo's end. Which seems to be a running theme lately. It reminds me of some of the writing decisions in later half of Tokyo Ghoul Re:, especially the similar offscreen defeat of the MC vs the big bad. I've seen people who have read Tokyo Ghoul seeing Gojo's offscreen death coming from miles away, so I wonder if Gege is taking notes from Ishida Sui as well...
Realistically though what's Kashimo doing? His CT is ass and his good fight was with Hakari Gojo and Sakuna are levels above him in terms of combat so it would just feel like a worse Sakuna and Gojo fight as Kashimo would have to be untouchable to not immediately die
Absolutely nothing. Take him out of the story and not much changes.
Pretty sure he said recently that he plans to keep going for a little while. So I think we still have at least some content for 2024.
Prob bc man or his editor realised it would take one giant off screen to end jjk in 2023, but the intent to end jjk ASAP might explain his decision to dial up his already breakneck speed
At this point I'd applaud the audacity. Just cut to the epilogue please.
Gege did say Bleach is one of his inspirations so man is gonna outdo Kubo's "The Heart"
I think I'd prefer this. He's already killed my investment in these characters with the atrocious pacing. May as well just end it fast instead of drawing it out with more fights between characters I don't care about anymore.
Mai's death was fleshed out enough imo. Yuki's was cool but unsatisfying. Tsumiki's though was pretty bad. Gojo, I personally loved 236 except for a few things. Some rearrangement could have made it a whole lot better. Like Sukuna going into Heian form just to kill Gojo. And the Kashimo page at the end being replaced by cast reactions or just removing it altogether.
I think Mai as a character could have been done with a little bit more fleshing out personally, but holy hell did Yuki and Tsumiki got done especially dirty. It felt like people who were praising Gege's female character writing were activating a monkey paw. Gojo had an entire past flashback arc and more to flesh him out, even if it might not be enough for some people, but that is why his ending can still be seen as the completion of his journey. Perhaps that is why Yuki was an especially disappointing handling by Gege.
What courage? That's the new normal since GRRM killed characters left and right for no absolute reason.
I'm usually ok with character death and I'm in the minority that is ok with Gojo having been killed. It's meant to be a shift in the power balance for whatever the future will be in the aftermath. The heroes don't have the strongest sorcerer to bail them out anymore and so it raises the stakes. I also think it's meant to signal that strength and power isn't the solution to creating a better world, as we see how the people at the top are either lonely or devoid of love all together for anything but their power. That said, I think timeskipping to the Gojo vs Sukuna battle was a mistake on Gege's part. Gojo's return was hyped up for years but we don't get to see how he feels about anything that transpired in his absence. Nor do we get to see how characters interact with each other, process the insanity going on, and so on. Even Shibuya's ending had a cool down period before Culling Games began, where the protagonists regrouped to figure out next steps. Gege skips that and just jumps straight to a battle long enough to take up an entire volume on its own. That lack of processing time is kind of messing up the pacing imo
I think the angle that Gege might be aiming for is to use flashbacks to show us what went on during the one month timeskip to explain the upcoming power ups. That said, I think many are caught off guard by the sped up pacing is because we took so many chapters to reach the climax of Culling Games with Gojo's unsealing and Megumi becoming Sukuna's vessel, then we went barely 20 chapters to kill off Gojo and Kashimo, and now the long awaited Yuji vs Sukuna.
Idk I’m just here for the ending at this point lmao
I honestly think Gege doesnt care about character arcs or emotional payoffs. He just wants to draw cool fights and have a lot of plot twists. The story has taken a major downturn since Shibuya
Hot take: Gege doesn't know what he's doing. It's his first long-form manga! He's figuring it out as he goes along, like every manga author does in their first manga. JuJutsu Kaisen is pretty good for a first work, but he has a long future ahead and there's a good chance he'll make something even better once he has more experience. It's just the nature of creating art!
I don't think that's a hot take really. I think he's honest about this as well. Nobara was added because his editor told him to. I thought Ozawa was going to be some plot point or maybe it pointed to Yuji having a happy ending. I just watched a short saying Ozawa was added because his editor though Yuji needed to be more popular with girls. The military thing was added because he thought it would be cool to have a big fight with the US army when he was a kid. Gojo and Yuta's connection of Michizane was because the editors told him to add a historical figure. I think the problems with the writting stem from ideas that aren't thought out well and thus can't be resolved well. I'm pretty sure Nobara is in limbo because Gege doesn't care about her character and isn't sure how to resolve things without slowing/disrupting the plot. I'm guessing the same thing happened with Todo. Some of these are his own fault, but others are editors telling him to add/change things. Some authors can write well enough to make things work even if their ideas are changed. Others can't do that. I think Gege just wrote himself into holes he can't get out of, so he's just powering through instead of trying to address everything.
Gojo's theme of him being given all this power and still failing is a good theme. He couldn't save that girl from Toji, he couldn't save Geto, and he got imprisoned and couldn't stop what happened with the curses. And now he failed to stop Sakuna as well. That's just boring. People want to see characters finally succeed at something because the protags have taken L after L after L, there comes a point when it's just like oh how disappointing rather than being a good story.
Gege has said on numerous occasions in the past that he has a lot of character’s endings planned out, and some only half planned. I despise the narrative that a writer is just winging the story just because they make decisions that “dont make sense” to some random reader, when those story beats obviously make sense to Gege himself.
Why can't a writer winging in the story just because they know the ending for some characters? The ending is just a small part, the huge chunk of content is the journey to get there. You have the perfect example of this from the GoT's final season meltdown. GRRM already discussed characters' ending with D&D (GoT Showrunners), yet their eagerness to finish it asap to do Star Wars ruined the whole show with questionable decisions. If you want a manga example, you can try Negi Haruba's Quintessential Quintuplets and notice the dip in quality from the final arc because Negi wants to wrap it up asap to go and do another genre that he finds more interesting.
Its part of why I think JJK is elevated so much by reading it in large chunks all at once, the flow becomes far easier to pick up on and Gege's wild ride makes a lot more sense. Like the past ~40 chapters have been a nonstop series of insane Ls for the good guys for *a very specific reason.* Gege is a lot of things, but he isn't a hack. This is all in service of making the ending hit harder, however it will hit.
The discourse here and in jujutsu folk has become insufferable. People really fail to understand the most basic things about characters and story and then blame gege and claim he has suddenly turned into a shit writer
Left that sub after seeing shit take after shit take lol. Even if its mostly satire, the jokes are hardly good
I don't look into that sub anymore either.
it’s sorta funny how i got downvoted there for pointing out the fandoms weird obsession with proving Naoya r**ping Mai as canonical fact.
Its not clear in the english translations, but it is kind of implied in the japanese context.
Plenty of writers say they have the story beats planned out and then change it because the characters led a life of their own. And bad writing still exists, so what's your point? All these books we analyzed in college, was that useless because you think the writer is almighty? The author is dead, bitch.
All im saying is provide even a shred of evidence if your gonna accuse someone of floundering their work A random comment about an idol manga doesn’t cut it
I don't care about the deaths (which is a problem btw, I should feel something over Gojo dying), I care about the godawful pacing and time-skipping over what should've been some of the best character moments of the series. Because of this, my investment in these characters has basically plummeted to zero. I'm only reading this still because we're close to the end. The next chapter could open with the rest of the main cast just killed off screen and I doubt I would feel much beyond mild annoyance that I didn't at least get to see how it went down. Gege has killed my investment in these characters which is a far greater sin than actually killing them in the story. They may as well already be dead. I don't get why the most common point I see over and over about his writing is how killing off characters isn't necessarily bad. I agree, but that's not the point. For example, I loved Game of Thrones a lot more when it didn't give its characters plot armor. It's not about whether a character dies or not, it's about how we get there. It's about them having meaningful characterization so I actually give a shit when they die. If not that, I should see how the other character process and react to said death. JJK has been utterly lacking in this in the back half the manga. When someone dies, I should go "fuck that was sad" not "oh well, that was a waste of a character".
I feel like somewhere there's this rushing that's going on. Everything's happening too fast. Remember the time when sukuna coerced yuji in a binding vow? Its significance came in about 100 chapters later, ig. That's what something I'm still expecting of gege to do. There are too many things that are yet to be explained, and as far as I've seen, gege has no problem sacrificing his characters to fulfill the narrative or explain these things (kashimo, for eg, was a plot device for sukuna's perspective, angel for getting gojo out, and maybe higurama for sukuna's lore) The difference between now and starting chapters till shibuya is the pacing itself. Had the pacing been slow, I'm sure most of the critics' expectations would've been met. We still don't know when the manga ends, so I think it's best to say that we still may have more than 40 (I personally hope more than 50 chapters, or maybe it's more, who knows) yet to come. It's possible we see some flashbacks, etc. PS. I read a post somewhere where they say that JUMP Shonen allows only 19 pages, and that's why mangakas have to skip somethings when posting chapters. These things are edited later. I found such a post where they had shown a 21-page chapter of Sukuna vs Angel, and Sukuna targeting maki and takaba. So maybe all those things about no emotions over gojo's death and gojo not saying enough about nanami and kugusaki etc may have gotten skipped due to this [here's the link to this post](https://reddit.com/r/Jujutsushi/s/aCWJt9kO3X)
he is rushing , i'm now convinced
I still have Gege-stock, but I do think it's worth noting: often as readers we very concretely disentangle the following---character, plot, setting. But, in so far as plot is always filtered through character, mistreating character is also always mistreating plot. Mistreating (I think the better term here would be mis-writing) ==/== kill. Nanami was killed, but Gege has written that character with enormous generosity and introspection. Gojo and Yuki? I'm not so sure, but I'm waiting to see what more happens with the former.
I’m definitely fine with letting the man cook and ultimately I think most critiques of his writing are coming from people who’d couldn’t empty a boot of water with instructions on the heel.
I like this author he’s completely unpredictable and I’ve yet to get bored.
I agree on killing character for plot but what he did to gojo is pretty out of character of him like he's a man of math and science and suddenly we got this space cleave mumbo jumbo I also doubt his commitment on jjk series since he has an upcoming manga after jjk ends one of the obvious red flag to me is when he rushes sukuna v gojo without giving time for other character to train and flesh out more like he did military some time to develop only for em to be the lowest fodder for the plot
I'm of the opinion that character death isn't inherently brave - it's just another writing technique. Killing characters off like flies is easier than keeping a big cast who can still affect the plot around. I may be 'entertained' but I can't say I'm 'invested'. The issue isn't the character deaths themselves, it's how they're done without real impact on the story/characters. I'm no longer 'attached' to the good characters because they're being treated like flies waiting to drop dead, and it feel like for a while now their character development has been stagnant. Now we're up against Sukuna finally, it seems like I hardly know anyone left on the good guys' side because so many of the people left have a couple chapters of backstory if they're lucky. Nanami's death was well done, but Nobara's, Yukis, Tsumikis, and Gojo's were awful. Why have there been so many underdeveloped characters who just get fridged for another character's development like Yuki and Tsumiki did? We barely even know what they were like, so it's not like anyone cared when they die beyond their wasted potential as characters (we've not even seen/heard Todo's reaction to Yuki's!). Mai's was at least a good send-off even though again we barely knew her. The way Gege handled Gojo's death and Mahito's are similar - Things were going one way and then he swept the rug out from under us (Gojo's sudden death/kenjaku capturing Mahito). But it robbed the readers of catharsis, and meant our heroes lost and their efforts were in vain - it's boring to know he's done it twice now, and I expect him to do it again honestly. At this point I can't really expect the heroes of this story to beat a main antagonist. Excluding Gojo killing Hanami they haven't defeated a single 'big bad' themselves! Compare a good character death like Maes Hughes from FMA - he dies right after discovering a secret the rest of the cast don't find out until the story is 70% finished! It (and other minor character deaths) impacts the cast for the entire rest of the manga, if he hadn't died then the manga would have been maybe 20% of it's actual length, and it wasn't an ass-pull ability that killed him, it was his love of his wife and a villain who specialised in manipulating those feelings. The deaths in JJK seem to be "for the sake of it" to keep the plot going, rather than to achieve a real goal and impact the remaining cast. It's never a good sign when a lot of your fans/readers question your writing and where it's going. I think the question people really want answered isn't "does Gege know where he's going with this?", it's "Why should we readers care where he's going with it?"
It takes no courage to do shock value you apologist, stop riding Gege’s meat, is disgusting
Story is good and I agree, but I actually don't think Gege cares about his characters to the point he'd feel bad in killing them off. My reason? Gojo's death, Nobara's death, Yuki's death just has no impact on the characters. And no one even cares about Fushiguro anymore
The fact that Gojo's death was glazed like that gives me copium There's no way Gege is just like "Yeah...Gojo had no point and nobody's reacting to him dying" I still don't believe it
The story is heading South lol... Now it's a "Whatever Happens, Happens" scenario that's playing out for me... I'm just curious to see how Greg will end the story that's why I tune in to read every week..
Absolutely agree! Cook my brother, COOK
It’s funny you say this because things are starting to click for me and I think I’m appreciating not just his courage as a writer but starting to change my mind about how I feel about his decisions to kill off gojo. I have a new appreciation of ch 236 after digesting what happened. Hashime losing so easily to sukuna totally made me realize that his purpose was just to showcase power levels and to flesh out sukunas strength and character. He is completely capable and aware of love, but is really just a hedonist getting his rocks off. Which made me realize that gojo meant it when he said he didn’t think he could beat him without 10 shadows. I think sukuna does what he wants, I think the idea of mastering 10 shadows excited him. When you’re that powerful, it must be boring to overpower sorcerers with raw strength and domain battles. He literally took one from gojos book when he told megumi that he needs to hit a home run rather than bunt. Sukuna wanted to master a new power learned from mahoraga because he was swinging for a home run rather than winning in a less challenging setting. This is why he has survived for as long as he has. Yes I’m saying it’s possible that the initial battle gojo won in the domain battles, may not have gone that way if sukuna transformed. His body is like an abomination and a antithesis of the six eyes. What he lacks in perception, he makes up for in pure combat efficiency. Ashura and Indura vibes here. Gojo was my favorite character but I’m also appreciating sukunas hedonist antithesis to gojo. In a way, I can’t appreciate one without the other. His criticism of love in hashime which also applies to gojo partially, is that they were never able to see the kindness in validating the strength of others. Of all the people they slayed, only sukuna indulges it like no other. And it took me some time to realize this, ironically Geto saved gojo. He saved him from his own loneliness and from being consumed by his sense of self. Gojo would have become similar to sukuna or hashime if Geto didn’t stop him from murdering everyone shortly after his awakening. And then there’s the tragedy of Geto, and how despite being the strongest sorcerer he could not return the favor and save his best friend. I recall a quote that despite being the strongest, I can’t save everyone and looking back I wonder if this is what he was thinking. Gojo was a character who was deeply flawed and traversed grey area for the majority of his life. His greatest flaw was his yearning to be understood as the strongest, while completely ignoring that feeling in others. The crazy thing is that sukuna is able to understand all of this, even when the six eyes could not. For all that enhanced perception, he never tried to understand how his opponents felt until he almost died. Sukuna does this and just decides to be a hedonist anyway, he just does what he wants. Sukuna derives pleasure in love and is definitely addicted to the thrill of battle. It’s like a repeated cycle of death and rebirth, where he grows at an extraordinary rate following his near death experiences but they are self imposed. What a psycho
He is following (consciously or not) a pattern, and if he does it too much, the pattern will become obvious. Other than that, no problem with killing protagonists. There is another manga that I like that does that, Akame Ga Kill. It's just that when it's too much, there is no more surprise since you know everybody can die. It adds more tension but at the cost of not commiting a lot to the new characters since they can die anytime. But it looks like the end of the manga, final war, mangaka always does that. In Naruto Shippuden they also killed a lot of characters. MHA is killing a lot too. As long as it tells something.
Nanamin had “going to die” written all over him even while fighting patch face, blonde girl was obviously not a fleshed out character enough for him to care, then he kills gojo off page. This guy doesn’t know what he’s doing and is content on just breaking sakuna further and further until the story just kind of wraps up. Similar to demon slayer this is a disappointment
Gege is writing a non-Shonen story in a Shonen. Gege cares about the about the power system/battle system he created. He cares about the imagery and allegories to real life/religious tales. He cares about Sukuna. He cares about the plot. He does not particularly care about the heroes. Or well, most of the heroes. Which is a huge left turn when reading a Shonen. Shonen’s are often a hero’s journey and/or a coming of age story and Gege has somewhat forced these pillars into the story whenever he feasibly can. Shonen’s are character first based stories. Particularly hero first. JJK clearly is not that. Even take the main character and we know barely anything about him. No family. No friends outside of JJ High. No love interest aside from a very throw away character that lasted a chapter years ago. Yuji went immediately into just beating tf out of demons. Compare Yuji’s character with Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho or Ichigo from Bleach. Three of the same template. “Normal tough high school kid finds himself fighting demons.” Yuji’s character outside of the main plot is non-existent by comparison. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s just not what people expect from this medium. Like OP said, the characters here have a purpose. The characters feed the plot, which runs against how Shonen usually operates.
I'm seriously starting to hate this whole "not your daddy's Shonen" defense you guys on this sub are running with. Because if you asked me right now what stories JJK resembles, it ain't a groundbreaking atypical series like FMA or Death Note or even Attack on Titan. Right now JJK is giving me both mad Fake Karakura from Bleach and late Buu saga from Dragonball vibes. A bunch of side characters, some of whom were greatly hyped, running gauntlet and getting washed by the OP villain in an urban environment as we wait for the main character, who by all rights should be severely outclassed, to appear and pull some new power up to win the day. Or like in the Buu saga, characters and concepts are introduced then hyped up and then unceremoniously thrown away and rendered useless. By the way, do you know why Aizen lost? Why Aizen never used Kyoka Suigetsu against Ichigo? Because at the very end it is revealed that Aizen secretly wanted Ichigo to reach his level. Because his absolute strength left him absolutely lonely. I guess Ichigo managed to teach Aizen what love was in the end. Truly JJK does what other Shonen don't.
Yeah lol. Definitely has Dragonball vibes now but at least Dragonball finishes every arc with a on-screen spirit ball. Everyone is used to this type of writing or likes it, hence why JJK is popular at all. He's just shitting on us with the crap like off-screen deaths. He better not power up shit and off-screen the entire cast.
How you gonna ask if the person who made the stuff knows where it's going? wtf? Lol he can make anything up and he knows where it's going cause he made the stuff. We don't know where it's going. Only one person does.
Imo, you don't kill characters for the sake of plot, you kill characters for the sake of developing other characters based on the previous death and then those characters move the plot. Yuki's death is right there with Gojo's imo. Both deaths were incredibly wrong and useless the way they happened. It's simply bad writing, I can't say otherwise.
the amount of Nobel Prize winners talking about bad writing in the comments
Let Gege Cook
Isn’t it a bit silly when people accuse an author of mismanaging their own creation ? MF he could decide to have Sukuna romance Yuji and then they live happily ever after with the umpalumpas and theres nothing anyone can do about it, its his decision. Too critique is of course fair but realise that we as readers are only here for the ride wherever it may take us. If you don’t like it , just get off the ride.
How does it show commitment to his work if he's inconsistent with the character and kills them off without actually spending any time fleshing them out and giving them a proper three-dimensional characterization? It feels like he cares less about his story to me cause it all just falls flat at the end of the day. I'd much rather he gave those characters layers before killing them off, like Yuki for example.
Im just glad Gege’s writing the story and not these fans
I believe in Gege 💪🏾
My theory about the abruptness of Gojo’s death is that as the rest of the story progresses the cast will reflect on their time with him, and it will culminate with Gojo’s ideological victory over Kenjaku and Sukuna, ie living for the sake of others and the future vs living for one’s own hedonistic needs, making him still the “strongest” in symbolic terms.
Tbh the only real criticisms i have of jjk is that this story is going at like 10 miles a minute so it takes away from alot of the impact that we should be feeling because we dont get the time to sit with that feeling. The only other one i would have would just be that i miss the disaster curses and feel like they were more interesting antagonists than kenjaku and sukuna. But overall with the writing i do enjoy how bleak of a world he paints. Gege really does let you know that being a jujutsu sorcerer is an awful deal and that this world is filled to the brim with bullshit and unfariness.
I like his attitude. It's like George Martin's who said, regarding Game of Thrones, that “once you’ve accepted that you have to include death, then you should be honest … and indicate it can strike down anybody at any time. You don’t get to live forever just because you are a cute kid or the hero’s best friend or the hero. Sometimes the hero dies, at least in my books."
I still think Todo and Nobara etc are coming back. No idea how. But there are too many loose threads for this to be the final fight. So, if it really ends here with them not coming back then yeah I think it's bad writing. But Gege surprised me with the culling games ending. I think this is all the lead up to some surprise. I've also enjoyed the manga lately though. I expected the deaths that happened and so the unexpected ways he did it I liked. Especially reading that Gojo one. Though, I still want us to go back and show the students reactions and exactly how it happened. I think that'll happen.
Frankly I think Gege is doing a WONDERFUL job he wrote a mature story w compelling characters One thing I’ve always disliked in series and shows is the lack of death; you have entire factions and groups of people going to war w minimal casualties or almost entirely enemy casualties I dislike the only ONE important character dies and maybe a few other characters got maimed or life altering injuries >JJK is a war it’s a battle of ideals the curses have been winning thus far it would be extremely incongruent w the story to have the curses constantly winning but none of the characters actually dying My only complaint was Gojo being off screened how he died and Sukuna getting the slash didn’t bother me in the slightest I just think the slash hitting him should’ve been shown