Jujutsu Kaisen fans liked the series for the wrong reasons, and I can attest to it

Warning: Contains spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter #271In a matter of months, I’ve gone from being a passive fan of Jujutsu Kaisen To die hard, but a lot of fans miss the things that make me love the series so much. Now that Jujutsu Kaisen Reaching its conclusion, I find myself totally enchanted. Jujutsu Kaisen Is Unlike any I’ve ever seen or read. with Jujutsu KaisenGege Akutami has crafted a masterful story with thrilling combat and stunning presentation. That’s not why I love it so much, though.

Jujutsu Kaisen Touch where it shouldn’t. Characters like Yuji, Megumi, Gojo and Sukuna Give one another in ways they shouldn’t. Gojo and Sukuna are drawn to each other’s raw power; Megumi doesn’t care that Gojo killed his father; Sukuna openly respects Megumi; Yuji can’t help but have a soft spot for Sukuna. It may go without saying that Jujutsu Kaisen is strangely deep. Philosophically, in fact, it is anathema to today’s standards of decorum. But for this reason, Fans easily miss its most interesting considerations.

Jujutsu Kaisen is not run-of-the-mill shōnen (and we shouldn’t act like it is)

Jujutsu Kaisen is essentially different from other battle shōnen

Jujutsu Kaisen Is Nothing like its competition. right down to its foundations, Jujutsu Kaisen is a subversive series that has always taken aim at major Sean Wee Naruto. Consider the cursed energy system. The result of humans’ negativity, cursed energy exists in stark contrast to the energy systems of other series such as Naruto (chakra) and Dragon Ball (ki). The fact that the primary enemies – cursed spirits – are the embodiment of this energy shows an interconnection between non-sorcerers and sorcerers, humans and curses, and finally, good and evil.

Nothing in Jujutsu Kaisen is arbitrary. The concept of binary instability is at the heart of Jujutsu Kaisen. Fans miss it simply because, culturally, it’s not very intuitive. What could be called the Western canon has predominantly seen things in terms of concrete good and evil, without much room for uncertainty. However, once you start to see Jujutsu Kaisen like A series that aims to make the binaries as fuzzy as possibleIt’s something impossible to unseen.

The worst jujutsu kaisen characters are probably better than you think

Jujutsu Kaisen’s structure allows for deep complexity

The best example of this is Mahito. Mahito is a curse, but he is intelligent and humane. Since he is also a curse, Mahito was born by humanity. A curse normally only exists to torment people and avoid exorcisms. Mahito is not a common curse, though. Just as he identifies humanity as an enemy, he also identifies himself with humanity. He looks like A better kind of personAnd because he literally grows and develops as he takes life, he sees humanity as the price of his perfection.

The lines between curse and man are further blurred by Mahito: his desire for validation from Kenjaku and affirmation from Sukuna is palpably Freudian. Would I let Mahito kill me for his cause? Of course not. But I can understand how his idea of ​​good/evil and his general sense of value would be completely different from mine. In fact, the feeling of repulsion I get from Mahito Is the thing that he should make me feel. Look at things in this light, Jujutsu Kaisen opens wide to new interpretations.

As the series unfolds, Jujutsu Kaisen Emphasizes living authentically and choosing what one lives and dies for. The themes have been there all along, though. The problem is that to see them, you have to grasp What characters like Mahito and Geto think the way they doAt a fundamental level that would beg for more empathy than the average fan spares them.

The controversy surrounding Jujutsu Kaisen’s finale shows how fans misunderstood it

Jujutsu Kaisen should not be read like other shin

In the absence of perspective, such topics run the risk of cliché. Jujutsu Kaisen‘s finale drew a lot of accusations of being rushed, lazy and sloppy. The most serious, I think, is called Sukona’s shift after his loss an example of “the power of friendship” or a “redemption arc”. It’s simple Drives home the binary fuzziness that has always been part of the narrative.

This becomes clear if one tries to see Yuji and Sukuna as a binary compounding other binaries: good/evil, human/curse, present/past, and so on. From the genesis of the binary when Yuji ate part of Sukuna’s body all the way to Sukuna’s possession of Megumi’s body, Sukuna’s soul shared space with Yuji’s. The fact that Yuji’s soul can dominate the Sukuna is the reason why witches and curses are interested in him in the first place.

It’s also only possible because Yuji and Sukuna are related. Jujutsu Kaisen is about The inseparability of observed opposites. in Jujutsu KaisenMen and curses, good and evil, and souls and bodies cannot be defined without one another. Without Yuji, Sukuna could not have returned; Without Sukuna, Yuji couldn’t be a hero. To drive home the point of this inseparability, Yuji is eventually revealed to be the son of Sukuna’s reincarnated twin brother, Jin Itadori. Even Yuji’s ability to manipulate cursed energy later on is the result of Sukuna’s influence.

So when, in the end, Sukuna changes his mind about Yuji, I am not surprised. Yuji and Sukuna recognize their dependence on each other. As Yuji says to Sukuna: “I am you”. It also does not signal the Sukuna’s value system changing; On the contrary – when Mahito asks why his position has changed, Sukuna simply says that he lost. Sukuna always valued raw power, and his brutal outlook reflected that. Yuji’s strength over Sukuna showed him the weakness of his values ​​and the strength of Yuji’s own, so he submitted.

This is also intimated by Yuji’s discussion with Gojo in the same chapter. Both Gojo and Sukuna are titans of individual strength; This is the reason fans clamored for and hyped their fight for so long, and the reason they were so disappointed when Gojo lost. But Gajo’s individual power isolated him, and he said he hoped the other wizards would find a different strength than his own.

The collective strength employed by Yuuji and the other magicians was greater, in the end, than Sukuna’s individual strength. Both Gojo and Sukuna knew that. It’s not just that Gojo never intended to win against Sukuna. It is that if Gojo won, it would destroy Jujutsu Kaisens firm-from-the-beginning attempt to undermine the comfortable assumptions of shōnen manga.

Gojo had to lose to show that Jujutsu Kaisen is different. It is not a story where “good” automatically wins over “evil”. It’s not a story where Gojo dies so Yuji can claim his rightful glory as the protagonist. Jujutsu Kaisen It’s not a story where stray criminals abuse an agnostic power system, and it’s not a story where ideas appear as gimmicks or spur-of-the-moment power-ups before disappearing.

Jujutsu Kaisen was never meant to be a run-of-the-mill show. I think Gege meant it to be read as A purgative targeting Sean’s goofy self-assuranceSigned and derived from the belly of the beast. It was written to be the explosives clearing the ground for new construction. In a genre where things tend to be oversimplified, Jujutsu Kaisen is a series that exists to show just how complex and interconnected the world actually is, and fans are doing it a disservice by missing out.