#→ except pLOT-TWIST! he was pretending to be antagonistic to side with Sukuna and/or Kenjaku…

[laindir]

Just cross-posting a bit of my own deep-dive musings I’d initially keysmashed over on twitter about the JJK0 and JJK key animation artworks here: I love how when all three covers are juxtaposed together like this, it seems, at first, to hint at Megumi’s gradual “fall” in the story. That he, like Getou, may eventually trudge down the path of an antagonist and switch over to opposing sides, aligning himself with either Sukuna and/or Kenjaku’s ideals instead of Yuuji or Gojou.

However, I’d like to think of these artworks not as hard foreshadowing of where the plot is heading with absolute certainty, but merely as a visual interpretation of the characters’ design concepts that illustrates their roles within the narrative itself – particularly, with the Vol.2 artwork which features Megumi and Gojou.

At a cursory glance, it might seem that Gojou would have to fight yet another jujutsu sorcerer from within his own circle (his own ward and student this time), mirroring his past falling-out and broken friendship with Getou. That Gojou and Megumi — both the current heads of their respective clans, and inheritors of each clan’s most prized cursed techniques, Six Eyes and Limitless vs. Ten Shadows — are bound yet again by fate to fight one another to the death, as their ancestors have always done in the past due to bad blood and clan rivalry.

Still, if you think about it within the events occurring in the canon now, even if Megumi is visually placed on the same “villain” side along with Getou and Sukuna here — in actuality, he still doesn’t quite fit the role of a (budding) antagonist/villain, let alone a rival. At least not at this point in the story. Of course, I don’t claim to know what goes on in Akutami’s brain, and may be wrong in future as the plot unfolds further. But for the moment, I personally don’t feel that’s what Akutami is going for, especially when we consider how hard Megumi has been working with the other Juju Tech sorcerers to find a way to unseal Gojou, and how viscerally devoted he is to keeping Yuuji safe and beside him always. It’s pretty obvious right now whose side Megumi is on, despite everything that had happened in Shibuya; he’s pretty much ride and die all the way for Yuuji, even at the expense of his own personal safety if Sukuna manages to be unsuppressed once more. Another interesting thing to note is how Megumi is the only one who is drawn inverted on the covers. Which, again makes me think that this is done to represent his characterisation within JJK, not merely as plot foreshadowing. He is, after all, designed to look (at first) like the seemingly cold and harsh shounen rival that typically goes against the main character with their clashing ideals, but as we know, Megumi is anything but that, being Yuuji’s closest friend and most resolute supporter. He is quite literally an inverse of said shounen rival archetype.

Megumi being drawn inverted and on the “wrong” side could also be a glimpse into his perception of his own self: that he doesn’t think of himself as being inherently right, or a good person like Tsumiki and Yuuji (hence his whole “I don’t care if I’m right or wrong; I only believe in my own conscience, so I choose to save people unequally” spiel, lol). Every one else is drawn standing upright because they believe their way and their truths as “right” at that point of their battles – Yuuta, when pitting Rika and his Pure Love beam against Getou’s Maximum: Uzumaki and Tamamo-no-Mae; Yuuji, while in Sukuna’s innate domain when he says he knows for sure Sukuna is evil and refuses to let Sukuna use his body again after his first death. With the inversion here, it also makes Megumi and Gojou’s placement on the Vol.2 cover to look more like the yin-yang symbol:

So, instead of it simply foreshadowing a final showdown between the two, perhaps it represents instead how the two are contrasting yet relative and complementary forces – both still independent from one another yet remain interconnected with each another, just like their relationship with the world and within jujutsu society; how it is this harmony and balance with each other that may give rise to both of them and to the other sorcerers aligned with them as they continue to fight for their personal truths: to reset jujutsu society/the world from within (Gojou), and to save those they believe as good and deserving (Megumi). 

There are definitely many ways to read into this. Either way, I think we can all agree these covers are just breath-takingly gorgeous. Like, the artbook illustrators and cover designers (Takeji-san and Hiramatsu Tadashi) don’t have to go so hard each and every time, but damn, do they always lol.