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littleholmes · 1 year

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This chapter just reinforced that Satoru does everything for his students—even healing his brain after almost dying five times and giving his all to the point where he burned himself out and couldn’t open a domain anymore.

Satoru’s cockiness has always been there, but over the course of the series it’s become clear that with age it’s become more of a facade, a brave face he keeps for his students and those around him because if he (as the strongest) isn’t worried and knows he can handle it/doesn’t show weakness, then they won’t be worried.

He does this and keeps this up because he knows that everyone puts so much faith in him and that showing weakness allows enemies to think they have a leg up in a situation (the great Gojo is weak!) and also shakes the confidence of his students who look up to him and believe he can always handle situations. And we see that played out again in this part of the fight.

He kept a brave face on, and did his best to hold on to his cocky facade so his watching students wouldn’t worry more than they already were (and with his six eyes he can likely pick up on poor Yuta’s anxiety, but I digress). Toward that last moment he still kept a brave, if resigned, face on, even while accepting that Sukuna was likely to finish him off.

So when it turned out that Sukuna fought so hard that he couldn’t open his domain again either and they are back on equal footing, his relief was palpable and he let it show. (After all, his worried students are watching, the whole world is too, but they deserve to see he’s relieved and hasn’t lost yet!)

Everything almost wasn’t okay—everything almost wasn’t okay for most of this fight tbh—so this upper hand/even playing field is a major relief and we get cocky Satoru again telling Sukuna that the kids are watching before he goes in to fight Sukuna hand-to-hand.

Idk I’m rambling and I’m gonna tag @theanimepsychologist in this in case I missed something, but I just love this chapter for so many reasons, especially how we got more info about domains and techniques and their effects on the body, but I really love how it showed us how much Satoru cares about his students, just how hard Satoru fought (even to his own detriment) for them, and how the way he presents himself even in battle is for them and partly because of their faith in him as the strongest.

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linkspooky · 1 year

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Jujutsu Kaisen, Chapter 230 Thoughts.

I've been skipping my weekly thoughts posts on the last few chapters, because most of the chapters is explaining fight mechanics. However, Megumi showed up again and as someone with a severe case of Megumi-itis let's talk about him, what the possible consequences for taking Unlimited Void could be and where his character might go after this fight.

1. Megumi's Soul

The slow corruption of Megumi's soul has been a running theme ever since Sukuna took his body. The first thing he did after taking that body was descend and soak into a literal bath of evil in order to subemerge Megumi's soul further. Ura-me even describes it as "Being near evil."

Immediately afterwards, Sukuna uses Megumi's body to murder his sister. Making sure to only use Ten Shadows techniques the entire fight, so Megumi will feel that he killed his sister with his own hands. Megumi is someone helpless to watch as he experiences the same thing Sukuna does to Yuji in shibuya, taking his own body from him, using his hands to kill others, and leaving Yuji with the guilt of being a murderer because he was too weak to fight back.

Tsumiki is a character who when she is first mentioned in the manga, drawn with white lilies, the symbol of purity. She is also, in Megumi's eyes a character without flaws, who's only bad trait is worrying about him too much, his example of a good person he wants to save the only person besides that sharing that category being Yuji. (I stole this from @theanimepsychologist)

She's not just associated with purity through those flowers, she's a symbol of purity TO MEGUMI. She is the model example of a good person, Megumi even says his entire goal in life is to make the world more fair so good people such as his sister shouldn't have to suffer.

When Sukuna talks about his desire to destroy Tsumiki, those same white lilies are in the background ripped apart. Not only that, her body is shown to be naked in a compromising position. Gege's not the most subtle person in the world, so it's pretty clear symbolism when a man talks about how he wants to violently destroy a woman and she's drawn naked like this, like I don't think Sukuna intended that but symbolically it's the destruction of her purity.

Megumi doesn't see himself as good, he sees Tsumiki as a good person he wants to protect, and also basically the only family member / support in his life, and Sukuna rips her apart right in front of Megumi's eyes. Megumi's been exposed to evil, and had his closest loved one slaughtered. Not only that, his entire reason for being a sorcerer in the first place. Not to give himself a happy life or because he wanted to do it, but because if he didn't do it Tsumiki had no chance at being happy in the Zen'in Household.

It's not just Tsumiki that's crushed, it's his entire reason for living so far, it's the implied promise of protection that Gojo gave him that if he chose to follow him that Tsumiki would have a better life.

Even if Gojo manages to save Megumi from Sukuna's possession, mentally he's been pushed past the point of no return there's no way he's coming out of this alright.

That is, if Gojo is even making that much of an effort to save him.

Now, it may turn out that Gojo had a method planned of getting Megumi back from Sukuna all along. He does seem to imply he believes that if he does enough damage to Sukuna's body, the same way that Sukuna ripped Yuji's heart out and gained back control he'll force Sukuna to switch control again. But!

Even if that's his intention, I think there's some clear symbolism in how it was Megumi's "Soul" that was targeted by the Unlimited Void.

Forget Gojo's announcing to Sukuna that he has no compunctions about beating up Megumi because he looks like Toji. Forget the casual mention of crushing Megumi's entire body in the process of trying to finish the fight. Barring all of that, there's still a noticable lack of concern for how Megumi as Gojo is completely wrapped up in the fight against Sukuna. Because this is how Gojo's mind works, he is the strongest sorcerer so everything cn be solved with a battle of physical strength. Gojo is opposing Sukuna, and yet his philosophy is pretty much the same as Sukuna's.

Sukuna the person who stole Megumi's body, is fighting against Gojo the person who essentially stole Megumi's childhood, by taking him in to Jujutsu High under the guise of "Helping Him" but giving him little choice of what to do with his life. Either he becomes a sorcerer, or they give him no money and they starve, or they get sent to the Zen'in who will probably abuse Tsumiki.

There's something deeply ironic about Gojo bragging about how his students are watching him so he has to look cool, which shows the smiling faces of several of the Tokyo High kids, contrasted to how he's treated Megumi this entire fight and shown little concern for his well-being.

Megumi the person who he should really feel the most responsible for, because Gojo went out of his way to recruit him to Jujutsu High at like age five.

So, of course Gojo's strongest domain expansion attack hits Megumi instead of Sukuna, because the entire time Gojo's practically had no problem using Megumi as a punching bag, because he has to seize a more important objective which is defeating Sukuna for the safety of the world.

Now here's where the Megumi corruption arc truthers get excited. Do you think Megumi will really emerge from his possession okay after not only losing his body, bathing in evil, killing Tsumiki therefore breaking his promise of protection and Gojo's as well, and then being exposed to the unlimited void by Gojo which fills people's head with so much information it breaks their brain.

Megumi's clearly waking up after being hit with the void, but there's almost no chance of him waking up and going back to normal.

Megumi is a shadow character, much like Geto he's not only been shown on multiple occasions to repress his feelings over the entire course of the manga, (basically a long-form version of Geto's slow decline) he also on multiple ocasions as shown a more violent side.

Geto's arc even revolves around him questioning if weak people are even worth protecting, and then struggling against his inability to protect his fellow sorcerers who are continually sacrificed in protection of those weak people. Geto is overwhelmed by the weight of responsibility that sorcerers carry. Much like Megumi who has stated on multiple occasions, he doesn't want to be a hero, he doesn't feel obligated to save people. The two people he wants to save, Tsumiki and Yuji are however people he's failed to save. Riko is a clear parallel to Tsumiki. Tsumiki is even ripped away from Megumi the moment he thinks that he's saved her from the culling games, the same way that just as Geto promised that him and Gojo would be able to protect her, she's shot in the head by Toji.

If you're a Megumi corruption arc truther, than it's been a long time coming. Let's look at the characters he parallels in the manga, Maki (became a mass murderer after her sister died), Geto (also became a mass murderer when he lost faith in the idea that sorcerers are duty bound to protect the weak, which started when he failed to save Riko), Toji (also a mass murderer).

Toji is the biggest example though, because despite Gege continually pushing the idea that Maki is the second coming of Toji (we get it already) Megumi is Toji's direct foil, Megumi's poor lot in life is a result of Toji abandoning him. Toji was rejected and abandoned by his family, and went on to do the same thing with Megumi.

As Megumi has received no support from the adults in his life, there's basically nothing stopping him from continuing that cycle. Megumi looks exactly like Toji, especially when coming out of the Evil Bath of Evil. In his more violent moments he's drawn to look like Toji with several art parallels between Megumi and the Toji in hidden inventory.

Toji's also famous for doing this to Gojo.

He's the first person to defeat the limitless and manage to put a scratch on him. Everyone said that Gojo and Megumi's drawing on the animation booklet is foreshadowing of his fight with Sukuna in Megumi's body, but what if it's not...

What if when Megumi regains control of his body and Sukuna is defeated, everything does not work out like Gojo expects it will with one epic battle. What if having been brought so close to evil, Megumi is finally corrupted all the way through. After all the Unlimited specifically hit Megumi's soul. Megumi's body might be physically saved, but his soul might be lost in the process.

We've seen multiple times that the thing which holds Megumi back from acting on his more violent impulses is the image of Tsumiki, but Tsumiki's not there anymore.

So, this is my wild theory for all the Megumi Corruption Arc conspiracy theorists out there. What if we do see Gojo win this fight against Sukuna, but when Megumi gets his body back he attacks Gojo. His body is saved but not his soul and he's finally been pushed off the edge and become his worst self.

After which, the task of saving Megumi will probably fall from Gojo to Yuji. The only person so far who's expressed any desire to save Megumi (Yuta too I guess, but him and Maki both put emphasis on saving Sukuna).

What if Megumi's line to Yuji, "Start by saving me" is actually the ultimate foreshadowing for one of the biggest fights in the series?

#jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen meta #jujutsu kaisen theory #megumi fushiguro #satoru gojo #gojo satoru #jjk 230 #jjk 230 spoilers #jujutsu kaisen spoilers #jjk spoilers

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