#These are vital Sukuna scenes. Why is his man not getting to hog the focus when it is legitimately his time to do so?

[frost-felon]

I don't have a whole lot of thoughts on Episode 16/Thunderclap, but man, the changes to how the scenes where Sukuna takes enjoyment in playing with the lives of the 'weak' and the reunion with Uraume suck the wind out of my sails. I have some problems with how MAPPA has adapted the Premature Burial -> Shibuya Incident chapters (Mechamaru/Kokichi, my guy, what did they do to you--), but I was really hoping to see the emotions present adapted in a way that was faithful to the intent of the panels, even if it wasn't the same. And it's like...the expressions were kept, but they were shadowed, zoomed-out, or both. That strikes me as such a loss, since Sukuna is shown to be outright giddy when he's wrecking shit in Yuji's body. Sure, he made fun of Yuji when the latter was made hopeless witness to Junpei's demise, but he hasn't shown emotions like this since Yuji tried to kick Sukuna's ass after calling Sukuna's bluff in Chapter 10/Episode...5 or 6, can't remember. Hell, you could probably argue that even then, he wasn't filled with as much glee. Mirth, perhaps, but this is different.

Sukuna genuinely seems to be elated at having control during Shibuya, even though he knows it will be short-lived. It's not hard to see why--he's Yuji's prisoner most of the time. Whether he admits it or not, he's bound to Yuji's whims, with his only levels of control being: he can refuse to give his power to Yuji, and he's got the Binding Vow that Yuji can't remember. That's it. Don't get me wrong, Sukuna holds a lot of power and control over Yuji, but Yuji ultimately decides if Sukuna gets to feel the breeze on any given day. And in most cases, understandably, he chooses to not give Sukuna that freedom.

So Sukuna getting some time to do whatever without Yuji's interference? You can bet that he's high on life.

And when Sukuna sees Uraume, he appears actually excited. Uraume is, likewise, rather pleased that Sukuna is around. They're doing this at each other in the manga:

Is it so wrong, MAPPA, to want to preserve what crumbs of characterization we can get for either of these two? I know that MAPPA probably won't fuck with a certain Uraume scene later, but damn, I miss the touches on character animation.

Anyways, Yuji will suffer regardless, as Gege intended.