#also looking forward to finding out what Yuuji and Higuruma are doing

[faust-terrorsofthenight]

I was thinking aaa her design is really cool! Can't wait to find out more about her- oh now she's dead 😂

Gege, you're so mean!

This made up for it though 👏 I don't think we've seen Kenjaku pull this kind of face before 😂 honestly if Takaba takes him out or at least puts a major dent in Kenjaku's plans, I wouldn't even be mad

He's such a funny character and I love how ridiculous his cursed technique is!

[cursedvibes]

I love Sukuna so much but the levels of invincibility that Gege is giving him is sooo confusing. Like I get he’s a very powerful sorcerer, he’s very intelligent, but how in the world did Judgeman confiscate the cursed tool?

Did Gege ever say Judgeman could do that? The cursed tool isn’t on trial, Sukuna is- can Judgeman tell when an object is owned by someone? Like 😭

A fight starts to lose tension and hype when the antagonist finds every loophole imaginable to the point where the writer is just creating new loopholes we weren’t even aware of!?

Yeah, and it wasn't even due to some master plan on Sukuna's side. It didn't take any skill of his own to get out of that trial, just luck. He was like "fingers crossed it takes my new shiny cursed tool and not one of my cursed techniques 🤞☺️". And then it's a cursed tool that wasn't doing anything for him anyway. Why even introduce it then? It looks nice, great aesthetic and symbolism, but that's it?

Higuruma also seemed surprised by that. He has killed nearly 100 people and none of the sorcerers ever had a cursed tool before that got confiscated? At least it says that Sukuna maybe probably lost 10 Shadows with his reincarnation, but who knows if that's true. Also how does losing the cursed tool count as a death sentence? With losing a cursed technique or your cursed energy it makes sense. That alone could kill you even without the executioner's sword or at the very least it exposes you dramatically. Losing a cursed tool is a disadvantage, but unless you staked your life on it, most sorcerers won't be seriously affected by it. That's like Kashimo losing the staff. Pretty inconsequential if you consider what else they are capable of. Barely an inconvenience. I could see this making some sort of sense if it was the murder weapon, but Kamutoke has done 0 zero damage to anyone so far.

I'm mostly disappointed that the court trial led to absolutely nothing. I was looking forward to what Sukuna could do outside a battlefield, how he'd use his wits to turn the situation around on Yuuji instead (there was so much he could've said to make Yuuji the culprit here, they were taking a big risk by bringing up this case), but we got nothing. He didn't even try. I wouldn't have a problem with it if he had escape the domain due to his skill and proving his innocence. I also don't think this necessarily means it's game over for the protagonists, it's just very underwhelming.

At least Hakari and Uraume are having fun. Not gonna lie, their fight seems more interesting right now.

[sawamura-daichis-thighs]

don't mind me going through your ao3 and tumblr into a new itafushi spiral. Can i ask what are your thoughts on their near future in the manga? I'm terrified of Gege and whatever his master evil mind can throw at these babies 😖

I don't mind at all!! I hope you enjoy both my blog & ao3!! ☺️💕

Meta/analysis isn't really something I attempt beyond trying to get a feel for characters in order to properly characterize them in fic, but your question piqued my interest so I re-read the last like 30ish chapters to remind myself of the overall plot & this kinda got away from me lol. But here's my guess for how the manga might play out going forward:

As a recap, here's the Culling Game's initial rules shown in ch.143:

In ch.158, Megumi suggests adding 2 new rules to the culling game which could potentially save Tsumiki:

Point exchanges between players to offset Rule 8

The spending of points to allow players get out of the game if they bring a substitute non-player in their stead (however, this rule may conflict with the "long-lasting effect" of the game and is not their first priority rule to set)

Their other objective is to free Gojo from the Prison Realm. In order to do that, Tengen advises they find the reincarnated Kurusu Hana, the "Angel" sorcerer from 1,000 years ago, whose cursed technique can nullify other cursed techniques (ch. 145). Last we knew, she's on the east side of Tokyo No.2 colony.

Maki returns to the Zen'in clan to collect the cursed tools they took from Jujutsu High's warehouse (plus annihilates them, praise her), after which, she plans to join Panda. Yuuta agreed to enter a distant colony the culling game in order to scout it out.

Rule 9 is added: "Players shall have access to information on other players, such as name, points, number of rules added, and current colony". This is done by Kashimo Hajime, a reincarnated sorcerer from 400 years ago, who appears to be looking for Sukuna in Tokyo No.2 colony (ch. 158). He still has 100 points, even after adding a rule.

After our boys convince Hakari to help, he and Panda go to Tokyo No.2 colony. Of course, Yuuji and Megumi go together to Tokyo No.1 colony to hunt down Higuruma for his 100 points. They're also interested in hunting down Kashimo. They're split up upon entry; Yuuji is lead to Ikebukuro where he finds Higuruma and Rule 10 is added; Higuruma also transfers one of his points to Yuuji (ch. 167).

This is where it gets a little confusing for me. Remi lies that Higuruma is in Shinjuku in ch. 162:

In ch. 163, Megumi tells Remi not to cut through Ikebukuro to get to Shinjuku (where he's been mislead to believe Higuruma is) but she insists on visiting her "base" there, where they encounter Reggie.

Reggie mentions in ch. 167 that they're in Tokyo No.2 colony, however, I wonder if this is a typo since the chapter titles throughout this arc have stated that they're in Tokyo No.1 colony. Assuming it is an error, and that Megumi was lead to Ikebukuro, it's possible Yuuji and Megumi may reunite sometime after the end of Megumi's battle with Reggie. (Granted, this might just be wishful thinking on my part since, as you said, Gege can be an evil mastermind haha, so it might be a while yet before he actually reunites our boys. 😣 Which kills me because they just reunited!! They are a package set, do not separate!!!)

If I'm right about the both of them being in Ikebukuro then hopefully they'll meet up sooner rather than later. They've achieved their goal of adding Rule 10 to save Tsumiki; she had roughly 7 days left to declare her participation in the game but that's all we really know about her at the moment. So I imagine that their next course of action might be one of these:

Find Tsumiki, since she'll presumably need to declare participation in order for them to exchange points with her

Go to Tokyo No.2 colony to find either Kashimo or Angel + meet up with Hakari, Panda, and Maki (if she's there)

Given the colony barriers seem to split up participants upon entry and that cell reception doesn't work inside them, I'm not sure how our boys are going to avoid being continuously separated even if they do reunite in Tokyo No.1 colony. 😅 I hope Gege will keep them together for the most part though.

I'd love to see them meet up with Tsumiki tbh. I'm curious about her character and how she'll deal with being a sorcerer, plus I want to see Megumi interact with his sister (and I want Yuuji to meet her! She's been such an impactful person in Megumi's life, just as Yuuji has, and I want them to be bffs). I also wonder whether Kashimo will seek out Yuuji to find Sukuna now that he has a way of tracking down which colony sorcerers are in (if he even knows about Yuuji being Sukuna's vessel). Not to mention, all of the students are going to be criminals in the Jujutsu Headquarters eyes for attempting to release Gojo, but I imagine their reign might eventually come to an end in much the same way the Zen'in clan's did. It's certainly going to be an interesting arc regardless!