#here is my jay jay kay think piece for everyone im gonna hibernate from the manga again until it gets good again

[freckledgeto]

this weeks chapter was very... :/

i don’t even hate the chapter this week like content wise i don’t think it’s a bad chapter i just think that the lead up (the entirety of the culling game) and the pacing and gojos reaction to everything is making it all very. meh to me :/

the whole culling game wasn’t my favorite for a lot of reasons and i don’t necessarily blame gege for it completely. i think that there isn’t an arc better than hidden inventory and there aren’t any fights better than the ones in shibuya, so following both of those really incredible arcs with another that is supposed to be equally as good or better does not seem like an easy thing. (spoilers for CG and new ch. under the cut)

one of the reasons the fights in shibuya are sooo good to me is because they are fights that are deeply rooted in character and character development. maki killing the zenin clan, megumi fighting toji, etc. the itadori-mahito fight at the end of the shibuya arc is entirely a character/meant for character development fight for itadori, with his whole "i am you, you are me" realization/acceptance, and it is arguably the best fight in the manga like it is sooo good.

but there arent any fights built around character in the culling game and like. given that gege has made such amazing, character oriented fights in the past. it is a little bit disappointing. esp since i don’t personally want to just watch/read a bunch of fights repeatedly like i WANT there to be some kind of deeper meaning/purpose to them (outside of trying to end the culling game/free gojo obv). makis fight in the CG is probably the most “character” oriented fight and i was just very eh about it :/ but i love maki <3

the treatment of the women in the CG recently has just turned me away from the manga in general too. scorpion hair remi girl was fucked, uro not having more of a role was disappointing, yuki DYING wasn’t great.

tsumiki was the reason i didn’t stop reading the manga earlier in the arc because i was looking forward to her having her moment for LITERALLY THE ENTIIREEEE ARC. just for gege to do that to her and it reallllyy pissed me off.

as much as i hate how tsumikis arc went, i think i could’ve been a liiittle bit more accepting of it if the whole yorozu-sukuna thing was done well. but i didn’t like that either LMAO. i think the whole “yorozu loves sukuna and she sees how lonely he is etc” is like. a cool concept overall and i think if it was done right it could’ve been a good addition to the plot. even if there was just a little bit more of a flashback of yorozu and sukuna from that era with more information and context i think it would’ve made it a lot better. and i could’ve been like. a tiny bit less pissed about tsumiki. but the fact that it wasn’t a very satisfying arc for tsumiki OR yorozu just made it all very underwhelming to me. esp since tsumiki was what i was looking forward to the most in this arc 🙃🙃🙃

so yeah this chapter wasnt the worst thing in the world its just very underwhelming bc everything that led up to this was really underwhelming for me too :( and gojos reacction in this chapter is. upsetting. esp following the whole yorozu-sukuna thing and the "sukuna is lonely" part of it. like sukuna and gojo are meant to be foils of each other. gojos character is built around the fact that he has those connections and relationships with his friends and the students and he fell in gay love with geto and he "wont let anyone else be lonely" like the relationships he has is WHY HES LIKE THAATTTTT. him having no reaction to nanamis death and nobaras condition and maki and megumi and ALL of his students feels like a very surface level "gojo is a funny silly goofy guy" thing to do. but i would like to believe that gege knows and cares about his characters more than a surface level interpretation but. idk well see i guess. i just would have liked to see the sukuna-gojo being foils of e/o actually being played out narratively in these past few chapters more. but hopefully there'll be more of that during the next arc.

anyways so like. the chapter itself is not necessarily bad i just think that the CG itself was really abrupt and lacked a lot emotionally/character wise (for me at least), and then the pacing of this whole thing has been really off for me so its hard to look at the whole thing collectively and actually like it lol.

i feel like gege is really just trying to speedrun the rest of the manga and move onto something else which SUCKS bc it has soo much potential to be sooooo good. whatever anyways goodnight.