#jjk ch 215 | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

psychewritesbs · 2 years ago

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gege akutami is a menace to society actually

in case you haven't read, I'm talking about 215, so you can ignore me when you're ready

he saw us have a little hope last week and had to send us tumbling again 😢

it's going to be a tough ride for sure ~

I honestly don't know how they'll be able to handle sukuna at full form bc even with the limitations, he was still countering. It'd be even worse if he's willing to work with kenjaku too. For some reason (denial), I have a feeling megumi's going to overcome this. I won't comment more on that because i feel like i'll spiral (cannot believe maki said its weird seeing megumi's face on someone being strong 😭) On another note, sukuna and co's eventual defeat will be worthwhile for how much suffering they've caused and will cause. Sukuna's choice to leave yuji alive will definitely come back to bite him, but it's interesting that his joy comes from seeing yuji suffer and look pathetic than giving him death. He despises everything about yuji and I see him praising others and he calls yuji boring (he's not but I'll let you live today sukuna). I don't like theorizing too too much for fear of raising expectations, but I'm really curious about sukuna's life during the heian period.

When sukuna and uraume laughed at yuji, I felt like I was laughed at too. I guess we'll be seeing his bath scene next.

Anyway, thanks for reading !! Have a good day/night.

(Will I ever go off anon? We'll see one day !!)

HOLA! Happy JJK-Sunday!!!!

Ok. hang I'm just going to go ahead and...

gege akutami is a menace to society actually

There... I felt like it needed to be said louder for the people in the back who may still be on the fence about getting into JJK.

Ok brainrot about chapter 215 under the cut!

Ah yes, no worries about chapter leaks lol. My weekly routine involves checking leaks first thing Wednesday and Friday mornings and nerding out with the moots about it 😂.

Like I am for real worried about JJK ending because what am I going to obsess over when it ends?!!!!!

WHAT KIND OF NORMAL EXISTENCE WILL I BE FORCED TO ENDURE?!!!!!!

But anyways, I did hold off on posting my reply to you until today (Sunday) for those who follow this hellhole of a blog of mine and don't actually read leaks.

he saw us have a little hope last week and had to send us tumbling again 😢

it's going to be a tough ride for sure ~

Yesssss I was hoping we'd get to see Megumi inside the inner domain wrecking Sukuna or at least inflicting some sort of damage 🥲🤧. SOMETHING! ANYTHING!

Regardless, Megumi fighting Sukuna from within whenever his friends are in danger is so... this boy is so beautiful and he doesn't even get it.

To your point about this being a though ride, Frenchie is my voice of reason when it comes to my fatalist fear of Megumi's death. @justafrenchlondoner recently said some good stuff about how Gege is probably trying to get us to feel like all hope is lost before something good happens.

After all, it isn't uncommon to see events continue to escalate in a sort of "it's going to get much much worse before it gets better" kind of way.

For some reason (denial), I have a feeling megumi's going to overcome this. I won't comment more on that because i feel like i'll spiral

Riiiiight so I'm still rather unwilling to let myself hope Megumi is surviving for the mere fact that I don't want to be hurt. That's just my nature tho.

If I break my heart now then I won't be heartbroken later on if it turns out that Megumi is not surviving.

Sound logic as you can see lol. I have a tendency to come up with worst case scenarios.

Despite that, I think the idea of Megumi surviving this ordeal to carry on and change the Jujutsu scheme of things makes a lot of sense. Not to mention having to carry the burden of responsibility for the memory of the people he cared about but lost along the way, quite possibly because of his own miscalculations.

Ugh... depressing.

It's so "Watanabe-ending" in its execution but far, far more depressing, brutal and cruel.

gege akutami is a menace to society actually

On another note, sukuna and co's eventual defeat will be worthwhile for how much suffering they've caused and will cause. Sukuna's choice to leave yuji alive will definitely come back to bite him, but it's interesting that his joy comes from seeing yuji suffer and look pathetic than giving him death.

Yeeeeeeessss. I really like the idea that Sukuna's continued underestimating of Yuji will come back to bite him in the ass. I personally will not be surprised if Yuji takes Sukuna back into himself and then kills himself in a self-sacrificial fashion.

Very Pisces of him. Very dying on the cross for our sins symbolism.

I was also thinking about the idea that Sukuna feeds off of other's suffering too. This whole idea around him being a hedonist with no regards for others takes on a whole new dimension when you consider he might go out of his way to cause suffering because it brings him joy.

It feels like an exploration of a demonic being which made me realize that I think that I've taken for granted that JJK is a horror story and that Gege may be using horror tropes.

This only become clear to me as of late when Sukuna possessed Megumi's body. It was a total execution of demonic possession where the person who gets possessed has to be mentally weakened in order for the demon to take over.

Also, from my understanding of demonic entities, they are said to feed off of negative emotions and actually orchestrate situations that cause suffering precisely so that they can feed off of these emotions.

When sukuna and uraume laughed at yuji, I felt like I was laughed at too.

I couldn't have said it better...

I have to admit that this is one of my favorite panels ever because, as you say, it's SO DESPICABLE of them to laugh at Yuji when he's so utterly broken after having miserably failed at saving Megumi.

I have personally been fascinated with the reactions this panel has gotten because it speaks to something very real.

Whether it is the experience of being bullied or our unwillingness and complete rejection of the very same evil that exists within, I feel like Gege struck a deep cord with the execution.

gege akutami is a menace to society actually

And this is one of the things that have been on my mind about Gege lately--his execution of events as of late has been far more brutal and cruel than before.

Idk how to explain but the events in Shibuya were bad and shocking... but #things right now just feel hopeless and it feels like Gege is unleashing his self-loathing onto his characters--and his self-loathing is cruel and brutal.

With mangaka like him I always have to wonder about their psyche. i.e. CLAMP's Nanase Okawa has an uncanny ability to take you into deep pits of relatable grief and meaningless despair right along with her characters.

All of the above said, I also agree with Frenchie about how I both hate and love Gege for the execution of this moment.

The fact that Gege was able to depict a deep experience of despair through Yuji and then elicit hate from the audience, it speaks to his ability as a story-teller and how the story he's telling resonates deeply with the audience in a cathartic fashion.

Also, not sure if you've seen this post by littleholmes but it includes a photo of what might be the Harima statue in question.

And like... the despair this child statue seems to be experiencing and expressing is so palpable, and I love Gege for making a reference to it because it speaks to Yuji's inner child's grief and helplessness and suffering for not being able to impose his will upon his environment.

Not sure if Spooky will write about it in more detail but I also love what @linkspooky said about the idea that Yuji trying to "Shonen protagonist" his way through things usually doesn't work out.

It's a nice twist on how Shonen mcs just barrel their way through #things with their typical Shonen mc single-minded determination, and everything works out because of the power of friendship or something like that.

Not to sound like a broken record, but this is why I don't understand the idea that JJK is cliché Shonen. There's so much happening underneath the surface that is so rich in commentary on common shonen tropes.

Anyway, thanks for reading !! Have a good day/night.

(Will I ever go off anon? We'll see one day !!)

Thanks for stopping by and sharing all the #thoughts once again!

If you ever come off anon I am looking forward to it. If you don't... well, I'll be looking forward to hearing from you again regardless.

Have a happy JJK Sunday!

#jjk ch 215 #ask the mental gymnastics anime girl #god I love jujutsu kaisen

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bonnvivre · 7 months ago

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this was a long read but i read the whole thing !! somehow, it’s always those that say “english isn’t my first language” that write so well.

i absolutely love reading any analysis relating to sukuna because i feel as if we have everything and yet, nothing at the same time when it comes to him so we’re much more open to interpretation and connections based on what has been currently revealed. (i also have more joy reading his analyses anyways because he’s my favorite so i’m more biased towards him lol there’s also many links with mythology which i heavily enjoy as well.)

i have nothing new to add since i’m not well versed in japanese mythos, however, i like the connections made with the associations of red between sukuna and other unusual children of mythology. plus, the similarities of sukuna’s worship and Goryō are interesting so i might actually read up on that.

one thing that ended up catching my attention was the word “mabiki” which i think sukuna used once to refer to maki back in ch. 215. nothing much, i just thought it was cool that it had use in JJK itself.

➠ Sukuna, the ‘shunned’ child and the demonisation and worship of ‘unwanted’ children in Japanese folklore:

[long read. trigger warning: referenced folktales and practices depict themes of infanticide, religious rituals and child exorcism, demonisation and worship of children, ableism, suicide, implied sa, and period-typical outdated social views. they are not a representation of my personal beliefs. please read with caution.]

New revelations of Sukuna’s past in Chapter 257 made me look deeper into some of the tales and customs from Japanese folklore about children deemed ‘abominable’ in the eyes of society that I had previously noted down and I decided to share as I think they could offer a better insight into Sukuna as a character and what might have inspired Akutami Gege’s depiction of him.

It would be better to start with a bit of the social background of Japanese folklore. I will use the Emishi (an ancient ethnic group of people who lived in parts of Honshū, especially in the Tōhoku region) as an example, the oral tales of whom later blended with Shintō and Buddhist religious concepts and heavily influenced Japanese folklore. It is believed that many of their tales were shaped by the region’s difficult history of natural disasters, famines, and geographic isolation. In the Tōhoku region, infanticide was sometimes used as a form of ‘birth control’ due to repeated famines. The bodies of ‘unwanted children’ were often disposed of in rivers or lakes.

Another important source of such folklore is the city of Tōno in Iwate prefecture, known particularly for Kappa, tales of which could offer a good basis for the beginning of my intended analysis.

Kappa, a green, amphibious, child-like creature with a yellow beak for a mouth and a turtle shell on its back is one of the most popular Yōkai from Japanese folklore. Some researchers say that the darker aspects of Kappa tales in Tōhoku may be an echo of the region’s tragic history of famines and the high rates of infant mortality caused by a harsh climate, natural disasters, and the tax system that was paid in rice. Similarly, many people in Tōno (which is part of the Tōhoku region) believe that tragic history is one of the origins of the stories of Kappa. The Kappa of Tōno specifically are said to be red in colour rather than green, which may allude to the Japanese word for infant - akachan, which derives from aka, the word for red. From this perspective, Kappa are creatures born out of social challenges and disasters. They may not seem all too relevant to Sukuna, but the need to mention them will come up in the later part.

Moving on, at the beginning I mentioned that ‘unwanted children’ were often disposed of in the rivers and lakes, which is also found in the Japanese creation myth. I discussed the variations of the myth in this post about Sukuna previously (you do not need to read it for the moment, but please note that it has many variations), but somehow I did not mention their first ‘inadequate’ child. According to the myth, before they had Kagutsuchi, Izanagi and Izanami had a child as a result of their first attempt at a union, but the child, known as Hiruko (‘Leech Child’), was born deformed. The mistake was attributed to a ritual error on the part of Izanami, who, as a woman, should never have spoken first (i.e. initiated the union). Considering the child inadequate for a diety, they set him adrift in a boat in hopes he would die at the sea. This myth reflects how women and children who were born ‘different’ or seen unable to serve their ‘purpose’ were treated.

Continuing from the myth, Chapter 257 made me think of the tale of Katako, in which the protagonist is born half-human and half-oni. What is Sukuna’s true nature we cannot know for certain. We know he was a human once, but we do not know enough of his past to assume if there was more to him (how and why he as a human might have come to be called the King of Curses will be explained in the later part), but the tale still has the potential to give us insight into Sukuna and his mother’s relationship. The tale has various versions with different endings, but it generally could be summarised as follows:

[A long time ago, a man encountered a man-eating ogre (from here on referred to as oni) while working in the field. He told the oni how much he loved mochi (rice cake), jokingly adding that he could even trade his wife for it. Taking his casual banter seriously, the oni treated him to mochi. The man ate his favourite food to his fill and happily went home only to find that the oni had taken his wife in exchange for the treat. The man searched everywhere and finally found his wife on the island where the oni lived. The man and his wife managed to come back home with Katako (meaning ‘Half-Child’), a child born of his wife and the oni on the island. However, Katako was always ostracised by his human peers (in another version, it is said that he had an insatiable appetite for eating humans). At ten years old, tired of being ridiculed, he asked his mother ‘to cut the oni part of him into pieces’ when he died, and then committed suicide.]

In the tale, Katako’s relationship with his mother seems to be of trust. He is cast out of society by humans and despite his mother being one as well, he does not harbour hate for her, he trusts her enough to leave his final wish upon her. We do not know much about Sukuna’s relationship with his mother, but the manner he referred to her in the last chapter makes it seem that he also harbours no hostility toward her. This tale also shows how children deemed ‘different’ were treated.

In past ages, children, being considered closer to the gods and the Other World, also played the part of intermediary between humans and the gods in Japanese society. This task of mediation between two separate worlds fell to them because they were regarded as incomplete persons (until the age of seven it was considered uncertain whether they would live or return to the Other World: a belief related to the challenges indicated at the beginning). While considered sacred beings different in nature from adults, they were at the same time looked down upon and referred to as kodomo (where ~domo has a negative/belittling connotation), gaki (hungry ghost or demon; brat), or jari (lit. gravel).

Back in the day, people referred to the killing off of ‘unwanted children’ (mabiki or ‘culling’, a common old slang for infanticide) as ‘sending a child back’, and a dead child was given a special non-Buddhist funeral. The various rituals surrounding birth and the child’s upbringing were intended, through communication with the Other World, to transform the child into an earthly being. This aspect of the ritual made me think of Sukuna’s mask and how that part of his face resembles a burn scar (note: i am aware the nature of his ‘mask’ is still not clear and whether it is really one) in some of the official illustrations. It is known that rituals of purification included fire and water magic. Exorcism of demons, aversion of disasters, and other rituals for the removal of pollution were frequent. A katashiro (paper cut in the shape of a man) symbolising the disaster would be burned or floated down the river as well. Personally, I see the possibility of Sukuna’s scar (if it really happens to be one) being from one of such rituals.

Continuing, there is a term - Goryō used to refer to the spirits of those who had died violently (e.g. by murder or execution) and have become gods. It also included those who had died untimely deaths and therefore had been unable to fulfil their purpose in this world. Some notable gods such as Hachiman, Tenjin, and Tenno were once considered powerful Goryō. Great natural disasters and social unrest were attributed to them; rituals designed to appease them were performed, and a cult of such worship evolved. It was (usually) as a result of belief in Goryō that particular individuals came to be worshipped as gods. At times when public unrest threatened the social order, elements estranged or excluded from the ‘normal system/order’ were assigned the status of Goryō and worshipped as such. The cult was intended to purify and renew society. Manga has given us a similar glimpse of Sukuna’s past, where despite being feared (and despised), people were ready to serve him (and pray in his name) for their own well-being. I think Akutami intended to echo this very aspect of society through the scene.

I mentioned that children were considered closer to the gods and the Other World, but not all children were treated equally. One version of the origin of Kamadogami in the Tōhoku region is that he was an ‘ugly child’ from the Dragon Palace who had been killed and was thereafter worshipped at household hearths. Zashikiwarashi, who often inhabits old houses and is said to bring good fortune while he remains, is another household god in the shape of a child or, in another version, the spirit of an unwanted child who, having been killed off, became the guardian god of houses. I mentioned Hiruko at the beginning as well, who was set afloat on the boat in the sea. Despite that, he is in some Shintō shrines identified with Ebisu, the patron of fishermen and tradesmen. Their worship was for the purposes indicated in the previous abstract, to avoid their wrath. Sukuna has not been ‘killed off’ like these children were, but such worship shows us the general psyche of the public.

I indicated that socially inferior and rebellious beings were treated similarly in the previous part. The character Dō of Dōji (童子, meaning child) once meant ‘slave’, tattooed on the forehead, and was closely linked to notions of personal status. It signified one who was not a complete person and also one who had not yet been initiated, in other words, one who did not belong to the order of this world, one who was in this world but not of it. They were despised, feared, and avoided by ordinary people for their strange appearance and magical powers. In some cases they even formed separate ‘child’ villages (dōji mura), calling themselves ‘descendants of oni (demons)’. Since they played the role of demons during the rituals, they were shunned by the nobility as if they were real demons. Could this somehow connect to Sukuna’s title? I do believe there is a possibility this could have inspired his being as the King of Curses.

The ‘ugly child’ who appears in the story of the origin of Kamadogami has parallels in Yokenai, Untoku, Hyotoku, and Hanatarekozo, children who brought good fortune and prosperity to the house in return for offerings to the Watery World of kadomatsu (pine-branch gate decorations for the New Year) and firewood. But despite that, their ‘ugliness’ and names were used as an indication that these children did not belong to this world. It is important to note that socially inferior and rebellious beings were treated in the same manner (here is where the point connects to Sukuna, continued from the next part in depth). Such children were often associated with the colour red. For example, Zashikiwarashi is described as red-haired and red-faced. Kintaro, Shutendoji, and other children born in unusual circumstances (but may not have been considered an ‘ugly child’) and brought up in the mountain wilderness are also said to have had red bodies and were endowed with superhuman strength. I also mentioned that Kappa from Tōno were depicted as red. We see Sukuna often associated with the colour red, particularly, his eyes are red. I believe the above-mentioned could be the reason for that.

Personally, what we know of Sukuna and his past seems to echo these folktales and practices as the foundation of his character. He was a ‘Demon’ for being an ‘abominable’ child, but he was worshipped for this same reason as well. Whether he was born that way after eating his twin in the womb or something happened to him later in life cannot be known yet, but it is clear his ‘abominable’ appearance could have warranted the same treatment from society. It could also explain Kenjaku’s ‘fascination’ with him as a being. We do not know what relationship they had or how exactly they came to know each other, but there is clearly a reason why a being such as Sukuna would ‘work’ with them. We do not know much about Kenjaku either, but it could be possible that they (Kenjaku) once were either (1) one of those ‘priests’ who performed exorcism to purify ‘demon’ children or (2) someone who offered such children refuge (perhaps and more likely, for their own personal gain). It would also relate to the variations of Ryomen Sukuna’s story that inspired Akutami Gege.

[Disclaimer: This post does not intend to demonise Shintoism or Buddhism, but to tell folklore and practices for analytical purposes. Additionally, English is not my native language and this is only a personal interpretation as just another reader that I am sharing in case someone finds it interesting or can use the information for better analysis.]

#very cool analysis #very much enjoy 👍#i love analysis posts so much but i never have anything useful to add to it so im like.#i loved this part !! like it’s english class or something #nonetheless it was a good read #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #jjk analysis #jjk spoilers #sukuna #ryomen sukuna #reblog

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