#jujutsu kaisen 205 spoilers

[linkspooky]

Jujutsu Kaisen, Chapter 205 Thoughts. 

AND IT’S YUKI TSUKUMO WITH THE STEEL CHAIR!

So this week we continue with more fighting, however rather than the powers and strategies used in the fight itself, let’s look at the two special grade sorcerers fighting Tsukumo Yuki and Kenjaku. The matchups in Jujutsu Kaisen are not just about power levels, often the characters fighting foil one another in some way, so let’s analyze Kenjaku and Yuki the old school and new school sorcerers. 

1. Thinking outside the Box

Considering half of this chapter is Tsukumo and Kenjaku analyzing each other’s strategies and cursed techniques before either of them throw the first punch to the point where the above image has their faces exactly aligned like they’re the left and right lobes of the same brain. 

This happens every time Kenjaku and Yuki interact, down to the first time we see them meet in canon. Despite the fact they are clearly on opposing sides, they discuss their plans and theories like they are a pair of colleagues aruging with each other rather than on opposite sides of the battlefield. 

Besides the fact that they have completely different ideas on what they think (the next stage of humanity) should be, they still talk and pick apart the holes in each other’s plans. Yuki grasps immediately that if Kenjaku were to try to optimize cursed energy, the people around the world would start targeting sorcerers as sources of cursed energy because they are almost exclusive to Japan. 

She in effect predicts a part of Kenjaku’s plan far ahead of time, his going overseas to get world superpowers interested in harnessing energy from cursed sorcerers in Japan. Whatever Kenjaku’s actual objective is with introducing armies from foreign nations into the culling games, Tsukumo was able to predict the inevitable next stage of his plan through sheer guesswork. 

On top of that, Kenjaku himself comments that he and Tsukumo think similiarly and that makes him happy because and this is just supposition he believes that few sorcerers in history have ever truly looked at the world the way he did. 

The most famous appearance we have of Kenjaku in history is when he took Noritoshi Kamo’s body, and was reviled by the world around him for his experimentation with cursed energy. Living a thousand years body hopping he has been a social pariah for a long time, for good reason.

 Kenjaku himself does not make social connections, and does not usually care at all for the thoughts and feelings of other people. He sees everyone as tools for furthering whatever result of his experiment he wants to bring about, and seems to judge people on whether they catch his interest or not. The fact that Tsukumo Yuki intrigues him when he dismisses his own children as boring is definitely something. 

What unites their thinking is most lilely that they are both outsiders to the current world around them, seeking to bring about a change, though they obviously have opposite ideas of what that change might be. Yuki is similar to Kenjaku in the fact that she is a big picture thinker who is less concerned about the individual lives of people involved in her plans. 

Yuki warns the main characters themselves that she’s not on their side. She also says that as a special grade she could have intervened and acted sooner, but she chose not to at the consequence of everything else. Considering that Kenjaku reconfigures Tenge’s barrier into a movie theatre, both of them tend to act as watchers from the outside rather than direct players. 

They are like scientists observing the result of an experiment and therefore they minimize their involvement until absolutely necessary. Though, I’m sure the people who died in Shibuya aren’t really appreciative of the fact that Tsukumo didn’t play her hand sooner because she wanted to watch what happened next. Not that I’m saying it’s her fault directly but she herself admits she could and should have done something earlier and holding back to just watch was a mistake on her part. 

She also at one point casually considers researching Toji as a test subject. Part of me wonders what that experiment would have been, considering that her ambition to change the whole world is probably more important in her mind than the life of one person. 

However, Yuki at least seems to have some morals whereas Kenjaku is literally amoral ( driven by no sense of right and wrong or moral standard everything he does is just based upon his own personal desires and objectives), Yuki takes a firm stance against the senseless sacrifice of life. 

2. Eros and Thanatos 

Yuki and Kenjaku also oppose each other thematically, Yuki is a character surrounded by symbolism associated with life and the proliferation and preservation of life, whereas death haunts Kenjaku’s character itself where he may be a force of death itself bringing tragedy and destruction to the lives surrounding the main characters. 

In Freudian Psychoanalytic theory, we would call this Thanatos and Eros.  

With the publication of the book “Beyond the Pleasure Principal” in 1920, Freud concluded that all instincts fall into one of two major classes: life drives and death drives - later dubbed Eros and Thanatos by other psychologists. Eros was the god of love, fertility and passion in ancient Greece. Thanatos was the human manifestation of Death. [X]

Yuki is painted many ways as the Eros of the story, it all starts with her question. “What kind of girls are you into?” Both her and her student Todo constantly interrogate others about this question, and this question itself is symbolic of Libido, while her cursed energy makes little hearts. 

In psychoanalysis Libido is the energy of sexual drive as a component of the life instinct. Quite simply, in order for all human life to continue people have to reproduce so early, early psychology theorizes that sex drive is influenced by psychological factors. Aoi even goes onto explain this question in basically terms of the Freudian idea of libido, that a person’s attraction to others is influenced by personality. Regardless of if this is actually true in real life or not, Megumi himself shows that his own personality has an influence in the kind of person he’s seeking a relationship with, because he wants a compassionate person. 

Aoi just like Yuki is surrounded by ‘Life” symbolism. Todo explains cursed energy to Yuji in cooking metaphors (you have to eat in order to survive) he loves passionate people and takes no interest in people who are boring / have no passion for life. Food, love, sex, passions are all things that make life worth living. 

Todo is also the most cooperative of all the Jujutsu Sorcerers as shown in his teamwork with Yuji, because the social cooperation that humans are capable of is also considered to be part of the life drive. Humans are a social species, no man is an island as they say, they have to cooperate together in society in order to survive. Yuki herself unlike Kenjaku cooperates with allies including Larue a former member of Geto’s family that has hearts on their nipples (recurring heart symbolism again). 

When Kenjaku tries to paint Yuji as the center of all that disaster and death brought upon the world, then Choso corrects him and says that Kenjaku is the one who brings death to everyone around him, a symbolic bringer of death himself like a Grim Reaper or a Shinigami. 

Kenjaku is surrounded by death symbolism, he  is literally inhabiting a dead body as we speak. His nine children are named after the Death Paintings, which are named after the Kusozu (Nine Phase Diagram) , a budhist serious of nine paintings that depict the stages of death and decomposition of a corpse. 

Kenjaku may seem like a life giver, because he is a single mother of one Yuji Itadori, and father to the Death Paintings, but what he does is actually a perversion of life. Succesful procreation requires that your children after all, he abandons the Death Painting Sibs to death, and sets up Yuji as a sacrifice to die. Even the curse painting sibs themselves aren’t properly born, they all in their cursed womb forms look like aborted fetuses in the nine month stages of fetal growth, which probably gives you a hint of how they came out of the mother. 

Kenjaku prolongs his own life at the cost of other lives, he kills people and steals their bodies, and does the same for the resurrection of old sorcerers they have completely overtaken a host body in order to continue living for the culling games. 

The death drive being the opposite of the life drive, drives people towards risky behavior, death, destruction. Which fits Kenjaku as his whole goal itself is to create risks, trying to bring something unexpected into the world. 

The ultimate irony in Kenjaku is that while his goal seems to be creating something new, a future he can’t see beyond the chaos, a cursed spirit with an unexpected face, he himself is incapable of creation his methods are just destruction. He creates children and then abanons them when they disappoint him, he creates Yuji just to die. He is a perversion of motherhood, and he is a perversion of a creator too. He doesn’t create so much as destroy what is already there, recklessly, hoping that will lead to something new. 

Yet, death is one half of life. 

 Everything life positive (love, social cooperation, etc. etc) is done by human beings, and everything that creates death (murder, violence, self-destructive behavior, addiction, risk taking) is also done by humans as well they make up two aspects of human lives. All humans want to live, and yet all humans also are aware no matter what they do they may someday die.

Which is why despite having opposite goals, Yuki and Kenjaku exist as two sides of the same coin. 

[niorrrr]

One chance, just one, only one pleeeaaseeee

Twt

[cursedvibes]

Garbhadhatu/the Womb Realm

While we haven't seen the full extend of Kenjaku's domain, we know it is named after the Womb Realm, a metaphysical space that plays a role in Vajrayana Buddhism. You might've heard of the Diamond Realm, which in short represents wisdom. This is similar to that. The Womb Realm represents compassion. In it, all compassionate actions lead to salvation. This is now the second time Kenjaku has been connected to compassion and leading people to salvation. Kannon bosatsu, who Kenjaku (Fukukenjaku Kannon) derives their name from, is characterized by exactly that. Actually, Kannon is also depicted in some Garbhadhatu Mandalas as part of the shibosatsu (four bosatsu).

Like Kenjaku's ideals are a bastardization of Kannon's priciples, this womb realm looks more like a place of anguish if the contorted faces are anything to go by. We got 6? 7? headless pregnant bodies and 5 or 6 people sitting at the bottom with masks on their faces. They seem to be holding eggs or maybe their distended bellies, it's hard to tell, and it looks to me like they are summoning/protecting the pregnant bodies and mass of faces.

My thought so far is that the contorted faces represent (or are?) the identities Kenjaku has taken on, with the masked people being the identity they present to the outside. It looks like the pregnant bodies are holding in the screaming faces, similar to how Kenjaku's experiences with pregnancy possibly connect all the bodies they have taken on over the years. (As in the experiences shaped their future, not that they got pregnant in every body)

For the pregnancy part, Kenjaku has been connected to it plenty before with of course the Death Paintings and the birth of Yuuji (btw if that looked anything like this, Jin is an absolute mad man for just chilling through that). Pregnancy, the womb, motherhood, all these things are often, especially in Buddhism and Gardhadhatu, connected to nurturing and protecting aspects, which Kenjaku is the exact opposite of. The first time we heard of them killing people with their own hands was the infanticide of the Star Plasma Vessel and Six Eyes user back in the 1500s.

Aside from all the symbolism, I would really like to know why Kenjaku personally has such a fixation on pregnancy and anything connected to the uterus... there must be more history behind it than just Yuuji's birth and the (in Kenjaku's eyes) failed Death Painting experiment.

On another note, those markings on the bodies look very similar to the one on the Death Painting and the mark on Tsumiki's forehead/what appeared when Kenjaku started the Culling Game. It's not the exact same, but the strokes are similar. All looking like they were painted on with a brush. I would really like to know what the specific function of those marks is and if/how they are connected to Kenjaku's technique.

(I've seen some theories that this is Choso but I'm pretty sure Choso is the worm on the left. That bulky form barely visible at the top is Kechizu and the larvae-esque one at the bottom is Eso. The one with markings in the foreground doesn't match the shapes of the fetuses Mahito assembles in front of the man that will become Kechizu's vessel. This one might be a representation of the Death Paintings as a whole or one we haven't met yet, although in that case it's strange that they would be shown here.)

This makes me even more confident that Tsumiki will play a bigger role in Kenjaku's plan (and I still belief in the theory that she's the game master)

[epickiya722]

Ever just... this goddess of a woman!! THE VEINS!!!

[allmightydepression]

Need to physically and mentally recover from the fact that yuki is the first person to pose as a threat against kenjaku since since gojo, that she wasn't the one on the defence but started the attack against him, that she is a direct parellal for his long distance attacks where she closes down on her opponents, that she is thriving towards a world that is opposing to all the ideals of kenjaku, that she is the creator of the idea that geto misunderstood, that she is the first person in the entirety of series to damage kenjaku to such a significant extent, and this is her debut fight in the series, in this essay I will-

[nogravitymom]

💫Yuki Tsukumo💫

[wibbley-wobble]

[sugurugetowo]

[littleholmes]

I am once again asking Gege to stop ending chapters on domain expansions 😭please

[shoofworldwide]

No because Yuki's never spoken or uttered anything about preference in MEN before which implies she has an interest in both?? AND that Choso fits her preference????? AND SHE HAS THE COOLEST CT AND MIGHT BE THE STRONGEST CHARACTER AND IS WEARING A COOL OUTFIT WITHOUT BEING OVERSEXUALIZED AND SHE STILL ACKNOWLEDGES HER FEMININITY AND EMBRACES IT AS A CORE PART OF HER PERSON AND SHE'S PROBABLY GONNA BE ONE OF IF NOT THE MOST INTEGRAL CHARACTERS TO THE PLOT AND

[just-sp-in-inginthevoid]

Kenjaku, for whatever reason (gender envy? Political power?) took over firstNoritoshi's body and then, somewhen had their thing with the Death Paintings' mother

Now. Since Kenjaku is linked to pregnancy more than once; why didnt they took over the mother's body ?

[lilix-love]

The IT girl

[iplayvidya]

Jujutsu Kaisen - Chapter 205

Yuki is so valid for just fucking DECKING Kenjaku like that. Solid chapter. Hyped for 206.

[cursedvibes]

Kenjaku: *has their whole domain expansion themed around pregnancy*

Kenjaku next chapter probably: "I would once again like to remind you that I don't care about Itadori Yuuji and his birth didn't impact me in any way"

[niorrrr]

IT IS HAPPENING

So... Kenjaku VS Yuki is going to happen.

I don't know how it is going to play because we don't know a single thing about Yuki's abilities.

I hope they had something to do with being a Star Plasma Vessel. My theory about Yuki haven't merged with Tengen is because she was too powerful to "waste her" like that.

Probably she was worthier being a sorcerer than another body to be merged with Tengen.

Also she is the oldest or at least the first special grade from the modern era, so she must have some resources.

But it is also stated that she didn't do missions, so I don't know how much experience she has. Althought, she taught Todo, and Todo is a good fighter and a powerful sorcerer.

And Kenjaku... He has a Domain. It was obvious that Geto would have a Domain. Even Mai had it.

The only SG Domain we have seen is Gojo's... And we know Infinite Void is extra powerful and dangerous. I don't want to think how powerful could be Geto's and we don't know if that Domain will be mixed with Mahito's, which I think it is going to happen.

In conclusion, we have a huge fight ahead.

[allmightydepression]

I have never been more sure about how gay I am than this moment gege knows his target audience cause bitch-

do you see those biceps carved by the gods -