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pancake-breakfast · 1 year ago

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Jujutsu Kaisen Ch. 242 Spoilers Ahead

Seeing Takaba's power in full swing is such a great reminder of how absolutely borked the power rating system is in Jujutsu Kaisen. The system is described as being a way to determine which sorcerers go to which jobs by having a sorcerer's grade show they're somewhat more powerful than curses of the same level, but throughout the series we see that both ability mismatch and politics make the system a bit more arbitrary than perhaps one would want when determining what curses they're gonna go up against.

Ability Mismatch Part 1: Nanami vs. Mahito

We first get discussion of this back in Junpei's arc with all the stuff between Nanami and Mahito.

Akutami makes it clear that, while technically a jujutsu sorcerer at a certain rank should be able to take out curses at their rank and lower (and Nanami, while only Grade 1, has an ability that allows him to do a LOT of damage to even special grades), a mismatch of powers can really upset the "rank" balance.

Both Nanami and Mahito are most deadly at close range, but Nanami's attack requires precision that Mahito's doesn't, and Mahito, being a curse, can just regenerate while Nanami can't. This means that while Nanami might be able to take down a special grade with a similar cursed energy level to Mahito, Mahito himself is going to give Nanami trouble because Nanami doesn't just have to have perfect offense. He also has to have perfect defense. Mahito, on the other hand, doesn't have to be perfect about anything.

Nanami's tough enough that the single hit he took from Mahito back then didn't kill him, but it did do a decent amount of damage.

It's easy to think that taking so much damage might be more or less a common job hazard for Nanami, but when he fights Jojo Siwa Shigemo Haruta in Shibuya, we see that's hardly the case. For all Shigemo's cowardice, he's actually reasonably competent, and between that, his ruthlessness, and his ability, he might actually qualify as semi-Grade 1. But when he kicks Nanami, Nanami doesn't even flinch, and Shigemo himself compares the feeling of the kick to kicking a wall of stone. What's more, the sword slash he landed on Nanami might have sliced Nanami's fancy shirt, but Nanami himself doesn't have a scratch on him. (Also, Nanami didn't flinch for that, either.)

Nanami's a tough cookie. Even Dagon, a low-to-mid-level special grade, comments on this when he sees Nanami didn't simply survive Dagon's fish attack, but has all his limbs and his wits (even if Nanami is a bit worse for the wear).

And, as anyone who watched the after-credits scene for Thunderclap knows, Nanami even took a direct hit from Jogo, who appears to be the strongest of the three cursed spirits Kenjaku's currently allied with, and whom he describes as being "as tough as eight or nine of Sukuna's fingers," and Nanami survived. Survived and is walking around, still holding his weapon, even when severely burnt by an attack we first saw Jogo use on Gojo's head when those two fought.

Point being, Nanami, a Grade 1 sorcerer, can absolutely hold his own against "lower tier" special grades, and is even likely to survive long enough to escape against some low-to-mid grades. But if he's up against a Grade 1 curse (or a low-level Special Grade like Mahito) with the wrong kind of close-range attack, they're gonna give him more trouble than expected.

But we actually see this "earlier" in the series, too, and against no one less than The Strongest himself.

Ability Mismatch Part 2: Gojo vs. Miguel (and theoretically some others)

I glazed over it in Part 1, but it's a bit difficult to gauge the exact grade of curse users. And I'm about to glaze over it again (for now), except to say that Miguel, the person Geto assigns to "keep Gojo busy" during the Night Parade of A Thousand Demons in JJK0, is probably (like Nanami) a rather tough Grade 1. He might maybe, possibly, be a Special Grade, but even if he is, what does it matter? He's up against the man, the myth, the legend, Gojo Satoru himself.

This fight should be a cakewalk for someone at Gojo's levels. Miguel might be a talented fighter, but you might have noticed he canNOT land a blow on Gojo. Meanwhile, Gojo is slapping him silly.

So why'd this fight last so long?

I mean, sure, Gojo was trying not to seriously injure any of Geto's family, but he starts the fight by telling Miguel he's in a hurry, and then reiterates he doesn't have time for all this later on. Why can't he speed things up?

Well, Gojo tells us himself.

The regardless of Miguel's own power level, the whip he wields contains a special-grade curse. Later in the manga (you were warned there'd be manga spoilers; get out while you can), we learn the curse negates other cursed techniques. Despite Miguel being unable to land a blow on Gojo, the curse is still mucking with Gojo's abilities. Gojo is basically slowly burning the whip away with sheer cursed energy, and he's probably only able to do that because, well, he's the strongest.

I think there's some discussion to be had on whether this fight gets dragged out because Gojo's concerned about Miguel using the whip on other allies of his, or if Gojo just wants something that might muck with his own abilities gone, or if Gojo's allowing himself to be distracted because he wants to give Yuuta a chance to tap more deeply into his abilities... but that's neither here nor there. The point is that Miguel, a considerably less strong sorcerer than Gojo, was still able to keep Gojo busy for so long Geto tells him he's late when he finally shows up. If Miguel hadn't had that technique-negating whip, it would have been much harder for that fight to have dragged on as long as it did.

But while we don't really see any other sorcerers or curses (beyond Sukuna and a quadruple-team-up of Jogo, Hanami, Choso, and Mahito) giving Gojo any real trouble in fights, the narrative lets us know that a few lower-grade characters (such as Grade 1 Sorcerer Hakari and the aforementioned Hakaba; Yuuta doesn't count at this point since the story's made it clear he pretty much matches Gojo at this point) might actually give Gojo a run for his money simply because of how their techniques work.

In fact, that stupid little ass Shigemo might also manage to escape Gojo (at least temporarily) or land a blow (though maybe not a killing one) due purely to his technique, and both Hakari and Hakaba definitely outrank him. Hells, Nobara might be able to get a hit on him if she could manage to create an appropriate shikigami, and she's not even Grade 1. Which reminds me....

(Seriously, guys. Get out now if you don't want spoilers for Shibuya.)

Ability Mismatch Part 3: Nobara vs. Mahito

Nobara might go into Shibuya under the premise that she's going to be assessed for advancement to Grade 1, but at this point, she's ranked as a Grade 3. And while one could make an argument that she should be Grade 1, it's also worth noting that when she sees watches Nanami go to town on Shigemo, she immediately feels horrendously outclassed.

So between those two things and just how much trouble Mahito gives Nanami, when Mahito goes after her, it should be an easy victory for his Special Grade self, right?

Wrong.

Unlike Nanami, Nobara's technique works best at range. She doesn't need to be close to Mahito to do damage to him. So once she gets him pinned down, she can start hitting him with relative ease.

What's more, at this point Mahito has split himself in two. AND one can't just damage his physical form to take him down. They also have to damage his soul, his sense of who he is. This isn't an easy task. At this point, only two characters have succeeded in it: Mechamaru (although he burned through a TON of power to do it) and Yuuji (because his technique is weird and because housing Sukuna makes him a Special Grade). AND Nobara isn't even fighting the real Mahito, so this duplicate is a bit more disposable than Mahito's actual body would be.

But Nobara's technique utilizes sympathetic magic. She only needs to damage part of the whole (or even just a doll that's been prepped as a stand-in with the smallest part of the whole) to hit a curse to its core. So by pinning Copy Mahito down and then smacking him with Resonance, she manages to land what's absolutely the most devastating blow Mahito has received yet.

That's right; the worst blow this Special Grade takes is from a Grade 3 (or, at most, a Grade 1 who's still technically outclassed by Nanami, who had to flee his first fight with Mahito, only did as well as he did in the second one because Yuuji was there, and... well, if you're reading the manga, you know how the third one goes). It's so bad that Mahito decides he's going to need to run away from her for a bit while he sets up a new strategy to take her out.

If she hadn't let her guard down at just the wrong moment, there's a good chance he wouldn't have won that fight. Man, what a difference that would have made....

But I've talked enough about ability mismatch. Let's move on to politics. Don't worry; this bit only needs one part, because there's one character who embodies getting screwed over by politics more than any other....

Politics: Maki and the Sway of Jujutsu Houses

Of all the students at Jujutsu High, Maki ranks the lowest: Grade 4.

Her own twin sister calls her a weakling, and by Jujutsu Society standards, her inability to sense or even see cursed energy without tools makes her worthless, little more than a normal human even if she has a Heavenly Restriction. To make matters worse, House Zen'in is old-school misogynist. Once it was clear she was born female, her only chance of being seen as a worthwhile human being by her family was by displaying impressive cursed energy and technique (preferably the house technique), but they already knew that wouldn't happen.

When twins are born into a family with jujutsu in their bloodline, any cursed energy they might inherit ends up split. Neither Mai nor Maki would ever have the kind of cursed energy their house demanded. While Mai ended up with some, it's barely enough to fabricate anything useful unless she seals it with a binding vow... which she does exactly once as she bestows the last of herself to her sister.

Maki's Grade 4 ranking puts her at the bottom of the stack, but she likely wouldn't even have that ranking if it weren't for Gojo. It's not like the Zen'ins were keen on her going to any Jujutsu High. They didn't want her to train, and saw her as little more than a failure and a bother. But Gojo wants to surround himself by strong allies in his students, and while I don't remember off the top of my head if he directly sponsored her enrollment, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he did.

And then he puts her up for assessment to jump straight from Grade 4 to Grade 1.

This might seem drastic if one has never encountered Maki, but as Miwa was quick to notice during the Exchange Event, Maki's Grade 4 title is hardly an accurate gauge of her ability.

While Maki's just as blown away as Nobara is by Nanami's display in Shibuya, when she ends up in Dagon's domain, she doesn't even slightly end up fish food. This is of course due in no small part to Dagon grossly underestimating her, but as she points out, his perception of her power level is inaccurate enough that he's unable to finish her with one blow.

Shibuya Arc Maki probably would have lost to Dagon, and lost hard, had she been on her own. Even with two Grade 1s fighting beside her, they weren't able to make a lot of progress. But then everybody's favorite (and Maki stans most-loathed) character Toji shows up to give us a bit of foreshadowing of what Maki can become. Because it's not any of the sorcerers that takes Dagon down. They mostly stand there slack-jawed while Toji, a man with zero cursed energy whatsoever and thus who couldn't hold a rank in Jujutsu Society on technicality alone, beats the shit out of Dagon.

It takes a while before Maki reaches (and then quickly surpasses) Toji's level, and after she does, she eventually goes toe to toe with Sukuna, the King of Curses himself.

Sukuna immediately recognizes her as a tough opponent. She withstood the rain of fire he sent via Nue and doesn't have a scratch on her. And while Sukuna notes his cursed energy output is all over the place, he also notes his physical movement is fine, right where it should be.

This doesn't stop Maki from landing several hits on him, even without Itadori running support. In fact, she and Itadori might have taken down Sukuna then and there if his backup hadn't shown up, so I think it's safe to say she's definitely at Special Grade level now, and probably even outclasses de-Sukuna'ed Itadori.

But at this point in the story, Grades are pretty much irrelevant. After all, they're a function of Jujutsu Society, and between Geto's disappearance, Maki's slaughter of Clan Zen'in, and Kenny's murder of all the Jujutsu higher-ups, subsequent forceful takeover of the resources in House Kamo, and Idle Transfiguration to bring back both a bunch of old-timey sorcerers and awaken a bunch more sorcerers (including a large number of Special Grades), formalized Jujutsu Society is effectively gone.

Even when it was there, it had a TON of outliers just due to politics. Maki aside, curse users are by definition separated from it, and as such they aren't granted ranks. Maybe there were more Special Grades hiding amongst them this whole time, but who can say? They're largely untallied, unaccounted for, and untested.

Jujutsu Society never had room for outliers. How fitting, then, that the house known to be the most unforgiving toward outliers would fall to the person they saw as their worst outlier?

But Let's Get Back To Takaba

And we thought Hakari's cursed technique was weird.

Takaba's ability bends reality to his will. If he wants things to go a certain way, they do. If he thinks something's funny, it happens. And everyone around him is caught up in it.

He's basically a World of Darkness marauder dropped into Jujutsu Kaisen. I'd say, "Thank God he's on our side," but long-term, that might not actually pan out so well. His lack of awareness of his own powerset means if he's in the right mood, he could easily sweep up allies and foes into his particular brand of reality fuckery, complete with altering their states of mind to what he needs for whatever scene he's creating.

Kenjaku is losing to him.

Since he was so eager to flee Gojo, it might be easy to forget that Kenny is MORE than competent with Geto's body both in hand-to-hand combat and in cursed technique use. At the end of Shibuya, he implemented Geto's technique to a level we never even saw Geto use as he employed several techniques from the array of curses he'd collected, signing it all off with Mahito's Idle Transfiguration on a national level. Geto wishes he could have pulled this off.

Then, when Kenjaku went after Tengen, he soundly beat Choso (who might be inexperienced, but is quick to adapt and hardly weak) and, with a much greater level of difficulty, took down combat specialist and Special Grade layabout Yuki.

Point being, he can hold his own in a fight. What's more, he's repeatedly shown he has a mind for strategy and is more than willing to take the time to plot out elaborate plans that take lifetimes or even centuries to come to fruition.

But that's just it. Takaba is not letting him think. Literally. All his thoughts just become part of the bit, which gives Takaba an advantage and keeps Kenjaku on his toes.

I'd say this is a true battle of wits, but Takaba seems to be acting more on instinct than anything else, so I'm not sure wits come into play at all on his side of things.

But until he showed up, Kenny hadn't spared Takaba a second thought. Takaba isn't brimming with cursed energy like Yuuta and he hasn't been overtly displaying his strength in a way the Culling Game measures like Higuruma, and so he wasn't even a consideration to this centuries-old sorcerer in a Special-Grade body.

Is Takaba Special Grade? Who knows. His output of cursed energy isn't high enough for others to be actively targeting him, but his technique itself is so bonkers-crazy it's taking down someone else who was once called The Strongest and who's being piloted by an evil mastermind. And it's doing it casually. Takaba is having the time of his life, seemingly having completely forgotten that he and Kenny are locked in a fight to the death (if Takaba ever knew that in the first place).

Maybe it was nice to think this was a series with a stereotypical power structure that could be easily defined and ranked up within. Then again, it was also nice to think this was a series where the stereotypical hero-type characters come out on top through the power of friendship, and look where that's got us.

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