#yorozu would beat their ass I think

[nyan-bynary]

Which jjk women would be more likely to kiss kaori kenjaku?

[sulky-cabbage]

The sukugo fight can't get animated any sooner I'm craving sukugo tiktok edits

[cursedvibes]

When it comes to the Shinjuku fight it kinda reminds me of how I felt reading Madara during the 4th Shinobi War Arc. Where it’s like “Well I’m not mad that Madara is strong, that he keeps getting stronger, I just wish the battle was better paced and that Madara was better set up.” same with Kaguya.

Also I’ve noticed that the reading comprehension in this community is straight ass. People seem to not really care about the narrative outside of the main main characters. People are willing to overlook flaws in the main characters writing but will be very loud and it flaws outside of them. Vice versa, people are fine with the rest of the narrative being sacrificed if it means an exciting moment featuring their favorite character (cough Gojo cough).

It’s behavior similar to what I see in idol or band communities, which boggles my mind because JJK is a story. And should be read and analyzed like a story, not an idol group or gacha game.

It does feel quite similar to the 4th Shinobi war although thankfully not quite as bad. I think we have way too many people running around to the point that they have to come up with dumb reasons for why Angel, Hana and Inumaki can't participate for example, but that's still way better than the thousands of fodder ninja Kishimoto expected us to care about, while making it clear that only a handful of people could handle Madara, Kabuto and Kaguya anyway. Not to mention killing who was very clearly supposed to be the main villain only to introduce a completely new villain, who hasn't even been so much as mentioned up to that point and needed a total reboot of the world building to make sense. Everyone knows the thing that this series about ninjas desperately needed was aliens...

JJK also has the advantage that while Sukuna is insanely strong and the protagonists only slowly chip away at him, overpowering him isn't the goal here. So it isn't like with Naruto, where the main characters have to unlock some new type of cursed energy to beat him or whatever, it is much more an ideologically driven battle, where what really counts is undermining Sukuna's philosophy, which you can do best by not buying into the obsession with strength. The problem is just that Gege is getting a little too caught up in throwing around techniques than tackling what really matters. Kind of similar to the Gojo vs Sukuna fight, although not as bad yet. Having Yuuji involved has definitely improved things. Still, I think you can again feel that Gege is struggling with writing an overpowered character and finding the balance between showing his strength and focusing on the thematic aspects of the story like they manage to do in pretty much every other fight. Again, the foundation is there, but the formulaic structure of the Shinjuku fight is not really helping. Plus you have some unnecessary intermissions like Yorozu dying to give Sukuna a weapon that does nothing and only serves as a get-out-of-jail-free card (seriously what was the point of all that, it had literally 0 zero consequences and only robbed us of a chance at seeing Sukuna in a scenario where he can't rely on his strength).

Agree that there has been unfortunately very little good analysis on these chapters. I don't know how it looks on reddit, but it's getting quite hard to find some good meta on tumblr and twitter on this fight. A lot of commentary I see boils down to either "why can't Sukuna just die already??" and "Gojo has to come back to fix everything, here's a 38 page essay on all the foreshadowing of his return that will happen any day now". I can understand the first point, these people mostly just seem fatigued by the structure of this fight (new character pops up, gets killed/gravely injured by Sukuna, someone else takes their place) and they just want it to be over. The problem is just that killing Sukuna here would for one not make sense for his power level because while it is true that the protagonists have thrown a lot of force at him and tried different strategies, he's clearly not been trying very hard ever since Gojo died (which frustrates me a lot). That has to change first. And also if he died now that would make for a very unsatisfying, premature end of this story. Nothing would be gained with that, no character arc properly resolved. It would hurt especially Sukuna's character because it would mean he really was just a strong big bad with not much motivation besides wanting death and destruction for its own sake, who had to be killed to avoid further danger and go back to status quo. Far too easy and all the setup for Sukuna being a more nuanced character gets cut off. Like I set before, it would be worse than Kenjaku's death, since that at least had meaning and found some kind of end for Kenjaku's character arc. Kenjaku changed, while Sukuna has very firmly been the same this whole time with only a very brief moment of reflection on what he is even doing here. So yeah, more needs to happen before Sukuna can die and first of all he needs to take Yuuji seriously already and be pushed to his limits, challenged. That would vastly improve the tension of the fight as well.

And Gojo coming back is just...I understand wanting your favourite character back, but even if for some reason he was revived, he shouldn't help in the fight. Him overpowering Sukuna would mean exactly nothing, contradict the whole message of the story and also means the characters regress to letting Gojo solve everything again and direct their decisions after what he wants. That's why it was so important for Gojo to die or get depowered, so the other characters could progress and make real change in the world. He was a necessary stepping stone they had to overcome. He can't defeat Sukuna because he is essentially Sukuna, but in a different, slightly more humane font.

And as for your last point, I don't think it's bad to have a character you really like, are even obsessed with, that's why we have another popularity poll coming up after all. Engaging characters are very important, it's just a problem if people warp the story in their head to revolve around this character and then get seriously upset when the story doesn't follow their headcanon and blame the author for that. I like headcanons, I like writing fanfiction, but you have to differentiate that from what is actually happening in canon and accept that canon plays by different rules. Liking your fanfics more than the actual story is fine too, you just can't mesh these two together and lose sight of what is actually happening in the manga. As long as the story follows its own premises and rules/events it has set up, it is perfectly fine. There is legitimate criticism to make about jjk, I do it plenty, but things like wanting Sukuna dead and Gojo alive and getting mad at Gege for it not happening the way they want are just not it.

[hollow-lime-green]

Ok well I have some problems with the wording here. I don't think his "domain is a train station". There's so much I don't like about that wording. That being said, that doesn't impact the case for this being foreshadowing of the scene, which I could totally buy. Anyway I'm going to nitpick this because I think the leaked chapter was really interesting and I am excited to talk about it. So, nitpicking:

Domains aren't really places.

They can be, but the power/infused technique is kind of independent from the location, which is something that's made clear with barrier-less domains and anti-domain techniques (which, by the way, are all more or less explicitly essentially short range DEs).

Some domains are definitely places: Higuruma courthouse, Dagon beach episode, Smallpox Curse graveyard.

Some domains are in the middle: Infinite Void, Yuta "we're in the same place but there are swords everywhere now", Hakari's pachinko zone.

Barrierless domains are very much not places (arguably 2/3 are structures but I think Megumi's is not): Malevolent Shrine, Womb Profusion, Chimera Shadow Garden. Same with anti-domain techniques: Simple Domain, Hollow Wicker Basket, Domain Amplification.

So, yes, Yuji's DE could be in a train station, but that's also not really the DE. The DE - the important bit - is the embedded technique, and the 'location' of it can connect with that, but doesn't have to.

Dagon's DE is a beach because his embedded technique is the fish swarm, but it doesn't actually need to be a beach if he could do it barrierless. He's summoning the fish anyway.

Higuruma's is a courtroom, but the sword and Judgeman could exist outside of it without a barrier. Go rogue. Privatize justice.

Gojo could baja brain blast people in any location, but Infinite Void looks super cool, and he hasn't figured out barrierless DE (and never needed to).

So since I've just established that the location can be relevant, why am I nitpicking this? What is the value of this "um ackshually"?

Yuji's CT is memories, so Yuji's DE is also memories.

The embedded technique of his DE is likely exactly what we've seen before with Choso and Todo. Anchoring that power to a liminal space like a train station makes a lot of sense narratively. I think it could be anchored to anything, though. And I think if we were to see him use it multiple times, it would not always have to be in a train station. (airport??? jk)

I think what we're about to see is a lot of stress on the liminality of the train station, of this being a decisive moment/indecisive situation for Sukuna, of the future ahead of them being open and undefined. When we look at Sukuna's arc and narration, especially with Yorozu and Gojo, I think it's pretty clear that Gege is setting up some kind of "you have to emotionally beat the monster since you can't physically beat it" thing. Putting him back in Yujikuna form also supports this.

So...

JJK will end with Yuji's power - the power of friendship.

I mean, maybe. I don't know if he'll succeed, but that certainly seems to be his plan. He's probably gonna get his ass beat first, at the very least.

I LOVE WHEN ALL THE PIECES CLICK BACK INTO PLACE TO MAKE THE PICTURE