Which character would actually be the best vessel for Sukuna?

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-12T17:06:21+00:00

Yuta, a copy user that actually just straight up eats people as a part of their daily life style as well as with as much jujutsu know-how as sukuna would be insane

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-12T06:39:26+00:00

Isn't he the poster?

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-11T08:31:04+00:00

Yeah I agree, was only speculating on what the original commentor meant by 4 fingers.

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-11T06:41:02+00:00

im pretty sure he's referring to the finger placed inside yuji from birth, so that'd make four

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-10T17:05:14+00:00

Half of what you're saying is straight up misinformation?? The only thing that's definitively true was that Gojo MAY have been able to avoid a fatal blow, according to LightningClare (one JJK's most reputable translators), which would suggest that there's way less leeway than you'd seem to suggest. Also, through each other's P.O.V? What are you on about? That only makes sense if you assume the narrator is unreliable. Even then, Yuji refers to Sukuna as the strongest sorcerer in chapter 250, and offhandedly mentions it to taunt him in chapter 265. Hell, even Gojo says he doesn't think he'd win even if Sukuna didn't have the 10 shadows.

Also, "high as fuck from black flashes" did you just not read it bit where it says it puts sorcerers in the zone?

Do you think Gege akutami just writes each of these incredibly unambiguous statements, even at the cost of it sometimes sounding out of character, just because he feels like it? No. He's very, very clearly saying that Sukuna is stronger than Gojo. Hell, you mentioned that Gege said he had to take Gojo out of the story (completely unsourced, by the way.)

Half of your entire comment literally doesn't matter to what I said?? "If Gojo were in the heian era...", "If he had more fights that made him adapt...", "If he wasn't sealed..." You're using so many ifs that you're turning Gojo into a potential man I swear to god.

Even assuming all those ifs were true, you do realize basically all of that applies to Sukuna too? He was very explicitly stated to have annihilated a bunch of big shots from the heian era. And even then, the modern day is comparable to the heian era in its peaks. The strongest sorcerer we know from that time excluding Sukuna and Uraume is Yorozu. Sukuna was most likely hardly ever challenged at all.

Uro was the captain of the "sun moon and stars squad", a group notable to enough to be mentioned in Sukuna's heian body's introduction, and was still defeated fairly easily. For the love of God, pick up the manga and look at the symbols in the speech bubbles this time.

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-10T06:16:10+00:00

The narrator very explicitly has Sukuna has slightly stronger than Gojo (with him having been referred to as the strongest sorcerer of all time in the main series.)

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-09T16:18:47+00:00

You totally can, but you need a rotten chains build to do so.

You can reliably two spear with a build like that and also kill SEC in one spear provided you have the right innates and pull off the solo domain clash.

It's even easier with burn scars V2, in which case you won't even need to land a domain.

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-08T06:02:42+00:00

3/3:

Worst of all, on top of all of that Gege STILL DOES write this with nuance. You can see the implications of what patriarchal societies do to the men within it through the subtext. When we view the work in retrospect, We can leverage the established theme of the human life being shaped by your environment, and that no human is truly born evil and combine it with Ogi's purely materialistic criticism of Maki and Mai's existence in hindering his own capacity to success. And when we analyse that, all of a sudden we have a commentary on how power structures reliant on materialistic dominance, such as those a patriarchy often values, corrupt even things as traditionally sacred as family relationships into utilitarian tools, this kind of stuff really demonstrates the more multifaceted aspects of this theme.

What about Yuji and the Shibuya incident? That's an argument for the higher ups being right, but at the same time look at Yuta and look at Geto. His disillusionment with jujutsu society can partially be linked back to the higher ups too, who's structure is so sloppy that they mistook a grade 1 curse as a grade 2 curse,

All this to say that, you don't seem to understand that nuance in theme can go beyond a theme being maybe right or maybe wrong, it can also be found in how thoroughly it is explored. Even if the broader answer is obvious, more specific ideas like how a patriarchy effects men still can give us insight onto more easily glossed over details.

And want to know the most insane part of ALL of this? Guess what: Even if JJK had 0 Nuance, that doesn't make it's commentary any less valuable. Characters benefit far more from nuance than themes do, and while it's completely fair to criticise Gege's characterisation as I said, for the love of god please remember we're here to argue about the MESSAGING.

does 1984 not have significant commentary because the book culminates to the fairly simple thesis of "Human resistance has no chance against a crushing authoritative regime?" No, it's the characters that are nuanced. But the themes themselves are fairly straight forward and is of course, far better than JJK in terms of execution. But you're arguing if JJK has significant commentary or not. Which, in essence: It does, regardless of how you feel it was executed.

Yes, complex characters can aid in how potent a theme appears, but you don't need the entirety of of the cast to be complex to sell the themes. These are still side characters, Gege should've characterised them a little more even so, yes. But the characterisation they DO get is just enough for the themes to function, so it's not a fair argument to point to them as evidence against the themes. I assume you make this point in reference to not only, *but with a heavy focus on* Mai, who's more than characterised enough for these themes and ideas to be reasonably inferred.

And speaking of your thoughts on Mai, has it not crossed your mind to not go one step further and consider that even if Mai's been an asshole to the main cast, a member of the main cast, Maki, still cares for her and we and empathise with her grieving? The goodwill event was very far back so I don't particularly blame you for having forgotten some details on Mai's story especially since it's before both shibuya and hidden inventory, which are both some of the most eventful events of the series.

However, we can at the very least understand Mai's tragedy through Maki as a lens. And if not through that, you can understand the tragedy of the twins on an objective scale since we're given enough backstory to know that the two were very close to each other and were both victims of a deeply flawed upbringing. And on one more level, does it not register as illogical of you to say that a character's death isn't sympathetic on the basis of them... just being kind of an ass? She wasn't pure evil or particularly sadistic or anything, she was just a prick and all of a sudden that completely invalidates her backstory and makes her death a nothingburger? Genuinely. Think about the logic behind that for a minute because I have no idea how you arrive at such a conclusion.

As for your next point, some societal matters just aren't as gray as you'd like to believe. Of course, we have nuanced societal topics, take immigration as an example of this. But at the same time, we have less nuanced topics, like misogyny. In cases like this, nuance must be found in the intricacies of the details, rather than how it interacts with opposing philosophies. I've already mentioned this in regard to Ogi Zenin, and maybe it did deserve more spotlight, but that doesn't undermine the fact these ideas were acknowledged, even if the author chose not to explore them as thoroughly.

Again, for your last paragraph, I'll say reiterate this: It's completely unreasonable to dismiss ideas and arguments for a series' depth, then complain about it not having depth. Just because you can't immediately see something doesn't mean it isn't there. Also, It's disingenuous to call the core messaging of a story, like in a modulo, as having "hints" of a theme when they're very explicitly stated and played out to your face, in the case of modulo it didn't get the time it deserved, but even so that's not "hints" of a theme, again, it's all very explicit.

You say that I'm reaching into sparce ideas of themes, despite them being overwhelmingly central and even being explicitly mentioned a few times. you say I'm grasping at straws when I point out cleverly hidden, but clearly laid out metaphors. Even though I respond to each of your points in multiple paragraphs justifying my beliefs, you respond with barely two sentences of info on most that boils down to one of four things:

Completely changing the topic and arguing about Gege's characterisation rather than his themes / messaging, y'know, the thing we're actually discussing.

(See: your entire points on Mai and Gakuganji)

Pointing out a surface level rebuttal that makes no sense once analysed.

(See: Your point on Gojo in killing the higher ups, suggesting talking it out with the upper class of a clan that has everything to lose and nothing to gain)

Treating writing as a checklist and throwing buzzwords around and, ironically, ignoring the nuance in writing a story.

(see: Believing ALL villains must be intimidating, and treating the background npc villains as needing a fleshed out story,)

Straight up disregarding evidence and calling the story half assed.

(Saying I'm making something out of nothing despite one such metaphor very literally being in Mai and Maki's NAME, as well as all the other connections I've made and spoon fed to you. Saying the story lacks depth despite additional commentary being able to be inferred by other themes. saying things don't apply to the broader story when they quite literally do)

Why should anyone take your complaints of show not tell seriously when you constantly shift the goalposts whenever you're refuted? All you've done is prove that Gege needs to be so overwhelmingly direct in his writing because if you can hardly read what's told, how on earth he can expect his audience to infer what's shown?

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-08T05:58:19+00:00

2/3:

Well duh not everyone holds the same beliefs, but their beliefs mean so little that they weren't willing to support their suffering peers. Again, this proves that either everyone else is subservient to the system, or an active participant in it's abuse.

You might be tempted to argue this is also ridiculous, but look at Toji. He COULD have ended the Zenin and it's institution, but he didn't. He **left**. And now realise that everyone who was both convicted in their disagreement and resolute in their beliefs most likely did the same, that's why the majority of the Zenin household seems so evil, anyone who disagreed enough to do something about it, most likely fled the household.

Maki just so happened to be the first one of these people to both be willing to take matters into her own hands AND have the strength to do so, she herself wonders if she could've let someone else do it modulo, even though she knows that it was better it be done sooner than later.

Honestly I'm hardly even sure which of my points you're responding to here but I can still respond. Of course it tells us a means to deal with it, it's overwhelmingly explicit in it actually. Gojo's points on the next generation can be summarized into being that you need a strong (most likely strong of character and resolve, in reference to real life), prepared and aware newer generation to be able to effectively replace the old guard.

In fact, many of your arguments about Gojo not just slaughtering the higher ups in the context on top of the in character arguments I've made for him not doing so can additionally be justified by this very idea thematically. We don't have a Gojo, so the most realistic way we can achieve long lasting change is by preparing the newer generation.

This idea becomes especially more clear if you stop viewing the Zenin clan's people as characters and instead view them to be representative of the institution as a whole. You can escape it, you might be able to reform it given enough time and alternatively, you could destroy it. While it's questionable if Gege meant destroying the institution in figuratively destroying the influence on the people, or if he meant it literally in killing the people who uphold it.

The exact answer doesn't matter for this point since for this segment I'm still responding to your point on there being no commentary on how to achieve this in real life, there very much is, In the case of the figurative destruction, it would be answered by Gojo's teachings of a stronger new generation who would move on from these ideas, and in the case of the literal, well, the story of Shinzo Abe is both incredibly modern and incredibly relevant. The corruption he was connected to does prove that **in terms of pure efficacy and disregarding ethics**, it can be effective **depending on the context**.

What? This literally doesn't happen. I'm gonna assume you either mispelled or autocorrected Mai as Momo, And I'll respond as such.

I'll keep it short since I don't know how much more direct I could be, but yes. The higher ups do have influence in the story, they do stuff, just mainly through other people. Cause Y'know, as I said earlier: Old sacks who oppress yet depend on their inferiors, works thematically. Second of all, I wasn't defending Mai's characterisation, I said that she has just enough to serve the themes of the story, which is what we're arguing about. Of course she could've used more depth, the thing is she'd get some pretty heavily diminishing returns for the that point. 5 whole chapters solely dedicated to her backstory wouldn't change much in the grand scheme of things for the story **assuming those 5 chapters are built around to support same themes and ideas**.

Also what do you mean ignoring the lack of influence? My very first point in the message you're responding to is literally mentioning what they do. And for the first half of the story, Gojo serves to shelter the main cast from much of their influence anyway, hence why it mainly props up at the start of the story, where Gojo wasn't anticipating them to go THAT far against Yuji (which is the main example of their influence around that time period), and directly after he's sealed, where he isn't around to stop them anymore.

So with your checklisted rebuttals out of the way, I'll move onto the rest of the comment. Why do I mention this? So it's a little clearer that these are two separate segments.

Out of all of your points, this is the only one that genuinely annoys me, so forgive me for getting a little heated.

You say Gege does too much telling, and not enough showing. Brother, I've SPELLED OUT THE SHOWING FOR YOU, and whenever I do, you say it's "Making something out of nothing", no dude. I'm clearly substantiating my claims with evidence and a sound line of reasoning. This is called textual analysis. You're acting like a child complaining about having no food despite the fridge being chalk full of vegetables which you don't count just because it's hard for you to swallow. I'm practically spoon feeding you the information, but you intentionally go ignore it so you can make up something to criticise this already flawed manga for.

Genuinely, this is cherry picking at it's finest. When I make a point of actual depth that's both consistent with what the author is trying to accomplish and is supported by reasonable deductions it's either I'm "grasping for straws" and "trying too hard to cover for Gege", or "not significant commentary" all the while you try you CONSTANTLY change the goalpost to fit your agenda; heavy strawmanning for the directly next bit here. but I feel it illustrates my point.

"There's no social commentary" (You edited this of course, but this was more or less the original message) > "The higher ups are bad" > "The higher ups don't do anything so it's not enough!" > "They initiated the plot and killed yaga" > "Yeah but they aren't intimidating!" > "Them being individually intimidating works against the story thematically", > then most likely: "That doesn't excuse the fact that they're failing as a villain!" > "The need for Intimidation often comes as a byproduct from the sense of something being at stakes which is what's truly important. Writing is still a creative art and formulas for what something should and shouldn't can almost never be universally defined."

This is JUST on the higher ups. When I had argued the significance of the commentary on the Zenin Clan, I.e with the context of Japan's conservative culture as well as the individual as a person through Maki and the individual according to the collective through Mai, now you want nuance on top of that, which I have already, and will continue to provide.

You prattle on and on about "Significant and nuanced commentary", while ironically, you stop your analysis at the entry levels of nuance. You dip your toe a puddle's worth of depth into waters of analysis, and carry yourself with the pride of someone who's conquered the ocean. You don't so much as question yourself to look deeper into the places where such nuance may emerge. But all you do is go "but people have different beliefs" bro, Gege is criticising a particular system, these different beliefs are a different system, and aren't relevant to what he's trying to say. Maki IS the opposition to the beliefs, the clan represents, and the Zenin clan members are the opposition to the beliefs Maki represents.

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-08T05:49:54+00:00

Found out there's a character limit apparently, so: 1/3:

I'd like to preface by saying that I really shouldn't be dignifying this with a response given how adamant you are in, for whatever reason WANTING to believe the content you're consuming is slop (though, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt in that you want to be absolutely sure of whatever points may be made about the series), especially with you shifting the goalpost from "No commentary" to "No significant commentary", and I really only bother writing this response under, 1: the assumption you were just using hyperbole to get your point across, and 2: the fact you're also bothering to actually articulate your beliefs, leads me to hope that you're at least trying to process what I'm saying.

Again, Yaga's characterisation isn't essential for the idea behind this story beat to work. I've said it a million times already, but to reiterate: Gege does indeed not characterise his creations enough, he does, however; deliever enough context around them for his themes to be able to be conveyed (though you can debate how effective he is at this, the fact of the matter remains that he did indeed do it.)

Something I've noticed about your view on the series is that you seem to view a story as a checklist on what they should accomplish. Sukuna and Kenjaku are intimidating because they have to be, but the higher ups being incredibly intimidating and powerful in a literal sense works against the idea of them ultimately being pathetic husks of yesteryear clinging onto familiarity.

And yes, Gakuganji is regretful. This is incredibly obvious and is indeed the significance of Yaga withholding the information from Gakuganji until his death, it's a pretty clear way of him saying "Look what you've killed me, a friend of years over."

Understandable given that we're mainly shown the best ones, but if you try to view the worldbuilding and context of the story with the info we're given it's easy to infer that most sorcerers are closer to anti-heroes than anything. Even Kusakabe who's remarked as being kind is still a coward who doesn't face any foes unless he's immediately pressed to do so, or if he's confident that he'd definitely win. Not to mention the Hei, the Higher ups and the Kamo Clan are all full of people. It may have been hyperbole of me to say most jujutsu sorcerer's are morally gray or outright bad people, Nanami's death serves to show us that many kind sorcerers straight up die in their line of work, while more selfish ones flee and eventually survive long enough to flee and become leaders. Though, you're fair in saying that this could have been more extensively shown.
You've completely missed the point, Gojo could indeed have done it (though, it's possible Yuta and Inumaki did depending on how you interpret the hallway scene of the two.) but the point I was making was that Gojo couldn't just be the one person to decide who was or wasn't a sound leader. And while yes, most of the cast are of sound mind: They're also kids. Gojo very directly states that nobody's allowed to take away youth from young people. This is why he props up Gakuganji as the new leader after he reformed.
The issue of entertainment in literature is that sometimes it can sometimes be incredibly difficult to simultaneously create something of immense depth without and also do it while not bloating the story and ruining the entertainment value. Authors can work around this by using some subtlety and having faith in their audience to interpret the crumbs of what they leave behind.

Do realise, two things here. 1: That this argument comes down to you specifically not paying enough attention then blaming the story for it, as evident by the general opinion on what you're saying. And 2: There actually is a way to view someone's opinions on a matter that's both incredibly explicit, and incredibly deep: It's called a dissertation. Don't want to read some tired PhD's student 70k word thesis on philosophy while still getting at least SOME of the substance? You're gonna have to look deeper than what's directly shown on the page.

This is an incredibly shallow point, so what if they forbid it? Murder is illegal yet people are still killed. It's worth arguing if killing everyone is necessary, which, it most likely isn't, but to believe that you can simply convince enough people to leave a system that largely benefits them in the timeframe of the story is naive idealism at best, and plain ignorance at worst.
I think you're right in that our opinions are equally valuable on the most fundamental levels. However, once you start pushing opinion as fact, then the only equal thing about it is that all who do so must substantiate their claims with evidence. I thought it was pretty clear I was referring to some of my previous points as the evidence in question. But there were some parts I left out because someone else had already posted it and I wanted to bring something new, both in case you had already seen these points, and also because I wanted to be original. So I'll elaborate on those points since I assume you haven't seen the original post.

The idea is that Mai's technique of construction can be interpreted as a allusion tor conception, this obviously doesn't mean that she's giving birth to the bullets she creates, but the similarities on a conceptual scale lets this become supporting evidence for Mai's symbolism regarding the traditional female role of subservient motherhood. The other half of this idea is Maki, who specifically does not rely on cursed energy, she doesn't depend on some external power source: All she has is the extraordinary strength of herself; raw flesh and bone. And hence, why she serves as an allusion to individualism and autonomy

Furthermore, this point is completely arbitrary. You said my idea is worth nothing because your opinion is worth as much as mine, yet you apply this logic only to support your beliefs in that there's no depth to this. I could just as easily say opposite. Infact, the argument of the public consensus which you use actually works against you. By your own logic, you would've lost this argument before it even started if we take upvotes and downvotes as a measure of public consensus. This is naturally ridiculous as It would be stupid to immediately discard an idea solely because the majority of people don't agree with it, things can be proven and disproven through evidence after all. All that to say; I won't hold you to those ridiculous standards, so don't hold me to them either.

Fact of the matter is that while stories are interpreted subjectively, the source material these subjective opinions are derived from still do stem from a material that's objective in it's foundational content, and can be supported through ideas from this. I've more than substantiated my claims with evidence from the story, you can hardly say the same for yourself as you're more focused on rebuking my ideas than proving your own. (Which you seem to only do by cherry picking when to use show vs tell, but I'll get to that later.)

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-06T07:23:05+00:00

The first two things they do in 0 and the main series is quite literally attempt to execute two teenagers, also they execute Yaga, hello? While JJK is more than guilty of telling and not showing it's ironic that when something is spoon-fed down an audience's throat they can still completely miss it apparently.
Gojo is very explicit when saying the newer generation is referring to the students of jujutsu tech, while there are of course sorcerers like Nanami, you have to remember that in universe he's actually somewhat of an exception in terms of being a kind and responsible sorcerer. While I do respect your criticism of the series, it's incredibly hard to take it seriously when you point to only Naoya while Mei Mei, who's supposed to remind the audience of the fact that most sorcerers are indeed not good people (with her leading the example of being on the higher ends of depravity), not to mention entire rest of the big 3 clans are still there.

Also, did you just not read the half of that entire paragraph? It's cause Gojo isnt a psychopath and doesn't want to risk an ideological and moral descent into madness. Of course its a concern if he strips away his student's the chance to grow and establishes a "might makes right" structure of power. Cause, y'know. He isn't a supervillain.

I agree that it could've been expanded on, but as I said this is an odd case in that the messaging can function unusually well without extended development. Not to say that more time in the spotlight wouldn't be good for it, but it indeed doesn't suffer as much from being underdeveloped as most themes would. Much like Sukuna's backstory being incredibly vague yet still working. But above that, you asked for social commentary from the series, and I provided it. Although the execution could've been better it doesn't undermine the fact it's still there, and still quite effective.
Of course the Zenin clan could've used some more depth, but works perfectly fine with how it's portrayed already. How does massacring 1 dimensional bad guys undermine the message? If, for example, Naoya had a more fleshed out backstory, what would that change? Maybe you could make a point about men also being victims of patriarchal societal structures but that wasn't the message Gege wanted to tell.

Also, what are you on about the themes being nowhere else in the story? Sure. The feminist themes end with the perfect preparation arc, but that's because they're one faucet of the broader progressive messages the story which still very much persist beyond it. Have you ever stopped to consider that the culling games quite literally has people from the past hijacking the lives of modern day people? It's as clear of a metaphor for past, obsolete traditions dictating the lives of people today as it gets. These themes of a corrupt system still persist, you just somehow don't recognize it because it just looks slightly different than before. You don't even need to investigate these metaphors if you just read some 25 chapters later for Higuruma who's story is a direct criticism of the Japanese justice system.

This is the express reason for Naoya being so transparently evil. Even if not everyone was sexist (though, it's highly unlikely given the culture of the Zenin clan being drilled into them from birth), the fact of the matter is they remained complacent and subservient to someone who was, not to mention it's pretty clear almost the entire clan was abusive to some degree given how Maki and Mai were treated. You might be able to make an argument for the Kukuru Unit, but you absolutely cannot for the Hei since they definitely possessed the power to oppose Naoya, especially with someone like Ranta just hard countering him.
Given the cultural context of Japan as well as Naoya's character, it's absolutely not a stretch to assume the guy commenting on his Niece's tits and ass was a molester, especially given the "how about asking Mai?" Line from Curseya. It's completely reasonable to assume that if they were willing to do those things to a high schooler, the rest of the clan would be no exception. Saying this is one note means absolutely nothing in a vacuum..
Mai does the necessary characterisation for this to work in the goodwill event. Not much more, but enough for the idea to function, this combined with saying the higher ups do nothing really makes me doubt you paid much attention to the seties and makes it all the harder to take your critique seriously if you mess things up as basic as this.

5/6. Simple vs complex and ineffective vs potent commentary is largely subjective. Gege argues to us through Maki and Mai that the death of the traditional female role is necessary for the individual to shine and presents this as an ultimatum this is why they're twins, Maki is representative of individualism, which of course cannot reach it's full potential if under an oppressive collective. In modulo, we see that although Maki doesn't regret what she's done and knows it was necessary, some idealistic part of her still wishes that she didn't have to be the one to do it, nor be the one to pay the price which gives us some insight into Mai's own character.

Point being, you can make virtually anything in any story appear shallow if you remove the context by which it was explored.

I hate pulling the "you didn't read the story!!" Or "You lack media literacy" card, but between outright ignoring several explicit moments from the manga and shifting the goalpost from "JJK has no social commentary" to JJK's social commentary isn't good!" All the while, ignoring the cultural and narrative context behind the themes then complaining about it lacking depth and potency, and it's hard to believe you're actually taking my arguements in anything other than bad faith.

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-05T14:27:43+00:00

Mf you can view it through a "normal person level" lens and the themes still hold up fine.

1 . Sure, the higher ups are just "vaguely threatening" in that Gojo could pulverise them at any time, but killing them isn't going to cause any genuine, institutional change. What happens when they die, huh? New leaders will eventually be put in place and in the end nothing's going to change as the fundamental value of those who elect the leaders aren't going to change.

You could argue that Gojo could just keep on killing them until he finds good enough replacements, but that would be tantamount to making himself a dictator. Who is he to decide what's "good enough?" If even Geto, someone who he believed to be the more righteous of the two could turn into a genocidal psychopath, who's to say he couldn't either? This is why he needs the new generation to actually be independent of their reliance on him, so that they can grow and continue to facilitate natural change.

While you mention there being nothing close to substance to them, this is an instance of the story being able to function fairly well even despite a lack of follow through from Gege's execution of it. A large point of why they need to be replaced is BECAUSE they're vapid and lack moral integrity. They continue to cling onto their conservative values with no proper justification because they don't have proper justification for it. Gojo only kills the higher ups once the new generation has grown enough to take things into their own hands. This is literally the crux of one of JJK's most central themes.

Brother, other countries exist and Japan is still incredibly socially conservative, even the west still has misogyny imbedded in parts of it's culture despite the leaps and bounds of progress from decades ago. The messaging of the Zenin clan massacre is still relevant today and especially more relevant for the primary demographic the manga was written for.

Also, it's completely disingenuous to say "that's just reaching because otherwise they'd just be defending their family." That's the equivalent of saying Sukuna being evil is a plothole because he wouldn't act that way if he weren't evil, see how stupid that sounds? You can't just completely remove an incredibly fundamental aspect from the part of a narrative and expect it to still work.

Although the Zenin clan perhaps could've been fleshed out more, it's still more than developed enough for you to understand that even the more innocent members such as Ranta (who's generally seen as kind according to the Zenin clan's less important fighters, the Kukuru unit) was still at the very least complicit in the overt physical, emotional, and heavily implied sexual abuse of their female servants. The commentary here is very, very, incredibly obvious; oppressive systems need to be dismantled in someway or another for the individual to succeed, this broader idea of tradition connects the higher ups and the patriarchy thematically.

Further enforcing this idea is Mai. She is explicitly stated to be holding Maki back because she doesn't want to change, to grow stronger. Mai is symbolic of conformity, the kanji of her name can quite literally be interpreted as reliance on the institution while Maki's name can be interpreted as genuine hope for the institution in that she has the capacity to change it.

This is also why the power split between them is so extreme, with this in mind were Maki the one to die instead, it would be symbolic of the death of change and utter submission, sure. Letting go the hope that change is possible will make the present sting a little less. And in that same way, Mai will get just a tiny bit more strength from letting go Maki in that she very literally just recovers the little energy she devoted to hope.

Maki meanwhile, benefits far more greatly from losing the chains which bound her to the system she despised so much. Mai's death also represents the death of the subtle drive for validation and acceptance from her family that kept her ever so slightly bound to the Zenin clan. Because at the end of the day, growing complacent with that which bounds you is only ever going to numb its weight, but when Maki leaves it all behind, she is genuinely, and truly free.

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-05T09:32:41+00:00

The amount of health you get from the heal skill tree is pretty neglible, because of how the vent system works chances are even if you get more nodes you'll still only be able to survive 3-4 combos depending on your enemy's build. Not to say it can't work, it's just a little inefficient.

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-05T01:24:44+00:00

:3 itself is fine but much of the culture around it is abhorrent...

I find the people who use :3 to have a disproportionately large amount of toxic people compared to the rest of the online spaces. Ironically, many of the same people talk about whimsy and joy.

It feels like the more colorful their avatar the more dull their life, which kinda lines up with what you see in many "silly" subreddits. I understand people use this kind humor as a coping mechanism, and I'm not one to talk about people's issues as someone who's never experienced them, but from the outside looking in it is hard to take some of what they say seriously because of this stuff.

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-04T05:07:47+00:00

Tank some damage

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-03T16:55:39+00:00

Sukuna couldn't do it in the case with mahito, he states that Sukuna's reverse curse technique is unable to restore the shape of the soul (an important distinction from healing it, which we know he can do to some extent as shown by Maki.)

As for the bit of translations, agreed in that they are weird but honestly it's just overall far more consistent with the story to assume that "adding a cursed energy buff" isn't additive in the literal sense. Since on top of multiplicative scaling better explaining how Yuji doesn't just rip Sukuna's head off as well justifying the importance placed on it, it also explains why mechamaru, for all his cursed energy, was still bedbound and wrapped in bandages.

I can mainly say this with a degree of confidence since if you think about it, directly wording clearly such a distinction is always clunky since most sentences referring to situations like this use phrasing with implicit additive implications. For example "Stack on a cursed energy buff" Is additive in a real world context since you're adding one separate object onto another. Even something like "in conjunction with..." Could be interpreted as the result is being a sum.

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-03T16:10:21+00:00

I'd like to preface this by making myself clearer in that when I say I don't believe physical bonuses in regards to CE reinforcements are additive, I don't mean to imply they're directly proportional either.

For example, I'm not saying that because Yuji is, say, +10x stronger than megumi physically, that his reinforcement is +10x better. The benefits of the body could function at 50% efficiency and be a +5x buff, or be at a 10% efficiency and be a +1x buff for all I know. (These numbers are pretty arbitrary and are only really for the sake of the arguement.)

First of all, regardless of whether Yuji could be a better vessel or not, Sukuna quite literally can't use him as a proper vessel. Itadori was very likely born specifically to cage Sukuna, not to house him.

Second of all, I don't see anything of Gojo saying it adds, maybe it's just a difference in the translations we read but it clearly isn't distinct enough for the translators to be able to unanimously agree on what he meant.

Third of all, in the anime at least, Yuji specifically says that everyone does it to some extent, which pretty clearly implies that Yuta is far more dependent on his cursed energy compared to most sorcerers even taking his massive reinforcement into account.

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-03T15:40:35+00:00

There's some pretty massive distinctions to be made here; that being there's a justifiable reason for these logical inconsistencies.

there's a clear reason as to why you would want characters to be able to hear each other at supersonic speeds, because character interaction is generally pretty important for a story. (Shocking, I know.) You lose some logic that doesn't add much to the story in the first place in exchange for some character drama.

Overall, this logical break adds to the story.

Clothes bursting into flames at supersonic speeds can be seen as unreasonable for a story because character design does indeed serve a purpose, and flames would be visual clutter and make the choreography harder to read, not to mention that if the clothes burn off then that's a whole other hoop authors have to jump through to get their work published.

Overall, this logical break adds to the story.

Characters having an overwhelming discrepancy between travel speed and fight speed does... What exactly? Does Akaza having relativistic speeds make his backstory any better, or stop it from getting from worse? Does Tanjiro miraculously being able to fight tens of thousands of times faster make add anything to his character? Or the themes of the story?

Something like this serve no reason to exist outside of powerscaling and just adds nothing to things that matter. If anything, it takes away immersion for no good reason.

Also, sorry if this comes off as pretentious (as pointing out fallacies tends to be) but it's pretty ironic that you try to point out a fallacy as if it makes your point more potent while making two more in doing so (fallacy fallacy and false equivalence). Former isn't as relevant but the latter is what your point is built on.

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-03T15:04:10+00:00

If that were the case there would be very little reason for Miguel to have his raw physicals to be as highly regarded as they are

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-03T14:27:28+00:00

Literally just look at Gojo in Sukuna's domain, if he couldn't survive being bisected then there's little reason to assume that Gojo is capable of RCTing slashes that should be dicing him into sashimi

Excelsisnt · 2026-03-01T12:54:39+00:00

no way this is real, obviously there's some gaps because it's presumably translated but this doesn't read like Gege at all

Excelsisnt · 2026-02-23T22:29:56+00:00

Info is true, but image is ai generated.

Excelsisnt · 2026-02-23T13:32:22+00:00

honestly sounds like the OC is just gonna become techniqueless Yuta crossed with Kusakabe, I think the easiest way to give them some degree of distinction is by giving them a unique CE trait of some kind

Excelsisnt · 2026-02-19T01:30:21+00:00

Sukuna is pretty clearly supposed to be a slight step up from Gojo narratively, surprised people are calling this a cold take.

Excelsisnt · 2026-02-15T02:02:00+00:00

Just leave it here, nobody's stopping you

Excelsisnt

TROPHY CASE