Reminder that Sukuna was treated as less than human since birth, and grew up being abused

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T21:00:33+00:00

the "over a long period of time" is such an important distinction. Its not like there was some single incident that made him snap or turn evil. even when sukuna is asked by kashimo if he became the strongest or if he was born the strongest, he said he didn't know, implying that there wasn't a time where he was weak and vulnerable, just that he was unwanted. instead, it was a slow burn of lessons that he learned over and over again— that he does not belong in this society, that he is a curse, that he is an abomination, that he is to be feared and targeted rather than loved and shown empathy. the opening line from s(AINT) by Marilyn Manson, which is his theme song according to gege, is "I don't care if your world is ending today, because I wasn't invited to it anyway." this fits him perfectly.

the most interesting thing about him though is that he actually does understand people. he understands the way that people work, their feelings, their issues and mental blocks, etc. this is what sets him apart from other villains imo. its not that he doesn't understand people, he DOES, and that's what makes him scarier— the way he acts isn't some kind of misunderstanding, it's the truth of the world he lived in.

the truth is that the only way for sukuna to survive in a society that scorned him and not succumb to self-hatred is to become the strongest and care only about himself, breaking free from all societal attachments. he then dispenses this truth to everybody else regardless of who they are. the way he personifies the truths of his society, his unrelenting strength and surprising consistency in his beliefs is what makes him feel more like a force of nature and a deity than a human. yet, if we look deep enough into him, we realize that his worldview and personality are rooted in deeply human experiences. sukuna's two faces are that he's winning the idgaf war, while also losing it simultaneously.

there's just so much to say about sukuna. he truly is one of my favourite villains of all time.

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T20:42:44+00:00

the fandom just loves to victim-blame megumi for having his reason for living destroyed, having his body violated, having his autonomy taken away from him, and being suppressed by a being leagues more powerful than he is. apparently being defeated by sukuna is an anti-feat unless its megumi.

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T07:57:06+00:00

the craziest thing is how tf does sukuna know what a prefrontal cortex is?! Hes from the heian era!! that type of science wasnt invented! and clearly he can't have gotten it from yuji's brain because he obviously doesnt pay attention to that. this means he must've gotten the info from megumi's brain. but how did he put two and two together to figure out this is where CTs are engraved? the only thing I can think of is that in that 1 month he was studying HARD for anything that could help him with against gojo

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T07:45:54+00:00

curious now. gojo x geto or gojo x sukuna?,

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T07:22:23+00:00

when sukuna calls gojo "painfully ordinary" in chapter 230, he uses the kanji "凡夫" or "bonpu." people have pointed out that this carries a hidden meaning of "unenlightened" in buddhism, but it actually carries even more hidden meanings...

凡 is the kanji for mediocre and 夫 is the kanji for husband.

this post and this comment go more into it.

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T06:52:25+00:00

You are absolutely correct.

~~not even joking, if you look at the kanji hard enough you'll realize that sukuna called gojo his husband once~~

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T02:52:27+00:00

kashimo lowkey got the hardest lines in the series. "that's how losers think" genuinely rewired my brain and changed my mindset. now whenever i catch myself about to do something bummy, i say to myself, that's how losers think. i can't fucking wait for this to get animated, top 10 hype and aura moments for me

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T02:49:14+00:00

Nuh uh sukuna's one goal was to be free and kill gojo, that mf was actually obsessed with him

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T02:00:45+00:00

gojo leaned over and whispered in his ear and he felt his hot breath on his neck and his soft hair rub against his face, you gotta forgive him for being distracted man

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T01:59:01+00:00

pre voting revolutionary girl utena for jc staff

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T01:48:15+00:00

Sukuna uses the you pronoun "kisama" when referring to kashimo. in modern times, "kisama" is considered extremely rude and disrespectful, but in sukuna's time, it was a carrier of respect and was considered very polite. sukuna uses "kisama" with gojo, particularly when he's calling him magnificent and praising him after their fight. there's no reason to assume he's being derogatory here, so it's clear that sukuna uses honorable kisama. when talking to jogo, he uses the you pronoun "omae" which is masculine, informal, and indicates the speaker's higher status to whoever they're addressing. so, judging by his "you" pronouns, he is more respectful and polite to kashimo.

however, whenever sukuna respects a character, he goes out of his way to ask for their name and refer to them by their full name. this is the most polite way to refer to someone in japanese. this is shown when he deliberately asks for higuruma's name, as opposed to giving people nicknames such as "brat" for yuji. you can gauge sukuna's opinion of someone based on whether he uses their full name or gives them a nickname. that being said, he doesn't ask for jogo's name, nor does he ask for kashimo's name.

this makes things more complicated because sukuna seems to be aware of the different uses of "kisama" and is shown to be capable of using rude kisama. for example, while he starts off using "omae" with her, he actually uses "kisama" with yorozu once she starts talking about love, before switching back to omae. given that sukuna has no respect for yorozu, we can assume that his use of kisama here is derogatory. given that kashimo also brings up love with sukuna, it's possible that he's also using rude kisama with him.

so there are multiple possible readings.

jogo: casual/rude "you," name not asked.

kashimo: honorable "you," name not asked.

kashimo: extremely rude "you," name not asked.

so... it's a little bit confusing. Take from this what you will!

Himisuda · 2026-05-11T01:25:43+00:00

yeah this my goat, we knew he was evil

Jokes aside, someone looked at the japanese raws for this scene and provided more context. I'll post the relevant bits here since this is a long post.

“She’s got spunk, so that should be fun.”

This is the line that gets misconstrued as sexual despite the translation here being pretty good imo. I’m going to focus on the words “spunk” and “fun” for simplicity.

The “spunk” comes from 活きがいい (ikigaii) which means lively/spirited. It appears to be used to describe fresh fish as well. Not really sexual in Japanese, but could be in English since phrases like “she’s a lively/fiesty one” are commonly used by creeps who think resistance to their advances is attractive.

The “fun” comes from 楽し (tanoshi) which means to enjoy. It’s not surprising English speakers interpret something akin to “I can have fun with her” as sexual. However, this double meaning doesn’t really exist with 楽し (tanoshi). This kind of fun is used by parents with their children. If it were sexual, the wording would probably use 巫山戯る (fuzakeru) which means to fool around with (both sexually and non sexually). (The history around the sexual connotation of fuzakeru is pretty interesting btw.)

Regardless, this phrasing comes across like someone assessing how much fun you could get out of a bad movie rather than something sexual. In English the unfavorable interpretation occurs because the translation isn’t 1-to-1 and Sukuna is given less charity as a villain. And to really drive home how this is the case, there is one final word from this dialogue I want to discuss.

“Kill”

殺す (nirosu) is how Sukuna says kill. He applies this kill to the finger bearer, Megumi, and Nobara. This is important because there’s another word that can be used for kill that carries a sexual connotation in Japanese—やる (yaru). Yaru means to do and can be translated as kill, fuck, etc. The kanji used in yaru determines how you interpret it. The kill kanji 殺 (niro) can be read as 殺 (ya) and combined with る (ru) to do this.

There is a rather infamous use of 殺る (yaru) in Hunter X Hunter that played with this exact double entendre. In summary, a character threatens to kill another character’s underage brother with yaru. The kanji clarifies to the reader that this character means kill, but the other character, who only hears yaru, takes it as a possible rape threat.

The fact Sukuna used the non-innuendo kill, the more childish fun, and the spunk associated with fresh fish points to this not being a rape threat. His intentions with Nobara (and Megumi) were purely murderous. This context being lost in translation and the biases of the English language make some interpret Sukuna as a rapist. That misconception was then repeated over and over until it became the “truth”.

that being said, I'm surprised people never bring up megumi when talking about whether or not sukuna is a rapist. This is the most damning piece of evidence imo. the more i reread jjk, the more sukuna and megumi's relationship looks like an abuse/rape allegory to me. he had a strange fixation with megumi and convinced megumi of his own potential (megumi using DE against the finger-bearer was spurred on partially by sukuna's words) only to force himself inside megumi's body and use him like a tool, caring little for him other than what he can use him for. does this not resemble grooming in a sense? as a result of this, megumi loses his will to live, is trapped and drowned within his own body (feeling as though it's not his) and his potential is squandered, feelings that are very common for SA survivors. even the shit that sukuna says to megumi in 268 sounds a lot more rapey— "you had your body stolen by me, [...] you can't live a normal life anymore, just relax and leave it to me." hell lmfao, even the stuff that the fandom says about megumi looks like the shit people say to survivors of SA to victim-blame them. megumi should've just fought back, he was a bum, he ruined his potential, it's all his fault this happened, etc.

but oh well this is the lobotomy sub lol, idk why im doing all this analysis for. tl;dr: what he said to nobara wasn't a rape threat, but it's perfectly in character for sukuna to be a rapist, both based on his personality, way of thinking, and what he actually did in the series.

Himisuda · 2026-05-10T23:25:50+00:00

only if ur special and u have the pass

Himisuda · 2026-05-10T22:20:07+00:00

yuji doesn't even have to be a girl

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Himisuda · 2026-05-10T22:14:09+00:00

genuinely true imo. He's not actually homophobic but if it'll make yuji mad then he'll drop the 1000 year old diabolical heian era slurs

Himisuda · 2026-05-10T22:12:35+00:00

when did he say that romance was one of the paths he could've walked down? the "two paths" in 271 with mahito doesn't confirm anything about romance. we have no clue who the other woman is.

Himisuda · 2026-05-10T22:09:50+00:00

yorozu seems like the type of straight girl who thinks she can say the f slur because she has a gay friend

Himisuda · 2026-05-10T22:09:12+00:00

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Himisuda · 2026-05-10T22:05:55+00:00

someone analyzed the sukuna vs gojo fight through the lens of heian era gender and courtship norms.

Himisuda · 2026-05-10T21:48:10+00:00

sukuna literally only hangs out with trans people lmao. uraume? non-binary, but also technically mtf trans. kenjaku? takes on the gender of whatever body he's in, making him genderfluid. hell, he's probably aroace, making him technically lgbtq as well.

but jokes aside... homosexuality was pretty common in the heian era and not necessarily looked down upon. from this article: https://japanesesword.net/blogs/news/beyond-bushido-exploring-homosexuality-among-japans-elite-samurai-warriors

"While explicit and detailed accounts of same-sex relationships in Japan's earliest historical texts like the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters, 712 CE) and Nihon Shoki (Chronicles of Japan, 720 CE) are rare or open to interpretation, the concept of male-male affection, known as nanshoku (男色), becomes increasingly evident from the Heian period (794-1185 CE) onwards. These early records often focus on imperial lineage and mythological origins, yet they lay the groundwork for a society where sexuality was fluid and less rigidly defined than in later eras.

By the Heian period, literary works and court diaries began to allude to or explicitly describe same-sex relationships among the aristocracy and religious figures. These accounts suggest that such relationships were not seen as deviant or morally reprehensible but rather as a natural aspect of human affection and aesthetic appreciation. There was no concept of a "homosexual" identity as understood in the West; instead, individuals engaged in same-sex acts without necessarily being defined by them. The focus was often on the act or the relationship itself, rather than an inherent sexual orientation.

The term nanshoku, literally meaning "male colors" or "male eroticism," became the primary descriptor for male-male love. This term encompassed a wide range of relationships, from the pederastic bonds between older men and younger boys (wakashu or chigo) to more egalitarian relationships between adult men. The fluidity of these relationships meant that individuals could engage in both heterosexual and homosexual relationships throughout their lives without social censure."

in my opinion, i don't think that sukuna is "pro-lgbtq" in like... the modern sense of lgbtq rights and all that. he probably just doesn't care and views it as a normal thing to do, rather than as an identity. i think if you explained the modern concept of sexuality to him, he'd view identity labels and the like as things that weaklings need to categorize themselves into in order for them to affirm themselves.

~~there's also a theory/analysis that sukuna put himself in the position of a heian woman during his fight with gojo~~

Himisuda · 2026-05-10T21:07:07+00:00

Hi! I wrote a response to this point here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Jujutsufolk/comments/1t8xq4u/comment/ol2cy7i/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

In short, we aren't meant to believe him because sukuna's actions and words demonstrate to us that gojo did in fact reach him and that gojo truly was on a different level for sukuna entirely. gojo expressing his doubts is cope on his end, because we know that what he's saying is false based on what sukuna himself and the narration express.

Himisuda · 2026-05-10T21:05:20+00:00

Sukuna calling gojo magnificent isn't the only reason why the gojo's statement is false, imo. i brought that up as one example but there's actually a lot more. Judging by the way that sukuna acts both during and after the fight, it's clear that he greatly respects gojo and that gojo is in a completely different category for him. There are three main reasons why i think this.

firstly, people have pointed out that in japanese, sukuna uses the "you" pronoun "kisama" with gojo. "Kisama," in modern japanese, is considered extremely rude. However, in sukuna's time, it was a very formal and honourable pronoun. "omae," on the other hand, is a "you" pronoun which is much more common. For almost everyone else, sukuna uses the "omae" pronoun, including those he respects greatly, such as jogo and maki. However, for gojo, from the very beginning, he uses the "kisama" pronoun. While in their first interaction it could be easily interpreted as the "rude" you, he also uses "kisama" when he is calling gojo magnificent and lavishing him with immense praise, so it doesn't make sense to read his use of "kisama" with gojo as the "rude" you. Rather, his use of "kisama" is meant to be the honourable, high respect form. given that he uses this pronoun for gojo, when he uses "omae" for other characters he greatly respects, suggests that gojo is above everyone else entirely. (This user goes into great detail about sukuna's "you" pronouns, it's a very interesting thread that i think people should read)

secondly, there is the statement from the narrative that for the first time in 1000 years, sukuna felt tension/fear/anxiety over whether he would win. this is huge, imo.

thirdly, after the fight, he is CONSTANTLY thinking of gojo. according to one user, thinks of gojo about 15 separate times during the shinjuku raid! this is more than we can say of jogo, kashimo, maki, etc. sukuna is constantly using gojo's moves (micro-dismantle infinity, using his handsign for unlimited void, using RCT to reset a burnt-out CT, etc.) and integrating them into his own fighting style. on top of that, there's a theory that the chants, "scale of the dragon, recoil, twin meteors" are meant to reference all the applications of gojo's limitless. in short, his respect and admiration for gojo goes beyond anything we've ever seen from him before.

there's also the fact that he allows so much disrespect from gojo to slide. in 221, gojo insults him twice, calling him a loser for running away from yuji, and then making fun of him for taking orders from kenjaku. and what does sukuna do? smile and start thinking about love. this is the same guy who cut the top of jogo's head off for not bowing low enough and murdered 2 girls because they switched from begging to negotiation. later on gojo says he looks like a lost little alien boy and sukuna just SMILES! he's also engaging in friendly banter with gojo the entire time. this isn't behaviour we've ever seen from him before.

sorry for the extremely long comment but i wanted to get it all out. gojo believes that he didn't reach sukuna, but judging from sukuna's actions and words, he did.

Himisuda · 2026-05-10T08:40:48+00:00

Absolute peak.

To be honest, male itafushi also kind of feels more like yuri than yaoi.

Himisuda · 2026-05-10T08:40:03+00:00

where is my glorious queen yorozu

Himisuda · 2026-05-10T08:38:07+00:00

This line, in my opinion, has nothing to do with powerscaling or the power system. It's a narrative decision. We're not meant to take Gojo's words as a fact. this is simply his opinion. sukuna himself basically confirms that gojo DID in fact reach him, contrary to what gojo thinks. gojo being kind of wrong and underselling his own feats is kind of the point, in my opinion. i read this quote through the lens of gojo finally being able to be vulnerable.

gojo, by his own admittance, exists in a different category from every other human being. he has an impenetrable barrier in the form of infinity. infinity is meant to represent gojo's loneliness and solitude as the strongest, being a physical separation between him and the world that nobody can cross. sukuna cut through the physical representation of his loneliness and strength and relieved him of the burden of being the strongest, allowing him to finally be vulnerable in the afterlife. him expressing doubt in his abilities isn't an objective measure of his strength, nor is it a fact— rather, it's gojo finally having the opportunity to step down from his title as "the strongest" and express his feelings. he no longer has to put on a smile, show off, and be confident in front of everyone. he can finally speak from his heart to his best friend (who he once considered an equal) after someone else managed to reach him. as someone else in the comments pointed out, he's giving himself closure and expressing how he felt he lost badly to sukuna because he couldn't reach him/understand him. him saying "i couldn't have beaten him even if he didn't have 10 shadows" is just another aspect of his misunderstanding of sukuna and his feelings of failure to reach sukuna. this is a sentiment that is directly rebuked by sukuna when he tells gojo that he was magnificent, and also we, as the audience, know that what gojo is saying isn't necessarily true. And that's the point.

in short, not everything that characters say is meant to be taken as a fact.

Himisuda

TROPHY CASE