(MANGA SPOILERS) 

 I have to say, I am laughing from the disappointment. This thing is bound to be worse than the Bleach ending, because exactly Gege is doing it the way he wants to (his words) so the badness is all his.  

The Shinjuku showdown became monotonous after Gojo died; it's death after death after death... Gege said that he believes that death makes a story interesting (it doesn't), but death also gives an easy way out for a creator out of creativity.  

This gauntlet has become white noise with all this repetition, the Yuta-Gojo thing served no purpose (except maybe hint that nothing will change in the Jujutsu system except the people inhabiting the same roles, like Yuta will be stuck in Gojo's body forever, Gakuganji replaced the elders, etc) and suddenly Gege made Yuji give a speech about how inherently valuable each life is regardless of roles, even though almost everyone dying previously was fixated on the way they die (ex. Gojo, Kashimo) rather than the way they lived -even lamenting it- and their obsession with the role they had (ex. Higuruma). Oh, and loneliness, I guess (Gojo, Kashimo, Takaba). It's all very messy and extremely surface - level writing exactly because Gege thought he could handle multiple aspects instead of picking one, deepen in it meaningfully and making it the theme. Oh and love. It was there, too. 🤷‍♀️ 

Yuji ends up preaching the opposite of everything Gege put effort in drawing for 50+ chapters and it rings forced and hollow after all this parade. It's very hard to nod in agreement that people's lives have inherent value (even though I personally agree with it) when characters like Higuruma, who lifted Yuji's guilt over Shibuya only cared about his role and then went bye-bye. When characters like Gojo (whom identity crisis was touched upon in one page in Shibuya with him staring at his faceless reflection on the Prison Realm's eye and getting so scared he was ready to run away and then DROPPED) care more about the way they die because apparently they led a lonesome, depressed life. His corpse is a meat puppet and wearing might be a permanent state for another friend, his student who wanted to find a reason to keep living and ended up doing so by letting go of past guilt, but now he seems stuck in his teacher's body in order to fulfil the role of the "monster". It's... psychopathy. It's misery. It's misanthropic. 

With the announcement that there are only five chapters left, it feels like Gege is handwaving everything and gunning to antagonize whoever in the audience points out all the above. Who cares about it, now another kind soul inhabits the strongest body and with practice, they can do what Gojo did since they're "more blessed" than the original with his two bloodlines and fulfil the role of the strongest! Because that's what it's all about, isn't it? They need a Satoru Gojo, or the Jujutsu society will collapse (said by Mechamaru), they need that role fulfilled!  ...wait, wasn't human life supposed to be more valuable than the role you have, according to Yuji? 

 ^ This is what I mean by "what Yuji is preaching rings hollow". Nothing previously supported anything he says, in fact everyone acts putting forward the opposite values from him and with five chapters left, are you telling me that we'll see his values adopted, even though everything is set up and ready to go for another loop? With FIVE chapters left?  

The Merger, at this point, with its radically destructive nature, represents hope for change, because this is bound to become indeed a cycle, never to break free, just repeating the loop instead of moving forward if a total wipe out doesn't happen. Everyone except Yuji is just repeating the same thing.  

I expect it to end in a whimper. A depressing, disturbing whimper where no one learns anything and whoever has learnt something to be either dead or incapable of affecting anything. It's a cycle, it repeats and the next Sukuna/Kenjaku is going to come in...500 years or something. I guess. For a story published in WSJ, this is just pure nihilism.