More Thoughts About Kenjaku (less Disturbing This Time)

More thoughts about Kenjaku (less disturbing this time)

Anime-only friendly post [mild potential spoilers in brackets, I guess.]

-Kenjaku had to craft a cage (Yuuji) that would eat Sukuna's fingies willingly. If he'd force them, like with the Death Paintings, then Sukuna might have empathized with the host.

So Yuuji had to have the ability and the desire to suppress Sukuna. His life could not be relatable to Sukuna's. [THAT explains why he thanked Yuuji's friend from the occult club for being good to his son. Kenjaku needed Yuuji to grow up with a carefree life.]

-he could be thousands of years old. 1,000 years ago he was planning for the future - you know how as a kid, one hour feels like a lifetime? And as an adult, 10 years ago feels like last week? He already seemed old in the manga flashbacks.

-at the end of the Shibuya incident, Kenjaku said that the pacts he made with sorcerers have been nullified since he changed bodies.

[In the culling games, it seems like these sorcerers are in an uncomfortable, even coerced position. Like they had regrets, an unfulfilled life, and are taking their second chance - but they seem to fear or resent him. (tbh I need to reread this part of the manga more seriously). It's like no one knows these pacts have been nullified, except for Kenjaku himself.]

It makes me wonder if Kenjaku's karma is also reset when he gets a new body. If he was careful not to directly involve himself, until it was time to use the prison realm, because of a pact or karma-conscious approach.

My other thought on this is that Kenjaku didn't involve himself bc it was more fun to manipulate other people and curses. It was less predictable that way, more interesting, and everything is a game to him.

I wonder if Kenjaku's playfulness was intentional, concerning the idea that the universe favors play.

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(anime-only friendly post)

Evidence in defense of Suguru Geto - the real villain was Toji's worm.

Banana Fish inspired Jujutsu Kaisen - these parallels aren't important, I'm just making connections bc AFAIK this isn't confirmed, but other sad BL mangas are.

Jessica & Yuki Tsukumo

Dress the same, act the same, do their own thing and come back.

Ash / Eiji & Megumi / Yuuji

Ash & Megumi share a voice actor. They have been thrust into a world that exploits youth from a young age, and this dynamic is normalized by the adults around them. They don't hesitate or fear risking their lives for their friends or their own sense of morality.

They grew up without a mother, having a complicated yet absent father, prone to violence, who in the end made a sacrifice for them. Also their older siblings' similarities.

Eiji & Yuuji are new to this world, innocent, loyal, optimistic compared to those around them.

Yuuji's uniform is a copy of Ash's outfit. Black jacket, red hoodie, red converse (nicer shoes when his uniform came in but still).

Banana Fish (the drug) & Toji's worm

I swear that this worm acts as the drug in Banana Fish, it preys on people's minds making them vulnerable to suggestions, and over time they lose themselves, becoming violent toward others and themselves.

Toji had sliced Geto open with a weapon that was inside of the worm, laced with it, you could say. Geto was unconscious when Toji said "but you, with all your blessed talents, lost to a monkey like me who can't even use jujutsu." that seeped into Geto.

We can tell from JJK0 that Geto took the worm after it crawled up to him. It had already submitted itself, so he would have no reason it absorb the curse. This means that he was spending time with it - the worm could have been crushed and put into his pocket, or even swallowed the way Toji had (no orb, just oroborous worm).

Then there was the conversation with Yuki (which is one reason why I felt like she was planted by Kenjaku, influenced in some way-- and recent interview revealed that Gege was considering Yuki as fake Geto's true identity. I told u all her vibes were off 😤) where she told Geto that he could kill all non-sorcerers. That it could be the easiest solution.

Actually, let's check out the manga page. He looks horrified and shocked that something he said as an off-hand morbid joke to cope with the loss of Haibara and Riko was validated as a real option.

I think that the worm ate away at their minds/souls - from Mahito's antics, it seemed like there was some connection between the soul and the brain. Anyway, I believe that Kenjaku used this curse to lure sorcerers. He would leave it in their path, let it be impressionable to their training, and the worm would eat away at them. This may have assisted in Kenjaku's transfer to a new body, made the process faster, or just caused his victims to devolve so that he could become them.

The worm is a cursed spirit, so naturally it would have fed off of cursed energy, right?

But Toji has no cursed energy. So the spirit could be forced to adapt, though I think that the fear Toji struck into everyone around him could suffice. It seems like Toji fed the worm, and idk the details but Gege has said that Toji found the worm and trained it.

It also seems that Toji lost himself quickly, while Geto held onto himself for much longer.

Toji did not remember his own son's name, which seems like more than just a result of grief over his wife. I know that trauma brain is real, and Toji had been through abuse from the Zenin clan as a child. But it still feels like something more to me. Shiu, who was his friend for 10 years, broke that off. To see Toji only for work, or in hell. Which could imply that's all that Toji was good for. Impossible to connect with as a friend.

Geto had a lot of mental strength, due to raising his family or the rituals he held with affirmations, etc. This might also be due to having cursed energy for the worm to feed off of - though by this time, I'm not sure how much that applied.

I think that Kenjaku was feeding suggestions to Geto by some means (Kenjaku is a master of games and manipulation, planning ahead, etc) in order to break him down, all because he wants the Curse Manipulation technique.

It seems like Geto's true motive was to get Gojo to curse him the way that Yuta had cursed Rika. But by the time that Gojo arrived, Geto already had critical damage by cursed energy, and Gojo cannot heal others with RCT. This is why Geto said you're late.

Geto has spoken about monkeys, about killing, but his actions say otherwise. Even when he does say those things, the way he carries himself changes. It reminds me of Buffy (the vampire slayer)'s mom saying random things due to a brain tumor. She isn't in control, and she doesn't mean it, even though she might insist on something during an episode.

He runs a cult, but it's more like he took over a cult. The same as the village - they were scapegoating young kids, using violence and killing them and gloating in it. He could see that even by removing the victims from there, the cycle would continue, more scapegoats would be found. And they were killing off those who would grow up to be strong, to protect the weak, to guard over them.

Geto's cult was, I think, demonized by Jujutsu Society because it was a powerful group outside of themselves. Mei Mei worked independently from graduating, but she isn't on Geto's level. He lessened their workload, though, by seeking out curses and by letting non-sorcerer victims seek him out for help, even though they had no idea what was going on, they were able to find relief. And he did this without asking for money or anything else in return.

He did break the rule of laying hands on non-sorcerers. (he had to, in order to end the cycle of abuse with Mimiko and Nanako's village, with the cult that killed Riko. They would find another scapegoat if he'd just removed the girls from there). What about that guy he killed?

(sanitizing thoughts here, btw)

This dude is drawn just like the corrupt, greedy capitalist in political cartoons. We don't get details, but we can gather his general character and actions, that he chooses to live in a selfish way that causes harm to many people in a position beneath him.

In JJK0, Geto's people are constantly reminded to not go too far, to just hold them back. I think the exception to this rule was likely to be conservative higher-ups, that Geto was still being protective. Nanako and Mimiko hanged them, I think they were explicitly given permission to. Ijichi was threatened because of the ignorant way he spoke down to them. Obv Ijichi is fine.

What about all of the people Shoko had to heal? She seemed pretty overwhelmed.

They were sorcerers who got hurt by the curses.

Non-sorcerers had already evacuated. If Geto truly hated non-sorcerers and was actually trying to build a world without them - I can't see it. His actions repeatedly protect non-sorcerers (sometimes from oppressive non-sorcerers, which is forbidden, but he still protects them from curses as well).

Gojo said that he can't believe that Geto would start a war he couldn't win, and that it worries him. That it seemed like Geto was bluffing with his number and strength of curses. He even knew exactly how Principal Yaga would react

Calling for help from the clans, from the Ainu Jujutsu Society, who we never hear of again. Geto was getting them to prepare as much as possible.

Why? Why unleash his curses?

And why divide them between Tokyo and Kyoto? He would have won, if his forces were not divided.

Geto was preparing for his own death. He wanted Gojo to curse him the way that Yuuta had cursed Rika, but that meant Geto had to die. And when he dies, the curses he's swallowed would be unleashed (idk if he knew for certain this would happen, or if Toji's caution to not kill Geto for that reason stayed with him. Either way, Geto wasn't going to let that hurt anyone - so the curses that he's absorbed had the best chances at being exorcised with the least amount of casualties, when they were divided between several locations. When the sorcerers had all the time to evacuate the cities, and have a set date to prepare for.

If Geto wanted to hurt anyone, it would have been a surprise attack.

Why was Geto preparing for his own death? We see his mental health break ten years earlier. Despite everything, he held himself together, he had a purpose and a family to care for. Mimiko and Nanako weren't dependent on him- they loved Geto, but they recovered really well. They were so comfortable with themselves, to speak up, to complain, to lounge on the couch with Larue and Miguel. The strain of the worm had enough leverage to drive his actions to drastic places. And he had a story behind them that his family would believe - Geto absorbs Rika, and they can rid the world of curses.

So I think that the worm spirit was used to make Geto more vulnerable. He was distraught, overworked, isolated, but that wasn't enough. He had a strong sense of ethics, I think he had routines that were strong self-care (he spoke with Yuuta about affirmations), and he was not breakable enough for Kenjaku to use.

Also, Utahime said that one of the moles (other than mechamaru) would be a higher-up well above the principal. I wouldn't be surprised if Kenjaku had that connection for decades.

I also think JJK was inspired by Elfen Lied, Kagewani, and maybe Vampire Princess Miyu.

Edit to add: more analysis (and Geto defense), looking at the KFC breakup here - he was misunderstood and did nothing wrong.

Jin and Kaori Itadori mirroring SatoSugu as a tragic married couple with zombie-ex-wife is killing me 💀

That bangs, that glasses. There's a lot of similarities in their character design, I wonder if it was made by accident.

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