JJK 266 & Megumi's Childhood

JJK 266 & Megumi's Childhood

i wanted to talk about megumi and his childhood for a bit, and how it ties into what happened in the most recent chapter, specifically the reasoning behind why yuuji's "i'm so lonely without you, fushiguro" was so moving for him.

i sincerely believe that everything about megumi and the way he acts can be traced back to being abandoned as a child, and i have a lot to say about this that doesn't pertain to this chapter, but that's for another post. for now, i want to talk about the logic megumi adopted to explain why he'd been left behind as a child, and how that carries through to 266.

the elephant in the room first: this is not a safe space to defend toji. you can say whatever you want about him "loving megumi," but it doesn't change the fact that he wasn't a good father, and he was never around for megumi. he gave megumi the first of many wounds, the one that megumi built his whole sense of self around.

what brought this up for me is this line that megumi shares to yuuji after yuuji has made contact with his soul in 266.

i've already talked a bit about how i don't think this should be taken literally (you can read my full thoughts here), but to paraphrase: megumi isn't saying they are literally walking side by side, rather that he holds them to the same level in his mind, and he wants to see them achieve peace and happiness. it's also implied by the "seeing off" part that he is standing back and watching this happen. he isn't a part of said peace

in that post, i touched on the way megumi is always willing to shoulder the burden of being a "bad" person when it comes to tsumiki and yuuji, and how that relates to this line, but for the sake of this post, i specifically want to draw the comparison between this line, and what megumi says to gojo in ch79 when talking about his dad.

he assumes that when toji and tsumiki's mom leave them behind, it's because they're going on to live a happier life without the kids. he adopts this mindset at a very young age, and with the previously mentioned line, we can see how it's carried through until now.

megumi has internalized the idea that he's nothing but burden that drags other people down. his young mind couldn't come up with any other explanation. he thinks he's the dead weight that's been cut in order for toji and tsumiki's mom to achieve happiness, so he believes that no one can be happy as long as he's around.

he also comes to accept that he will always inevitably be left behind. he assumes that everyone will outgrow him and move onto something better, so he lives in anticipation that he will be abandoned again eventually, hence, it is natural for him to envision the two people that matter the most to him needing to leave him behind to achieve happiness.

enter: yuuji.

he basically outright rejects the idea that he would be happier without megumi around. he tells megumi directly, "no, i'd be lonely without you." and he says this to child megumi, the one who only knew the feeling of being left behind and the idea that everyone else would be happier without him.

this is what pushes megumi to finally fight back, because he realizes his life actually is worth something to someone. he sees that him being gone won't make the people (or uh. singular remaining person) he cares about happy.

Wait should I make a bingo card w my predictions while there's 4 chapters left

I can add links to my posts about them too

(anime-only friendly post)

I'll have to reread JJK0 to rly have a stance on this but

At this point I feel like Geto did nothing wrong, even if the worm curse was not drugging him like banana fish (explained here).

Geto was misunderstood. He didn't declare that he was planning to kill all non-sorcerers. Gojo said that. Geto called him ignorant for it and walked away for not being listened to. To have a world of sorcerers could take a gradual path by teaching, by finding those like Nanako and Mimiko (one of the guys in their family was in a similar position, I forget his name rn). Geto traveled far for a family of sorcerers and to remove cursed spirits.

I think his parents weren't killed for being non-sorcerers, but for being a part of that cycle of violence toward them. Geto might have given them a second chance, taking the twins to his parents house, when they got violent. We don't know exactly what went down with them.

Gojo continues to have negative rizz (this analysis contains manga spoilers. Tldr, Gojo misunderstands another lover, potentially) so it feels like a pattern to me.

We've often pointed out that Sukuna's love language would be violence, that using his stronger techniques is a sign of respect toward his opponent.

But I'm realizing now, Gojo is the same way - it shows that a partner can keep up with them. We know that Geto and Gojo used to get into fights at school (and Geto even used his curse manipulation technique without notifying the staff first, like he usually would because of the unregistered cursed energy). Geto said fuck the rules, I'm on your level (by your side).

BUT AT THE KFC, Geto didn't pull out a curse. He didn't fight (for) Gojo - not even when he pulled out the hollow purple hand. Geto just told him to choose his own path, there would be meaning in that. That he's no longer by his side. Geto said there would be a point to killing him, but I think it was to follow the order of his execution, to feed into the oppressive system on jujutsu sorcerers. Geto decided to be the one who diverges from the rules of jujutsu society, to decide that some non-sorcerers have so much power that they are as dangerous as curse users, even if they have no cursed techniques.

Geto had come to terms with the separation - they'd been sent on missions alone too often, and he felt left behind by Gojo's growth (along with how different he was since the fight with Toji - they didn't grow closer from that traumatic event, but became distant from there).

I would love to see someone who's fluent in Japanese break down their conversation - to me it reads like Geto is telling Gojo, I have a family now. I have to look after them. And if my parents were just like the group that killed Riko, or the village that beat up and locked kids in a cage for having abilities... Then it's irresponsible of me to let the cycle of hate continue there, just because they are my parents.

Anyway, Geto killed people. He targeted those in power, those with money, those who exploit the weak for their own greed, those who scapegoat innocent children and criminalize sorcerers for the curses' atracks (when the curses are only born from the non-sorcerers in the first place).

First, the village with Nanako and Mimiko.

Then his own parents (which I'm going to assume were the same way, I have my own headcanon that he left his family early for a monastery and then went to jujutsu high but I'm not rly sure what's up).

And the cult - he specifically calls to the stage and kills the man who hired Toji to kill Riko. And had Shiu gather to that meeting the members in positions of power and money.

There's also the deal with Geto calling non-sorcerers monkeys, which carries a gross and racist feeling (at least through a western lense, I've seen so many jokes about him being racist and planning a genocide, but I don't think that's really accurate). We can say that it was sleep learning from Toji. I think it stuck with him for a very simple reason.

Yuki Tsukumo gave Geto an existential crisis by telling him that curses only exist because of non-sorcerers (except for when a sorcerer dies and becomes the curse). Geto knows what curses taste like. Think about going to the zoo - you can smell the monkey area already, can't you? It's very distinct and memorable. It stays with you. The curses that Geto swallows are like that, but even worse. I posted here about the smell lingering in his sinuses and that's why he uses sanitizing spray after seeing Mrs. Sa(i)to and her daughter.

So just like monkeys live and poop and are associated with the stench, non-sorcerers get emotional and leak cursed energy. Others might see and hear curses, and occasionally they might smell (sorry Eiso I know you're insecure about having a musty back but I can't think of another example, maybe this doesn't happen with cursed spirits), but Geto is alone in knowing the taste and making this connection.

Anyway, Geto still clearly believes that the strong should protect the weak, whether they're sorcerers or not, that's what he spends his life doing.

And when he died saying that he still hates those monkeys - hate is different than genocide. He's been basically eating their vomit for the majority of his life. Not to mention the curses that killed his friends.

Ultimately, though, we don't get to see anyone Kenjaku uses as a vessel live their own life except for Geto. And I don't believe that the worm would have been necessary for most victims - but Geto and his best friend were 2 of the strongest sorcerers. Whoever Kenjaku was living as at the time had to be calculating and careful.

I don't know when Toji got the worm, but I think that Kenjaku needed to use it on Toji himself, and not only as a mediator to pass it onto Geto.

Idk much about Toji's life, but it seems like he was healing with his wife, and maybe he was still taking out curse users (though I want to use that term lightly bc ultimately it's the higher ups who decide who is a sorcerer vs a curse user), but I'm not sure he would have gone after Gojo or Geto or the star plasma vessel without the sudden grief or the worm.

Kenjaku likely was the founder of the time vessel association (which makes me laugh when Toji says thank you founder and shiu is like, ugh he is not the founder dumbass), which is from the Nara era. At the least we know that he was trying to destabilize Tengen. He needed someone to kill Riko. He needed Toji to lose his sense of reality, responsibility. (kenjaku was probably either in that group or sending them messages that they believed were like a sign from god)

So i feel more confident now in believing that Kenjaku did cause Megumi's mother's death. It seemed to happen by the time of Gojo and Geto's first year in jujutsu high.

In the end, love wasn't the greatest curse of all. It was the failure to understand Geto -

And Geto decided that he didn't need anyone to understand. He was giving up on Gojo, and on the rules.

It seems like Yuki Tsukumo and Geto kept in touch, judging by the end of the Shibuya incident. I wouldn't be surprised if one of their goals was to teach more people to become sorcerers or at least control their cursed energy, even if they can't see spirits.

Even if Geto were now curse user witn a death sentence, he still used his technique to absorb curses, a way to remove them from non-sorcerer victims without the stress or violence of exorcism (he didn't have to keep swallowing curses, instead of manipulating the ones he already had. But most people don't have resistance to curses, so he prioritized making things easier for the weak).

I imagine that some of these people got hyped about it, asking to learn, and were able to join a class that might focus on breathing techniques, visualization, etc (even if they could just control emotions better, that would help}. Larue's ability would make him a good teacher, and we really don't know what role he would have played otherwise.

Idk if this is too much of a crack theory to belong with my JJK ending predictions

But I'm assuming that Uraume has been leading Hakari to understand Sukuna (continued from when we saw them last).

If Sukuna would make a cursed corpse (I'm sure he's capable of it, he's been learning a lot from observing others) then we can just feed that plushie (or statue or whatever it is) the fingies.

Sukuna gets his own body and can chill.

Everything is fine. (ideas linked above solve the other problems)

Sukuna going after Yuuji this chapter especially reminds me of that video where

Someone had adopted a bird who was abused in his previous home, so the dude's crushing the cage they had there under his feet while the bird curses and cheers him on.

I'm not saying that Yuuji deserves to die, but that Sukuna doesn't respect him as a sorcerer because Yuuji is first and foremost a cage to Sukuna, and I'm not sure if he'd be able to see past that.

Also bc of the way that Yuuji only tried to find humanity in Sukuna in ch. 265, briefly, but immediately ignored sukuna and called him annoying and only tried to communicate with him to demand help, all while sympathizing with school shooters (like the time he called Sukuna out to save Junpei). Bro has so much to say to Sukuna but it doesn't land bc he never listened enough to know anything about him.

phlebotomist choso doodles