Wonder Of U - Tumblr Posts
Tell me why I had a dream last night about an evil Funko Pop Wonder of U haunting the woods by my house
Going beyond regeneration, it will bring about an Exchange for sound health.
And when you smile the world is brighter ☀️
No way skibidi toilet is in Jojo 😭😭😭😭😭
Skibidi - of - U
Comparing the JJK fan's current experience with my experience with Jojolion
From 2020 - 2021, the Jojolion fandom was a pressure cooker: fan theories and coping and criticisms were everywhere. Some were determined to keep the faith, some were proclaiming the story ruined, but we all were held hostage by our need to know how it ended, how everything payed off. Reading JJK weekly now, I feel like we are going through something similar. Spoiler-heavy observations and parallels below the cut.
TL;DR - watching, chapter-by-chapter, as a story you care about makes mistakes (whether perceived or not) near its end is maddening. Read Jojolion.
Disclaimers:
1) I very much love both series, warts and all. 2) Even while reading weekly/monthly, both series have great moments and art. It's never all doom and gloom. 3) These are feelings that are massively exacerbated by watching a story you're very invested in finish in slow motion. Jojolion's last arc works better in hindsight (warts and all), and I'm sure this arc will work much better when it's done -- think about how much hate the Culling Games got while that arc was coming out.
Heavy, HEAVY Jujutsu Kaisen and Jojolion manga Spoilers below:
Reasons fans began to dread the end of both JJK/JJL:
Major character that has been very plot-relevant getting an unsatisfying, abrupt death. You never truly shake the feeling it was intended to be a fake-out death
(Literally no one believed Jobin was dead for years) (Gojo can apply here too)
Hyped-up, fan-favorite side characters end up feeling underexplored, getting extremely quick and underwhelming deaths
Too much of the finite remaining page time and plot relevance is being given to characters with no real apparent arc or fewer interesting character dynamics
(Love both characters but its true)
Resisting the encroaching fear that long-awaited moments will never come until the story ends abruptly (JJK will most likely end abruptly). "This can't be the last arc, I've been obsessing over this unaddressed plot thread for months!"
Phases of the battle/arc feel extra long due to wait between chapters, protagonists can feel stuck in one place for months
Fan-favorite character dynamics being absent for long stretches of time (YasuGap, Most of JJK's cast lowkey)
The story frequently references its framing device, keeping the faith alive that everything has been meticulously planned
(Don't get me started on the flashforward)
All this, slowly stewing in the fanbase over months, can make fans feel trapped between faith, dread, and pessimism as the story moves at a seemingly glacial pace towards its ending.
I feel like by the time Jojolion was finally ending, everyone's nerves were so fried that we barely even wanted to discuss the ending at all. I hope we can avoid a similar collapse, but we'll see how Gege chooses to end his story. As someone deeply invested JJK's ending, I think it's been important for me to separate from the story for a bit when needed.
Again, keep in mind that I've learned to appreciate Wonder Of U, and I am still enjoying JJK quite a lot. Both series, while very different, never fail to make interesting choices in how they interact with battle manga tropes and structure. They can just be perplexing and frustrating at times, especially so close to the end.
I'm sure this is not a unique phenomena. It's basically what sports fans go through, in a way. These are just two recent examples that really stick out in my personal experience.
°•♡Stands Doodles♡•°