*comes barreling into ur ask box* okay but yuuji's growth just makes me sad??? like he's such a warm character in the first chapters but slowly but surely as the story progresses he grows more and more colder, like there's a weird sense of melancholy that just doesn't seem to go away every time i see him in a manga panel even in the first chapter because like, to me yuuji is such a lonely character? like he has friends yeah, but its the kind of friends that drifts apart just as easy as it came (i would know because i've been there, still am honestly, it's easy to form relationships but its hard to keep them from drifting and falling apart), at least that's what i feel anyways.
and now that feeling is now dialed up to an eleven when he said "i'm just a cog" and that he doesn't care about the fever hakari oh so raves about, because yuuji is still a child who grew up too fast and suffered so much that he's so, so tired now, can't he just rest? but he can't rest because resting means giving up and giving up means letting sukuna win and sukuna winning means more people dying and yuuji's already lost so so much—his only family, a friend, his partner-in-crime, and his mentee, and there's so much blood on his hands (two little girls who just want their father back, and most—if not all of shibuya itself) and while it is sukuna's fault there's no doubt that he blames himself just as much because he couldn't control bastard demon man who possesses his body whenever he's conked out.
dfufjskfjsl im sorry for the big block of test i,, i just have lots of feelings for him—for most jjk characters actually, they're just all so unique and fleshed out that they feel so human it's terrifying, like you can see bits of yourself in them gege is really amazing at making them even though he tells us time and time again that he doesn't like any of them wwww
RIGHT LIKE ITS AMAZING HOW GEGE DID THIS SHIT i could genuinely write out essays for any of the characters! even panda tbh, i have so much.. clouded thoughts in my head about how he obviously behaves like a human yet denies himself that humanity (that "even pandas cry" scene) and constantly refers to him as just a panda, mimicking how pandas behave, annoying everyone in the process
and yeah yuuji just. yuuji!! yuuji yuuji. i have so much thoughts about him that i need to sort out, but out of the shounen protagonist lot he is clearly of the less fortunate one - i mean, all the big major fights? he has never won them alone. not once! and, all the fights that he lost he barely got out alive. the fights he won alone are always with the small fries. like?? lets count. yuuji:
vs the curses in the first chapter - got out alive bc of megumi, gojou, even gd sukuna
vs the curse in roppongi - won with nobara
vs the curses in the detention center - he was alone and he lost and only got out alive bc of sukuna
vs mahito, 1st - junpei died right before his eyes, and he managed to fight off mahito only after nanami arrived
vs hanami - managed to fought off w/ toudou's help
vs the curse brothers - won with nobara
vs that old dude in shibuya - won with megumi
vs that grasshopper curse - won - the only (kind of) significant fight that he won alone
vs choso - alone, lost
vs mahito, 2nd - somewhat won, but with nobara and toudou weakening mahito first
vs okkotsu - alone, lost
vs hakari - alone, lost
like yeah, friendship is power, but in other shounen its typical for the protagonist to have a power up due to a friendship or whatever, and then they usually finish a big fight alone. not yuuji! yuuji always has someone there with him. its never him that gives the pep talk; its always someone else giving him the pep talk. yuuji more than anyone else needs people to be with him, reassuring him (eg. toudou in the 2nd mahito fight, megumi reassuring him that he could still help after the shibuya arc), helping him to talk things out (eg. nanamin after the 1st mahito fight, nobara after killing the curse brothers), takes the lead for him (eg. nanamin, megumi too, so many times.)
thats why its so heartbreaking when he decided to go off on his own. yuuji has never been the independent type, he needs people to need him, but other people's needs always come before his. so even if he needs people, if he's dangerous he won't stay near them anymore.
i suppose thats why yuuji seems so lonely. i dont think his friends would drift apart btw - yuuji himself distances from them - thats canon! jflaksjfjlfas. but i get what you mean, esp in the first chapter. he doesnt seem like he has built a significant group of friends in his first high school despite his sunshine personality - and then we learn that thats bc he immediately yeets himself to the hospital after class to take care of his dying grandpa, leaving no time to socialize with peers. at the time it seems normal, but that trait still stays so consistent after so many arcs: to yuuji, other people's needs always come before his own.
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Jujutsu Kaisen – 20 – Purple Boogie Woogie
In a brief but gorgeously lit and colored flashback, Toudou Aoi, only in third grade, is beating the shit out of a high schooler who mocked him. He catches the eye of a blonde sorcerer with a skeletal shikigami, and she asks him what type of woman he likes. Fast forward to the battle with Hanami, Toudou laments that while it’s time to unleash his technique, there’s no time to explain it.
That said, it doesn’t take long for him to demonstrate that technique, known as Boogie Woogie, in which he swaps positions with someone with the clap of his hands. He swaps with Hanami just as he’s about to land in a mass of spiked roots, so Hanami takes the damage. Yuuji was about to punch Hanami, but is about to punch Aoi instead.
Aoi uses Boogie Woogie with great effectiveness, swapping with Yuuji every few seconds to keep Hanami off balance, unsure which of them—with their, let’s say widely varying builds—to prepare for. We briefly check in with Nanami, who holds the record of most Black Flashes in one battle with four, including two consecutive.
As expected, thanks to Aoi’s tutelage, Yuuji’s able to easily break both of Nanami’s personal records, popping off three straight Black Flashe then a couple more for good measure. Hanami then unleashes an attack consisting of a enormous mass of cursed buds, too many of which could put either sorcerer out of commission (as they did Megumi).
Aoi, who claims to have an IQ over 500,000 (which, okay) retreats into his mind palace for a fraction of a second, which takes the form of the same high school drama where he and Yuuji became best brahs, and where Takada-chan is a classmate who turned him down flat. While Aoi initially prepares to defend the onslaught of buds with cursed energy, Takada helps him realize that’s exactly what Hanami is hoping for, so he reverses the energy and the buds bounce harmlessly off of him.
We also learn that Aoi has been strategically moving the battle back to the riverbed where Megumi went down, as before being carried away he told Aoi the three-part cursed staff is still lying the water. Since Aoi’s Boogie Woogie works on anything with cursed energy, he swaps Yuuji for the staff, infuses it with his own cursed energy, and smacks the shit out of Hanami, who suddenly has to resort to their version of Brazo Izquierdo del Diablo.
Just as Hanami’s arm collects all of the life energy of the surrounding forest in preparation for a Doman Expansion, the veil suddenly falls, and Gojou Satoru is floating up in the sky, mask off, ready to rumble.We cut to the other two battles going on just before the veil goes down, as Gakuganji shows Juuzou (the guy obsessed with turning Satoru into a coat rack) how his body serves as an amp for his guitar shredding.
We also catch Utahime about to square off with some cocky human who brandishes a sword with a hand for a grip, as made for him by Juuzou (which is how we learn the prolific cursed craftsman’s name). Utahime proves too quick for him, while Nobara and Mai soon arrive to back her up.
I’d have loved to watch them fight the hand-sword dude three-on-one, but then the veil goes down, and he skedaddles like his life depends on it…because it probably does. Juuzou doesn’t fare as well, as Satoru determines that he should be his first target to obliterate. While he “holds back” he still makes mincemeat out of Juuzou’s arms and legs, keeping him alive for interrogation.
Satoru then sets his sights on the retreating Hanami, determining he’ll have to launch a long-range attack mixing orbs of red and blue cursed energy(?) into one big mean purple blast that almost swallows up Yuuji and Aoi, but doesn’t. It looks like the sorcerers have won the day, but they don’t even know why these bad guys showed up in the first place.
Turns out the anti-Satoru veil and everything else about the attack amounted to one great big diversion, enabling Mahito to steal one of Ryoumen Sukuna’s fingers that was being held on Jujutsu Tech grounds. But assuming the Exchange Event is now over and won’t be started back up, hopefully the Kyoto kids will put their Yuuji knives away, as they all just went though some shit at the hands of their mutual enemies.
By: braverade
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