#I hate shonen fans. I'd say imagine if they learned how to critically engage with a text beyond just VS Wiki tier listing but

[conostra]

My thoughts on Gojo vs Sukuna

Spoilers for the Jujutsu Kaisen manga. I’ll be discussing things that happen after the anime’s ending in the Shibuya arc, so be warned.

I was there at ground zero for Chapter 236’s release. I was scrolling Twitter as it all went down. I saw every flame war, every cope, every Gojo fanboy meltdown, every Gojo Pack Smoking gif, and found it all hysterical.

But after watching all of JJK season 2, I decided to read the manga for myself. And I have to say, I absolutely love the ending of the fight. I loved every part of the fight, and although I am quite sad to see Gojo die, I loved the way it was done.

See, as they were fighting, Gojo and Sukuna had inverse goals. Sukuna’s primary goal was to stall the fight through Mahoraga and attempt to, as he put it “create a model with which to violate Satoru Gojo’s inviolability.” Gojo, on the other hand, was attempting to rush Mahoraga in order to deal with Sukuna, who would not be able to best him in an iso so long as Gojo won or tied the Domain Clash, which he actually ended up doing.

Sukuna refers to Gojo’s Infinity as his inviolability, and as explained both in-universe and by Gege Akutami himself, Infinity is the neutral usage of the Limitless technique, allowing Satoru Gojo to essentially halt any thing that has properties of mass, speed, or energy. This is done by forcing the target to effectively cross the infinite divisions of space between itself and Gojo, directly compared to the Achilles and the Tortoise paradox.

Achilles and the Tortoise is a paradox proposed by Zeno, an ancient Greek philosopher. Suppose that a tortoise is placed ten meters in front of the hero Achilles, and Achilles is told to sprint towards the tortoise. The paradox proposes that Achilles, despite running faster than the tortoise, can never actually reach the tortoise, since so long as they both continue motion, by the time Achilles reaches the point in space the turtle had occupied, it will have already moved into another point in space. If Achilles reaches the ten meter mark, the tortoise will have moved a meter. When Achilles moves the meter, the tortoise will have moved 10 centimeters, and so on.

Through these mechanics, and with the power of cursed energy, Satoru Gojo takes the figurative place of the tortoise, and anything incoming takes the place of Achilles.

What I truly enjoy about the fight, however, is that Sukuna proves himself the superior Jujutsu Sorcerer by disproving the paradox, similarly to how modern mathematicians do now: they cut to the chase.

The issue with Zeno’s paradox is that although the subdivisions of each measurement are infinite, the measurements themselves are finite. There is a definitive endpoint. Eventually, so long as the series of infinities they are crossing is convergent (ending at a single point), it will inevitably cease. Despite there being an infinite series of fractions between me and the end of a space 1 meter away from me, there is a defined minimum for the defined distance I can traverse over a defined time, and eventually, that distance will overtake that endpoint so long as the movement continues. Gojo is the equivalent of that endpoint. This is important to remember when looking at how and why Sukuna defeated Gojo.

Mahoraga was obliterated by a Hollow Purple shortly before Gojo’s death. And yet, Mahoraga had found the time to adapt to Gojo’s infinity, at first by “transmuting its own cursed energy.” Sukuna admits this was not something he was able to do, and so he had to wait as Mahoraga continued to adapt.

Mahoraga’s final full adaptations were exactly what Sukuna needed. It was the method through which to bypass Infinity, because Sukuna’s slash would not traverse through any of the points in which Satoru Gojo could halt it. It simply was at all the points along its route at the same time, not targeting Gojo, not triggering Infinity, but simply cleaving through the very space in which Gojo was existing at, and beyond him. The target was the very world itself, existence, all the space behind Gojo, every space Infinity's manipulation occurred in, all at once. And Gojo simply happened to occupy the space the cleave occurred in. As Sukuna himself says, It was different from what he normally does, sending the cleaves flying at others. It’s like the difference between throwing a knife at someone, and materializing the knife into their chest.

I kinda understand why people may be a bit upset- after all, no matter what, this is an anime about the fights. The battle is the point, and chapter 236 is definitely understated in that regard. But I think this was a very cool, very interesting way to handle the kind of powerset that both of these sorcerers possess, and the amount of thought that goes into (some of) the very interesting mechanics that make up JJK’s power system. But I’ve always been a big physics and philosophy dork, so this kinda hits right in my ballpark.

And with that, personally, I enjoyed Chapter 236. I thought it was very emotionally compelling! Gojo, even in death, is the only man who could truly relate to Sukuna, and is his near-equal in Jujutsu as well as, let’s be honest, battle-lust, although mayhaps he is not so bloodthirsty as to consume the flesh of his enemies as well. But people called it just Gojo dickriding Sukuna, and although I can kind of see it, he’s… not exactly wrong with what he says. Sukuna literally couldn’t go all out. There was no point in wasting the cursed energy on useless attacks or revealing his techniques, like the fire he used to kill Mahoraga and Jogo in Shibuya. It would have simply given up some of the aces up his sleeve with no real benefit to him since their boosted strength would not let them bypass Infinity, so why not save that energy for RCT to continue to stall? Limitless put a massive dampener on Sukuna’s ability to really fight Gojo, so it turned into him trying to use his wisdom and experience in the field of Jujutsu to out-strategize him. 

Also, realistically, he wouldn’t have been able to defeat Gojo with any vessel except Megumi, because of ten shadows. The only way he could have really gone all-out with Satoru Gojo was in his Heian Era form, where the extra hands and mouth could have radically changed the way the Domain Clashes went because of his ability to chant and throw out extra hand signs with no downside, and it could have potentially evened out the physical fighting between them- after all, Gojo definitely had the consistent upper hand in close-quarters combat. But later on, in one of the most recent chapters, physically dominates Maki, the undoubtedly best physical fighter the heroes had after Gojo’s death, chaining into a Black Flash. And even still, he was reacting to Gojo's attacks, deftly dodging, blocking, and even grabbing Gojo on several different occassions. If he had multiple limbs with which to fight, or even just defend himself, who knows if Gojo could really have put the beats on him the way he did? Does he still get to chain those black flashes and re-amp his RCT? Does he even get that far?

Throughout the fight, even to the end, the two are trash-talking, joking back and forth, and it is made clear that they regard each other with a level of respect- a level of respect that, for Sukuna, is saved only for those who he can truly regard as incredible sorcerers. And upon Gojo's death, he still laments, not his death, mostly not that he lost, but that he could not quite get through to Sukuna. The point is hammered throughout the fight- there was an ideological conflict superimposed over their physical one. Sukuna, who utilized his strength to dominate, to do everything he wished, to murder and slaughter and eat his way through all the entertainment that is around at a given time, and then move on. Gojo, on the other hand, knows just as well how lonely it is to be at the top. And what did he do? He built an army of comrades, and ushered in the next generation. If he could not look for an equal in strength, he could look for allies, friends, those who followed in his beliefs, those he could help to become as strong as him, or, as he puts it, “strong enough to keep up.” He holds no false hope about his predicament. But he had an inkling of hope that he, perhaps, would be able to show Sukuna not the error of his ways, but that there was a better, maybe even more enjoyable path for him to take, one with more passion and elation and self-reward.

And with that, what does Gojo see when he dies? His friends, those he considered his family. He is in the part of his memory, his life, before everything fell apart. Before the man he loved the most killed a part of him, before all the issues in Shibuya, everything. And he is happy. He is content. And what is Sukuna left with? The fleeting taste of happiness left in his mouths by his victory over the greatest sorcerer of the modern era, and an army to face down, all bearing his same ideals, including the one he hates the most, because he has made him feel, and think about his actions, more than even the late, great, Satoru Gojo- Yuji Itadori.

But, because this is Battle Shonen, everyone is mad that they didn’t get to see the world-splitting slash, or something.