Here's why I think the Gojo bait is not great writing and why you should maybe think so too (Spoilers till jjk 260).
We've spent the last few chapter consistently establishing a few things about our protagonist (Yuuji) and our antagonist(Sukuna).
1. Yuuji's father's soul is a reincarnation of Sukuna's twin: This instantly creates a connection between Sukuna and Yuuji.
As if you needed one outside of Sukuna's constant mockery of his former vessel's lack of "competance", and that most of yuuji's biggest losses can be attributed to Sukuna, building his wrath brick by brick. But surely adds to it all.
2. Yuuji feels incredibly lonely right now: Anyone he's created any sort of meaningful (?) Bond with outside of just 'hey you're an ally I can fight alongside with' is currently either dead or greatly incapacitated.
3. Also ofc the absolute damage that Yuuji has started incurring on sukuna. Damage that the slew of sorcerors before him couldn't. Forget about everyone teaching him abou love, Yuuji will show him Burning Rage.
This while also having hinted at Yuuji being possibly strong enough to do so on his own. He can go head to head with the King Of Curses with or without the help of his fellow sorcerors once he is able to harness this power.
Anything that was Gojo vs Sukuna feels absolutely irrelevant with the build up that Gege themself has been creating through the past few chapters.
Gojo's form right at the end of the chapter undercuts the pacing completely. Readers are more interested in those last 2 panels of Gojo which are completely removed from and rather jarring to the buildup between Yuuji and Sukuna. Fan interest in Gojo isn't their fault because that's what the chapter makes you focus on.
The only way I see this continue the buildup is if this is somehow Yuuji's doing or done with his knowledge, in which case it'd have been better to end the chapter by showing that Yuuji is aware of it and has an ace up his sleeve, bringing it back to the 2 relevent characters, and for people to stew in what Yuuji could be up to for a week.
But no matter what Gojo's visage there means, Yuuji in this moment has been so greatly undermined, not by his lack of strength, not by Sukuna outright demeaning him, but by the writing itself. By Gege.
And oh, how Yuuji deserves better.
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You know I wasn't going to post about this, but the more I think about it the more it drives me up the walls
So when Luffy and co release Crocodile from jail, it's specifically under the threat that if Crocodile tries anything funny, well, Iva-chan has a trick up their sleeve to put Crocodile back in-line.
So what the fuck was that actually about? What is Crocodile's secret weakness?
I'm specifically looking at the way this is phrased in the manga, because the anime's added dialogue kinda messes with what's implied here. But what Iva specifically says is that Ivankov in particular holds the key to one of Crocodile's weaknesses, but they'll stay quiet about it as long as Crocodile behaves himself
("Vataashi wa koitsu no yowami wo hitotsu nigitteru", a very clunky but literal translation could be "One of his weaknesses is within my grasp". The way Viz translated the line is a bit different so I'm not bothering with getting a cap of the panel, you wouldn't be able to tell how these lines were phrased in Japanese based on Viz's translations anyways)
(The dialogue Toei added was Crocodile furiously shouting at Iva-chan, telling them to not say anything and Iva-chan reminding Croc to watch his tone or else they'll reveal Croc's past to everyone. A lot of people don't remember this was in-fact added by Toei, hence I wanted to clarify/remind what happened in this scene originally)
And now. Obviously.
When Oda went out of his way to introduce a brand new character whose entire personality is being queer and their power is giving people magic HRT. And then like five chapters later re-introduces Crocodile. And tells us that these two have Secret Beef. And never proceeds to fucking tell us what the hell that was about.
Yes, the natural conclusion one would come to would be that Crocodile is stealth trans. That is basic, good storytelling. You (re)introduce two characters, tell us they have beef, one has a very specific ability; you're supposed to connect these dots in your mind. So that now, if Oda revealed to us tomorrow that Crocodile was canonically trans, it would not surprise anyone because it's already been set-up in the story, by this very scene. It's a logical conclusion.
But. I'm becoming more and more convinced that Iva-chan's blackmail might actually not be about Crocodile being trans.
Like the general fandom assumption for the past 15 years has been that Crocodile's stealth trans, but we actually don't know he's stealth.
He could be openly trans, and between that being a borderline requirement for Crocodad to be real (since he would've been a Shichibukai for years before Luffy was even born) and the possibility that his earring could specifically be a gay earring, like. Yeah. Crocodile could be openly trans. If Crocodile's perfectly happy to let the whole world know he's gay, then him being trans shouldn't have to be a secret either. We the readers could just be unaware of it because it wasn't relevant information to us, and his transition would be old ass news in-universe and not worth bringing up.
And thus, if Crocodile isn't stealth, then Iva-chan can't blackmail him by threatening to out him, becaus he can't be outted.
Now for a while I did considder that Iva-chan could've been actually threatening to detransition Crocodile if he tried anything funny. Surely he would hate that, so much so that he might not have wanted to even hear Ivankov suggest it.
But thinking about it. Unless Iva-chan can use Armanent Haki or get Crocodile moisturized, they shouldn't be able to hit Crocodile actually. Like Croc's Logia makes him impossible to hit unless he specifically allowed himself to be touched. So even if Iva-chan tried to surprise attack Crocodile with Estrogen, Croc should just turn to sand automatically, the attack should not land.
Meaning Iva-chan shouldn't be able to detransition Crocodile against his will, at least not without Haki and we don't know if they can use it, so that can't be Crocodile's weakness either.
And so we have to ask the question. What the fuck is that weakness then that Ivankov mentioned?
All we really know is that Crocodile doesn't want this weakness to be brought up, it's a secret. And for all we know Iva-chan might be the only person in the world who knows about it.
And I just. Like.
There is one weakness, kind of a universal one that many people could have, one that has been brought up time-and-time again post-timeskip, one that has become more and more relevant in the story, especially now at the begining of the Final Saga.
A secret weakness.
If pregnancy is what cracked Crocodile's egg and he transitioned immidiately/soon after giving birth, then it's entirely plausible Iva-chan could know Crocodile had a secret child. And surely he'd want nothing more than for his child to be safe, not end up in trouble because of him.
And Ivankov most certainly could put that child in danger, especially now that Crocodile was officially no longer on the World Government's side, there'd be no protection for the baby. All Ivankov had to do was leak the information out, that Sir Crocodile had a child, and anybody who had beef with him could get their revenge by attempting to find the child.
Like I'm just saying. This could line up nicely, actually
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some thoughts on yuuta's cursed technique, rika, & the five minute limit
i meant to talk about this like. during the extended break but i ended up not but im gonna do some quick thoughts on it now before leaks tn! most of this will be spoiler free, but i'll put a warning before i get into things from recent chapters.
idk if someone else has talked abt this before, but the five minute limit, from my interpretation of the manga, comes from a binding vow yuuta made in order to collect more techniques.
in her fight against kenjaku, yuki says that if kenjaku were to have more than 4 techniques, his brain would burst, unless he had an external storage mechanism like yuuta with rika.
yuuta's innate technique is copy, but it is my understanding that without rika, he would only be able to store up to three other techniques to copy, and if he wanted to acquire a new one, he would have to toss one of the ones he already had (note: rika is not part of yuuta's ct. after jjk0, in my opinion, she is functionally a shikigami, which doesn't require an innate technique, aside from the ten shadows)
in order to store more techniques to copy, i believe yuuta has made a binding vow in order to make rika into a storage facility to hold onto more techniques. the problem with this is that there has to be some sort of restriction in place for it to work, and i believe this is where the five minute limit comes from. i don't think it is a part of yuuta's technique. without rika, i believe he could potentially use another person's technique boundlessly
the phrasing of this further makes me believe that the five minute limit is part of a binding vow. "only when he is connected to rika through the ring can he use cursed techniques (referring to copied techniques)"
the use of the ring as a sort of talisman to activate this binding vow reminds me of nanami's overtime binding vow. to activate this, he removes his tie.
his binding vow also limits his cursed energy, where he can only use 80% of his cursed energy when he isn't in overtime in order to use 120% when he is, similarly to yuuta's, where he can't use rika's full power without activating the binding vow.
spoilers from 260+ & theory for 263 under here
if this is true, and if yuuta finds himself in a position where he needs to extend his limit beyond 5 minutes to continue using gojo's body, he could sacrifice his connection rika to do so. i only see him doing this if he absolutely has to, like if he's got seconds left on the clock, because the loss would be ENORMOUS. yuuta on his own is powerful, and this is not to deny that, he's a special grade for a reason, but he would lose rika's power AND however many techniques he's collected in his time as a sorcerer.
i was trying to think of techniques yuuta has copied, and which three he might keep. probably the most useful one for him to keep at this point would be technique extinguishment & jacob's ladder from angel. then he'd have to keep kenjaku's technique as well to stay in gojo's body/have hope of going back to his own.
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I gotta admit, I find it hilarious how gege ended the last chapter after these SICK panels of yuuji clawing at sukuna’s heart in absolute rage and fury
only to start the next one… like this
yuuji who’s about to crash sukuna’s heart with his bare hand, sukuna “not now brat I gotta see this shit first” and punches him in the face like he wasn’t just about to have his heart ripped out of his chest lmaooo
ugh I love when sukuna and yuuji are just being sukuna and yuuji like this is what I’m here for
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[Spoilers for MHA 395]
If Himiko is truly on her death bed here and she isn’t making it through the battle, then Dabi needs to die. He endured far greater injuries than she did, burning himself from the inside out to the point of barely having any skin on his bones. Her dying but him living would be a huge slap on the face. That isn’t even mentioning that Himiko has been presented as sympathetic and wanting to be understood while Dabi has been shown to hurt anyone, blood related or not, to achieve his obsessive goal of killing Endeavor and hurting him in whatever ways possible. If the character with the greatest chance of being saved dies, then the character with the lowest chance of being saved needs to also die.
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