Jujutsu kaisen is a disappointment

This review contains spoilers for the entire series pretty much, I will also only be reviewing the events after perfect prep cause im kinda lazy and you already know what i'd say about everything before it

Also a quick warning this "review" isnt exactly professional in any way and is mostly me venting my frustrations about a manga i liked that fell off.

• TLDR: with the boring plot, the lack of character interaction, fumbles in the final arc, asspulls, plot armour and more, I became increasingly jaded with the series I used to love to the point of dropping it. Then I found out it had like 20 chapters left and went "screw it" and picked it back up but its still not very good aside from a few parts

#Jujutsu kaisen is a disappointment
This series will forever live rent free in my head because of just how badly it fell off. I was in love with the start of the series, I thought jjk 0 was a brilliant self contained story, and felt that it's continuation worked well. Yuji and his philosophy of trying to "find the right death" was a plot point new and unique to me. I loved the characters, the fights, the story and the world. The Shibuya incident was brilliant (although it did have a few flaws). I really loved this manga

Then the culling games began

The filler games and sukuna showdown have been some of the most boring arcs I've ever read in a shounen. Gone were the exciting twists, high intensity fights and intriguing character arcs, being replaced by fights that serve no purpose, a half baked moral story about the strength at the top, characters with little to no depth, plot points that went nowhere, a severe lack of character interaction and development, obvious twists and asspulls that would make the loathsome dung eater drool.

For the rest of this review I'll pace it like gege does, and review things fight-by-fight

The filler games start, higuruma fights yuji

In the beginning, the culling games arc was already proving to be a bit worrying. One of the biggest problems in jjk is the insane amounts of yapping, and oh boy did the introduction and explanation of the culling games bore me. (I can't remember what the rules were and tbh I don't care). This section started out with still main character yuji and potential man Megumi looking for some sorcerer to free gojo. They split up and yuji fights depressed phoenix wright (higuruma). Unlike other characters introduced in the culling games, higuruma does have a kinda interesting backstory and a kinda cool personality. The fight was interesting enough and I don't have many complaints yet

Potential man vs Receipt guy

I can't remember what happened in this fight but I do remember it contained a lot of yapping and not much character development (an issue that will become much more prevalent later on). The fight wasn't memorable at all, nor was the opponent. There was some foreshadowing though

yuta's 1v1v1v1

I'll preface this section by saying it was one of my favourite fights, but to save space I'm only gonna talk about what I didn't really like. Yuta, who has been hyped up for a while now fights a cockroach, a naked lady and a guy who likes dessert. While the fight was cool, nothing really interesting happened. There was no real character development, the plot barely moved forward aside from yuta getting some points, and before we know it we're whisked away to the next fight

Gambling man vs The king of crop

This is, in my opinion, one of the best written fights in JJK (choreography-wise). It has good action, interesting techniques and entertaining characters. You've got a guy who's entire strategy revolves around being lucky (hakari) and this electricity guy who wants to fight sukuna, and refuses to use his one time cursed technique against anyone other than him (Kashimo). However, once again, these characters don't develop. Hakari remains the same guy he was, he doesn't gain the slightest bit of development. The plot once again doesn't move forward either, hakari doesnt even get any points from winning cause kashimo used them all. this fight yet again was here for no reason other than the sake of being there. But wait! Kashimo has joined up with hakari! this must mean that the fight will have relevance later, cause surely kashimos one time CT will prove vital in doing a lot of damage to sukuna in the final battle! Right? Right?

Female toji and plot devices vs Misogynist

This was another pretty forgettable fight, however unlike before there is the slightest bit of character development, thanks to the most contrived and obvious plot devices I have ever seen

I honestly believe gege gave up at this point, because these two show up out of fucking nowhere, help maki get a power up to defeat the curse version of her misogynistic relative, refuse to elaborate and are never seen again. What the fuck
also why did gege go so HARD drawing a fucking tree like wtf this is nuts

Plotjaku vs Wasted character

This was one of the most forgettable fights in the series, except for this bit

Remember how Yuki was hyped up as one of the 4 special grades? How we'd finally gotten to see her in action? Did you like her character? Well that sucks cause she's fucking dead. This is one of the key moments where the series definitely fucked up. Yuki had too much potential to be killed off like that. Hey maybe she'll do some lasting damage to kenjaku with a literal fucking black hole. Oh nvm turns out Yuji's mum had a gravity technique for some reason also kenjaku has tengen now. Gege is never beating the misogynist allegations

Kenjaku fucks off to America

Since gege forgot about this plotline I wont write anything about it either

Sukuna makes everything way worse cause he's an asshole

After spending way too many chapters on fights with no substance, the plot finally begins to move again. Yuji (who has finally returned to main character status) and potential man meet up with a girl called Hana and the sorcerer inhabiting her, angel. Turns out angel has a very convenient technique that can free gojo from the cube.

They then go to Megumi's sister and try to free her from this boring fucking arc but it turns out she's been possessed by a sukuna fangirl called yorozu. In the following chaos sukuna uses Chekhov's gun and takes control over yuji, rips off his pinky and force feeds it to potential man (turns out force feeding a poisonous cursed object doesn't count as harming someone) and takes over his body.

All hope seems to be lost, but then angel comes to the rescue with an attack that will almost certainly kill sukuna and rescue Megumi, so long as Hana doesn't do something astoundingly stupid

Man
I shouldn't even have to explain how fucking awful this writing is. Nobody is that fucking stupid. this is just dumb. Since when did sukuna have the plot armour cursed technique

Then sukuna fights yuji and maki for a bit idk this was so ass

Meguna vs yorozu

I skipped through this cause it was boring but apparently yorozu made sukuna something cool and wanted to teach him about love I'm sure that won't become an annoying attempt at a moral story

He returns

Later on Hana and angel manage to open the prison cube, releasing gojo. Gojo then scares the shit out of kenjaku, one taps uraume and makes a deal with sukuna to fight a month later for some fucking reason

Gege didn't care about what happened during that month so neither will I

The inhuman fumble in the demon infested Shinjuku

This fight is without a doubt one of the most divisive parts of jjk. The fight itself was pretty entertaining, watching fraudkuna get carried by the ten shadows technique he stole and gojo being gojo. There's also a lot of yapping from people watching the fight which really gets very annoying. Then chapter 235 rolls around and to everybody's surprise Gojo ends up nuking himself and sukuna with purple. Gojo is left in a significantly better state that fraudkuna, with the fraud being close to death and low on cursed energy, making it safe to say gojo won, right?

_The 236 incident_

Really? This is how it happens? Off fucking screen? That's the end of the fight? THE CLIMACTIC TWIST OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED FIGHT IN THE SERIES FUCKING HAPPENED OFFSCREEN?

This is an insult to the reader. The reader invested themselves in the fight, and in return they get a complete asspull of a conclusion. Fuck.

I will never get over this chapter. Everything about it fucking sucks.

From the panel saying gojo won immediately cutting to him in the afterlife, gojo saying he wouldn't have won against base sukuna despite the fact sukuna was clearly relying on the ten shadows, gojo randomly starting to praise sukuna for some fucking reason even though he knows damn well yuji has to fight that monster next. Sukuna yapping for ages about how he suddenly gained the convenient ability to murder gojo, BARELY ANY REACTION FROM ANY OF THE CAST REGARDING GOJO BEING FUCKING CUT IN HALF.

But hey, Kashimo is here, and is finally ready to display the cursed technique everyone's being hyping up and theorising about. Surely this will make up for that major dissapointment and we'll get a fight that will last at least a few chapters

The king of curses vs The king of crop

I am genuinely offended at how this fight went down. The months of theorising about this bum's ability and hyping it up, just to get a lackluster fight where plotkuna gains his ugly ass original form and Kashimo looks like a pea shooter from PVZ. And to add insult to injury, KASHIMO ALSO FUCKING DIES OFFSCREEN. And even worse, what little character the man had is immediately assassinated in a boring yap session with plotkuna about the strength at the top or whatever.

But hey, looks like higuruma and some random guy with spiky hair are here to kick ass, im sure things will improve in the next chapter, surely it wont cut to some other characters at this key point

the "fuck the translators" fight

Now we've cut to kenjaku, who's been doing god knows what. He yaps a couple of side characters to death then has a battle with the real strongest character that involves many jokes that are lost in translation.
I loved this "fight". It was different, and fresh (shame many things get lost between the language barrier). I also loved it because we got to see something very rare for the second half of jjk, actual character development. Takaba's character arc during this fight was something I really enjoyed watching, and probably the main reason I didnt just outright drop the series already. I just wish we could have gotten fights at the same level of quality as this one.
Anyway, kenjaku beats the funny man and begins to move on to prepare for what should be the awesome final showdown between him and yuta that has been foreshadowed since Shibuya

Oh nvm he's dead.
Is gege rushing to get the series over with? That's how kenjaku goes out? In some fuck off forest after a comedy routine? I would've rathered, y'know, a cool battle maybe?

back to Shinjuku

Meanwhile in Shinjuku new potential man higuruma and demoted protagonist yuji manage to get sukuna into higuruma's domain. Sukuna pleads guilty to the fraud allegations which means he gets his cursed technique taken away, which will surely be a quite a curve ball that will place him at a level the leftovers can beat. Just kidding turns out higuruma's domain prioritised the cursed technique in the cursed object sukuna had for no fucking reason.

What plot armour even is this. This just sucks. Sukuna can still use strong cleave whenever he likes. Id be less upset with it if making sukunas baby rattle useless made the fight easier for everyone cause it removes one of sukkys weapons, but we dont know how dangerous it is because the only time sukuna used it was against the one guy in the entire cast who is immune to it. Because we dont know if the baby rattle is dangerous, this just feels like an excuse to not have shrine taken away. like cmon man.

But at least higuruma got the executioner's sword which will be able to one tap sukuna.

Nvm higuruma just got killed off for dramatic effect and yuji barely acknowledged it. Well now yuji has the sword and is poised to stab sukuna in the back, and it doesn't look like he can miss

He missed. How. Sukuna's real technique has to be plot armour or something man. Anyway here's yuta coming to reveal his Noble Phantasm domain expansion: Unlimited Blade Works. It's the training cave from bleach with swords that have cursed techniques in them, makes sense given his ability is to copy things I guess. Cool. But I'm still just so bored

theres new stuff after these sections i just cant be bothered to rearrange things

I dropped the series at that point

I'm disappointed. The final arc has been so boring. It came around kinda suddenly, after all the running around in circles that occured with the culling games, and suddenly the final arc jumpscares us. It doesn't feel like there's really been as much build up as there should have been, given it's the climax of the story. Sure, they were working towards releasing gojo and everything but it's still nothing, especially when compared to the build up of something like the final arc of chainsaw man part 1. It doesn't feel like a climax, it still feels like we're only halfway through the story, even though we aren't.

The round robin fight with sukuna had potential to be cool, but it lost all meaning when sukuna just wriggles out of every situation. It's just turning into tragedy porn where sukuna kills off side characters every other chapter. Its a cycle of "person shows up" "person puts sukuna on the ropes for a couple of pages" "sukuna beats character" rinse and repeat. This isnt a final arc, its a meat grinder.

This boring meat grinder cycle means that every few chapters the fight ends up back at square one. There's no point in getting invested when I know sukuna will get out of whatever pinch he's in. Hell, now sukuna is trying to copy mahito by being the opposite of yuji and trying to break him. Problem with that it was already done. By mahito. Its like gege is doing the bear minimum possible to keep the series afloat while getting it finished as quickly as possible. Its just getting ridiculous.

It feels like gege hates the good guys, nearly everything they do amounts to nothing, the bad guys always get the last laugh. At the beginning of the manga, this was surprising and entertaining. But when the good guys are never allowed to get a single, lasting, meaningful hit in against the villains for over 200+ chapters it becomes repetitive, boring and predictable.

Every recent chapter I read leaves me with one massive, throbbing question:

why

And not in a good way. every single page I read, every panel every WORD, I question every decision made by gege when it comes to the writing. Does he genuinely believe this is good writing? why has the writing fallen off so hard since shibuya? are jump execs rushing gege? is gege rushing himself? are jump execs forcing gege to keep the series going when he doesnt want it to? did gege recieve a massive wack to the head?

#Jujutsu Kaisen isnt fun to read
Every chapter is uninteresting hype bait. all that happens is 1 cliffhanger ends and another one starts. I get no fulfillment, no emotion from reading this story. For the reasons ive mentioned before, the story isnt good, it isnt intriguing, its not satisfying. Its a confusing, rushed, poorly written, poorly drawn, predictable and frustrating mess.

I remember back when I genuinely did want to find out what would happen next in the series. Questions like "what will the gang do next?" "what is kenjaku's goal?" "just who is sukuna really?" would be doing laps in my brain until the next chapter dropped but now, nearly every interesting character is dead or benched, every plotline except Sukuna has been dropped, and Yuji has gone from fodder to top tier mastering RCT in a month.

Its difficult to put how i feel about jjk into words. Its a mix of dissapointment and pity. Like looking at a dead animal on the side of the road that got hit by a car or something. JJK had so much potential, especially after shibuya, but its been completly wasted.

Conclusion

Just like gege, I can't be assed to write a proper conclusion, but between the poor writing, bad pacing, lack of character development and interactions, sukuna's plot armour and more, I've become increasingly jaded with the series to the point of fully dropping it.

I'm gonna go read kagurabachi

then 7 months later i found out it was ending in like 5 chapters so i picked it back up again cause its only 20 chapters

im not really sure how to begin this bit so im just gonna do the thing i did earlier and review piece by piece, this time sectioning it based on whoevers fighting sukuna, to turn the rest of the review into as much of a slong as the finale itself was and pretend the 7 month gap where i wasnt reading the story didnt happen sorry if this is awkward

#copyright andy vs the kuna
Inside the not unlimited blade works domain, the two main characters face off against sukuna. The narrator explains that yuta is able to imbue the cursed techniques hes copied into the domains sure hit effect. but he doesnt know what cursed technique a sword contains until he touches it, and it can only be used once. with that bit of exposition out of the way they begin to fight.

Sukuna helpfully explains to himself that the heroes are trying to get him to take enough damage until he cant keep hollow wicker basket up (holler wicker basket is yet another fucking anti domain technique that cancels out the sure hit effect). Sukuna also doesnt fail to mention that hes still suffering from the damage he took fighting gojo to make sure everybody knows that all those chapters we spent on that fight werent actually a waste of time. He also tells us that yuji's attacks disturb the sleepy megumi inside him, which makes sukuna worse at cursed energy.

Yuta has clearly had enough of this exposition and uses cursed speech and thin ice breaker (i think that was the naked ladies CT). The fight continues for a few more pages until sukuna decides its time to yap again. Hes like "bruh how tf are they this strong all of a sudden this shit is like super advanced" and then stops fighting quickly to ask them what number of reps they were doing at the gym to get so strong, which is a pretty good question im sure theyve been doing some crazy hard training to be able to keep up with him

oh ok then
moving on, yuta mentions that sukuna is still wounded from fighting gojo, and that theyd probably be fucked if he was at full strength, so the fight with gojo wasnt a waste of time. The fight continues and then yuta picks up a sword. His reaction is like "this is the one?" which probably means its angel's technique or something. But no! yuta shouts cleave and cleaves sukuna!! then hes like "lol u didnt get ur last fingie causs i eated it haha". Yuji comes in and smacks sukuna but im gonna be honest it really doesnt look like the cleave did much damage. no straight up sukuna legit shrugs it off like any other attack that was pretty lame.

they keep fighting, and it seems yuta has managed to pick up angels technique, which is super effective against sukuna. Sukuna, on the other hands, tries to turn off hwb to try and fire off a strong cleave (which he cant do while hwb is on). This turns out to be a mistake as yuji and rika hold him in position for yuta to strike him with jacobs ladder, allowing yuji to land a hit to shake sleepygumi awake and get him to stop slacking and kick sukuna out of his body. He wakes him up, which pretty much means its checkmate for sukuna.

oh my god you fucking bum what the fuck are you doing. I don't give a shit how depressed you are cause your sister is dead currently your friends are putting their lives on the line here to save YOUR ass and the fate of the world (probably) hinges on the result of this battle (i think) and you throw because "boohoo my sister's dead :("? I mean i guess its understandable to be depressed but i dont fucking care now is not the fucking time you bum just kill yourself after they beat sukuna fucks sake. i cant believe this absolute fucking bum broke shounen traditions by A. being a useless male deuteragonist and B. not wanting to get revenge against the guy who killed his sister and instead becoming depressed

As a direct result of fucking bumgumi throwing sukuna hits yuta with strong cleave, and the domain shatters. Then all of a sudden a sword pierces through sukkys chest. its maki! she snuck in from behind and wasnt detected cause she has no cursed energy! It turns out yuta broke the domain on purpose as the signal for maki to strike. Yuta seems to be very well prepared

#not toji vs skunka
~~
idk what it is about maki fights but this is the second time (that i can remember) gege was horrifically injured while drawing her

As maki fights sukuna, yuji collapses and throws up blood cause he tanked 4 lethal attacks with rct. hes like "oh shit i missed a bit when healing" but chosos like "if you missed a bit just move ur blood everywhere and heal with that". so yuji also got blood manipulation im very surprised this was actually shown rather than told via 10 paragraphs.

Maki keeps fighting and then we cut to uraume and hakari whove idk been having sex since they started fighting in chapter 237 theyve done fucking nothing for 15 chapters. Hakaris like "holy shit we arent dead" and uraumes like "uhmmm akshually shukuna shama hashnt gone all out yet" shut the fuck up bitch.

we then get another qna sequence flashback thingy with the question being "who is the strongest grade 1 sorcererer?" and everyone says kusakabe except kusakabe who says

who the fuck is usami???
this guy has never been seen or even mentioned before. Why is he being namedropped?? hes not even relevant in universe either cause kusakabe went out of his way to specifically say that usami wasnt up for the title of strongest grade 1. There is ZERO reason for this guy to exist theres less than 20 chapters left so its definitely not foreshadowing a later appearance. This guy has zero relevance and will never show up so why the fuck is he being namedropped why the fuck does he even exist. Why couldnt kusakabe have said "someone other than me" and end there?? theres 0 reason for usami to have been created what fucking possesed gege to go "hm today i will make a new character and namedrop him specifically to call him a bum and never mention him again". WHY???? HOW???? HOW DID THE CONCEPT OF USAMI EVEN ENTER GEGES BRAIN NOTHING CHANGES WITH HIS EXISTENCE HE DOES NOTHING THERES NO REASON FOR HIM TO HAVE BEEN CREATED SO WHY DID HE MAKE HIM IM FUCKING LOSING MY MIIIIIINNNNNNDDDDD

sorry lost it for a bit there lets get back on track
maki keeps fighting suksuk and then ino shows up behind him and then

sorry i know this breaks up the flow of the review but oh my god i find the bottom panel so fucking funny i cant stop laughing at it like the hand sukunas smug shit eating grin and the sparkles i cant its like hes blowing a kiss its too fucking funny.

anyway the thing sukuna was blowing wasnt actually a kiss it was a cleave and this bodies ino. kusakabe tries to sneak a hit in on sukuna with the nanamin cursed tool (which im gonna call the nanablade for short) but it doesnt work. sukuna goes back to fighting maki and starts freaking the fuck out cause shes a woman i mean cause of her heaven pact thingy. this causes him to lock the fuck in and nail maki with a black flash, downing her (shocking).
With gojo, kashimo, higuruma, yuta, yuji, choso, ino and maki all down for the count and hakari stalling uraume, theres only one person left who can still fight.

#The strongest sorcerer in history vs The strongest sorcerer available

the two start fighting, and kusakabe surprisingly doesnt get bodied instantly, and hes able to match sukuna thanks to his mastery of simple domain. We get another flashback qna session where other sorcerers go "yooo kusakabe is the fucking goat bro" and then he starts slashing sukuna like crazy. clearly he slashed too hard though cause he broke his sword. Its sad but that means its game over whats he gonna do without his weapon.

ill tell you what hes gonna do this motherfucker starts THROWING HANDS with sukuna. He starts monolouging and saying this like "bruh why am i trying so hard" and starts reflecting, but then he stops that and locks in. hes like "i gotta do my best cause all the kids did their best i gotta do it for them", and other characters in a flashback say hes really kind and im gonna be honest i found it really heartwarming and sweet, especially comparing it to the guy who was freaking the fuck out in shibuya. he then creates a new blade with im guessing a simple domain and charges towards sukuna. but sukuna reads him and catches his blade.

why? whyd sukuna use offscreen haki? how hard is it to draw a single panel of kusakabe being slashed?? what a fucking insult concluding his fight like that after he tried so hard. i was actuallly enjoying the fight and then this happened which left a pretty sour taste in my mouth. i guess kusakabe was just too strong so sukuna had no choice but to use strong offscreen.

ui ui shows up and sukunas like "man fuck you im gonna to kill you too". This scene explains why everyones bodies keep dissapearing, weewe keeps tping them away. kashimo is probably still fuckin slush on the ground though. Im honestly shocked that sukuna didnt start to yap and tell this to the audience and that we were actually left to figure this one out ourselves well done gregreg (maybe it was explained earlier but i dont remember). Sukuna goes in for the kill but peepee is saved by someone, who could it be? whos gonna be the next victim of the sukuna cycle

????
miguel???

#fucking miguel?????????

miguel???
what the fuck??????? this guy hasnt been relevent since jjk 0 why the FUCK is he here of all people. If it was the sumo and katana guys id kinda understand cause they showed up earlier but this guy had ONE appearance like 6 fucking years ago and did nothing since why is he here now??

to answer this question we get sent to a flashback where yuta says "miguel please help" and miguel says "lol no" but larue says "im going and we are gonna give this fight our all because its the first time weve had screentime since our cameo in shibuya". this makes miguel agree to join the fight, but only after gojo and yuta lose and sukunas domain isnt working. Ok so them showing up completely out of the blue and explaining it away with a flashback was pretty silly, but given the way theyve been speaking i reckon we might be able to get a fun fight out of them before they get bodied.

holy shit miguel is dodging sukunas cleaves and dismantles by breakdancing and hes not even breaking a sweat this guy is nuts. ok this could definitely be a really entertaining sideshow while everyone else heals up, although honestly id prefer if we made some more progress.
we get another flashback where gojo explains miguels CT (he gets buffs) and strength by being racist

Miguel shows off this strength by landing a punch on sukuna, and choso, yuji and maki all jump sukuna and cut off his other left arm, which means he cant use strong cleave, because in order to kill gojo offscreen he made a binding vow that hed have to do a song and dance everytime he used strong cleave after the first use.

Im gonna be completely honest binding vows seem op as fuck. can i just say something like "i can 1 hit ko everyone with my punches but i am not allowed to eat any chips in the faroe islands"? i was under the impression there was some sort of fullmetal alchemist equivalent exchange thing going on to keep it balanced but sukuna got to use the super duper omega anti gojo space cutting dark magic dark cloaked dimension slash once for free while he was at 5% hp and had
practically 0 CE in exchange for having to do a silly song and dance in order to use strong cleave afterwards, it feels pretty cheap ngl. who or what are they even making these binding vows to anyway? is there some god up in the sky thats like "yeah sure bro sounds cool?". cause the first time it was used was with yuji and sukuna and yuji had to agree to it for it to work but later sorcerers add binding vows that make their CTs more powerful if they yap about them (i wouldnt be surprised if you forgot about this it was never mentioned again). dk im getting sidetracked sorry lets go back.

yuji starts celebrating the power of working together, as sukunas been whittled down to a domainless, RCT-less, Strong cleave-less 2 limbed and generally weak state, and theyre gonna win! but then sukuna hits a black flash on larue which gives him rct again resetting their progress did nobody fucking playtest this guy.

#blackflashblackflashblackflashblackflashblackflashblackflashblackflashblackflash

we then get a flashback about black flashes where gojo spends two pages explaining that you cant reliably hit black flashes. sorry i cant find a way to segway into the next bit these flashbacks at the beginning of the chapters really just kills the flow jeez.

yuji and choso and maki wonder about who the fuck the two randoms who just showed up are. Miguel then says "nah fuck this im out". no
no dont do that you cant just leave you hit sukuna once we spent an entire chapter giving you a CT and explaining why youre in shinjuku you cant just fucking leave after landing 1 hit come back here right now you cant just waste our time like that oh my god why did this guy even show up??? yuji choso and maki couldve been the ones who saved uiui and not added a chapter of what is now pretty much just filler.

the miguel-less heroes try and beat sukuna to death before he regains rct, and then maki and sukuna suddenly start air jumping wtf this hasnt happened before what. then suddenly sukuna lands a black flash on maki that cant be good then he lands a black flash on choso that really cant be good. We then cut to miguel and larue and miguel says "weve done enough lets get out of here" no you fucking havent you stalled sukuna for 20 seconds stop lying. id be less upset with miguel doing nothing if we hadnt wasted all that time on flashbacks about him my god. Larue agrees with me and says "bro cmon we gotta do at least a bit more". yuji and sukuna keep fighting, and yuji manages to scrape sukuna at point blank with piercing blood, and doesnt yap about how he got it. he prepares to hit sukuna with a plot flash, which sukuna senses, but larue immobilises him for a second, letting yuji hit a black flash.

we then get a flashback where meguna and uraume discuss yuji. sukuna confirms that yuji is infact kenjaku's son. sukuna film theorizes that kenjaku fucked jin (yujis dad) because he was the reincarnation of sukunas twin, who sukuna ate in his mothers womb cause he was feeling a bit peckish (at least, thats how i interpret it the way its worded made it really confusing so i find this to be the easiest explanation ill put the page in cause the more i reread it the less it makes sense), and that made yuji a good vessel for sukuna. thats how that plotline is resolved? im going to talk about this later.

yuji and sukuna start to 1v1, and yuji hits a black flash. they keep fighting for 1 panel and yuji hits another black flash. yuji then reveals that sukuna isnt the only one who can fire Chekhov's gun and pastes little scissor images on a pillar. turns out this is dismantle, and he unlocked shrine cause of the second black flash. he then cleaves sukunas foot off and hits another black flash sending us into a flashback where ino politely asks gojo if he can use the nanablade and gojos like "yeah sure he trusted you". he distracts sukuna with ryu and doesnt manage to hit him with the nanablade but it distracts him long enough for yuji to hit another blackflash. ino has a little lie down and yuji hits another blackflash before hitting another black flash and then hits another black flash.

This really pisses of sukuna, who screams at yuji (the thousand year old strongest sorcerer in history is beefing with a teenager who learned what cursed energy is 2 months ago).
while hes screaming at yuji, the nanablade comes flying at his face. it doesnt do any damage but it distracts sukuna again which allows yuji to hit another black flash. ino, who was the one who threw the nanablade, then taps out. See miguel??? THIS is doing enough. Ino was far outclassed by sukuna but he still did his best and even allowed yuji to hit 2 black flashes, and he didnt waste an entire chapter.
this leaves sukuna in a terrible state, because the damage to the boundary between bumgumi and sukunas soul done by the 7 or 8 consecutive black flashes negates the heals sukuna got from his black flashes. sukuna is pretty much done now like hes so weak. then sukuna uses malfunctioning shrine. the narrator explains sukuna was able to do this because there was a part of his brain that wasnt damaged by infinite voide during the fight that definitely was not a waste of time, and also because sukuna started to fucking spam binding vows. what were they? idk. i told you binding vows are fucking op sukuna gets to use malfunctioning shrine at full power despite being weak and not being able to do hand signs because he made binding vows saying he wouldnt piss at 4:38pm for the rest of the year in exchange for full power malfunctioning shrine im so fucking done with this guy. we get sent to another flashback. here we learn about how the heroes cheated during the timeskip. they used ui uis CT to swap souls. yuji swapped with kusakabe, who got his body to learn how to use simple domain, which means that in the present, yuji can use simple domain to defend. he defends, and the slashes stop. then sukuna uses Chekhov's gun

oh
is that it?
idk i was just expecting black box fuga to be something cooler but its just "big fire arrow". why was this even kept secret? i feel like barely anything would have changed if we knew it was called furnace from the beginning. i mean i guess it was kinda cool but i was expecting a bit more given the intentional mystery surrounding it. whatever. haaahhhhhhhh
so furnace is a part of his technique, the fire arrow is small and slow but fucking binding vow barry made a binding vow to turn furnace into a nuke when its used inside his domain. can this guy fucking stop with the binding vows holy shit its only just become a pattern and im already sick of the narrator going "oh by the way sukuna made 57 binding vows earlier so he gets his domain back lol sucks to suck" please just let him die already im losing energy writing this cause its so tedious

sorry moving on
sukuna nukes the ground, and.. oh no.... choso sacrifices himself for yuji... im gonna be honest this did make me feel pretty sad, and while id have preferred if choso lived, the choso sacrificing himself for yuji isnt the same choso who was doming civilians in shibiya. it definitely wasnt a revolutionary one or anythin, but it was definitely a character arc. also its just really sad i liked the guy. yuji is now sad but then someone appears in the smoke
HOLY SHIT TODO IS BACK!! todo tells yuji "everyone else is (probably) fine". todo im not gonna lie this is nowhere near as cool as the "we are the exception" scene but i appreciate the effort and so does yuji. also it turns out todo was boogie woogieing people out of malfunctioning kitchen. they get ready to fight but what is that on todos arm?

A VIBRASLAP???
i take back everything bad i said about jjk im so happy to see vibraslap representation in media i love this instrument so much you slap it and it goes chhhkhckhkchkhckhkchkhcjkh. i dont actually take back the things i said but i really like the decision to give todo a vibraslap. it turns out todo changed the activation conditions for boogie woogo from applause to the collision of the vibraslap teeth and the wood block. this means everyone is switching at like 50 times a second. if youve ever used a vibraslap, youd know that these activation conditions are nuts like theyre gonna be swapping so fast its gonna make afterimages like how the hell can yuji keep up with this. he does, and the fights cool i guess, and then yuji lands another black flash and grabs sukunas damaged heart, which is the end of the chapter. wait not that cant be right there havent been enough pages wtf is there a post credit scene in a fucking manga chapter. well lets turn the page and find out what it is

no way is he back?? is he really back???? really??? is "just a side character" finally back after that absolute wet fart of a conclusion???

oh ok
im gonna be honest here i already knew about this cause it was fucking impossible to avoid spoilers when this chapter came out. i know it was very controversial and a lot of people were upset with the fakeout but me? i kinda... dont care... like its just "meh" idk. it feels like every other moment done to hype up the story so far. like "oh its actually yuta he took kenny's technique" is the most it got out of me. I don't think id have a different opinion if i wasnt spoiled. i mean its kind of an eyeroll moment but well... yeah i just dont fucking care its mid. we get a flashback where everyone except gojo and yuji discuss yuta taking over gojos body. everyone is kinda against it because theyre worried about what'll happen to yuta after his 5 minute rika timer runs out, but yuta himself is like "no we should do it" and gives a speech about how everyone always pushed the burden of being a monster onto gojo and that if gojos dies someone else will have to take his place, and he'll do it.
actually you know what? this could definitely shape up to be a good character arc for yuta i changed my mind this definitely seems like its gonna go somewhere. we also flashback to this guy called amai whos CT is he can make pudding and transfer sugar (guy named amai gets sweet related powers 10/10 writing). he was actually introduced way early on back when the culling games started but he had no relevance so i didnt mention him. this is the first time hes been relavant btw cause hes using his CT to give shoko more sugar so she can heal more. i dont care about this guy.

#gege gets cursed by gojo fans

im not really going to say much about this bit cause gege was sick, so its pretty low hanging fruit to take a jab at it, but i feel like i got as much substance out of the 5 page "im very sick" chapter as i would have from a regular chapter.

#yujo vs anukus

sukuna and yujo have a domain battle, and yutas like "holy shit how the fuck did gojo manage to be as good as he was this shit is hard as fuck" he then tries to fire a purple but sukuna goes "nuh uh" but yuta says "yuh huh" and uses blue to pull in a tape recorder that was just there for some fucking reason how did it get there shit just teleported in. the tape recorder says "dont move". its inumaki!!!! this stunlocks sukuna long enough for yujo to fire a purple. it hits sukuna and breaks malfunctioning shrine, which means yuji and todo can backup yujo while he spams purple, so this is pretty much game over for sukuna for real this time, and narratively the idea of the newer generation becoming monsters to defeat a monster works and also itll be really entertaining to watch yujo fucking spam purples

nevermind
what was the point of that??? what a waste of time oh my god why did this guy show up just to dissapoint me I thought i was gonna get some character development and instead i get.... nothing

#todo and yuji vs skukukuku

sukuna breaks todos vibraslap with a black flash :( but only the ball bit the important part is still intact so todo just starts smacking his body with it. todo psyches out sukuna with boogie woogie. this lets yuji hit a dismantle on the sukunas soul boundary that makes him do a jojo reference and pukes fingers but he swollows them then angel shows up and fucking glasses sukuna with jacobs ladder. if you remember, back just before sukuna kaisen started, jacobs ladder was a move that was so devastating sukuna had to resort to his porn acting technique he hadnt used since the heian era to get hana to stop. this time she surely will not fall for it again. surely hes done this time jacobs ladder is gonna destroys the fingies inside his body this time theyve got him surely this time hes dead for real


he fucking climbed jacobs ladder
i have no words
i wish i could say something but i cant. sukuna has done some pretty silly things to get out his situations before like the baby rattle confiscation and the binding vow spam, but with this he basically just went "mmm nah". ill try to talk about this later i just wanna get the restrospective section over with
sukuna fucking climbs jacobs ladder, ignores the damage and tries to kill hana with a black flash but todo teleports infront of her and tanks the majority of the blow. this knocks them both out of action. yuji swoops in and picks sukuna up by his feet and slams him down into a building holy shit. they fight for a while, sukuna regains his rct and sukuna remarks that yujis anti sukuna dismantle is very dangerous but it doesnt matter if it doesnt hit. however...

yoooo yuji finally got a domain expansion
he didnt name it though lmaooo

man is PISSED

#domain expansion: domain expansion

so yujis domain is different to other domains apparently cause he created it as a spur of the moment thing (why didnt he name it tho??? mahito and bumgumi named their spur of the moment domains. we get to see our main character use the pinnacle of jujutsu and it doesnt even get a name? why???). hes basically created a replica of his home town, and wants to take a moment to show sukuna around and chat to him. they spend a while visiting various places, and yuji talks about his experiences in this town and oh my fucking god
i honestly quite liked this chapter. we get to see into yujis psyche, and learn about him. we get to take a break from the endless fighting that has sucked the life out of me. seeing the manga just stop and rest to actually develop yuji and sukuna for a second is so wonderful. the banter between yuji and sukuna, while pretty silly given the circumstances, is also really funny and enjoyable to watch

i reckon in any other manga with proper pacing and character development i probably would've found something like this to be mid at best, but here, in jjk, having something like this after the nonstop fighting is such a wonderful breath of fresh air that makes me really like it. its the first time since the shibuya arc that weve had time to stop and rest, to get to know the characters better when they arent fighting. well done gege, you cooked with this.
eventually sukuna gets tired of yuji reminiscing and asks him to get to the point. yuji explains his mentality, that it wasnt about the way people die, rather he couldnt forgive those who didnt recognise the value of life. the little stroll through his domain that yuji took was him trying to show sukuna "the humanity of someone other than himself". again, im not very good at analyzing things, but i think this isnt a bad character arc for yuji, it could have been better, but its not terrible. yuji offers sukuna one last chance "return bumgumi and return to my body and ill spare you". this pity from yuji enrages sukuna. he yells about how hes gonna kill everyone and activates hollow wicker basket. he and yuji fight for a while, and yuji has a chat to bumgumi and says "ummm itll be lonely without you :((". this causes bumgumi to finally lock in and he spawns a puddle under sukunas foot, making him slip and letting yuji land a hit and a punch barrage. they fight for a little longer but sukuna regains his CT and prepares to expand his domain, but in the process he threw a couple of cleaves at yuji, and the strange things around yujis arm shatter, turns out they were gauntlets, and yuji is missing both his pinky and index finger, which doesnt add up because sukuna only took his pinky to transfer to bumgumi then we get a shot of a sukuna finger suspended in the air in some chasm

we get a flashback explaining that yuta used yujis finger to copy shrine rather than sukunas, and him saying "lol i eated ur fingie" was a bluff. why did he bluff? idk he probably thought it was funny. gakukanji and utahime yap about sukunas finger and theorise that while it cant be destroyed maybe a cursed technique would be able to pass through it. then utahime says "it hasnt even been 30 minutes since she woke up" who is "she" what do you mean
img520 (https://i.imgur.com/we0TVZe.png)
oh hi nobara
nobara hits sukunas finger with resonance and wait hang on nobaras back
shes back back
there are 5 chapters left
it has been over 100 chapters since she was bodied by mahito and she comes back now out of the blue there has been ZERO foreshadowing for this. i mean yeah sure she was in a "shes not dead yet condition" but we had no news about her ever since and then she shows up now??? i mean im glad shes alive but whats the point the stories already over she slept too long

nobara uses resonance on sukunas finger which stuns him and yuji hits him with strong anti sukuna dismantle. sukuna starts having an ace attorney breakdown and refuses to admit defeat. he keeps fighting yuji, but yuji throws him off with divergent fist i dont think hes used that since shibuya no wonder sukuna was surprised he probably forgot he could do that. while sukuna is stunned from being divergent fisted yuji says "its time to end sukuna kaisen" and hits sukuna with another black flash. surely. please surely hes done for real this time theres been so many cliffhangers where its like "this is gonna kill sukuna hes gonna lose" and sukuna goes "nuh uh" but surely this time hes done he had a breakdown and yuji said something cool also look at his face he has to be done

#chapter 268
sukuna has a chat to bumgumi and hes like "hey uh you should definitely not kick me out of ur body cause your a bum and you killed your sister which definitely was not my doing please i dont want sukuna kaisen to end let me stay here" megumi says nuh uh and kicks sukuna out of his body

bahahahahaha
yuji goes up to poukuna and says "youre me" and then talks about how people have to shoulder different burdens and sukuna became a monster because of that and next time he should try be a bit nicer, and he'll accept sukuna if nobody else does. sukuna is still angered by this and says "i am a curse" which surely will not cause any confusion among the fanbase as to whether or not sukuna is a cursed spirit (he isnt) and then he dies. sukuna kaisen is finally over.

what did these two even do for the past 31 chapters

we jump to puddle man megumi waking up in bed at jujutsu high (i forgot this was a school setting) and yuji and sleepybara doing the actually alive present joke yuji did back before the event where they were in the forest with the kyoto kids. they read some letters from gojo (yuji doesnt have one cause he wasnt a bum and got to speak to gojo before he fucking died) nobaras doesnt matter and megumi's is "oh btw i killed ur dad lmaooo" which makes him laugh. they then head off to try and save yuta

#chapter 269
the chapter starts by wasting two pages setting up a plot point that doesnt matter
then we cut to maki domenstically abusing yuta whos fine. in fact, its not just yuta whos fine, it seems that everyone who wasnt gojo, kashimo, higuruma or choso is alive and well. maki then says a bunch of things like "why didnt we do this to beat sukuna" and everyone else says it wouldnt work. im sure this isnt gege directly talking to the reader to not think about the many different ways sukuna kaisen could have ended a lot easier and a lot quicker, like "why didnt yuta use cursed speech to make sukuna have a stroke?" or "what if kusakabe went for sukunas balls instead of his heart?". megumi tries to apologize for being a bum but nobody lets him. oh also higuruma is alive somehow i mean im glad hes alive i dont like sad things but this guy was definitely dead. then we spend 7 fucking pages on simple domain lore that nobody asked for and nobody cares about im not even gonna say what it was cause it doesnt fucking matter

#270
the chapter opens with megumi and shoko at his sisters grave. shoko then explains that sukunas remains are being used to keep up tengens barriers as a temporary solution for tengen being dead. we then flash through multiple very important characters to bring an end to their story arc
maki visits katana guy and sumo guy and gives katana guy a katana which makes him happy. she explains that yuji and angel are going to undo all the reincarnated sorcerers reincarnations to free the people whos bodies have been taken over so they should hide. wait so does that mean uraume killed themself rather than just leave the body of the person they were inhabiting what an asshole.

takaba didnt die of peak comedy and revived kenjaku to do tsukkomi with him. you and i both know this is not going to be elaborated on lmao

i dont care about pudding guy

they both threw at crucial moments they'll make a great couple

yuji nobara and megumi then meetup to get briefed on a mission to find a curse user

by the way how are nobara and megumi gonna feel watching mf special grade one yuji use blood manipulation, malfunctioning shrine, RCT, simple domain and a domain expansion in their missions from now on hes so much stronger then they are

#the final jujutsu kaisen
the gang come up with a plan to take down the curse user
it works and they no diff him (this took 8 pages) the curse user is actually pretty harmless so hes put away in a jujutsu car and yuji assures him hes not gonna be executed. we get a flashback where yuji talks to gojo about switch training and gojo is like "if i die i want you guys to carry on my dream" and yujis like "yeah sure we'll never forget you gojo sensei". his body has probably been left rotting in shinjuku he hasnt been brought up since he died
and theres been no funeral. hes also like "i expect great things from you yuji" and yuji says "i expect great things from you" to the curse user. we then cut to sukuna and mahito in the afterlife/crossroads to the next life/purgatory, they have a little chat and it seems sukuna actually took yuji's words to heart cause hes like "hm if theres a next time i should be a bit nicer" and finally accepts his L. im going to talk about this later. we then get a shot of the tokyo jujutsu high students, and finally finish on sukunas finger in a box. we started with sukunas finger in a box, and ended with sukunas finger in a box.
this truly was our jujutsu kaisen.

#a requiem for the sorcery fight

this section is gonna be dedicated to things i wanted to say during the retrospective but couldnt cause they were too long idk just pretend i managed to smoothly segway into this

#what the hell was kenjakus problem

So kenjaku is 1000 years old. hes pretty much the cause of everything in the story, he was probably driving the car that killed rika in 0. He's presented as this super genius mastermind, and he unceremoniously dies to a bush camper.
Remember when shibuya ended, and it was revealed yuji was kenjaku's son. i am so fucking dissapointed i am this was never elaborated on. We never got an "i am your father mother" moment, yuji and kenjaku never even meet again after shibuya. This guy could have been an incredible main villain if this was actually expanded upon, if the ties between him and yuji were fleshed out to climax in an epic confrontation between the guy behind everything and the guy who knows nothing. so much potential, none of it realised.

Remember when he went around the world talking to world leaders (im including this in the kenjaku rant section cause it was his fucking fault), telling them about cursed energy and getting them to try and kidnap sorcerers? this plotline could have been really really cool, but its just... dropped, it becomes nothing more than a waste of time, a dissapointment. By the way, the fact 99% of sorcerers are Japanese was probably made so this plotline would work, which leads to miguel being a very strange existense, because why the fuck did his village in kenya spend 20 years making a rope that cancels cursed techniques if all the sorcerers are in japan. i still cant believe the military plotline had actuallly been foreshadowed and had the foundations laid down for it since hidden inventory and it just gets dropped and goes nowhere what a dissapointment.

i guess his defeat being at the hands of takaba is pretty poetic, given he got beaten by chaos he couldn't control, but in order for that kind of conclusion to have worked properly, sukuna would have to pick up the torch to be a very, very compelling main villain
speaking of which....

#Who the fuck is sukuna

Yeah I know hes the strongest sorcerer in history, but beyond that. who is this guy. in 271 chapters, we never got a full backstory, only small tidbits as to who he really is. this would be passable, if he wasnt the main fucking villain.
why does he kill people? idk.
why do the protagonists need to fight him? because hes bad idk.
why does he look so fucked up? idk.
whats his goal? idk.
who the fuck is this guy?
a proper backstory to sukuna would have definitely elevated many parts of the story. If we had a backstory where we got to see sukuna struggle and crawl and kill and maim his way to the top of jujutsu, losing his humanity in the process and becoming desensitised to the value of life, moments like yujis domain expansion would have hit a lot harder.

Yuji pitying him really pissed him off, and if we had this backstory, it would have made the scene powerful because we wouldve known what he had to go through to get to where he is. Being able to see all his pain and suffering fail to defeat some teenager would have been, well it would have been awesome. The ace attorney breakdown he had at the end would have been so much better, seeing this prideful asshole reduced to a snivelling mess despite all the hardships he endured would have been so good

and why is he even here? why did he get kenjaku to help him reincarnate 1000 years later with his fingies? cause unlike kenjaku, this guy didnt come here with a plan, the only real reason i can think of is he reincarneted to protect kenjaku, but this is sukuna we're talking about here he wouldnt do something like that unless he had his own plans. did this guy reincarnate a thousand years into the future just to squabble with a teenager?

sukuna was nothing more than a plot device. i really wish he wasnt. he was a very entertaining villain, but without any backstory or motives, hes just an empty shell. the final chapter seemed to try give him some character development, but its too little to late, its trying to add the icing to a cake before its been cooked. Sukuna being more fleshed out probably would have made sukuna kaisen a little less tedious too. Not to mention fuckin black box fuga i thought his true technique was gonna be something crazy but it was just knife + fire
Im so dissapointed

#timeskip steroids
the timeskip was definitley one of the writing decisions of all time. why spend time on having your characters develop their skills throughout the story when you can just have them at the same level for an entire arc them feed them steroids when they have to fight the final villain. I think one of the reasons sukuna kaisen was so tedious was because of the non stop flashbacks to explain why everyone is now suddenly able to fight sukuna even though he wouldve bodied them a month ago. the steroids also makes yuji's progress a lot less satisfying. Up to shibuya, he'd trained pretty hard, and seeing this hard work pay off when he fought the goathopper, that random curse user and mahito was satisfying to see, but after shibuya, he just stops learning things. in fact, the only person who actually had their powers improve between shibuya and shinjuku without the timeskip was maki because of mai fucking dying and the plot devices when she fought curseya.

Lets take a look at how 3 of the good guys got RCT, one of the peaks of jujutsu. Gojo obtained RCT on the brink of death after being bodied by toji. Yuta awakened RCT when his friends were all horrifically injured by geto and he was desperate to save them. Yuji got RCT during a 1 month timeskip by cheating. Its so unsatisfying to see our main character not fucking grow at all throughout the culling games, and then he just suddenly obtains RCT, blood manipulation, simple domain and shrine within the last 30 chapters. its so lazy.

Of course, timeskips have been done before in other mangas, but in one piece, luffy didnt unlock his peak during the timeskip, we watched him unlock it. naruto didnt gain rasenshuriken or control over the nine tails during the time skip, we watched him train for it. Yuji got RCT, blood manipulation, simple domain, shrine and domain expansion all because of a timeskip (i know he technically unlocked shrine and DE during the fight but he was pretty much 99% of the way towards unlocking them anyway so it still counts).

#John Werry

something I definitely need to mention is the questionable quality of the official translations (post chapter 132). The many mistranslations and outright errors have probably caused both me and other people to have worse opinions on the manga which arent entirely fair because theyre not geges fault. I get that translation is a tiring and thankless job, and a few mistakes here and there are understanable, but cmon.
i sincerely hope he does better if he translates another manga.

#The ending
the ending was definitely one of the endings of all time. My reaction to reading the last chapter was "oh wait its over". It felt like it was preparing for the next big arc rather than finishing the story because of all the unresolved plotlines. Theres a massive power vacuum in jujutsu society thanks to gojo killing all the higher ups but who cares about that we need to know what pudding guy is up to (he had 10 panels of screentime). The ending could be worse, and it could definitely be better, but its pretty hard to make a satisfying ending when only 3 of 20 something plotlines have actually been resolved.

#Cliffhangers
The other tedious part of sukuna kaisen was the cliffhangers. Most cliffhangers would be something like "theyve got sukuna now" and then the next chapter would be a flashback and sukuna not dying to the cliffhanger. Yuji is about to stab sukuna with executioners sword! it despawns. Yuta hits sukuna with cleave! it does nothing. Angel glasses sukuna with jacobs ladder! he ignores it and bodies hana and todo. Sukuna is so low on CE hes basically a shell of his former self! he spammed binding vows and got his domain back. Its insanely tedious. The suspense of cliffhangers get ruined anyway cause the next chapter almost always starts with a flashback too.

#"hype" and "aura"

Ive seen these words float around a lot, and I think they describe the second half of JJK pretty well. Everything is just for hype or aura moments, nothing matters except for things being cool for the sake of being cool. why have actual character development when you can have flashy fights instead. Its sustained purely off of hype moments and aura, which would be less egregious if the beginning of the manga didnt promise an entirely different story. Basically we got served a gourmet meal at the beginning and then got slop and mcdonalds later, which is probably why the fandom acts like theyve been lobotomised.

#Disney kaisen
I feel like i should talk about the final stretch of the fight a bit more and actually analyze it slightly more. I think yuji showing pity for sukuna isnt that bad, given yuji's thing is he wants to save "as many people as he can", that includes sukuna, and the chat he had as he walked through benevolent shrine was him confirming that sukuna had 0 redeeming qualities and thus could not be saved. Of course, since hes a mass murderer psychopath yuji was probably planning on killing sukuna anyway and knew he couldn't be saved, he just wanted to make sure to confirm his moral standpoints. Its still pretty silly when considering the gritty nature of jjk but its not completely terrible.

It also becomes really funny when you think that sukuna probably played ball during talk no jutsu because he thought yuji was gonna do something cool that would make it worth his time, but instead all he got was pity. This guy got scammed lmfao.

However im gonna be completely honest nobaras comback in the next 2 chapters completely ruined this cause just... fucking come on man really. She shouldve come back way earlier instead of coming back for a fanservice moment when theres 5 chapters left. at that point she shouldnt have even shown up just make it so sukuna didnt expand his domain cause he tripped over one of the 1000 different binding vows he made or something idk.

#Hakari, Kashimo and Uraume

You could remove these 3 from the story and only have to make very minor changes. They have 0 influence on the plot, hakari never fights sukuna cause he was too busy fighting sukuna's chef, kashimo got bodied fucking instantly by sukuna, and uraumes only fight got offscreened and they only served as sukunas deliveryman. The hakari v kashimo fight was a complete waste of time, uraume wasnt a waste of time cause they didnt do anything other than stall hakari and glaze sukuna, but they were a waste of brainpower when theorising about how strong they were. Hakari and Kashimo are prime examples of what the second half of jjk is, they have no purpose other than to be cool.
the idea that the good guys didnt know enough about uraumes power so they just sent hakari "i do not fucking die" kinji to stall them is really funny though.

#usami

im not fucking done with this guy why is he here he shouldnt exist h-

#Final thoughts
In all honesty, most of my opinions havent changed. The culling games are still a boring tedious slog and the sukuna cycle sucked. Yujis domain and takaba V kenjaku were cool, but its not enough to make up for everything. However, it was revealed recently that gege had appendicitis, which explains some of the questionable writing decisions.

I dont think jujutsu kaisen is garbage, the first half was good, and I was able to get through the second half and only wanted to stab my eyes out maybe 15 times while doing so. The ending isnt total garbage, the shinjuku arc was readable, if somewhat tedious and predictable. At the end of the day, i think i can safely say what jujutsu kaisen is

its mid
its ok, its one of the manga of all time. But, saying it is mid makes me sad, because the start of the series was very promising, it seemed like it would become more than "just ok". I'm not angry the manga never lived up to its potential, i have better things to be angry about. Im just..... disappointed, when i think about what it could have been. I really, truly wish it did live up to its potential. I do hope gege continues to write manga and doesnt just ride on the success of jjk.