Reviews

i think this is the first volume i have a bit of a harder time giving a ranking to. because there's so much i loved about it, but also, we got enough new information for me to get a headache. thank god it's not my first time reading this, otherwise it would take a much longer time to get through this. i think my favorite thing about this volume is the way we started it with naoya bleeding out on the ground, and that's exactly the way we ended it as well. i couldn't be happier to see him like this. i'll even overlook him being on a cover, but it does look kind of cool, if i pretend not to know who i'm looking at!

now, let's start from the beginning. first of all, i completely forgot about the fact that yuta can use reverse cursed technique, of course he wouldn't have a hard time bringing yuji back to life. and now, i can finally call kenjaku by his real name because they finally revealed it here. i've known it for years now, and at first it didn't even register with me when tengen actually said it for the first time, but i'm so glad he did, because it was so hard trying not to call him kenjaku this entire time. and we got a reveal of him being yuji's mother instead of a father, like choso originally thought! yuji looks nothing like his mother, by the way. he definitely got his looks from his father's side of the family, and i guess abilities from mother's. i wish i could see that whole family tree, that would be so much fun. i think the best part of the reveal was definitely yuji finally accepting choso as his big brother, and warming up to him even more. i'm very sad that they split up, but i appreciate every little moment i can get with them. and does anyone else find it funny how both people who were responsible for yuji ended up getting him killed and then, with his coming back to life, asked him to hide the fact that he's in fact alive? my poor boy just keeps being put in these situations, but i guess it's better than being hunted. and yuji and yuta are besties now, so i'm not complaining there. god, if only they didn't have to split up, the one team i would always want to see together is yuji, choso, yuta and megumi. those are my boys. and now that i mentioned megumi... i have to talk about the whole "start by saving me, itadori" thing, because it's been making me go crazy since the day this chapter came to light. megumi's whole speech before it too. i still can't fucking believe they're not on the first name basis, and they never get to that point, i don't think. like, are you kidding me with this? it's insane just how much they care about each other, and they don't even refer to each other by their first names. but whatever, that's not the point. the point is, this is one of my favorite itafushi moments. i love all of them, but this one is just simply perfect. megumi knows that yuji won't listen to him if he says that it's not his fault what happened when sukuna took over, like he didn't listen to yuta and was ready to protest when he told him that he's not to blame. so megumi was willing to carry the burden with yuji, probably because he actually believes that he's also at fault there, because he unleashed mahoraga on the city. but it's just so beautiful, how they know just what to say to each other, they know how to overcome emotional barriers and speak frankly. yuji wouldn't listen to any "it's not your fault, it's sukuna's" speeches, so instead, megumi gives him a purpose once again, a reason to continue living. your resolve is wavering because you think you kill more people than you save? start by saving me, itadori. remind yourself what you're fighting for, remember about your resolve, your desire to save people. it's still there. megumi was literally begging yuji to continue fighting. for his sake, for the sake of his sister that's now been awoken and made to participate in the culling game. and yuji would never say no to that, because he cares about megumi too much. he cares so much, that he asks yuta to actually kill him if he ever switches to sukuna again, because now he knows that sukuna has some kind of interest in megumi. i'm okay. so okay. and yuta and yuji were so damn cute with their little faces when they were trying to strategize, "they're thinking about how it would be safer for fushiguro if okkotsu were near itadori, but it would be more efficient strategically for okkotsu to operate alone." something tells me they're going to regret it if they separate, but i'm kind of too scared to get too ahead of myself... but megumi's response to that was just top notch, very megumi-like. "don't even think it! it'll be fine. if that happens and i die, just have him kill you." "the point is... to not let that happen, right?" yuji looked like a kicked puppy just thinking about megumi getting hurt, and megumi never gave a fuck about his own life anyway 😭 but his answer was so damn funny to me. like, yeah, if i die, just ask yuta to kill you too, so we could die together. amazing. what a friendly thing to say. but i also love that he doesn't say for yuji to kill himself, megumi would never.

and here it was, we finally got the mention of the culling game. that's exciting! but scary. thankfully, the game rules weren't actually that difficult, but then with tengen just continuously talking about all the details and conditions, that's what made my head hurt the most. and then the whole plan of kenjaku merging the humankind with tengen, that whole thing was something else entirely. and the more he would talk about it, the more he would talk about kenjaku, you begin to realize just how much of a problem it is that he has geto's body, of all people. geto's relationships, geto's cursed spirit manipulation. it's just too fucking perfect. "then came along... a boy with cursed manipulation." SHUT UPPP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHU TPHSUTIP SHUT UPS HSUT USHUSHTUSHTUSHSHUT UP FOREVER SHUT. SOMEONE GET THAT BRAIN OUT OF GETO'S BODY, LET HIM REST IN PEACE. god, suguru really was such an anomaly, no one was expecting him at all. the six eyes, the star plasma vessel and tengen were always connected, but suguru was never there, he was never a part of their history, but he was still part of satoru's. and important enough for him to get sealed after just seeing his face for the first time since he was forced to kill him. his best friend. his one and only. an anomaly in everyone's lives. he wasn't supposed to be there, and yet. (also, can we talk about them never cleaning riko's blood from twelve fucking years ago? that was the place she got killed at, right? the bloodstain is still fucking there)

"i will return to the zen'in clan and collect cursed tools." and that's when the fuckery begins, one of the craziest and one of the most intense parts of jujutsu kaisen. i think it was as shocking to me as the hidden inventory. we got from depression with mai sacrificing herself for maki and me bawling my eyes out, to the absolute massacre accompanied by the most incredible character growth. god, just seeing how much everyone underestimated maki made me want to giggle. i don't think there's anyone more foolish than the zen'in clan. the fact that the entire clan got killed as a result of them just refusing to believe how strong maki actually was and because they thought they could stop her without lifting as much as a finger, they were all so fucking stupid. i loved seeing maki go full kill bill on them. "how cruel. don't you have a human heart?" "no... she took it with her." the most satisfying part was probably the way maki broke naoya's whole face with just one punch, while he kept comparing her to toji the entire fight and saying she was nothing like him, that she was the imposter. yeah, because she's fucking better than him, dude. and look at him, wanting to stand beside toji and gojo, but losing to a girl he used to bully for being weak, and getting finished off by her mother, who's not even a sorcerer. "any woman who can't walk three steps behind a man, should get stabbed in the back and die," right?

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