Just when Jujutsu Kaisen fans thought Satoru Gojo had finally put an end to Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses pulled off one of the most shocking victories in the history of manga. While fans understood how powerful Sukuna was, Gojo’s skill set, experience, and confidence strongly suggested he would win. Indeed, during the fight, Gojo had an effective counter-play for every Sukuna maneuver. Gojo clearly had a better strategy – until the very end.
Gojo versus Sukuna was the fight Jujutsu Kaisen fans had been waiting for since the manga’s debut, and it proved to be as epically intense as they expected. Earlier in the story, Gojo easily handled Sukuna, but that fight only lasted ten seconds and Sukuna was not at full strength. Since that time, however, Sukuna has taken over the body of Megumi Fushiguro, along with his Ten Shadows cursed technique, which comes with an incredibly powerful cursed spirit known as Mahoraga. It was that, and a crucial miscalculation by Gojo, that ultimately allowed Sukuna to win the day.
Mahoraga Shifted The Balance Of The Fight In Sukuna’s Favor
Gojo came into the fight with a number of advantages. He was born with the rare Gojo Clan Six Eyes special ability and the Limitless inherited technique. Limitless brings the concept of infinity to reality, allowing the user to distort and manipulate space at will, and Gojo can combine it with Six Eyes, which reduces his cursed energy consumption and grants increased precision and accuracy. Their combination allows him to manipulate space such that nothing could hit him. Moreover, Gojo was a master tactician – always thinking several steps ahead of his opponent. Sukuna, however, is not known as the King of Curses for nothing. Sukuna’s domain expansion technique, Malevolent Shrine, allowed him to pierce Limitless’ protective abilities and land a hit on Gojo.
While Sukuna relied only on his “base” cursed technique, Gojo proved to be the more powerful sorcerer, which is why Sukuna decided to tap into Megumi’s Ten Shadows ability to summon Mahoraga. While Sukuna was able to penetrate Gojo’s Limitless technique with his own Domain Expansion, he wasn’t able to use his cursed technique at the same time. Mahoraga’s power is that it can adapt to any attack against it if given enough time. Mahoraga resolved Sukuna’s problems by taking the job of piercing Limitless out of Sukuna’s hands. It thereby freed Sukuna up to use his cursed energy attacks as soon as Mahoraga created an opening.
Sukuna Secured Victory With An Incredible Last-Second Strategy
However, Gojo knew all about Mahoraga and its abilities. Accordingly, he tailored his attack to take out Sukuna before Mahoraga could fully adapt, or so he thought. The problem was that Mahoraga neither stops its adapting processing nor limits itself to one form of adaptation So, after finding that it had problems successfully adapting to Gojo’s Limitless abilities quickly, it decided to broaden its focus. Rather than adapt to Gojo, it decided to adapt to the environment that Gojo operates in – that is the space that Gojo was occupying.
Once Sukuna figured out what Mahoraga was doing he also changed tactics. He planned to learn from Mahoraga’s adaptation and apply it to his own cursed technique. Rather than trying to hit Gojo’s body, he hit the space in which Gojo was operating. Put another way, if Gojo was a figure painted on glass, Limitless would make it impossible for someone to touch the glass where the figure has been painted. But it couldn’t stop someone from touching other parts of the glass where the figure is not painted. So, Sukuna figured out if he smashed the glass wherever the painted figure wasn’t, the cracks would eventually spread to destroy the figure on it, and Gojo couldn’t do anything to stop it.
This was Gojo’s critical miscalculation, and Sukuna seized it by unleashing “the slashes that cut the world”, a new technique that “extended all the way to space, existence, and the world themselves”, thus making it so that Gojo was not its target, rendering Limitless useless. This was later briefly explained in chapter #246 as “dismantle (Sukuna’s usual slashing technique) strengthened with a broader cursed technique strike zone”.
Ultimately, Sukuna prevailed due to the help of Mahoraga, the technique he stole from Megumi. However, it is also true that Sukuna did not show his true form in the battle against Gojo, and he has at least one more cursed technique (manipulation of flames) that he did not use in that fight. So, while the battle seemed even until the end, Jujutsu Kaisen fans will have to admit that Sukuna ultimately surpassed Gojo, leaving behind one of the best battles in manga history.
Jujutsu Kaisen is available from Viz Media and MANGA Plus.
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