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A review by zhaenya
Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 18 by Gege Akutami
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
from this volume, from the very first chapter, it was finally all a new territory to me. that's when i dropped the manga back when gege was taking a bit of a break, and then they came back but i didn't. but i'm here now! with just a little bit of knowledge of the characters and some major events that happen, but i didn't get to them myself just yet.
first, i obviously want to mention hakari and kirara, because i'm obsessed with both of them. they're so cool, and they're so much fun to watch. we've been hearing about hakari for such a long time, it's always yuta and hakari, yuta and hakari, and i just kept waiting for any of them to show up. and here they are! took a little while, and we didn't get to see them interact, but at least they're here. i already miss yuta though. everything would go so much smoother if he was there, talking to hakari, instead of these two first-years he never actually met before. and panda. but honestly, as soon as i heard that there was a fight club, hand-to-hand combat between sorcerers, i just knew yuji would participate, that's his whole thing! and he's damn good at it! it was so cool to see yuji and megumi sneaking around in disguise (i know their uniforms are iconic and probably easy and familiar to draw, but damn, i do wish gege would provide us with a little more variety when it comes to their clothing), doing their thing, it felt like a completely different manga, but not in a bad way, not at all. it was actually one of my favorite things about this volume, how different it felt after shibuya. i honestly can't get over how much more mature yuji looks now, and it hasn't even been a year. is it the scars? the trauma? everything all at once? megumi looks a bit more mature as well, but he still has his pretty boy face, just a little more sharp now. and he's got more skills now too. i remember him using his shadows to store the weapons, but i don't think we ever saw him using other people's shadows to sneak around, that's such a cool and useful technique to have, especially when you need to be stealthy. it just made me think how cool of a video game that whole segment would make, ah. but never mind that. all i wanted to say is, megumi is cool. yuji is very cool as well. they're both will forever be the coolest to me. i still have no clue what hakari's technique is, and kirara's one is complicated as shit, but i tried my best to understand it, lol. megumi's better than me, (than everyone, let's be honest) because i could never be a jujutsu sorcerer. like, he's always flexing his brains on us, at any given moment, and i just can't help but admire how cool he is. i love how often he tries to bait the enemy to get more info and make educated gambles, and it usually works for him. he is actually a really good liar, even if his facial expressions do betray him from time to time, but he's cool and composed when it matters. gojo would be proud of him in his fight against kirara. and i don't know what it is about megumi after he finally summoned mahoraga, but he became like 10x more reliable. before i was always just worried about him and his suicidal tendencies, but also very proud when he let's himself loose and fights like it's his last day on earth, but now with the way he outsmarts and fights in more creative ways, it's just something else entirely. i love him. a lot. and we got a little drawing from gege of tsumiki teaching megumi the stars, that was so precious! 🥹 that's where he got his knowledge about constellations from and was able to figure out kirara's technique more easily. i hope megumi will get to tsumiki soon, i really want to see that reunion.
and then... yuji.... adopting megumi's previous mentality. the fucking cog imagery. "i don't have any 'fever'. i'm just a cog. i'm a cog in the machine that sorcerers need to eradicate curses." you know what also fucks me up? yuji started out as a very positive person, his naivete is what let him get past desperate situation after situation, until it got to the point where even he couldn't ignore the unrelenting traumatic horror his life has become. that's his life now. this is it. he went from optimist to realist. his realization that he's a cog in the machine... i find it so devastating. yuji is constantly dealing with so much pain and the only way he can live with it now is that is he convinces himself there is a meaning for it. that is why it is important to him to know that people get to be saved thanks to his actions, so he would know that all this pain is worth the price. and the parallels between yuji and geto were too fucking strong for my liking there. yuji's speech about being a cog whose function is to only eradicate curses, geto's speech about exercising and consuming curses over and over again... is that just me? they both start out with the motivation of exercising curses in order to save others, but the complexity of both of their characters arises from how they act when they fail to be heroes. they are both strong people who want to use their strength to protect those weaker than them. geto really did want to protect weak people, yuji really does want to save people, however there is more to it than that. we see that other side of them when they both explicitly fail to save people, when they are not allowed to be the heroes they see themselves as, they begin to break down. and now, yuji wants to become a cog, because it's simpler than dealing with his motivations as a person, he's too overwhelmed, too filled with guilt, he doesn't want to sit down and think about his motivations, because being a thoughtless cog who kills curses is easier than facing all of that. he wants to convince himself he can keep fighting and that's being strong, because it's easier than facing his weaknesses. and that too, is a parallel to geto's downfall. they didn't even try to handle their emotions in healthy ways. yuji wants to help his friends, but he doesn't realize the true cause of the suffering all around them. hakari was kicked out of jujutsu high by the elders, just for having a more modern jujutsu technique. maki's sister is literally dead, and she's become a mass murderer in self defense (and revenge). yaga was executed unfairly to become a political scapegoat. this is the system that yuji wants to become a cog for, to die to maintain. this is also geto's failure, he didn't realize the true culprit behind the deaths of so many sorcerers. the ignorant masses did play a role by forcing a small minority of people into sacrificing their lives over and over to maintain peace, geto wasn't wrong in noticing the unfairness of that, however, he simply wanted a scapegoat to blame. geto wanted to blame the faceless masses, yuji wants to kill curses without thinking about it. both of them fail to realize that there are literal architects of an abusive system in sorcerer society, there are elders who hold power, continue to abuse children, and sacrifice them to maintain their power.
and now, should we talk about the higher ups and such here for a little bit more? i know, they're annoying, but i just find them so fucking weird. like, it's so funny how the conservatives complain about modern cursed techniques such as hakari's, while principal gakuganji, for example, who is a jujutsu conservative himself, has a cursed technique involving a fucking electric guitar, and naobito's is all about frame rates and shit. like, it seems like there's gakuganji conservative and then like zen'in conservative, and then the rest of the heads conservative. they're all horrible, but there's like levels to their horribleness and layers of how just horrible their beliefs make them. like, gakuganji is a bad person and i don't like him, but the zen'ins seem like they're next level horrible, especially with the shit that maki and mai had to deal with. modernized techniques mean change and advancement and it scares the higher-ups shitless that they could potentially lose the 'old way' so they want to stay stuck with their traditions and principles regardless of it being a build up to their own downfall. i guess they dislike hakari's use of his technique but not gakuganji's or naobito's because maybe it's just a matter of control over the new generation? also, a matter of control from the outsiders. jujutsu society is controlled by traditional families that want to keep their position, they wouldn't be open to newcomers, we've seen it time and time again, and i assume that hakari is from a non-jujutsu family, that would make sense. plus, someone who obviously is not respectful of traditions and hierarchy and has his own interest. the fact that the higher-ups are fucking traditionalists and haters, like pick a struggle. you know what? i bet hakari was expelled because he lets kirara top him. that's what it was actually all about.
"wait. maybe fushiguro and i shouldn't be together. cuz of sukuna." "aw, shut up!" "SHUT UP?!" "the three senpai can't change their roles. don't be so self-centered." "self-centered?! i'm just worried!" "are you going to say this every time? it's annoying and a waste of time!" "hunh?!" "hunh?!" "no fighting (panda)." what was this freaking battle of who cares about each other more? megumi really doesn't want to leave yuji alone again, and yuji doesn't want sukuna to be anywhere near megumi. AND I'M BOTH OF THEM. they are so funny, the way they keep bickering about the same thing, they really should talk it out at this point. i get that they have no time to chat, but come on! because on one hand, you have yuji worrying about megumi's well-being (rightfully so) because of the fucking king of curses having some kind of interest in him and it worries yuji (again, rightfully so), but megumi just straight up shoots his worries down every single time. and it's not like yuji thinks megumi can't take care of himself, it's just when something actually happens (and yes, it's when, because sukuna is not leaving megumi alone), yuji literally can't do shit about it. and they both know that. but megumi still takes the risk anyway. i just find megumi's violent devotion to yuji so astounding, he's so stubborn about it too, about wanting to stay beside yuji, no matter what comes. the way he was telling yuji not to be self-centered, but if we're being honest, it's so clear who is actually being a little selfish here, and it's not yuji. i don't think any of them realize how much entangled they are in each other, how much each one would do for the other. but i think that violent devotion's pretty neat. my boy really said "yuji, shut the fuck up, i don't care if i'm in harms way as long as we're in this together," and i respect that. that would be me with my doomed by the narrative partner. oh, and then they get separated as they enter the barrier anyway. yuji immediately gets attacked, unsurprising, it's just another tuesday for him, and megumi gets to be a knight in shining armor for the girl he just met. amazing.
oh, and we got to meet kashimo and higuruma too! i like them a lot already, can't wait to see more from them both!
lastly, i just wanted to mention one thing. it just just me or kenjaku's stitches look a little different now? i don't know how they would heal if he keep taking the top of geto's head off (still have no idea how that works with his hair being perfectly fine), but the stitches look more like the ones he had when he was taking over yuji's mother. well, i guess not really his mother, because kenjaku is technically his mother, but i don't remember her real name, sorry! anyway, it's just something i've noticed when i saw him in this volume. and, hey, diversity wins! the main antagonist of jujutsu kaisen is both a milf and a dilf! the antagonist gave birth to the protagonist! literally! isn't that crazy to think about?
first, i obviously want to mention hakari and kirara, because i'm obsessed with both of them. they're so cool, and they're so much fun to watch. we've been hearing about hakari for such a long time, it's always yuta and hakari, yuta and hakari, and i just kept waiting for any of them to show up. and here they are! took a little while, and we didn't get to see them interact, but at least they're here. i already miss yuta though. everything would go so much smoother if he was there, talking to hakari, instead of these two first-years he never actually met before. and panda. but honestly, as soon as i heard that there was a fight club, hand-to-hand combat between sorcerers, i just knew yuji would participate, that's his whole thing! and he's damn good at it! it was so cool to see yuji and megumi sneaking around in disguise (i know their uniforms are iconic and probably easy and familiar to draw, but damn, i do wish gege would provide us with a little more variety when it comes to their clothing), doing their thing, it felt like a completely different manga, but not in a bad way, not at all. it was actually one of my favorite things about this volume, how different it felt after shibuya. i honestly can't get over how much more mature yuji looks now, and it hasn't even been a year. is it the scars? the trauma? everything all at once? megumi looks a bit more mature as well, but he still has his pretty boy face, just a little more sharp now. and he's got more skills now too. i remember him using his shadows to store the weapons, but i don't think we ever saw him using other people's shadows to sneak around, that's such a cool and useful technique to have, especially when you need to be stealthy. it just made me think how cool of a video game that whole segment would make, ah. but never mind that. all i wanted to say is, megumi is cool. yuji is very cool as well. they're both will forever be the coolest to me. i still have no clue what hakari's technique is, and kirara's one is complicated as shit, but i tried my best to understand it, lol. megumi's better than me, (than everyone, let's be honest) because i could never be a jujutsu sorcerer. like, he's always flexing his brains on us, at any given moment, and i just can't help but admire how cool he is. i love how often he tries to bait the enemy to get more info and make educated gambles, and it usually works for him. he is actually a really good liar, even if his facial expressions do betray him from time to time, but he's cool and composed when it matters. gojo would be proud of him in his fight against kirara. and i don't know what it is about megumi after he finally summoned mahoraga, but he became like 10x more reliable. before i was always just worried about him and his suicidal tendencies, but also very proud when he let's himself loose and fights like it's his last day on earth, but now with the way he outsmarts and fights in more creative ways, it's just something else entirely. i love him. a lot. and we got a little drawing from gege of tsumiki teaching megumi the stars, that was so precious! 🥹 that's where he got his knowledge about constellations from and was able to figure out kirara's technique more easily. i hope megumi will get to tsumiki soon, i really want to see that reunion.
and then... yuji.... adopting megumi's previous mentality. the fucking cog imagery. "i don't have any 'fever'. i'm just a cog. i'm a cog in the machine that sorcerers need to eradicate curses." you know what also fucks me up? yuji started out as a very positive person, his naivete is what let him get past desperate situation after situation, until it got to the point where even he couldn't ignore the unrelenting traumatic horror his life has become. that's his life now. this is it. he went from optimist to realist. his realization that he's a cog in the machine... i find it so devastating. yuji is constantly dealing with so much pain and the only way he can live with it now is that is he convinces himself there is a meaning for it. that is why it is important to him to know that people get to be saved thanks to his actions, so he would know that all this pain is worth the price. and the parallels between yuji and geto were too fucking strong for my liking there. yuji's speech about being a cog whose function is to only eradicate curses, geto's speech about exercising and consuming curses over and over again... is that just me? they both start out with the motivation of exercising curses in order to save others, but the complexity of both of their characters arises from how they act when they fail to be heroes. they are both strong people who want to use their strength to protect those weaker than them. geto really did want to protect weak people, yuji really does want to save people, however there is more to it than that. we see that other side of them when they both explicitly fail to save people, when they are not allowed to be the heroes they see themselves as, they begin to break down. and now, yuji wants to become a cog, because it's simpler than dealing with his motivations as a person, he's too overwhelmed, too filled with guilt, he doesn't want to sit down and think about his motivations, because being a thoughtless cog who kills curses is easier than facing all of that. he wants to convince himself he can keep fighting and that's being strong, because it's easier than facing his weaknesses. and that too, is a parallel to geto's downfall. they didn't even try to handle their emotions in healthy ways. yuji wants to help his friends, but he doesn't realize the true cause of the suffering all around them. hakari was kicked out of jujutsu high by the elders, just for having a more modern jujutsu technique. maki's sister is literally dead, and she's become a mass murderer in self defense (and revenge). yaga was executed unfairly to become a political scapegoat. this is the system that yuji wants to become a cog for, to die to maintain. this is also geto's failure, he didn't realize the true culprit behind the deaths of so many sorcerers. the ignorant masses did play a role by forcing a small minority of people into sacrificing their lives over and over to maintain peace, geto wasn't wrong in noticing the unfairness of that, however, he simply wanted a scapegoat to blame. geto wanted to blame the faceless masses, yuji wants to kill curses without thinking about it. both of them fail to realize that there are literal architects of an abusive system in sorcerer society, there are elders who hold power, continue to abuse children, and sacrifice them to maintain their power.
and now, should we talk about the higher ups and such here for a little bit more? i know, they're annoying, but i just find them so fucking weird. like, it's so funny how the conservatives complain about modern cursed techniques such as hakari's, while principal gakuganji, for example, who is a jujutsu conservative himself, has a cursed technique involving a fucking electric guitar, and naobito's is all about frame rates and shit. like, it seems like there's gakuganji conservative and then like zen'in conservative, and then the rest of the heads conservative. they're all horrible, but there's like levels to their horribleness and layers of how just horrible their beliefs make them. like, gakuganji is a bad person and i don't like him, but the zen'ins seem like they're next level horrible, especially with the shit that maki and mai had to deal with. modernized techniques mean change and advancement and it scares the higher-ups shitless that they could potentially lose the 'old way' so they want to stay stuck with their traditions and principles regardless of it being a build up to their own downfall. i guess they dislike hakari's use of his technique but not gakuganji's or naobito's because maybe it's just a matter of control over the new generation? also, a matter of control from the outsiders. jujutsu society is controlled by traditional families that want to keep their position, they wouldn't be open to newcomers, we've seen it time and time again, and i assume that hakari is from a non-jujutsu family, that would make sense. plus, someone who obviously is not respectful of traditions and hierarchy and has his own interest. the fact that the higher-ups are fucking traditionalists and haters, like pick a struggle. you know what? i bet hakari was expelled because he lets kirara top him. that's what it was actually all about.
"wait. maybe fushiguro and i shouldn't be together. cuz of sukuna." "aw, shut up!" "SHUT UP?!" "the three senpai can't change their roles. don't be so self-centered." "self-centered?! i'm just worried!" "are you going to say this every time? it's annoying and a waste of time!" "hunh?!" "hunh?!" "no fighting (panda)." what was this freaking battle of who cares about each other more? megumi really doesn't want to leave yuji alone again, and yuji doesn't want sukuna to be anywhere near megumi. AND I'M BOTH OF THEM. they are so funny, the way they keep bickering about the same thing, they really should talk it out at this point. i get that they have no time to chat, but come on! because on one hand, you have yuji worrying about megumi's well-being (rightfully so) because of the fucking king of curses having some kind of interest in him and it worries yuji (again, rightfully so), but megumi just straight up shoots his worries down every single time. and it's not like yuji thinks megumi can't take care of himself, it's just when something actually happens (and yes, it's when, because sukuna is not leaving megumi alone), yuji literally can't do shit about it. and they both know that. but megumi still takes the risk anyway. i just find megumi's violent devotion to yuji so astounding, he's so stubborn about it too, about wanting to stay beside yuji, no matter what comes. the way he was telling yuji not to be self-centered, but if we're being honest, it's so clear who is actually being a little selfish here, and it's not yuji. i don't think any of them realize how much entangled they are in each other, how much each one would do for the other. but i think that violent devotion's pretty neat. my boy really said "yuji, shut the fuck up, i don't care if i'm in harms way as long as we're in this together," and i respect that. that would be me with my doomed by the narrative partner. oh, and then they get separated as they enter the barrier anyway. yuji immediately gets attacked, unsurprising, it's just another tuesday for him, and megumi gets to be a knight in shining armor for the girl he just met. amazing.
oh, and we got to meet kashimo and higuruma too! i like them a lot already, can't wait to see more from them both!
lastly, i just wanted to mention one thing. it just just me or kenjaku's stitches look a little different now? i don't know how they would heal if he keep taking the top of geto's head off (still have no idea how that works with his hair being perfectly fine), but the stitches look more like the ones he had when he was taking over yuji's mother. well, i guess not really his mother, because kenjaku is technically his mother, but i don't remember her real name, sorry! anyway, it's just something i've noticed when i saw him in this volume. and, hey, diversity wins! the main antagonist of jujutsu kaisen is both a milf and a dilf! the antagonist gave birth to the protagonist! literally! isn't that crazy to think about?