#jjk chapter 171 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

psychewritesbs · 2 years

Photo

Chapter 171: Tokyo Colony No. 1, part 11: Rabid dog

Happy, happy JJK-Sunday!

No but for real, I am totally that weird person who is obsessed with Megumi’s extreme duality.

I know there are people who don’t see it, others who don’t like it, others who are surprised by it, others who love it, etc.

As someone amongst the group that loves this aspect of Megumi’s personality, to me, the diversity of reactions from other JJK readers speaks to the richness of the reading experience that is JJK.

In my opinion, this also speaks to Gege’s ability as a writer. Put simply, Gege’s characters are human af precisely because they are highly multi-dimensional.

Take Megumi, he is deeply compassionate and ruthless at the same time.

It’s almost like Megumi has a rabid dog living inside his shadow... and I don’t mean Kon.

You get a Megumi, you get a Megumi, EVERYONE gets a Megumi!

When I saw all of Megumi’s “shadow clones”, I immediately thought of this Oprah meme.

Basically, we all get a Megumi!

All that to say that if I was a character in JJK I would not want to fight against Megumi.

The boy is insanely intelligent, strategic (and I dare say manipulative), and brutal. If he wants to fck you up, as we have seen so far, he will not hesitate to do it.

The scarier part about Megumi is that he keeps this impulse for violence and bloodlust buried tightly under wraps within his shadow. More on that in a bit.

Now, the idea that these are “shadow clones” reminds me of Naruto--which I had to binge over the Christmas break because my 7 year old nephew is walking down his super cool auntie’s path and starting to consume anime from a young age.

Even if I am not a huge fan of Naruto, I loved bonding with my nephew over it.

This got me wondering about Naruto’s Shikamaru and what other characters in anime and manga use their shadow as part of their “special ability”.

For now I can only speak for Shikamaru. So... what is the difference between Shikamaru’s shadow and Megumi’s shadow?

The Jungian shadow

Right, so linkspooky wrote an amazing and in-depth post about this that you should read here.

Linkspooky also straight up said something I had been holding back from saying ever since I started consuming JJK back when we first learn that Megumi’s technique is shadow-based:

“Megumi is perhaps the most Jungian character, in the Jungian manga, about Jungian ideas.”

The literal conversation in my head about this sounds more along the lines of: Gege must be familiar with Jungian Psychology. There is no way that it is a coincidence that he got all of these details right.

Even if it is not listed in the fan book that Gege reads or has read Jung, it is besides the point. Gege does not need to quote Jung the way Ishida does to show he understands these concepts.

Gege is the kind of writer who strikes a fine balance between showing and telling after all.

And the way he shows Megumi’s shadow skill is very much nearly a textbook-definition of the Jungian shadow. As he reveals more about Megumi’s skill, the more I become convinced of this headcanon.

While I am all for reading a work of fiction at face-value (I literally look for reading material where I can just turn off my brain and enjoy because JJK consumes too much brain rot energy), JJK lends itself for in-depth interpretations of the symbolism within the story that may or may not be canonically explained within the text at face-value. That is why the fandom loves speculating and theorizing about the characters and the story.

In other words, I love that Gege trusts his audience so much--in the end, even if as readers we do not consciously understand the symbols he uses, our subconscious understands and assimilates them.

Which brings us back to Shikamaru vs. Megumi.

Shikamaru vs. Megumi

This is not about who is cooler. While Shikamaru is an amazing character, you will find me rooting for Megumi 300% of the time.

But about how their shadow-based techniques are different and how Megumi’s is in line with the Jungian shadow.

The panel shown below is a loose representation of how Shikamaru uses his shadow.

I say it is a “loose representation” because, unlike Megumi, Shikamaru does not store items/Shikigami or create shadow clones from his shadow.

Shikamaru’s shadow is what, at face-value, we all consider to be that black reflection cast by the light that follows us around. And just like Megumi, Shikamaru has conscious control over it.

But that’s where the similarities begin and end--which is how Megumi fooled Reggie this chapter.

The reason Megumi can store items and manifest Shikigami and copies of himself from his shadow is because, unlike Shikamaru, Megumi’s shadow is not limited to the area of his literal shadow.

This sort of explains how a barrierless domain can have “shadow above you too.”

Simply put, from a Jungian perspective: the shadow is not limited to your literal shadow, but all around you.

While the shadow is usually defined as the “space” that stores repressed material (this includes both “positive” and “negative” personality traits but Megumi also uses it for weapons, etc), the shadow is also everything that you don’t know that you don’t now.

The shadow is also everything that is outside of conscious awareness.

Which means that the Jungian shadow is structurally closer to the archetypal realm of the collective subconscious.

Or, to put it in JJK-terms, in Jungian Psych, the shadow has access to the realm between dreaming and waking that we saw back in chapter 160.

This last bit is just pure speculation on my behalf given what I’ve shared about the Jungian shadow and how Gege’s use of the shadow is consistent with Jungian Psych. But, as I like to say, I could be 300% wrong.

Let’s see what Gege comes up with.

Rabid dog

Other than linkspooky’s meta about Megumi’s shadow, which I mentioned earlier, there is a couple of really good meta addressing Megumi’s repressed self floating around in the #jjk meta tag. So I am not really going to go in depth into that because, as the story has progressed, I’ve been writing about it myself too.

But you can check out one of littleholmes’ meta here and hamliet’s meta literary perspective of what they predict Megumi’s arc will look like considering his current facedown with his own shadow.

Because that is exactly one of the “things” that Gege is writing about to usher Megumi’s growth as a character. Megumi’s anxiety drives his shadow self out into the light and so he becomes and acts out this shadow self’s mindset and perspective.

In other words, he has a tendency towards acting out his repressed violent and sadistic self--a sort of rabid dog driven by a bloodlust instinct.

I have to say that Uchida Yuma (Megumi’s seiyu) did an outstanding job channeling Megumi’s crazed laughter in chapter 23 of the anime. So I am totally looking forward to not only seeing chapter 171 animated, but also listening to the seiyu’s interpretation of Megumi’s crazy.

Anyways... I got really Depth Psychology 101 today so... if you’ve read this far, I thank you as always and hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing.

I also hope you have a happy JJK-Sunday!

#jujutsu kaisen #fushiguro megumi #jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen meta #jujutsu kaisen spoilers #jjk spoilers #jjk ch 171 #god I love jujutsu kaisen #one last taco #I am only eating one last taco #fck yeah barbacoa

63 notes · View notes

uhearaboutpluto · 2 years

Text

I posted 1,951 times in 2021

85 posts created (4%)

1866 posts reblogged (96%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 22.0 posts.

I added 1,821 tags in 2021

#hxh - 408 posts

#dgm - 274 posts

#jjk - 260 posts

#no.6 - 241 posts

#fma - 171 posts

#killua - 107 posts

#mm - 102 posts

#gon - 95 posts

#nezushi - 84 posts

#mp100 - 79 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#and can't seem to see beyond his own self hatred there were a lot of factors at play and no easy right answer in the moments leading up to t

My Top Posts in 2021

159 notes • Posted 2021-05-13 20:04:16 GMT

Welcome to D.gray-man where most of the characters have main character level tragic backstories

206 notes • Posted 2021-04-03 03:12:16 GMT

D.gray-man + screenshotsofdespair 1/?

223 notes • Posted 2021-04-03 05:05:46 GMT

One of the things about DGM I really like is the recurring theme of performance. Allen is a clown, putting on an act. The Earl compares his battle with Allen to the “white face clown picking on the auguste clown”. While the clown comparisons are interesting and definitely worth going into, I wanted to focus on the comparisons made to plays. In the beginning, when the holy war is compared to a play, the Earl is the director, the puppet master. He’s looming over the stage as the exorcists are forced to perform. The Earl holds all the power here and the exorcists can only try their best to minimize the damage. By the point of Chapter 89 (very aptly named Tragicomedy), the Earl is on the stage and on equal footing with Allen, not looming over it. The fragility of the Earl’s role is further strengthened by Neah’s line called the Earl a “mad puppet of destruction.” The Earl is far from being in control of this situation and Cross even accuses the Noah of using him. Finally the last page I don’t have much to say about except what better way to describe D.gray-man?

The Earl’s role in the play changes as his role in the story is revealed. Despite the initial perception of the Earl as a larger than life world ender holding all of the cards, it is revealed he’s a far more tragic and complex character. He’s not the puppet master, but another performer.

265 notes • Posted 2021-05-17 01:52:22 GMT

I’m sorry this is the funniest possible way to explain why you forgot to include characters in a scene

454 notes • Posted 2021-10-20 06:27:41 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

1 note · View note