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linkspooky · 2 years

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Megumi and Yuji, Both Alone.

Yuji and Megumi are not just each other’s best friends, they’re character foils, mirror images. Their foiling throughout the manga is so well thought out that after being seperated in the Culling Game, even the fights they’ve both gotten into alone have had both of their actions, Yuji and Megumi’s mirroring one another. As I will explain below by breaking down the Higuruma vs Yuji fight, and the Megumi vs Reggie fight.

1. Individual vs Team Sport

Before even touching upon the Reggie and Higuruma fights, I want to point out that Yuji and Megumi’s motivations have somewhat flipped since the time they first met each other. When they first met, it was Megumi who only viewed himself as a cog in the machine, whereas Yuji was obsessed with using his powers to save people.

Originally, it was Yuji who only cared about saving people without focusing on the big picture of viewing Jujutsu Sorcerers just as cogs meant to eradicate curses. Now, Megumi is the one who is focused on saving Tsumiki to the exclusion of all else, while Yuji only views himself as a cog in the machine.

If Yuji believed his powers were for saving and Megumi was just doing his job eradicating curses, except for the few times when he chose to save someone selfishly. Now it’s one of those times where Megumi’s priority is saving, whereas Yuji is just doing his job as a cog in the machine, which was originally Megumi’s rationale he came up with to justify his harsh decisions in his life as a sorcerer.

The reason for their change in attitude is the Shibuya arc, and the arc just before it. The fight with Mahito, losing Nanami and Nobara right after letting Sukuna go is what made Yuji break down and lose his sense of ego and only want to be a cog in the machine to ensure he wouldn’t hurt more people after letting Sukuna escape once. Whereas, Megumi has gone on the opposite path, he’s been encouraged by Gojo, and also the circumstances around him (meeting Toji and watching him rampage, letting Mahoraga loose in Shibuya) to unleash more and more of his power and come into his own as a sorcerer.

Before Shibuya, Gojo analyzed that Yuji was an individualist who swang for the fences, while Megumi was someone who intentionally sacrificed himself, or belittled himself in order to cooperate with other people. Yuji was the one who wasn’t afraid to be selfish, while Megumi forced himself to play down both his ability and power in order to appear selfless. Now, it seems like they’ve flipped, Megumi is the one swinging for the fences so to speak, developing his sorcerer powers and going all out fighting alone as an individual, while Yuji is the one who’s afraid to be selfish, because he blames himself for letting Sukuna go during the Shibuya incident he’s no longer treating Jujutsu Sorcerery as an individual sport and is now fighting it as a team sport by seeing himself as just one cog in the machine.

2. Strength vs Weakness.

Before touching on the actual fights I want to cover one more thing for context. I think part of the reason why Yuji and Megumi have such opposite attitudes to the Culling Game, is that they both react to the guilt of being complicit in Sukuna’s rampage in different ways. Yuji feels guilty as an individual because it was his weakness that allowed Sukuna to rampage. Megumi, however, is able to much more easily rationalize the guilty. I’m not saying Megumi doesn’t feel guilty, or that he's a worse person than Yuji for feeling that way. Megumi just responds to his own emotions differently.

Megumi states we don’t have the luxury of thinking about ourselves, and no one can truly judge us. This is in line with Megumi’s earlier thinking, the world is an unfair place, there’s no true right and wrong, and therefore I’m only going to use my own judgment to decide. Yuji however, seems to believe in some kind of right and wrong which trumps his own judgment and therefore judges himself much harsher than Megumi does. It’s because they both have this different way of viewing the Shibuya incident, that explains their actions further in the Culling Game. Yuji bases everything off of what he thinks is an objective standard or right and wrong he has to measure himself against, and Megumi goes off of what his personal idea of right and wrong is.

Now, moving past that the first thing I want to point out that Yuji was handed a situation that seemed much more appropriate for Megumi, Higuruma who wanted to talk out the difference between right and justice in our society something Megumi thinks deeply about. WHereas, Megumi got invited into a trap that turned out into an all out brawl, which is a situation that Yuji was prepared for more than Megumi.

Megumi starts by trying to talk to and get information out of an opponent who is clearly just setting him up for an ambush, because that’s how Megumi usually operates.

In other words, if Megumi had been sent to Higuruma he probably would have been able to talk things out, while if Yuji was sent to Reggie, he would have started out swinging without asking questions and wouldn’t have gotten surrounded and trapped.

One more thing is they both get led to the fight, Yuji is led there by someone he knows, and Megumi is led there by a complete stranger. The young thug who Yuji once beat up leads him to the right place, but doesn’t stay with him. Reimi leads Megumi into a trap, but Megumi still makes an effort to stay with her and protect her, until she turns on him and disappoints him at which point he abandons her. Their interactions with these people are opposites as well, Yuji’s is mostly positive, whereas Megumi’s is mostly negative. Yuji also gets a solo fight against HIguruma whereas Megumi is ambushed by multiple people at once.

A big difference is their attitude going into these fights, Yuji is someone who deliberately wants to avoid killing, whereas Megumi has already made up his mind to play the game and earn points by killing before Reimi even betrays him to Reggie.

After entering their fights Yuji and Megumi’s opposite views on killing, come out in the middle of their battles. Yuji confesses to Higuruma his guilt at being the cause of Sukuna’s rampage in Shibuya, because he was too weak and lost the fight against Choso which allowed Sukuna to take control in the first place.

Yuji almost holds too much responsibility for the people he’s killed. The only ones he’s willingly killed are those who he didn’t have a choice, Mahito’s transfirgured humans, and Eso and Kechizu who Yuji didn’t know were his own two brothers. In both cases, Choso says he’s not responsible for it, Kenjaku is for tricking him and that if Eso and Kechizu knew Yuji was their brother they would understand because that’s how brothers are. Even for Sukuna’s rampage in Shibuya, Higuruma tries to explain to Yuji that he’s not responsible for it because he was unconscious at the time, and wasn’t in control, and he didn’t even abandon that self control voluntarily. However, even if he’s not technically responsible Yuji still holds himself responsible which is why I say he takes too much responsibility.

Megumi however is the opposite of this he rationalzies himself too much. Before he even got into the fight, he was justifying that he might have to kill people to earn one hundred points. During the fight against Reggie, Megumi goes for the kill in the situation where he doesn’t have to while the opponent is down, and quickly rationalizes that he was killing that person for Tsumiki’s sake and therefore doesn’t need to feel bothered by it. After killing, he refers to this as just waving away any sparks that fly in his way. Reggie encourages Megumi that he has to fight to kill if he’s serious about the Culling Game, and Megumi takes that advice and begins fitting seriously. The same way that Yuji stops fighting against Higuruma, when Higuruma empathizes with him and shares his guilt for killing people, which causes the fight to de-escalate.

The fights themselves even follow opposite trajectories. Yuji attacks, Higuruma uses domain expansion, Yuji who can’t use domain expansion fights back until HIguruma decides to talk to Yuji instead.

Reggie attacks Megumi, Megumi fights back and uses domain expansion against Reggie. Megumi then traps Reggie and uses his domain expansion to finish him off.

Megumi uses domain expansion, Yuji’s opponent uses it against him. Megumi ends his fight by overpowering his opponent, Yuji wins his fight by talking his opponent down.

There is one more way in which they are opposites, and it’s the way their opponents see them after the fight ends. At the start of the fight, Reggie says that Jujutsu Sorcerers are all con mans telling Megumi how he tricked him into an ambush.

Reggie begins the fight in earnest by saying that a sorcerer is nothing but a con artist, and then at the end of the fight when Megumi has successfully tricked him by pretending that Divine Dog was taken out much earlier in order to summon it to deal the killing blow, Reggie acknowledges Megumi as a sorcerer and therefore a con artist.

Megumi’s victory is achieved by him lying. He first lures Reggie into he gym with domain expansions as a trap, then successfully deceiving him with Divine Dog. This means that despite the fact that they seem like opposites, Reggie finishes the fight by acknowledging that Megumi is like him, except he’s a better liar, and a better con artist.

This fits well with Megumi’s character, because he’s all about self deception. It’s what Gojo originally called out during the baseball game, Megumi always plays himself down and pretends to be weaker, less emotional, less threatening than he really is. Yuji would probably never imagine that Megumi could be this ruthless, and Megumi even waits until Yuji is not around to begin fighting seriously and killing to get up to one hundred points. Whereas, Yuji’s fight is won by honesty.

Yuji convinces Higuruma to back down by confessing to his crime. Rather than tricking his opponent he is straightforward and tells the truth, not just confessing to the domain expansion but opening up about the guilt and responsibility he feels for killing others.

THis causes Higiruma to open up to Yuji in turn. Higuruma begins the fight by saying that killing people who ticked you off, feels better than expected. At the end of the fight he confesses is true feelings, killing people feels awful and he feels guilt and wants to atone for that fact but doesn’t know how.

However, I wouldn’t say that Yuji comes off as the better person during this fight. If these fights were a test both of them failed. Yuji failed to recruit Higuruma all the way as an ally, and Megumi resorted to killing Reggie when that wasn’t the best option moving forward.

The reason why they both failed is also because of a fundamental difference between them, and that’s their attitude towards weakness. Yuji sees weakness in himself and because of that he tends to be self loathing, and blame himself too much.

Because of that fact he can’t save Higuruma from his own self loathing and convince him to be an ally, because what is Yuji going to say, he is just as self loathing as Higuruma is. He blames himself unnecessarily the same way Higuruma does. Yuji wins the fight but fails to overcome that flaw. Yuji cant’ overcome it, because while Yuji forgives weakness in other people, he doesn’t forgive any weakness in himself.

Whereas, Megumi is the opposite. Megumi points his hatred and blame towards other people. Megumi doesn’t feel the weight of the responsibility for taking a life, or even for the Shibuya incident the way that Yuji does.

Megumi looks down on the weakness in other people, as shown in his reaction to the way he reacts to Reimi’s dependence on others to survive in a situation like this.

It’s not that Megumi is unkind. Tsumiki herself said that Megumi’s kindness is the way he doesn’t forgive other people for the bad things they do, because he believes forgiving them will just allow them to keep going bad things over and over and they need to be held responsible. Megumi’s perspective is just different from Yuji’s and both of their perspectives are flawed.

Yuji holds too much responsibility in himself, and can’t forgive himself while forgiving other people easily. Megumi forgives himself pretty easily, while not taking responsibility, which allows him to start sliding on his morals and do shakier and shakier things. While Yuji is purposefully limiting his own agency by viewing himself as a cog in the machine, because he’s too self loathing, and too guilty, to think for himself and act on his own good intentions anymore. Megumi however for the first time is coming into his power precisely because he’s able to rationalize himself and hold himself more responsible and is further developing his technique. However, at the cost of that, Megumi is also failing to make allies and becoming a more jaded version of himself.

It’s like while separated from each other and without each other in the culling game, Megumi and Yuji may be developing into stronger fighters when they’re alone, but they need each other to grow as people.

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