the animation is just not that great at the start. the first episode has some infamous cgi effects that put people off from watching the story. it also cuts a few good arcs and some story beats (some of the protagonist's backstory stuff, weirdly).

THIS BEING SAID, i started with the anime, watched 3 seasons of it and HAD A BLAST then shifted to the manga. and if you've got a strong will and power through the cgi in the first episode, it gets you hooked in the story very easily and it IS worth it. it also gets better with every season. i would say season 3 is easily the best in terms of direction. excellent voice actors too.

thing is, its a decent adaptation but it's not spectacular, and animes are what tend to make stories blow up in the west. think dungeon meshi. golden kamuy has a troubled production because of the death of a director (iirc), season 4 suffered from pacing issues as a result, etc. its just not the best it could be. but it's still a fun time and good introduction into the story. i hope you give it a try or at least keep reading!

I apologize for taking a bit to respond this, in the end I ended up waiting yet another chapter to hold off on my veredict. If there is a part 2 the clan prominence is something that I am doubtful of. The Zenins were wiped, so there's nothing for either Maki or Megumi to lead. The Kamo and Gojo clans are the only ones around, but it'd be WEIRD as hell for random Gojo members to suddenly become prominent since it's been constantly reiterated that for all intents and purposes Satoru is the only one with any significant power. That leaves us with the Kamo clan which too has been significantly weakened, and we only have Noritoshi as the one named member - who decided to leave to be with his mom but could always come back I suppose (especially since Choso is dead). I feel like all in all, 269 started a plotline and ended it swiftly all within one chapter.

😔 anon omg you legit made me a little sad... I agree that people are a bit too harsh on their handling of Gojo's character, and I agree that a lot of the common arguments now fall rather flat, tonally speaking. I choose to wait til the end of the story to make my final judgements, but it's true that things are shaping up to be more on the light side than initially believed (though some 269 developments feel very shady--). I think that's one of the main reasons why a lot of people feel very strongly about Gojo staying dead. They don't like the idea of the story being a lot lighter than initially conceived. Disney Kaisen and what not. It's a legitimate concern for them (even saw people saying they will never speak about JJK again if Gojo comes back). The TL for the last two chapters is gonna be unbearable any which way, that's for sure; it pretty much was for this latest drop.

that's perfectly fair if that is how you feel. i'm most interested in seeing the acknowledgements from characters like yuuji, yuta and shoko like i said, and everyone else comes secondary or even third. and if gojo's conversation is directly tied to preparing yuuji for the possibility of his death then that actually works perfectly well too, that's why i brought it up as a something to look forward to. if that's the case then maybe his last words to yuuji will become relevant in his conversation to the other characters. i don't think it'll be a heavy handed scene either, but my argument is that there will be something, however small (even just a page, or half of one). and if there isn't, then i will feel like something is missing.

i think you and i view the word "mourn" in a very different way. in the specific context of jjk, when i say mourn, as i mentioned, i dont mean melodrama, but just a sense of awareness. a huge part of the jujutsu world has died, and i dont want an teary-eyed eulogy, but just for them to recognize that that's what happened. between the gritty nothingness and the "corny, heavy handed" mcu-esque sentimentality is where my opinion lies.

i also politely disagree on your perspective on gege, but for a specific thing only. yeah, he mostly handles relationships with subtely, but when it comes to character deaths, he's always very straightforward and clear. when a character dies, their death is always pointed out. when a character dies, we always see how the characters closest to them feel. this was the case for nanami, choso, yaga, mai, junpei, kechizu, eso, haibara, MECHAMARU, yuki (though mostly choso's reaction; it's a shame we did not get anything from todo, but todo put on the bus for the bulk of the story), etc. gege always provides in terms of reactions to characters' deaths, even if it's only an acknowledgement. it just so happens that a lot of characters have very few connections, and so we only specifically see the reactions he considers relevant, and then he moves on. i used to think like you did in regards to how little characters mourned, but after nobara's comeback, i realized it was mostly treating her character as dead what clouded my perspective. once jjk dies, i plan to go over the topic of how gege handles character deaths in a very detailed way and maybe you'll come around to see what i mean.

as for nanami i think that's just the nature of gege's storytelling with most things. he's extremely economical. he keeps the writing focused and tight on the present (this is why the latest chapter feels so meandering, in my opinion). keep in mind culling games wasn't even really a very yuuji-heavy arc, so his relative presence in the story wasn't that grand. when he was present, he was focused other things, fitting for his mentality of being a cog and focused on his goals in order to stay alive. once the time for mentioning nanami came, it was meaningful.

the thing is, i'm a fan of analyzing the story for what it is and trying to see what gege's intentions are. anon doesnt sound like he's been around on my page for long; they probably saw my glib gojo tweets and called it a day and that's their prerogative. but i've always been outspoken about the things i like about gege's writing and the things i dislike and trying to uproot the cause of both my enjoyment and my dislike in order to see where he, as an author, comes from. besides unequivocal yuuji and nanami glazing that's the daily bread and butter of this account.

hate that ur putting me on the position to defend this man 💀 but i think gege has done well creating these characters for the most part, and there's a reason why people love them. could it be that a lot of ppl love them because of things they made up in their heads? .... probably. that's also their prerogative. does gege sometimes make choices that leave me scratching my head? definitely - more than once. and i pick them apart (or i complain), in order to process them, and sometimes i still dislike them and sometimes i get around to see gege's viewpoint. i can truly only speak for myself. in the end i just try to hold a nuanced perspective.

as for the story itself, i think gege is definitely doing questionable stuff, but i will hold off my judgement until the very last chapter. i will lend him that grace, but nobody else is required to do that if they don't want to.

yuji mentioned nanami a fair amount in my opinion 😁 and in fact most of the times he showed up (outside of disembodied "interviews" or the gojo flashback) it was due to yuji remembering something nanami told him (such as chapter 231). higuruma's moment in chapter 247 drew a direct parallel to nanami's death and also their conversations (nanami acknowledging yuuji as a jujutsu sorcerer and thus giving him the motivation to keep going). 256 reinforces nanami's importance to yuuji since nanami taught him the value of staying alive. i could keep going on this... it was handled well. of all deaths, nanami is the one that was handled the best and it was yuuji's death to make peace with. i'm satisfied.

the issue with gege is that the story is very compressed and a lot of his relationships hinge on very specific interactions and very subtle subtext and cues. the story happens during a very short time and you NEED to understand that every single conversation, every glance and every word and every silence, matters. the story doesnt stop to tell you "yuuji is heartbroken that nanami died and continues to remember him" - you SAW him cry and fall down and then need a motivational speech to keep going (and prove nanami he was capable of still going). nobara's injury was also important and the last straw for his psyche, but in the end what gets him back up is needing to carry nanami's share of the suffering. and he does it well and every subsequent mention or reference is meant to cement this.

that aside, one of the central themes of the story is a proper death and what that means. closeness isn't a necessary factor. yuuji goes out of his way to pray for a random stranger; a life is still a life and a death is still a death. he still clearly remembers junpei and what his death taught him. mourning plays a role in a subtle but important way and yuuji is the main one who carries it, but others do mourn as well. i'm of the opinion, for example and just to illustrate my point, that gojo's reaction to nanami's death was perfectly acceptable. nanami was mourned by different characters to very appropiate extents and in ways that felt fitting for their characters and their natures.

re: gojo, others may want a grand ceremony and for every single character to cry because gojo died, but i just want a conclusion. i want for them to just acknowledge that gojo basically sacrificed himself on their behalf and maybe think on it seriously for a moment before moving on with the rest of the story. gojo was a very pivotal person in their society... a larger than life figure as a teacher, clean head, strongest sorcerer, etc - so i expect them to be at least like :/ damn. if nothing else. jujutsu society is gonna be fundamentally different without his presence and that cannot be glossed over. (spoilers for 269) choso was meaningful to yuuji first and foremost (and only, really), and yet ino went out of his way to lament his death, even though choso was a stranger to him. as a fan of choso, that satisfies me.

out of the students, my expectations fall on yuuji (and remember how we don't know what his last conversation with gojo was) and yuta, chiefly; megumi and nobara i'm less keen on, but they're still his students; shoko is a separate case... she hasn't shown up and i won't really make any definitive judgements on her reaction. she was pretty rattled during the fight itself, i don't know how she will be afterwards, and i look forward to something interesting coming out of it (but i don't hold out too much hope). not a breakdown, but definitely some reflection on her status as the last standing member of her high school friend group.

all in all, i just want closure. not melodrama, just stuff that feels natural to the characters in question. and to really give gojo's character a sense of finality.

1. "your feelings don't matter when it comes to storytelling" is such a nothingburger thing to say 💀 this is just my page where i express my thoughts about a fictional story the way i have about a dozen others. my feelings inform the way i talk about it and will continue to do so. i've already told you that i see worth in gojo living, but if gojo stays dead then that's fine and how his death is handled is what matters to me. if it's not handled in a way that i enjoy then that's it? 💀 i just won't enjoy it. and i could change my mind a week after jjk ends or 20 years or not at all and it's utterly inconsequential. again i already said this so i don't know what you're going on about here.

2. why are you talking to me about dadjo and all this nonsense when i did not bring it up nor i ever do in a serious context😭 i feel like you're arguing with someone else or the "gojo stan collective" and you're taking it out on me, who is not even a hardcore gojo stan. i like gojo's relationship with his students but he's their teacher and that's all he's shown to be?

everything else you say... again... i'm not sure why you're bringing it up. i never once claimed gojo to be a paragon of justice and goodness. i always argue for his duality and ambivalence and i did so in my reply to you.

1. i will consider it bad writing if his death isn't acknowledged properly by the sorcerers whose lives he significantly contributed to saving the way it was done for the likes of nanami, choso, etc. that's my only objective complaint that will remain so to this day. if you kill a beloved character then it merits proper downtime and catharsis, because when it doesn't it creates uncertainty and doubt and unrest the way you have seen. whether i consider his character a tragedy is completely unrelated? never claimed that it would be a bad arc for him, just a personally unsatisfying one. i understand everything and the reasons for it, i just don't care. i would have wanted something else, if that's not in the stars then /shrug i guess it isn't? it's gege's story. i am well aware of it? you're not telling me any groundbreaking information 💀

he fought and was defeated by someone much stronger than him (which is how he wanted to go out)

how he wanted to go out doesn't necessarily matter to me. higuruma wanted to go out and die because this was "his role in life" and his "way to atone for his sins" and yet he lived, because this was clearly the wrong perspective. consider the way nanami immediately calls out this tendency of gojo's... the way gojo looks at the world is not normal, it's dated, it's forged by the way he was raised and the way he was raised was informed by his power. gojo never stood a chance to view things differently because he was indoctrinated to want the things he wanted. he could've been a lot worse, yeah... but he also could've been a lot better. so while he can find satisfaction in this, i cannot. good for him, but it's fundamentally tragic.

*finally got to voice out his feelings of alienation and feel understood by geto and his other friends (which is something that always pained him). *

did you read the chapter 236 properly? they had a partially correct perspective on his character. "after all, you never cared about protecting anyone or keeping sorcery going; you just got a kick out of it" (paraphrasing). nanami said this and both haibara and geto agreed and yet he clearly did not do it just for the love of his own strength or for fun. this was shown to us. he gave up his life for his students. did he love fighting sukuna? yes, i'm sure. but gojo is no goku. i find it hard to imagine that gojo would have thrown everyone under the bus just for the chance to fight someone strong. had there been another chonce for the students to have a shot at living, i think he would have taken it. but there wasn't and so he fought and he loved it; and simultaneously, did his best to keep morale high for his anxious students throughout. these motivations act in conjunction to each other and overlap; one doesn't overpower the other.

nanami's words were important because they needed to be said, because gojo's self-concept had to be challenged and questioned in a way that seldom did in life, but they are nanami's perspective and it's an incomplete one.

anyway, i could go on and on about 236. read this treat by oomf https://x.com/still_sleepless/status/1834106438571975066

so what else left is there to say? like do yall want him to do a cameo like a mcu character? and for what? because you can't let go of your fanfiction headcanons?

get the fuck over yourself, sincerely. i won't entertain these comments. if you want to have a discussion with me, do it without this twitter-brained inflammatory speak.

i really don't see the point of bringing him back when gege gave him a well-rounded fight and goodbye by letting him meet the most important people in his life in the end, which is something he hasn't done for the other characters. so crying about 'bad writing' because he's dead has me scratching my head ngl.

i don't care how gojo stans argue for his comeback. i see some posts, read a couple and ignore most of them; i agree on some things they say and not in others. i can only speak for myself and say i believe there's merit in gojo coming back because of the value in his narrative as someone who could move on from his toxic philosophy (and it is a toxic one) in regards to his powers and the way his self-worth was intrinsically tied to them. like i always say, my main concern is the the message. i believed nobara dying carried out no interesting message for the readers, and was proven correct not because of obscure theories i crafted but simply because at the end of the day jjk is a story and behaves like a story first and foremost. right now there's a message i would prefer for gojo that would tie well to the larger themes of jjk. if this doesn't occur, then i will examine his character and his message accordingly, but for now the story is not over and there's still room for speculation.

if gojo's dead, then that's alright. give him a proper conclusion (not for him, but for the other characters, and especially, for the readers - this is important, because need i remind you, jjk is a story) and you'll not hear me complain. as it stands, a lot of the grievances and theory-crafting from fans seem to stem from the lack of emotional finality and lack of acknowledgement of his death (much like it happened with nobara, come to think of it 🥸), and i'm afraid that unless gege bothers with the pathos they shall continue.

have a nice day

When a sorcerer uses cursed energy it doesn't exist in a vacuum, it interacts with other forms of energy. It becomes the kinetic energy of their strikes, the thermal energy, the light energy, and other elements as a result of the manifestation of their techniques. That's why CTs are likened to appliances and cursed energy is likened to electricity; because it's meant to be treated as another kind of energy on a comparable level.

In other words, cursed energy is not ever "destroyed"; it becomes other forms of energy. This is why Kenjaku posed the possibility of using it as an energy source. Presumably cursed energy can be turned into electricity.

In regards to Gojo, I think Gojo's efficiency works like this: cursed energy expenditure is so marginal that his total cursed energy reserves aren't significantly diminished due to usage of his CT; and presumably, he can replenish himself relatively quickly as well.

Now, in regards to your question specifically, keeping these things in mind, I think RCT in general follows the principle of energy conservation regardless of whether it's Gojo using it or someone else. The principle of positive cursed energy is mathematical, where you multiply (inherently negative) cursed energy with itself to make it positive. This is a little nebulous because we do not know the exact formula for it, how much CE is on both sides of the equation, etc, just the mere principle. But it's still ultimately equivalent. If we want to multiply 2 CE by itself it would be something like:

(-10) * (-10) = (+) 100

Say this is what Gojo uses to make Red. Red is more destructive than Blue, presumably because this process of conversion is in of itself taxing. RCT in general is more taxing than regular usage of CE and that's because the conversion process isn't easy.

Still, it maintains the total energy balance inherently.

I'll answer your other question (I think it's the same anon?) here.

Could the rct be compared to symmetry in physics, where every force or particle has an opposite? Is Gojo manipulating the balance between cursed energy and its positive counterpart to reverse its effects?

It would be possible if positive cursed energy could be producted on its own, without the dependency on regular cursed energy. Like for example, if it could be produced from positive emotions. This doesn't seem to be the case. +CE seems to rely entirely on CE conversion and it doesn't exist independently, leading me to believe it's more Gege playing with mathematics (the way he does with Black Flash) than with Physics.

I don't quite understand the second question in this part, but hopefully the first answer clarifies how RCT is meant to function. Physics and math aren't my expertise, I apologize! I am the M in STEM through and through.