unhinged jason todd, dabi, levia, and vita fan

Whereas the reader follows Yuuji's journey throughout JJK and (hopefully) sees and acknowledges his growth and updates their mental image of him accordingly (pointed jab), Sukuna just... never does that, lol. Yuuji goes through the Cursed Womb arc, the Junpei arc, Shibyua (especially his face off against Mahito), the Culling Games and gains power, strength, wisdom, resilience and battle iq (power scaling idiom, i know) for it, and you can tell through the reactions seen in Ch.214 that Sukuna is just realizing that, like, right here, right now. This is no Ch.1, or Ch.8 Yuuji. This is someone who has been traumatized and pushed to his very limits again and again and instead of shattering against those, he breaks them down, carves himself a new ceiling, and comes back stronger every single time (and it's no multiplication. it's EXPONENTIAL)

Sukuna never got the memo because Sukuna loves to hate on Yuuji more than he does anyone else, to the point where he'll sometimes lose some of his other innate character/personality traits just so he can stay hating on him for longer, consciously or not (looking at you especially, beloved Shinjuku showdown -> see : he naturally compliments opponents on being skillful at jujutsu when they are because he is a jujutsu nerd and always speaks his honest mind because he does Not believe in the concept of shame. these traits regularly, if not always, go out the window when it comes to Yuuji) His disdain for Yuuji is unique by its nature and stands in its own, separate category from the usual, regular disdain Sukuna holds for the other characters he comes across in JJK.

I mean. If Yuuji isn't literally in mortal danger, he's literally just. Sleeping. What are you going to witness of his growth then, exactly ? Not that you're particularly interested to see it, you beautiful self-centered menace.

In the case someone is mistaken- I'll note that he means Choso is inferior to himself, Sukuna. And so, that Yuuji is a disgrace, by correlation. That's what he thought when he met Yuuji for the first time, he's worthless and incompetent, and he will not budge on that opinion. He quite literally had a front row seat to watch and witness Yuuji's growth, but the unique flavor of disdain he harbors specifically for him blindsides him to it.

Sukuna as a character stagnates for nearly the entirety of JJK, like truly 99.9% of it (the growth only comes in the very last chapter- "you've gone soft/obviously. i lost after all.") whereas Yuuji just climbs, and climbs, and climbs, and never stops climbing. It's not criticism- quite the opposite, it's the whole narrative point, the whole point of their respective characters, and I am praising Gege who has done an amazing job with these two, and I love them both dearly. Sukuna is and stays extremely, almost blindly set in his ways, and strength is the law, and you either eat or are eaten, and he is of those who eat. Yuuji does nothing but grow, change, evolve, and ultimately finds that showing mercy and compassion shall be the way forward, for whether you believe you should be the one eating or should be the one eaten has a lot more to do with your circumstances, than the curses you naturally bear. You always have a choice. (gege does love his nature vs nurture).

Having said that- my original intention with this post was just to gush about Ch.214 and talk about Sukuna's reaction to Yuuji's sudden strength that is only sudden to him because Sukuna is behind by about 200 chapters. Here he is finally catching up to the fact Yuuji has grown, if only just partially.

His reaction pretty much says it all here when the force behind Yuuji's jump upwards shatters a chunk of the very building Yuuji was standing on. The sheer shock on his face in that panel on the very far right... truly the likes of which we had never seen from him before.

You are surprised. Maybe even slightly impressed ? MAYBE even a tinyyy little bit happy, somewhere in there, to see this from him ?

Come on. Tell him. Admit it. It won't kill you. I swear. <3