Megumi & Satoru’s Power Parallel (Pt. 1)
The Strongest Clans’ Strongest Members.
This post is dedicated to breaking down Gege Akutami’s usage of parallels between Megumi Fushiguro and Gojo Satoru to showcase Megumi’s boundless potential & importance to the JJK Story. (As more is revealed, I’ll make more, probably smaller, parts!)
History between Zenin & Gojo Clans!
The Gojo and Zenin Clans are two of the three Great Families in Jujutsu Kaisen, holding very strong influence within the political world of Jujutsu Sorcery. I won’t be talking too much about these two clans’ stance within Jujutsu Society, instead it is the relationship between the two that adds more weight to the overall paralleling of Megumi and Satoru’s characters, the piece to the jjk puzzle that makes their relationship unique compared to other battle shonen.
In the jjk page above, Satoru begins talking to Megumi about the relationship between their respective clans as Satoru asks if Megumi knows why they are bad terms. If you don’t remember this moment, Satoru basically explains that in a past era (either Keicho or Edo Period) the Head of the Gojo clan fought with the Head of the Zenin clan, ending with the two killing each other. Since then, their clans have been at odds, with both trying to overpower the over in political and literal strength.
But there’s more detail to this story that is crucially important, those old clan heads were exactly like Megumi and Satoru, respectively. The Zenin Clan head had the inherited 10 shadows technique, while The Gojo Clan head had the Six Eyes and Limitless just like Satoru. He even makes it a point to say to Megumi, “Do you get what I’m trying to say” after explaining this, clearly implying to Megumi he can become just as strong Satoru, if not stronger.
You could even plausibly stretch this to Naobito agreeing with this sentiment, hence accepting the terms of Megumi becoming head of the Clan after his death, entirely null & voiding Naoya’s claim to the title. Coupled with this decision, were the few Zenin Clan members who wanted Megumi to become the head in order to mend the relationship of the two clans through Megumi’s loyalty to Satoru, so just like in the past a Six Eyes and Limitless User + a Ten Shadows User are heads of their respective clans, except this time they are Mentor and Student.
PPI: Power, Potential, Imagination
It is clear that there is a comparison to be made in strength potential between Satoru and Megumi stemming from Satoru himself, but lets dive a bit deeper. To really understand that Megumi becoming Satoru level will happen, you also must look at how other sorcerers/entities treat Megumi, and how he compares to them.
Megumi was considered a second grade the moment he joined Jujutsu high, something very uncommon, but now that we are farther into the story it is clear that back then he was severely unaware of the potentials of his technique, and lacked a lot of imagination. Satoru is one of the crucial figures to get Megumi to expand his thought processing of his technique, the other being Ryomen Sukuna himself.
Sukuna being the person to directly tell Megumi he has the potential to kill a special-grade curse back in the Cursed Womb Arc is very honorable, and poetic for this topic. Sukuna and Satoru are both the “honored ones” of their respective sides. As Satoru is the “Buddha” for the Jujutsu Sorcerers, him continuing to prop Megumi (& others) to be stronger than him one day, makes Sukuna wanting Megumi for a plan of some sort even more worrying, but it also exaggerates how much potential lies within Megumi’s power.
Megumi is being acknowledged by the strongest sorcerer and the strongest curse, both telling him he misunderstands his own potential, pressuring him to re-evaluate how he interprets the Ten Shadows technique, and over time he has clearly expanded from where he was. This is called back to when Megumi first activates his Domain Expansion, albeit incomplete, taking the words Satoru said to him about “imagining a stronger him” to heart.
(Side note: Its crazy to think that this whole time Satoru was knowingly training the person who would become the head of the Zenin Clan under the conditions something happened to him, literally preparing Megumi for the day he would be gone.)
For example, Megumi’s battle with Reggie was a showcase of how far he has come in his confidence as a Sorcerer, facing off against multiple enemies before Takaba’s arrival. When fighting one on one with Reggie, Megumi was able to attain a form of incomplete domain expansion that amplifies his technique’s potential by 120%, making Megumi’s ability usage even more versatile than normal. Even though it isn’t complete, Megumi is the only other person from Jujutsu High that has used a Domain Expansion aside from Satoru, which is definitely not a coincidence, just another way for Gege to show how similar Megumi is to his Mentor.
Immeasurable Void & The Unknown Abyss
This section will be quick - what I want to bring to your attention is the comparison between Satoru’s Domain “ Immeasurable(or limitless) Void” and Megumi’s “Unknown Abyss”.
Immeasurable (or limitless) Void puts the target in a Domain Expansion that overloads their senses with information to the point they cannot move, as seen with Jogo. Interestingly, Megumi’s ten shadows technique gives him access to the “Unknown Abyss” an extension technique that lets Megumi combine Shikigami but more importantly its the space within his shadows.
The reason I bring these two abilities up is because they are literally opposites to each other, but their targets are given the same outcome - being completely unable to move. Lets get specific though, like we see with Jogo (picture above) he was receiving so much information at once he felt like he couldn’t think, see, etc at first, but he it was sensory overload. For Unknown Abyss, we see Reggie Star start to be swallowed into the Abyss (picture below) while Megumi had his domain up, and while he was inside he continued to sink deeper in while his senses dulled and his consciousness faded.
Once again, Gege makes these subtle parallels that show how crazy Megumi can become once he’s older with more experience under his belt, but it makes me wonder if these abilities possibly clashed in the fight between the old Gojo and Zenin heads that Satoru mentioned, and it makes sense they killed each other.
During the Shibuya Incident we learned that the Gojo Clan is represented by the “one man team” of Gojo Satoru, confusing some people to believe that Satoru is the only Gojo clan member but that is not the case. After Maki’s self-defensive massacre against the Zenin, the Gojo and Kamo Clans came together to request the Zenin Clan be removed from the three great families, so obviously with Gojo in the box he isn’t the only member.
This is quite ironic, because now Megumi is the only member of the Zenin Clan left aside from Maki, who most likely will be branded a criminal due to her actions, but hopefully Megumi, as the Head of a now empty clan, can get her exonerated. Regardless, now we can assume Megumi is the “one-man team” that will represent the Zenin Clan. (I personally hope he rebuilds the clan under the name of Fushiguro - it would be very poetic).
To me, Gege is putting a certain level of pressure on Megumi to make him decide where he will stand in the change of Jujutsu Society. Since the Higher Ups have not made a decision on the removal of the Zenin Clan from power, there is a possibility that Megumi could possibly be like Satoru and become the next “Gojo Satoru” by using the Zenin Clan assets and his own power to keep people in check, but of course there is Yuta Okkotsu, a literal distant Gojo Clan Relative, and the upperclassman Megumi has said he respects the most.
Of course Gege Akutami will continue to add things to the story that parallel Satoru and Megumi, and as the Culling Game (current arc) is going I am sure there will be more lore to be brought to the table that makes this mentor and student dynamic so interesting and poetic.
As Gege adds more to the story, I’ll continue to add to these thoughts with a Pt.2 +, until the end of the series!
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