zean

as im going through my re-read of jujutsu kaisen, i wanted to share some of my thoughts on characters and topics that im most passionate about, and of course megumi is one of those things. disclaimer, i am only going to be referring to things that occurred during the fearsome womb arc in this post, so the range of material im using to support my points is a bit limited.

my point in doing this is to draw attention to the misconceptions about megumi that lead to the large amount of hate he’s been receiving over the past year. if you keep up with the jjk fandom, you’ve no doubt seen the bumgumi allegations (eye twitches). honestly, i think a lot of this comes from a lack of understanding of megumi’s character, and what pushes him to act, or in some cases, not act. to me, this is absolutely wild, because megumi is one of the characters whose motivations and intentions are stated straight from the beginning, quite possibly some of the clearest stated motivations in the entire series.

i. he was never interested in being a sorcerer and has an established distaste for the system.

i would agree that sometimes megumi is a bit half-assed in his actions, but it’s important to understand why. he isn’t fond of his job. the reasoning behind this is not established until later on, but megumi’s stance is very clear. compared to nobara and yuuji, he’s very focused on getting his job done, rather than saving people.

being a sorcerer is not something he cares particularly about. it's just a task that he has to get done.

there’s also the way he talks about being a jujutsu sorcerer as being a “cog” in a system that he is personally disgusted with, due to the fact that it does nothing to help good people, like tsumiki for example.

sorcerers are one part of a system that completely disgusts him. his decision to save yuuji is another example of this.

his distaste for this system is clearly established early on in the story when he asks gojo to save yuuji because he can’t stand to see a good person like that die just because someone else somewhere said it was “right.” so it makes sense that he’s not going to put his all in all of the time, but it’s not because he’s lazy or a bum or a waste of potential. it’s because of his core sense of justice that has been a part of him and a central theme in jjk since the beginning.

ii. he is interested in saving good people.

i don’t want to spend too much time on this because it’s a pretty discussed and well-recognized aspect of megumi’s character, but this is a pretty fundamental principle behind his actions. for the most part, he is able to buckle down and do what he is “supposed” to do, regardless of if it’s what he personally believes is right, but there’s a visible difference in his effort level when there is someone he believes is good at stake.

when it’s the people he cares about at stake, he can and will push himself beyond his limits. after saving nobara, megumi is completely exhausted.

despite this, he still chooses to stay behind and wait for him, and puts forward the most effort he’d displayed thus far in the series, using his technique and his body more efficiently and more boldly than before, because yuuji is someone he believes is worth saving

he's also ready to let himself die to save yuuji.

in contrast, when fighting against todo, he shows an arguably much lower capacity of both his technique and his physical abilities compared to when he went against sukuna to save yuuji, because what's at stake is "only" himself, not someone he believes is "good," according to his own definition. he's not thinking about how to push his technique to be better or anything like that.

there's far better examples of this in other arcs, so i think i generally spoke about this and how it plays into the megumi hate better here, mostly because i’m restricting my materials for this analysis.

iii. he uses challenges as motivation to push himself beyond his limits.

in a somewhat different direction (aka not fully related to my overall point but i wanted to mention it anyway), megumi uses challenges to his abilities as an opportunity to grow. by challenges, i specifically mean verbal taunts. there’s not quite as many examples of this in just the fearsome womb arc, but probably the best example is when he figures out how to use shadows as an inventory for cursed tools, he remembers what sukuna said to him at the detention center, and it’s what motivates him to grow.

additionally, when he’s fighting against todo, he’s pushed to put more into the fight by todo taunting him and challenging his strength. if only inumaki hadn't stopped them, i would have loved to see what he pulled out...when megumi gets that crazy look, you know it's gonna be good.

this is interesting to me, because megumi is someone who carries a lot of self doubt, but the second someone else starts to doubt him, he pushes himself harder. he doesn’t want others to doubt him, despite constantly doubting himself.