#metasks

In particular this scene.

In his post-enlightenment high Gojo could kill the entirety of the Star Plasma Cult and feel nothing about it to punish them for Riko's death, but he lives the ultimate decision up to Geto.

In that moment Geto convinces him that killing these bystanders would be pointless, because society has other methods for punishing the members of this cult. Specifically he tells Gojo that it's not their job as Jujutsu Sorcerers to punish these people. He basically confines Gojo to the morality of a Jujutsu Sorcerer. Sorcerers kill curse users yes, but they never use their curse techniques on other people like the members in the crowd who don't fight back. Jujutusu Sorcerers aren't a part of the japanese justice system, they exist for one job and that is to deal with curses and curse users in order to prevent them from hurting normal people.

So Geto's lpong explanation to Gojo to talk him down from slaughtering the crowd that's applauding for Riko's death amounts to "That's not our job." He also emphasizes how killing these people wouldn't accomplish anything, because the group was going to disband anyway, and these are just rank and file believers the leaders of the cult are already gone. So in total two reasons, 1) it's not our job, 2) this murder wouldn't accomplish anything.

In the KFC breakup, Gojo parrots Geto's own arguments about killing right back at him. Notice that when they're having their argument Gojo never brings up the fact that killing is wrong, but that killing non-sorcerers is pointless because the sheer amount of number of people you would have to kill is so enormous it's impossible.

Geto's methods are wrong not because they're immoral but because they're impractical. It's not whether or not killing is right or wrong. It's meaningles killing vs. killing with a purpose. Geto's goal is completely impossible for him to accomplish, so all the people he killed in name of that goal died for no reason.

Gojo and Geto are specifically arguing about methods, not morality. Gojo is especially troubled because he's trying to appeal to Geto using the morality that Geto taught him, obligation as a sorcerer, justice, killing with purpose, but now it's all falling on Geto's deaf ears. I think it's poignant Gojo at this stage in his life can't really form a moral argument of his own just repeat Geto's words back at him, it shows how much Gojo was using Geto as a guidepoint.

Gege even says in the databook the reason Gojo stopped himself from killing the cult is that he was using Geto's moral reasoning and not his own.

So in a way, it's Geto's words that prevented Gojo from being a monster all the way back in Hidden Iventnory. Yet, we see in premature death Gojo's completely unable to talk Geto down from the ledge he was standing on.

Even though the words he's using are Geto's words. Perhaps, because the words he's using are Geto's words. Gojo's faith in Geto as a partner and a moral guidepost was so unshakable he's not capable of reconciling with the fact that the person standing in front of him right now slaughtered a whole village.

Geto leaves, and Gojo lacks the words to make him stay. However, in spite of the fact that this scene is called the KFC breakup this, Geto and Gojo aren't ending their relationship. In Jujutsu Kaisen Zero, Geto is surprised by the fact that Gojo still trusts him and feels the same way years later. In Gojo's dying dream, he states that he would have been satisfied losing to Sukuna if Geto was there to wish him good luck before he left. The Geto he pictures is the one in his Gojo-Gesa, the corrupted adult Geto, and not the one he used in childhood.

This is also after Geto expresses jealousy that Gojo wanted to provide a challenge to Sukuna and force him to go all out, because Gojo understood Sukuna's isolation from being the strongest. Because Geto and Gojo's relationship began from the fact that Geto was the only other special grade in their year and therefore the only one able to understand Gojo by being just as strong as he was. Only for Gojo to immediately say that he wasn't satisfied going all out against Sukuna, because Geto wasn't there. It wasn't Geto's power he needed, but his presence.

Geto wasn't leaving Gojo. He was leaving Jujutsu Society. However, since Gojo is such an integral part of Jujutsu Society, it's essentially the same thing. They're not breaking apart because their no longer friends, but because their morals are so different. Even if his attempts at reform wasn't so radical as killing all human beings, Gojo still wouldn't be able to leave with Geto because without Jujutsu Society there is no Gojo Satoru.

Gojo doesn't believe that massacring half the world is possible, but in a way he probably wouldn't believe even a less extreme reform is impossible as long as it was accomplished from the outside. Gojo has always been an internal reformist while at the same time being a radical. Gojo stated this early on he can just kill the people on top but that would make him a monster.

Remember what I emphasized above, Geto convinced Gojo not to slaughter the members of the Star Cult because it's not a Jujutsu Sorcerer's job to punish people like that. If he crossed that line he'd no longer be a Jujutsu Sorcerer. Gojo not only lives to be a sorcerer, but the time in his youth when he was with Geto was the only time he ever felt understood and that there was someone he could rely on.

Geto crossed that line and when he killed the people of Nanako and Mimiko's village (the way that Geto wanted to kill Riko's murderers that day), he was no longer acting as a sorcerer. Geto stopped being a sorcerer, but Gojo couldn't follow him because Gojo lives to be a sorcerer.

Gojo's plan is therefore create sorcerers strong enough that they can support each other the way that him and Geto should have. Create strong allies so that in the next generation no-one will be left behind.

Gojo's belief is that what he needed was stronger allies, not a systemic issue. When his attempts at reform fail, and he wakes up to see that all of his students have had execution orders placed on them by the higher ups he finally gives up on the notion of internal reform.

Gojo eventually ended up committing a mass slaughter for his perceived greater good. The same kind of mass slaughter that Geto prevented him from doing that day he avenged Riko's death. By doing that, he stopped being a sorcerer.

Now that we've finally come full circle I'm going to explain what I think Gojo means by "I can't do that. That day I was left behind, so I have to catch up."

The most direct interpretation is that Gojo is echoing Yuta's sentiment. Geto became a monster all on his own and left Gojo behind. Now, years after the fact Gojo is realizing that Geto's violent action was necessary and he's essentially leaving his role as a sorcerer to become more like Gojo. He's finally understood why Geto did what he did, years after the fact, and far too late.

In one sense Gojo is becoming Geto in this scene. In another sense, he's recalling how he felt years before when he watched Geto walk away. Geto is the one who kept Gojo from being a monster and kept him on the path of being a sorcerer, only for Geto to go off that path himself. Not only that though, but in their final conversation, Geto made sure to still try to keep Gojo on that path.

Remember this line from the original draft:

"If you want to kill me, kill me. I wouldn’t mind if it were by your hand. But make sure mine is the only life you take.”

This line is essentially the same as this, but look at the paneling.

Gojo is about to unleash a hollow purple on Geto, but when Geto disappears into the crowd of people he stops. In order to kill Geto, he would have had to kill several innocent people in the crowd so Gojo hesitates.

The original draft lines indicate that Geto did this on purpose. He told Gojo to be sure only to kill him and not kill anyone else because he still wants Gojo to remain a sorcerer. Geto was resolved to become a monster on his own and didn't want to drag Gojo down with him.

Geto is leaving and he doesn't want Gojo to become with, because Gojo is the happiest when he's a sorcerer.

Death is a Mirror

So, I believe the entire concept of Death in Jujutsu Kaisen can just be summarized as the panel I posted above. Of course I'm going to elaborate on that, but basically Death is a mirror. Humans try to find meaning out of the short life they have, because life always ends in death.

The philosopher Camus was quoted as saying once:

“There is only one really serious philosophical problem,” Camus says, “and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that” (MS, 3). 

All philosophy is therefore, an attempt to justify whether or not life is worth living. Why are we alive? As I said above, Yuji cannot accept that life always ends in death so he tries to search for meaning in death. His grandfather's curse (telling him to save people so he can die surrounded by people) and his concept of a "meaningful" death for the first half of the manga is Yuji debating with this philosophical concept.

Yuji is introduced to the danger of the world when he is thrown into the world of sorcery. Much like Geto, he has heroic notions of being a sorcerer which are challenged when he realizes both how easily people can die, but how easily his fellow sorcerers can die as well.

This is the philosophical question that essentially broke Geto's brain. What is the meaning of young sorcerers like himself fighting and dying for an uncaring public, especially since the cycle will never be broken and sorcerers are basically sentenced to a life of continually exercising curses until they meet an early death. Then the next generation of sorcerers just continue the vicious cycle.

For Geto, death ends up negating all meaning to life. When he realizes that there's basically no meaning to the lives of sorcerers who constantly throw their lives away, he becomes completely unable to enjoy life. He accepts death at the hands of Gojo, because he couldn't continue living in the world, couldn't smile in the world with the way it was.

 In some ways, Geto and Yuuta were the same. Geto was too sincere. To someone like him, the reality that the world of sorcerers presented to him was just too cruel. '...that in a world like this, I couldn't be truly happy from the bottom of my heart.' To live for the purpose of being yourself. And for that goal, Geto could only continue to pursue his twisted dream, drowning himself in the curse that lies in the gap between ideal and reality.\ This was the final confession of a man who could only choose to warp himself, who had erased himself in pursuit of his goals. The only person who could bear such a curse was Gojo Satoru.

On the other hand Geto loses to Rika and Yuta who's love for each other is able to persist after death. In fact, Yuta's entire arc is starting out cursing Rika because he was too afraid to lose her, but when he accepts that Rika's love can persist with him after death he's able to move on and make new friends.

Of course Yuta proceeds to just be parasitically codependent with his new friends,. but that's just how Yuta is as a person. He's a funny little freak.

Even until the very end, Rika loved Yuuta deeply. It's like loving someone like the other half of your soul, like willingly giving up your life for their sake. It's the true, honest hope that no matter where they may go, there will always be good fortune waiting for them. What happened to Rika is perhaps not so strange after all. 'Death' is a conclusion that falls upon everyone equally. But Rika found someone she loved and remained by his side. All this time - until this very day - she was always by his side. Maki, Panda, Inumaki - it's all the same. Even Gojo will have a day where he dies. Yuuta will die too, one day. But there's no need to hasten it's arrival. He should smile more, explore the world more, see even more new things. That's what Rika hoped for, deep in her heart. Because the end will surely come one day, and after that rightful death - we will definitely meet again. And after that, we will always be together. It won't be too late to make good on our agreement then. So please, before that happens to you - before that happens to the one I love - live blessed by happiness.

So, Geto and Yuta are ideological opposites. Geto can't love the world where so many of his comrades and fellow sorcerers die, and Yuta is able to continue loving the world in spite of death.

When Yuta and Yuji are protagonists of their works they face the same question but with different flavors. Yuta tries to find meaning for life in love, and Yuji tries to find meaning in life by searching for a "role" to play. He states pretty clearly early on he wants to do something thyat no one else could, which is why he accepts his role as Sukuna's vessel. If he helps a lot of people, it doesn't matter to him, if he's executed in the end. If he's able to help as many people as possible.

Of course Mahito challenges this notion of Yuji's. Early on Yuji says that he feels like life will be worth less, if he has to kill people. Then Mahito presents Yuji with people he cannot save, who it would be a mercy to kill because they are living in pain. Before finally being shown that all of his efforts to save Junpei completely failed.

If he can't help Junpei in the end, then for Yuji what was the point of meeting him? What was the point of Yuji trying to sympathize with him, if he failed and Junpei dies such a gratuitous death.

I think Junpei is one of the standout deaths in Jujutsu Kaisen, because in spite of the fact we know him so briefly his permanent impact on Yuji lingers. He's the part of a pattern where every time Yuji tries to play hero and protect life he utterly fails. He's confronted over and over again with what are "meaningless deaths" in his own words.

Until Todo literally spells it out for him. That if he tries to keep searching for meaning in death, he's going to go insane. He was in danger of walking down the exact road that Geto was.

So, Yuji is nearly broken by the meaningless deaths of Nanami, Nobara and the thousands slaughtered in Shibuya in succession, and Todo's advice is basically that if you keep staring at all of the death in front of you it's not going to help at all, you're just going to drive yourself crazy.

Yuji is trying to use Nanami's death as an excuse to give up searching for meaning. If death is the end result of life, then for a moment Yuji thinks it's no longer worth living. He even tells himself to die after the massacre at Shibuya.

Then, there is Mahito who fully believes that because everything dies life is equally worthless. Since there is no meaning you are entitled to do whatever you want, because all life is just competing with each other.

Full rules of the jungle logic. Why does the deer have more right to life than the wolf, when they're both competing for survival? The wolf eats deer not because it's evil, but because it's what it does.

Mahito clearly sees himself as the wolf and humans as the prey. He doesn't need to think about the reasons why he kills humans, that's what curses do, the same way that wolves eat deer. It's just natural instinct. A wolf doesn't ponder the meaning of life. It just eats to fill it's stomach.

Mahito is trying to disprove the notion to Yuji that life has meaning or there's a greater meaning behind his actions. Which is what his speech is about, you save people without thinking and I kill people without thinking. There's no meaning for our actions, Curse and Humans are just different species that are trying to wipe each other out for survival.

What's interesting about them and why Mahito is the true mirror to Yuji, is that after their confrontation, their philosophies completely flip. Yuji decides to accept Mahito's words that there's no meaning to life. He won't search for meaning in death anymore, he'll just play his role. Sorcerers kill curses because that's their job, he's just another part of the food chain too.

In that instant Yuji becomes the wolf and Mahito the rabbit. Mahito also flips his ideals. If he were a true believer in the right of the strongest, then he would have just accepted his death when Yuji was stronger. Jogo did. He even said it doesn't need to be him in the world of curses as long as the world he wants is brought about.

Jogo knows they'll just be reborn anyway, even if they wont' be the same but he can accept that. That's the nature of a curse. However, Mahito who's name literally means "true human" and is the most humanlike of the curses wants to retain his individuality.

Yuji rejects his individuality to become a cog. Mahito runs away to try to preserve his life and his individuality instead of just accepting death and reincarnating and he ends up being turned into a tool by Kenjaku. It's a fun reversal, because as I said above death is a mirror.

In fact Mahito comes full circle in the last piece of dialogue in the entire series to show that even Sukuna was able to accept death as a part of life in the end, and accept that maybe he can change in the next life. Mahito who is paralyzed by his fear of death and believes that death negates meaning however, is the only one who remains eternally stunted as a child.

I think part of this is because Geto is a character of deep self-reflection so a lot of his internal narration is about his feelings towards his self and thinking through his own ideals and what that means. Whereas Gojo doesn't really self reflect but he does observe other people. We don't know what Gojo's opinions on a lot of things are, but we know what Geto meant to him because he's much clearer on how he felt towards Geto. Geto's staring into himself trying to figure what he feels personally, Gojo is always staring at other people trying to figure out what they feel.

As for why Gojo means so much to Geto, it's important to remember that they are a duo. They're the same idiot in different fonts. Geto's a much more human character and we are inside his head more often so it's easy to forget that when they were young Geto had the same kind of god / superiority complex that Gojo did.

Geto is associated with religious imagery over and over again, the same way that Gojo is associated with budhist ideals of enlightenment and escaping karma. They are both people who were in their teenage years more powerful than everyone around them, and because of that looked down on everyone.

Even Geto's stated ideals of "protecting the weak" come from a place of superiority. He still divides people mentally into the weak and the strong. The special ones and the common rabble. He sees people the same way Gojo does, he just believes that the strong like him and Gojo have a moral obligation to use their powers responsibly in service of others.

Geto's not more humble than Gojo. Their moral disagreement comes from how they should use the power they've been given, but they both feel that the power they have puts them in a position above other people.

All of this to illustrate the fact that if Gojo felt isolated as a teenager because all the power he had made him feel lonely and unable to connect with others, then so Geto probably felt isolated in the same way too. They each found in each other someone they could finally call their equal. Because of it they gained someone they could be vulnerable around and someone they could trust to watch their back.

The things Geto does for Gojo (check on his feelings when no one else would, go out of his way to reassure him), Gojo does for Geto in return. It's not Geto always taking care of Goo it's a partnership between the two of them where they lean on each other.

When Kuroi is kindapped and Geto immediately falls into a funk and starts to blame himself for his mistake, it's Gojo who reassures him by hurrying him along and telling him they need to focus on planning what they should do next. Gojo knows Geto well enough to know his tendency to get trapped in his own thoughts and gives him the kick in the pants he needs.

In the same scene where Geto checks on Gojo's well-being to make sure he's not overusing his power, Gojo returns the sentiment by reassuring Geto not to worry about him because he won't push himself too hard and that he's not in this alone Geto's here too.

That's probably a big part of it for Geto. Yes, Geto tends to naturally slide into the caretaker role, watching out for Gojo and checking in on him but at the same time Geto probably likes that there is someone who needs him in that way. If Gojo's defined by his lack of connection with other people, Geto's defined by the way he goes out to make connections. It's nice to be needed as they say. The fact that someone as seemingly self-sufficient as Gojo not only relies on Geto a great deal, but lets Geto take care of him is probably a big part of their bond.

Which is probably why Gojo's awakening post Toji is a big part in why they started to grow apart from each other. If Geto likes to live in service to other people, and defines himself by his connection to others he probably interpreted Gojo no longer needing his support on missions and suddenly doing everything by himself as Gojo pulling away from him.

I think a big part in Geto's downfall was the hit he took when one he was defeated by Toji someone without Jujutsu and too, Gojo suddenly became out of his reach. Gojo himself never said that they were no longer the strongest duo, or that they were no longer the strongest together it's all Geto. As I said Geto has as much of a god complex as Gojo does.

He thought they were on the top together, and not only is he suddenly confronted with his own weakness at the exact same time Gojo's become so strong it appears on the surface that he no longer needs anyone's support, especially not Geto's.

Nanami says it out loud, but Geto probably echoes the sentiment. If Gojo is now strong enough to handle every mission on his own then what need does he have for other sorcerers - and Geto in particular? Geto goes from feeling needed in a lot of ways by Gojo who was just as important a friend to him as he was to Gojo to watch Gojo suddenly handle everything alone. In a lot of ways it probably felt like Geto lost Gojo far before the KFC breakup and his defection from Jujutsu High. From Geto's perspective their relationship was over, their partnership broken and Gojo just did not realize it until after the village massacre.

At first Geto had as big of an ego with Gojo, and connected in a special way with him because the two of them were on top together. However, he came to believe that the only reason their partnerhsip worked was because they were both the strongest. When Gojo became the strongest alone Geto believed incorrectly that what they once had was lost and Gojo no longer needed him when Gojo's emotional reaction to Geto's defection shows that's anything but true.

In Geto's mind it is though because he's kind of got the same messed up way of dividing people into strong and weak that Gojo does, he probably just realized that he was one of the weak ones and feared Gojo thinking the same way.

During Geto and Gojo's final confrontation he almost has an inferiority complex about it when he talks about how if he had the limitless he'd easily be able to accomplish what he set out to do.

Until that moment Geto always thought they were equals, but now Geto's suddenly talking like he covets Gojo's power. He suddenly wants to be Gojo, probably because he incorrectly believes that their partnership is base don being equals in power when it's really just a normal friendship.

Which is why the loss of Gojo's friendship affects Geto just as badly as the other way around. Everyone wants to be equals with their friends, especially to a friend as important as Gojo was to Geto.

There's almost a tragic irony in how when speaking of his friendship to Nanako and Mimiko, Geto acts like their friendship ended when Gojo left Jujutsu High. It's their in his death scene too, Geto is surprised by the fact that Gojo has any feelings left for him.

The Fraud vs. The Real Deal

So ironically just like the best way to understand Aizen is also by comparing him to Ywach. Everything Aizen tries to be, a force of fate, the controlling force in the narrative, the one who has everyone dancing on the palms of his hands Ywach just naturally is. Aizen tries to become divine through schemes and plots, Ywach was literally born divine. He doesn't need to call himself a god, everyone already calls him a god. The quincy gave him the name "Ywach."

Before we get deeper into their comparisons, I'm going to give an example of just how Aizen is a fraud. The reveal of Misaki's backstory in thousand year blood war really did salvage Aizen's character for me after I started to dislike him towards the end of Arrancar Arc.

There's a fine line to walk with mastermind characters. You have to ask yourself is the character genuinely smart, or is the author just moving things around in the plot and letting the villain have plot armor and plot convenience in order to make them appear smarter than they already are.

Aizen claimed that he'd had everything in the palm of his hand since Ichigo was born, and that was what made me officially call bullshit. Then, the Misaki backstory reveals that Aizen was in fact just bullshitting the entire time.

Aizen didn't actually engineer Ichigo's birth as he claimed. One of his experiments just happened to attack Ichigo's mom, and Aizen decided to stay back and observe the situation. Then he kept monitoring Ichigo to see if he would be useful later. Which is what Aizen does in general, he puts his fingers in a lot of people's pies and then is clever enough to push situations into his favor.

He claims to be an omniscient planner, but he's really just clever and good at improvising when random things like White attacking Ichigo's mother happen so he can turn those situations into his advantage. When Aizen claims "I had everything planned from the beginning" it's just another illusion he's using to try to control you, and characters who buy that are easy to manipulate.

Because Aizen is a fraud. That is literally his zanpakuto, making illusions that control the senses. Everything down to his zanpakuto the literal reflection of his soul is fraudulent. Aizen makes claims at godhood but he doesn't even believe what he's saying.

Aizen yells at Ulquiorra that people shouldn't accept the way the world is, that they should try to be gods if they have the ability to while at the same time Ichigo called him out that his true desire was to be just another soul reaper.

However, in the world of Bleach godhood isn't all it's cracked up to be. The closest thing to a god, the Reio, the lynchpin of the unvierse is a limbless being, sealed in a crystal, that was not only betrayed and backstabbed and brutally massacred by the shinigami who supposedly worshipped them he's also like completely helpless.

He's eternal and all powerful and the very being that holds the world together, and also all he can do is passively observe reality. Destroying the soul king is a mercy because it releases him from his eternal suffering.

This is where we finally reach Ywach, who is what everything Aizen pretended to be. Aizen had to rely on the Hogyoku entirely to give other people power, whereas Ywach naturally can gift the quincy with his power. Aizen wanted to become the soul king he was a mortal who tried to ascend to divinity.

Ywach is heavily implied to be the soul king's literal son. Unlike Aizen he can actually claim to be a divine being, and he's worshipped as one taking the name of the christian god.

Aizen claims to be behind Ichigo's every fight in the manga, while Ywach actually is behind Ichigo's every fight because he's been there all along, pretending to be Ichigo's zanpakuto spirit. Ywach as Zangetsu even admits this, he was limiting Ichigo from his true power while also convincing Ichigo he was an ally because he never wanted Ichigo to become a full fledged sorcerer since he's not only a fragment of Ywach but the embodiment of his quincy powers.

Ywach is responsible for ichigo's desire to protect others, because his decision to terminate all impure quincy killed Ichigo's mother. Ywach has been with Ichigo since birth, since all quincies carry a fragment of Ywach's power in them. When Ywach calls Ichigo his son, he's not bullshitting either, because Old Man Zangetsu the fragment of Ywach inside Ichigo was in a sense a mentor and a father figure to him.

Ywach is a force of nature, in this case he's fate. The same fate that Ichigo wanted to shatter with his sword. Unlike Aizen's claims to be in control he can actually back this up. He controls Ichigo to slay the soul king, and his literal ability "The Almighty" is to rewrite the future to bring whatever future he wants into being. He can peer into every possible future and see millions of possible variations fo the future like grains of sand and then just make the one he wants happen. He literally, creates fate.

However, as I said it's not actually a good thing to be god in Bleach. Ywach because he is divine, can't live in the world with everyone else because of his fear of death. He's terrified of death probably for two reasons, one because he existed in a world without death, he watched his own father get butchered in the worst way possible, and he was basically stillborn. He fears returning to the state he was at birth unable to itneract with the world. A state ironically that was much like his father when he was sealed in the soul palace.

He's also experienced the deaths of every quincy he gave his power to over and over again. So Ywach is the force of fate itself, but just like fate which cannot be controlled, Ywach is an entirely stagnant entity.

The exact opposite of Aizen who was someone who wanted to be just like every other soul reaper. It's why even though Aizen's a fraud, between the two of them Aizen is the ideological victor in the end.

Since Aizen was saved by Ichigo in a way. By giving him the worthy opponent that he always craved, Aizen was knocked back down by the pedestal he always stood on. He became just another soul reaper as he always wanted to be. That's why he was able to believe in humans in the end and give up his notions of becoming a god.

The Ugliness of the Weak

Everyone jumps to Nanami right away when looking for a character to compare Higuruma too, but while there are superficial similarities the best comparison is actually Geto.

Nanami is probably the prime example of a first grade sorcerer, he and Yuji are probably the only sorcerers who do their jobs for non-selfish reasons. Nanami could have had an escape from sorcery to make more money in a safer job, but he goes back to sorcery because he believes that work is more useful to society and worthwhile.

Admittedly, Higuruma starts in the same place as Nanami, wanting to do his work as a defense attorney even though the odds are stacked against him, instead of being a prosecutor or a judge because he doesn't want to turn his eyes away from others.

However, herein lies the rub, while they share the desire to do a job that's useful for others, especially people who can't really fight for themselves, and they both work hard thankless jobs Nanami never develops a superiority complex about it.

Nanami never thinks of the people he helps as weak and inferior. In fact, he criticizes for only fighting for his ego. He doesn't separate the strong and the weak as different categories, he just does his job out of a sense of duty.

Higuruma is compared to Gojo in terms of his raw talent as a Jujutsu Sorcerer, a modern sorcerer who learned domain expansion, and domain amplification in less than a month and then reverse cursed technique in a few minutes when pressed by Sukuna. He was also considered a genius at lawschool as well who could have easily climbed the ranks further if he didn't stay a defense attorney.

Higuruma does his job out of a perceived duty to keep his eyes open to justice, but he still looks down on those same people he's defending. He sees them as a category separate to himself, they are the weak defendants and he is the savior.

Now, who has a talent similiar to Gojo, started in a place of wanting to help the weak out of a sense of duty, while also harboring a superiority complex against them because he was considered such a genius? Ding, ding, ding you get no points for that one, it's Geto.

"The weakness of the victim. The weakness of the accused. Ugly that's what I thought every time I tried to help anyone." "What I saw was nothing out of the ordinary. A hideous evil, known to everyone."

They're both characters who had impossibly hard jobs who still put their noses down to the grindstone and did their jobs out of a sense of justice, or obligation, or because they upheld themselves to a higher moral standard, only to get sick of it from the sense that none of their actions were making a difference and also the ingratitude of people they were trying to save.

They're also, despite being geniuses incredibly fragile ego-wise. Geto has a hero complex, and when Toji easily defeats him, nearly kills Gojo, and kills Rika in front of him he's shown he's a normal person like the rest of the world and can't deal, even saying spiteful words to Gojo that if he had all of Gojo's strength anything he wanted would be possible. This is coming from Geto who had always treated Gojo like an equal and never envied him up until this point.

Then there's Higuruma who calls the victims of an unfair justice system ugly and weak because they ummm... stare at him.

LIke, wow! They're going to go to jail for a long time for a crime they didn't even do, and they're just a little bit upset about it?

How dare they.

They're looking for someone to blame because they're in a bad situation and they're freaking out?

This perfectly human reaction is called "ugly" because Higuruma sees himself in a superior category to these people. He calls empathy looking at someone's weaknesses, and he felt the people he tried to sympathize with and understand were ugly.

I mean yeah I guess freaking out when they were going to prison for a crime they didn't commit and blaming Higuruma who was overworking himself trying to help them wasn't very cash money of them, but you know what else isn't very chill?

Flipping out and murdering a bunch of people the exact moment you're granted a power like Jujutsu by the culling games. Geto and Higuruma see themselves in a category superior to the weak people who sometimes aren't perfect victims and sometimes aren't grateful for their sacrifices, but when given power how exactly do they use it?

Geto after snapping quickly takes over the same cult that killed Riko Amanai an innocent girl, and uses it for much more nefarious purposes. Higuruma quickly becomes a much worse person than the supposed ugly crimminals he was defending the second, the literal second he's granted power.

Geto and Higuruma are just as capable of being bad victims as the same kind of bad victims they looked down on. They're just as affected by trauma, and just as willing to do bad things when put into bad situations because guess what... they're still human. The strong are equally as human as the weak. They see themselves as better than others, and their altruism isn't 100% altruistic (but to be honest no altruism is completely unselfish) because it comes from a place of perceived charity work. When they are hit with the realization that they are just as human, and therefore just as capable of erroring they can't cope.

Which is where we finally get to my point, if Choso is not allowed to die for atonement then why does the story kill off Higuruma and grant him his death wish?

Here's where I tie him to Geto again. (A lot of characters parallel with Geto really including Yuji several times but that's a different post, like Higuruma doesn't have nearly the same bodycount as Geto and he doesn't have any genocidal ambition but that's why he's a character foil and not the exact same character.)

Arguably, Geto also had a death wish that was granted by Gojo himself at the tragic end of Jujutsu Kaisen Zero. While he never directly says so like Choso and Higuruma do there are plenty of lines that indicate it.

He says that he can't be happy from the bottom of his heart in this world, that's the same as basically saying he can't continue living in the world. Years earlier in Hidden Inventory in a panel that parallels this scene he also says that he'd willingly let Gojo kill him and there'd be meaning in that death. At the end of Zero, Geto is crawling away from Yuta ready to continue the fight again and when Gojo suddenly appears he basically makes no attempts to resist.

You could even say that Geto was throwing his life away in pursuit of an impossible dream to begin with. In the light novel adaptation of this scene, the narrator even speculates that the world was simply too cruel a place for Geto to live in.

'...no matter what, I hate non-sorcerers. But it's not like I hate everyone at Jujutsu Tech. It's just...' It's just that it was what Geto had to do. In some ways, Geto and Yuuta were the same. Geto was too sincere. To someone like him, the reality that the world of sorcerers presented to him was just too cruel. '...that in a world like this, I couldn't be truly happy from the bottom of my heart.'

So arguably Geto had a death wish too, and that wish was granted by Gojo in the end, while Choso's was denied.

To live for the purpose of being yourself. And for that goal, Geto could only continue to pursue his twisted dream, drowning himself in the curse that lies in the gap between ideal and reality. This was the final confession of a man who could only choose to warp himself, who had erased himself in pursuit of his goals. The only person who could bear such a curse was Gojo Satoru.

The prose even further compares Geto to Yuta in how they're too sincere, and how Geto can't change himself in the face of a cruel world. Geto dies not because of his death wish though that's part of it, but because of his inability to adapt and grow.

Then we reach Higuruma, who is literally a DEFENSE ATTORNEY, who is supposed to sympathize with accused murderers, and even actual murderers that he has to defend at court. Yet, this DEFENSE ATTORNEY, can't see a single reason to live and atone and redeem himself for the murders he's committed.

Higuruma's a defense attorney, but his cursed technique is a prosecutor and a judge that hands out death sentences. Despite his stated goal of being a defense attorney and wanting to sympathize with human weakness, in the end he cannot forgive crimminals and he also cannot forgive himself.

If anything, the difference between Choso and Higuruma is that Choso still has things to live for. He has a death wish and a wish to atone, but what keeps him going is his desire to protect Yuji. Higuruma the DEFENSE ATTORNEY has given up his role as a protector and is only dealing out punishments.