#sukugo

WHAT ARE THEY FEEDING THE MAPPA FAN ANIMATORS MAN THIS IS SO GOOD

Also oh my fucking god!!! SUKUNA LOOKS SO SMITTEN

which is why this panel always hits so hard:

gojo wanted to reach him. he wanted to so bad! even if he thinks he failed, even if it wasn't enough, he still had that desire to reach him, just as sukuna had reached him through infinity. his yearning to understand sukuna, to make him understand that he knew what it was like, and his utter dejection at having supposedly failed to do so is just so telling at how he thinks of sukuna.

i think the "absolute strongest" panel can be interpreted in two ways. first, it's a declaration and an answer to the question of who will teach the other about love— the yorozu battle established that "teaching someone love" is achieved through defeating them. sukuna's appearance in the panel establishes him as the final answer to the question, where "you" is addressed to gojo (since these are his thoughts that he is reflecting on).

the second interpretation is that this is also an expression of gojo's desire to teach sukuna love, and how he failed at doing so. the "you," in this case, is addressed to sukuna, but the statement remains unfinished. sukuna is also depicted facing away from the viewer (presumably, gojo), demonstrating that for now, he has not been reached. given that this panel is followed by gojo lamenting that sukuna couldn't give it his all, i think it's a valid interpretation as well.

i think gojo's intent to reach sukuna was also evident in an earlier line of his that tends to go overlooked— his "you're the challenger" line. 238 establishes how sukuna thinks of his role as the strongest:

for the strongest, they exist as an insurmountable obstacle that others throw themselves against as a way to achieve self-actualization, and a measure by which they can compare themselves to. those who die to the strongest die for their ideals, for self-affirmation of their own strength, etc. time and time again, those who fight sukuna achieve some sense of self-actualization— jogo dies for his ideals, entrusting the future to mahito while also gaining closure for himself, yorozu dies happy knowing that sukuna paid enough attention to her to strategize around her weaknesses and defeat her, kashimo finally gets the answer he longed for about the meaning of his solitude, higuruma "dies" knowing he completed his role against sukuna, so on and so forth... giving them what they want, helping them achieve their self-actualization through killing them, is how sukuna demonstrates his "love" to those weaker than him.

so for gojo to declare sukuna as the challenger is to position sukuna as a weaker opponent who needs self-actualization through measuring his strength against gojo. it's a role reversal where gojo takes the position of sukuna, and sukuna takes the position of his challengers. on the surface it's pure trash talk, since gojo is essentially saying, "even though you're the strongest in history, i'm the actual strongest and you're the one contending for the title." but with the context of how sukuna views "challengers to the strongest," as well as his and yorozu's definition of the love of the strongest being expressed through killing them, this becomes a declaration of gojo's intent. to put it shortly, this is gojo's way of saying "i'll be the one to teach you about love." (in typical gojo little shit fashion)

so again. he WANTED to reach sukuna. he wanted to be the one to teach him love and even declared this intent to him. even if he didn't end up reaching him or fully understanding him in the end, the desire was there!

i think that the "sukuna understands gojo, but gojo doesn't fully understand sukuna" dynamic is also reflected in their fighting. there are multiple times in which sukuna is able to predict and read gojo perfectly, while gojo consistently struggles to understand what sukuna is doing.

here he questions why sukuna isn't using the 10 shadows technique, completely unaware that sukuna is already using it by having megumi take on the burden of adaptation.

meanwhile, sukuna already knows that gojo can't open his domain because of his lobotomizing technique before gojo HIMSELF is even aware of this.

he accurately deduced how gojo was refreshing his burnt-out cursed technique, replicated it perfectly, and has kept track of how many times gojo has used this technique and properly assessed that gojo is in worse shape than he is.

here, gojo incorrectly assumes that sukuna is convinced that he'll only use blue, and attempts to sneak him with red while sukuna's guard is presumably lowered due to the blue-conditioning.

turns out, sukuna knew that he would hit him with red, and even teases gojo over the fact that he read him. except this time...

gojo actually manages to outplay sukuna with the ring-around-the-red move. despite being behind on reading him, he seems to be slowly starting to understand him more by this point. he's learning about him on the go, setting up clever and inventive ways to land hits on sukuna. it's by this point in the fight that gojo actually begins to have the upper hand! he lands the red + BF combo and puts sukuna to sleep, and for the rest of the fight until the unlimited purple, despite being at a 3v1, he is notably in a better condition than sukuna.

this eventually leads to sukuna experiencing the fear of defeat for the first time in his entire life and honestly even being in the position of defeat (the infamous "gojo wins" panel...)

in fact, the first time sukuna ends up misreading gojo comes in this very same chapter:

(not posting the mahoraga panel as a sukunafan that's too far)

and then, he outplays him again with the blue chants to swallow sukuna's piercing elephant.

he was starting to understand, he was beginning to reach him (and defeat him!). and that's what makes it hit so hard! the yearning, his desire to know him, to understand him, the way he gave his everything to do so and even almost succeeded.

My favorite thing to do is to just draw him being a Regular Guy

there you are.