Jujutsu Kaisen, or a ramble about proper deaths.
the 'context' for this is that i've been watching Jujutsu Kaisen alongside friends.
i got really upset halfway through the second season, to a point where i thought i would stop. instead, i found myself wondering why and writing this. i'm not too sure what to call it - it's not a review, nor is it constructed enough to be an essay. it's a very subjective ramble of me trying to dissect my thoughts and pick my own brain.
i initially planned to delete this after some time bc it's somewhat impulsive writing, and i just wanted to put my feelings into words. but after i shared it around, some of my friends resonated with it, so i've decided to leave it up in case anyone else stumbling upon this finds it interesting!
this will contain really heavy spoilers up to the end of the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen, as well as some Naruto (Shippuden) spoilers.
i'm no stranger to tragedy and stories with darker tones and themes - i would even say it's something i seek, seeing characters struggle is where the interest lies for me! a story where no one struggles is the worst thing a story can be: boring.
the events that upset me were Kokichi Muta/Mechamaru's death; followed by Nanami's a couple of episodes later. i've come to realize my issue with them is that they felt gratuitous - i don't understand their 'point' narratively. they both get killed by Mahito, which as a spectator i already hated for manipulating then killing Junpei in season 1 - so i just thought 'i GET it, this guy is awful, there's no need to go that far unless it's just for shock value'. it felt especially upsetting because Junpei, Kokichi and Nanami were three of the few characters i liked, and to me it's always been very important to have characters i get attached to when i follow a serie.
it's quite poetic that I'm going through the same thing as the protagonist of JJK; my feelings echo what Yuji talks about in the first season. To me, they didn't have 'proper deaths'... on a certain level, maybe that's what Jujutsu Kaisen is trying to say, that there's no such thing. i believe in real life, there are many, many deaths that aren't proper; but when you tell a story, giving a proper death to a character is a choice you actively make as the author. it just felt disrespectful to their memory; they were all major deaths (to me) narratively, and yet the aftermath or lack thereof made them seem inconsequential. Nanami dies; becomes a pair of legs in a pool of blood; the fight continues. i suppose life goes on is the message here, or rather, death goes on.
i can't help but compare Nanami's death to Asuma's in Naruto, maybe because like Nanami, Asuma held a similar teacher position, they both represent the older generation showing the new one the way. Asuma's death is also brutal and shocking, but the legacy he leaves behind in team Shikamaru gives his death a meaning. Naruto as a serie has many flaws, i'm not disputing that, but the way it deals with death and the legacy the fallen leaves behind is something i've always resonated with, so now i try to find that same meaning to every character death. In JJK, the losses are so numerous and frequent that it's impossible to give all of them enough time to feel more than another corpse on the pile.
the idea of a proper death in media is something i've been - subconsciously - looking for. it also bothered me in other series; Attack on Titan and the Chimera Ant arc of HunterxHunter come to mind.
but now, trying to understand, i think i get it a little better. some stories are character-driven, and in others, the characters are more akin to instruments the author uses to reflect the world they live in. it's the bigger picture vs the smaller event; how close you want to get to your characters. i'm more partial to the human/character side, always; but maybe approaching the second type of stories knowingly would help me engage with them in a better way... i don't know how to close this, ahah, i should probably just stop getting so worked up over fiction.
02/04/2026