hidden inventory
when else have we felt both the most alive and almost dead? and what else lingers on your mind like it happened just yesterday, but also like it never happened at all? and where else will you find that passion, those moments that still feel infinite? and what is more painful than your teenage years?
*spoilers for the entire manga*
the hidden inventory arc is there to express exactly that: “two best friends, and the tie they lost forever.” to say that the dynamic between satoru and suguru isn't the central point of jujutsu kaisen is like saying the whole point of the manga is the fights. their connection, their relationship, whatever it could have been (definitely more than platonic in my perspective), their haunting storyline is the foundation of gege's jjk.
two teenage boys, 15–16 years old, both excited in their own way to come to the academy: satoru leaving the clan behind, dying to escape from his family; suguru moving into the dorms earlier than everyone, talking to his mom on the phone about his dreams. what they didn’t know was that, soon, they would become both the most important and the most devastating thing to happen to each other.
the new scenes and photos and sketches of their teen years literally broke my heart. they were so excited, drunk on their friendship, on their youth. satoru finally felt like a normal kid, finding everything suguru did to be cool, being silly together with shoko, taking as many photos as they could, always hanging out as if they were attached at the hip. they were kids together. the strongest one had once been just a kid who thought he would always have his best friend by his side. if only they had known...
i remember, before reading the manga and before the hidden inventory arc was animated, how confused and skeptical i was about all the people who claimed you wouldn’t be the same after satosugu. i really thought there was no possible way something could be that impactful. but god, wasn’t i wrong?
it’s been 3 years and they’ve never left my mind. and even if they do for a moment, they always come back stronger, with more heart-wrecking realizations.
satoru and suguru are literally all that. once the best of friends, then separated for 10 years, still thinking about and talking about one another. forced to “kill” each other, dying on the same day, one year apart. suguru wearing his gojo-kesa while trying to create a world where satoru wouldn’t have to be the strongest. satoru dreaming about the hidden inventory arc, waking up with teary eyes. kenjaku knowing the only thing that could stop satoru, even for a split second, was his best friend. satoru slightly smiling when kenjaku appeared in geto's body, maybe with a little bit of hope that his best friend was back, replaying fond memories of their younger years. suguru's body resisting kenjaku, trying to defend satoru because it was like "muscle memory" to him, even dead. satoru first doing after being released from the seal being to give suguru's body a proper burial, even if the world was in the middle of a cataclysm.
and lastly, satoru’s final thoughts were of suguru, in his monk attire, accepting his perspective, saying how unsatisfied he was: “if you were among those patting my back... then i might have been satisfied.”
i think i’ll end it here, but i could talk about the two of them for hours. one last thing i want to mention again is how sweet but also so deeply sad their high school photos were. as much as i like to bash on gege, he really did a great job writing about teenage years: how a few years can be so detrimental throughout your whole life, and how those moments linger on your mind forever
