Hidden Inventory/Premature Death // 懐玉 ⋅ 玉折 (Kaigyoku/Gyokusetsu)'s Origins, Meaning and Adaptations in Different Languages
What started as a fun side post on the ways different countries adapted the titles of volumes 8 and 9 became a gargantuan research that took way more time and effort than I imagined.
I kinda wanted to get this off my chest and lay it somewhere out of my enclosure. My not-so-veiled disdain for the choice they made in the english version was already mentioned here, so now it's time to explain why I don't vibe with it.
Let's start from the original manga titles:
Volume 8 is titled 壊玉, while Volume 9 is titled 玉折.
As you may have noticed, these titles have a kanji in common, 玉 to be precise. This kanji in these two cases means jade.
✧ 懐玉 (kaigyoku) on it's own indicates a gifted individual. It most likely originates from 被褐懐玉 (hikatsu kaigyoku), a quote contained in Laozi’s Tao Te Ching.
The literal translation of this expression is "Wearing Rags, Bearing/Harbouring Jades", and indicates an inconspicuous individual with a great but hidden talent or potential.
I've seen 懐玉有罪 (kaigyoku yuzai) also listed as a possible source for 懐玉. The literal translation is "Owning Jade Is A Crime/Makes You Guilty" and it’s a saying that appears in a passage contained in The Commentary of Zuo.
It probably originally meant that common people could not own something as precious as a jade stone because it was implicit that the only way they could have gotten in possession of such valuable object was through thievery, thus unquestionably making them guilty of a crime.
It later became a synonym for "Reaching beyond your status/limits invites misfortune". One source listed it's meaning as "Having something precious or a great talent will attract people's envy, thus getting troubles". The latter is a less "popular" interpretation than the other, but I thought it was an interesting take in this context.
(I tend to believe the former is the idiom from which the title for Vol. 8 originates.)
✧ 玉折 (gyokusetsu) comes from the yojijukugo (four-character idioms) 蘭摧玉折 (ransai gyokusetsu).
The literal translation is something akin to "Plucked Orchid, Shattered Jade", and is an idiom that indicates the premature death of a bright and promising person. It can also mean the death of someone that died without giving up their moral integrity, or just simply the death of a good person.
The original quote is contained in A New Account of the Tales of the World, in which the person speaking declares: "I would prefer to be a plucked orchid or a shattered jade, that’s better than becoming a weed and flourishing like one", meaning "It's more desirable to die with dignity than living without a purpose and good qualities".
Gege only used the "jade parts" of these two (possibly three) idioms, so we have "Harbouring Jade" and "Shattered Jade", jade indicating something precious, in these two cases a the talent a person has.
Let's talk some international stuff now, shall we?
🇫🇷 ✦ In the French version they (sort of) kept the original meaning of each chapter, while not preserving the fact that they have a term (kanji) in common.
Trésor Caché & Mort Prématurée =
Hidden Treasure & Premature Death
I said sort of because trésor doesn't have among it's meanings talent. Talent or don it's what we're looking for, so we're close, but not quite.
The anime episodes are named in the same way and so is the movie containing said arc's episodes that was released in 2025.
🇮🇹 ✦ In the Italian one they kept the original "symmetry" but gyokusetsu lost it's original meaning of a budding talent dying prematurely.
Note: if you try to just g***** translate this, it will tell you that the translation for "dote" is "gift". In fact saying "Lui è una persona dotata." can be translated both with "He's a gifted person." or "He's a talented person."
Dote and talento are synonyms in italian just as much gift and talent are in english. In this specific case though gift is open to possible misinterpretations in my opinion, so to avoid any confusion, I prefer to use the term talent.
The first four anime episodes of this arc share the chapter's title they originate from, while the last one got changed to "Talento Sprecato".
The movie release used the english titles.
🇩🇪 ✦ In the Dutch version they did an interesting half-and-half 50/50 thing between the french and the italian, meaning they didn't kept the shared terms (kanji) but they also didn't stick with the original meaning of premature death.
The five anime episodes all have different titles, no mention of treasures or talents in the first four, and the last one is just listed as "Premature Death", in english.
Interstingly for the movie release they didn't applied use any these titles nor kept the english ones, but actually "rebranded" them like this:
Der versteckte Schatz / Der verdorbene Schatz =
The Hidden Treasure / The Corrupted/Spoiled Treasure
🇪🇸 ✦ The Spanish version is an exact translation of the english one.
Inventario Oculto & Muerte Prematura =
Hidden Inventory & Premature Death
They changed them in the anime adaptation, in which the first four episodes are renamed as "El tesoro escondido" (The hidden treasure) and the fifth as " El tesoro perdido" (The lost treasure).
The english titles were used for the movie release.
🇵🇹 ✦ The Portuguese version is also an exact translation of the english one:
Inventário Oculto & Morte Prematura =
Hidden Inventory & Premature Death
These match with the corresponding episodes.
The movie release used the english titles.
I'll admit that I am a fan of the italian one, so for the english version I would have picked something similar to that, I just love the fact that the matching idioms are adapted, it's really satisfying to me.
Overall, I think I would go with hidden talent/wasted talent, or hidden talent/premature death. The inventory thing just ain't it chief.
I hope this was interesting to you as it was to me!!
There are of course lots of other adaptations, but I'm not confident with other languages. If you'd like to share how they adapted it in your country, please do!! I'd love to have a wider set of examples!
If you read all of this and spot something that it's not quite right, please let me know! I'm only human and even with all the modern resources, mistakes can still happen. :)
Also, since we live in dark times, I feel the need to say that this whole thing was assembled by me using my own knowledge of the mentioned languages and by scouring external sources (a.k.a. dictionaries specifically for yojijukugo) for the original idioms that I personally searched and checked. No 🅰️ℹ️ help was needed nor used to gain the translations and meanings of the phrases (so if there are mistakes, they all belong to me too). I honestly had too much fun doing this research, I learned a lot of cool things!
And lastly, translating and adapting is not a perfect science, they are very personal things, and sometimes marketability also determines which route is chosen, so no shade to any of the translators (no, not even the english ones... 😒).
Bonus: Toji’s Age (this is just for fun since we have very little to work with)
Let’s start speculating a little more wildly and let’s try to guess Toji’s date of birth.
For reference, here are the known dates of birth of the character mentioned here:
Toji: December 31 ????
Megumi: December 22 2002
Satoru: December 7 1989
I’ve seen that most people seem to think he’s in his 30’s, a few say early 40’s. He always gave me the impression of being a 30-something in HI/PD. He couldn’t imo have been younger than 20 nor older than 29 in the brief flashback featured in chapter 71 when he meets kid Gojo.
When does this meeting take place? Gojo looks older than six-years-old Megumi in chapter 78 to me, but he’s still a kid, so I’d say he’s between 7 and 10 years old. Being born in 1989, this means it’s a moment between 1996 to 1999. So, let’s take the earliest year we just obtained and pair it with the youngest Toji could have been, a.k.a. 20 years old.
1996 -> 20 years old = born in 1976
Now let’s take the second year we’ve got and let’s pair that with the youngest Toji could have been:
1999 -> 20 years old = born in 1979
Now let’s do the pairings but with the oldest he could have been, 29 years old.
1996 -> 29 years old = born in 1967
1999 -> 29 years old = born in 1970
We have a very wide but hopefully sturdy enough base to determine Toji’s age.
Going by the earliest to the latest, we have:
If he was born in 1967: 29 + 1996 (the oldest he could have possibly been according to these calculations)
He would have a 22-year age gap with Gojo (meaning he could have totally been his father😶🌫️), he would have been almost 35 in 2002 when his son was born and he would have been 38 going on 39 in 2006 when he died.
If he was born in 1970: 29 + 1999
He would have a 19-year age gap with Gojo, he would have been almost 32 in 2002 when his son was born and he would have been 35 going on 36 in 2006 when he died.
If he was born in 1976: 20 + 1996
He would have a 13-year age gap with Gojo (the same the latter has with Megumi!), he would have been almost 26 in 2002 when his son was born and he would have been 29 going on 30 in 2006 when he died.
If he was born in 1979: 20 + 1999 (the youngest he could have been according to these calculations)
He would have a 10-year age gap with Gojo, he would have been almost 23 in 2002 when his son was born and he would have been 26 going on 27 in 2006 when he died.
🎉🎉🎉 Let's hear it for old man Toji!!! 🎉🎉🎉
I’ll leave here my headcanon too since we’re at it:
I always tought of Toji as 34 years old in HI/PD (since he is born in December, he would have been 34 going on 35 when he died): this means he would have been born in 1971, making him almost 31 in December 2002 when Megumi was born.
Gojo looks 8 years old to me in the flashback, meaning it could have been late 1997 or first half of 1998. Toji would have been almost 26 to 26 going on 27 back then, and have an 18-year age gap with Satoru.
2002 0 13 Megumi is born (December 22)
2003 1 14
2004 2 15
2005 3 16 Gojo, Geto and Shoko enroll at Jujutsu Tech (April)
2006 4 17 Beginning of SaShiSu's the second year (April), Nanami and Haibara enroll at Jujutsu Tech (April), Escort mission starts - trip to Okinawa - Toji's death (April 11-13/May 11-13/June 9-11)
2007 5 18 Beginning of SaShiSu's third year (April), Geto meets Yuki, Haibara's death, Geto's rampage (September), Geto's last meeting with Shoko and Gojo (September-October)
2008 6 19 *According to the wrong line in chapter 257, Gojo and Shoko graduate from Jujutsu High (March), Beginning of SaShi's fourth year (April)
2009 7 20 Gojo and Shoko graduate from Jujutsu Tech (March) <- According to the correction made to chapter 257 , Megumi starts elementary school (April), *According to Megumi's recollection in chapter 59, Toji marries Tsumiki's mother and they disappear shortly after, Meeting between Megumi and Gojo (May-September)
2010 8 21 *According to an old interview often quoted that I could not find, Gojo and Shoko graduate from Jujutsu Tech (March)
2011 9 22
2012 10 23
2013 11 24
2014 12 25
2015 13 26
2016 14 27 Megumi begins his second year at East Urami Junior High (April)
2017 15 28 Tsumiki gets cursed (April-July)
2018 16 29 Megumi enrolls at Jujutsu Tech (April), Beginning of the main story in June
*☆ Please note that since both of them are born at the end of the year, they spend the majority of it being a year younger (for most of 2018 Gojo has been 28 and Megumi 15) so since lots of these events happen in spring/summer/fall, you need to subtract a year to have their exact age at that time.
I was absolutely convinced that Fushiguro was Megumimama's surname, but, as someone made me notice, it would make way more sense that it actually belonged to Tsumiki's mother, since in chapter 66 Shiu, who is said to have known Toji for over ten years in the fanbook,
Q: For how long has he known Toji?
A: For a long time. Over 10 years?
calls him Zenin and gets corrected by his partner in crime like so:
So, the change in surname is a very recent thing, more recent than Megumi's birth, because Gege said, again in the fanbook, that Shiu knew Megumi because he had visited Toji at his place when he had to take care of his infant son. If Toji had married by then and changed his last name, I guess he would have told him so at the time.
Q: He seems to know who Megumi is, but does Megumi remember him?
A: He doesn’t remember. He only met him when he was very little. It was after Megumi’s mother died, when Toji had to take care of baby Megumi and Shiu visited them.
It still doesn't sound right, that he put distance from his clan to marry with the love of his life and didn't took her surname but then he did so with someone else. Still, apparently Gege never called Megumi's mother Mamaguro, but Megumimama, another indication that Fushiguro is not her last name. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
To date this meeting, we'll use the confirmation that Megumi is attending the first year of elementary school in chapter 79,
and start from that.
Children in Japan start to attend elementary school when they are six years old. Since Megumi is born on December 22, and since school years start in April, he would have turned six in December 2008, and started first grade in April 2009 till the end of March 2010. We can narrow down the timing for this meeting quite a bit because he is wearing summer clothes, so a large estimate would be end of May 2009 and September 2009.
As we're about to see, things match pretty well (except for Gojo's glasses shape which was defenitely oval in ch. 59 and in ch. 79 it's depicted both as round and oval depending on the panel :p).
Ch. 59 ⬆️⬇️ Ch. 79
Ch. 59 ⬆️⬇️ Ch. 79
Ch. 59 ⬆️⬇️ Ch. 79
The only thing that doesn’t add up and kinda breaks everything is this panel right here from chapter 59:
when confronted with what we were shown in the prequel arc and specifically what he says in chapter 79:
As we've seen, Toji died three years before Megumi started elementary school, and also the timing in which the parents vanished gets changed a bit with the mom seemingly sticking with the kids a bit longer that Toji did.
I can't find a watsonian reason for why Megumi would have claimed his father was still around three years after he died. I saw someone, probably on reddit, chalking it up to Megumi being an unrelaible narrator, either due to his age at the time or in general, but that seems like a big stretch. To say that he would misremember being together with Tsumiki for 3 years vs less than a year… That's a huge difference that even a child would not confuse, especially a sharp and grounded kid like Megumi.
So, between December 2002 and June 2006, these things must have happened, most likely in this order: Megumi's mother died, Toji sold Megumi to the Zenin's, he met and married with Tsumiki's mother (or viceversa) and finally left this new family to do his questionable businesses that lead him to die by Gojo's hand.
After that, and before Megumi and Satoru's meeting, Tsumiki's mother took off as well leaving the kids with some money.
The last possible time Megumi could have seen his dad is right before Hidden Inventory starts, so spring of 2006, BUT. Toji is shown to us not remembering who Megumi is, so I'd say he didn't exactly saw him the day before, right? Probably he hasn't seen him in months, most likely a year, so when Megumi was really young (which makes me wonder if he really remembres seeing him at all or he's been told by someone else, maybe his step-mother, that his dad was around and thus he has met him but he doesn't remember because he would have been between one and three years old. 🤔) Still, Megumi claims here he doesn't remember his father's appearence, which I guess is an important detail to keep in mind for future reference.
So, no way of making this "my dad did something when I was 6 years old" thing work. Unless Tsumiki's mother actually got married with someone else but told the kids it was with Megumi's father and then took off with this new guy? But even this doesn't work because Toji and the kids got her surname, so nope, she had to be married with Toji before 2009, so she could not claim she was marrying him again in 2009 right? Help. 😵💫
That's it, I'm throwing in the towel on this topic. It's a retcon. Bye.
But then, we have another small incongruence going on here.
Gojo is wearing the school uniform in both chapter 79 and Megumi's recollection from chapter 59.
The "problem" is that Gojo should have already graduated in March 2009, so he should no longer be wearing his school uniform. It only fits if he was still attending his fifth year, but Shoko's line in chapter 257 kinda rules out that option, and also would retcon the alleged comment made in that old interview. I guess that maybe, since he decided to stick around and become a teacher and thus be affiliated with the school, he decided to keep wearing the uniform for a little longer, but who knows at this point.
So, all of this brings us to the hopefully definitive timeline for this part of the manga.
Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College is introduced to us as a four-year school (unlike real life japanese technical colleges that usually have a five-year program) in chapter 17.
During the present timeline we are never shown the four-year students, and afaik they are also never directly mentioned.
I saw some claims online that in an old interview Gege has stated that during Gojo’s time, Jujutsu Tech actually lasted five years, and after he graduated, it was reduced to four. I have not found the source of this, not in the fanbook, nor in other interviews available online, nothing concrete.
In any case, I guess that, even if this was proven to be legit, it would add to the pile of retcons Gege did (consciously or not) because, as you are wading through the last part of the manga, you stumble upon this exchange:
And then this author comment that was featured alongside chapter 259:
This was written in response to the aforementioned exchange that happened two chapters prior (ch 257). In fact as you can see the "three" was later corrected in the japanese volume release (and other languages as well).
So this ultimately confirms that Jujutsu Tech has been a school with a four-year program for a while, and basically all the characters we meet that have attended it have studied there for four years. So, Satoru along with Shoko, graduated in March 2009. Since he meets Megumi after the beginning of April of that same year, more likely in the summer period, I’m left wondering why he’s still wearing his school uniform.
Rock Hard Facts (A.K.A. Timestamps and hints given in the manga)
To try and figure out this part of the timeline I started by looking for all the instances where it was specified a year/month/day or anything related to an event that could be linked back to an exact date that were showed in the manga itself.
The school year in Japan starts the 1st of April and ends in March of the subsequent year.
Since Gojo is presented as a second-year, HI starts after the 1st of April, 2006.
It's mentioned by Geto that it's spring time, and since we already narrowed it down to the beginning of April, we rule out the end of March and extend the possible timeframe to the 21st of June, since the solstice was on that day in 2006.
Yaga says the merger will take place in two days, when there's going to be a full moon. I kinda doubt that Gege went to check the lunar phases of 2006, but I did because why not. April 2006 full moon was on the 13th, May 2006 full moon was on the 13th as well, June 2006 full moon was on the 11th. If we subtract two days, we can pinpoint three possible dates in which the prequel arc might begin: April 11, May 11 or June 9.
Given that Okinawa is located in the south, temperatures there are higher than the rest of the country, so it's not far fetched for the character to have enjoyed a nice summery trip there in spring. Possible dates for this short vacation are the 12th of April, the 12th of May or the 10th of June.
Toji's death takes place in the late afternoon/evening of one the dates of the full moons previously mentioned, so either April 13, May 13 or June 11.
This has to be taken a bit loosely, meaning it indicates it's been a year and a few months rather than an exact year. Right after that, a month is finally specified.
This comment to me means we are in the second half of August, since he's talking about it like summer is coming to an end.
We are now in September. (In the anime they showed the partially redacted report of the mission in full and out there there’s a kind soul that translated it and there are dates and even specific hours mentioned, but I’m looking only at the manga, so I’ll ignore those. But if you are curious, here’s the link to the post!)
This comment from Gege featured with chapter 78 dates the meeting between SaShiSu in 2007, and given the clothes the main and background characters are wearing, it seems to be still fall, so between September (probably the second half) and (early) October.
Finally, Gojo met Megumi when the latter was attending the first year of elementary school, so between April 2009 and March 2010. Given the clothing Megumi is wearing I'd narrow it down between May and early September. Gojo is still wearing the school uniform, which brings us to the next part.
This started as a simple post about how timelines did not match between Megumi’s recollection of his meeting with Gojo featured in chapter 59 and the events showed in Hidden Inventory/Premature Death.
As per usual, I fell down a rabbit hole and this became… Well, something that required four sections to make sense plus an additional one just for fun (and completeness).
Since I didn’t want to make a super long entry, I decided to cut it in four separate posts and publish them in order with links to eachother, so if by chance you are interested in just one part in particular, you don’t have to get all the rest with it. I hope you find this interesting!
(I’m aware there is a page on the fandom wiki with a timeline, but it didn’t satisfy me fully, because it takes in consideration both manga and anime, while I wanted to have one with only the hints that we are given in the manga.)
DISCLAIMER AS BIG AS TODO'S MUSCLES: the timeframes I give here are quite abundant on purpouse, as it is my personal preference leaving a little wiggle room instead of risking narrowing down too much (for example, I listed June as a possible month for the Star Plasma Vessel mission to take place in even though I find it odd to call mid-June "spring", but since the full moon happened before the 21st, it's still technically spring so I didn't want to rule it out completely). So yes, these are still large estimates, but within reason. By not being precise, I hope I'm being more correct. So, with this out of the way, let's start!
And of course if you have some insight to share (especially the infamous interview where Gege said it was a five year system when Gojo was attending Jujutsu Tech!!) please do. 😌
TL;DR: What was claimed in chapter 59 by Megumi was retconned in Gojo's Past arc. Also it's unclear how many years Jujutsu Tech has/had because of a few oversights and discordant comments of the author.
Rock Hard Facts
The School Years Conundrum
Comparison Between Chapter 59 and 79 + The Fushiguro Surname
We reached the end of the prequel arc and volume 9!!!
Now, a couple of things:
I have a few loose posts to finish and publish before I can move on with the story. They are already in the works so it should not take too long. 😊
But more importantly, I wanted to announce that the time has come for me to finally tackle Volume 0!!! 🎉🎉🎉
That's right baby, I'm going full Machete Order with this, so I can dive into the bloody mess that is going to be the Shibuya arc with all the past events covered! Consider this an interlude before the chaos swallows us me.
And this time I only have one question apparently, that I hope it gets answered in the future as it seems pretty important:
In need of details on Mechamaru's deal with the Merry Gang.
I wonder... How did Megumi found out about his technique that requires a specific hand sign to summon the divine dogs?
Please, can I imagine him playing with Tsumiki with shadow puppets and doing the dog one and BAM! two dogs appear out of thin air! 😂
Thank God they are fluffy and cute, imagine if the starter of the 10ST was the Great Serpent or Max Elephant 😅
Parallels between this and Megumi's recollection of this meeting featured in chapter 59 post incoming btw
. . . Can we please take a moment to ponder on how 6-years-old Megumi, when faced with an important choice that would define his life, says "What will happen to Tsumiki? If we go there, will she be happy? My answer depends on that."? No because I'm...
You could argue that Gojo has every interest in keeping Megumi away from the Zenin's for personal reasons but you also can't argue that Tsumiki would be treated like shit by them (if she was even allowed to live there since she was not part of the deal Toji struck and she is, afaik, unable to see curses) and that Gojo's answer being so firm is actually needed to make this kid understand just how much of a bad option that would be.
The way Satoru just Gets It™ without words needed and takes this kid under his wing, yeah sure Gege tells us he does because Megumi has a huge potential and that's it but I'm not listening and choose to believe he also did it because he's a decent person ok???
He lowered Infinity to pat a kid's head to reassure him that he was going to make sure him and his sister didn't end up in a bad place. OK SURE WHATEVER I DON'T CARE AT ALL ABOUT THIS.
Gojo's comment, "Don't get left behind." makes me ill on it's own, but the translation is different in other versions, so there's that. 🤔 (Something like a continuation of the first line that adds "So strong to surpass me.")
Yuji Nobara Megumi I missed you!!! 💞💞💞
So according to the booklet this is probably one of the super rare moments where Gojo sleeps and... He dreams about his youth... Alright 🥲 💔
Is this... The last time we see all of them together being happy???
Yuji being impressed by Nobara's deductive skills 🥹
Imagine Utahime finding out the mole is one of her students... 💔
Who the heck is higher that the principals??? Somebody from the Zenin or the Kamo clans? I'm curious!! ><
... ... ... ... ...
MECHAMARU?????
It looks like he was already in the other place by the time we meet him at the Goodwill Event because the enviroment doesn't match with the cramped room he was supposed to be in.
Ok I wonder when/how he struck this deal with them I want answers!!
Also why does Kokichi getting his body healed look like a magical girl transformation? ✨✨✨
And the explanation about binding pacts you strike with another person being more dangerous because the fallout of breaking it isn't forseeable... Ehm, we know of a pact like that, the one between Sukuna and Yuji, right? ... But I'm sure this is not mentioned here to set the base for anything related to that at all ahah... 💦💦💦
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