Gojo Satoru and Iori Utahime/ contrast
This is not particularly a ship post, I don’t mind the ship either. (I just want to analyze them outside of romance). It's just that I was rereading Jujutsu Kaisen manga and had some drafts of characters that struck out to me, Utahime being one of them, Goodwill event reread made me appreciate so many characters even more, because this is the arc where all students and their stories are fleshed out. These characters really develop from what we have seen till now in the manga.
Utahime stood out me as a character the moment she was introduced during the first read itself (and nah, it was not her scar), this time around I decided to investigate her character more, if it was any other series I probably wouldn’t have, but it’s Gege Akutami, his minor characters are written beautifully with unique roles.
As I mentioned before, she stood out, because we literally didn’t know any other teacher except Gojo in the story, the first teacher to be introduced in the story after Gojo was her.
From her reactions to Gojo clearly showed she was not his fan. That was like pretty standard reaction to Gojo in vicinity, pretty much what we saw from other characters initial intro as well, Megumi finds him idiotic, Nanami doesn’t respect him, Gakuganji hates him, Shoko is apathetic, Ichiji is scared of him and called him lazy (Gege really made sure to tell the readers how annoying Gojo is lol). But since she was a fellow teacher, I wanted to know whether she aligns with Gojo or the likes of Gakuganji, is she with the Higher ups or much like Shoko, doesn’t care about politics all together. Her shrine maiden outfit was interesting as well (it’s like Kikyo/Kagome from Inuyasha), that was also interesting to say the least.
Utahime, from her posture and speech patterns appears to be a very elegant woman. Her worry regarding Miwa, prioritizing safety of the students, being genuinely happy that they are safe, gave us the conclusion that she is a very responsible and good teacher to her students.
Her alignment with Gojo was quickly answered as well since Gojo trusted her enough with a very important task and information. Gankuganji didn’t include her when he gave the task to Kyoto students to kill Itadori, I believe it was because either she wouldn’t agree to it, or convince her students not to follow him.
Her interactions with Gojo also stood out, since there are many characters who don’t respect Gojo but trust him, she is one of them. However, no one really went “out of the way” like her and threw a cup of tea at him. Nanami thinks work is shit in general, he has same kind of distaste for Gojo that he had for his boss, Shoko doesn’t overtly react to anything, Ijichi in general has low self-esteem. All these characters don’t break out of their usual character patterns while interacting with Gojo. Whereas Utahime, who is more like a responsible teacher and calm headed individual, breaks from her usual character with Gojo. Her dislike of Gojo is very genuine. I think that for a no-nonsense individual person like Utahime, she does not appreciate Gojo’s personality and mightier than thou behaviour. Utahime wants respect as fellow sorcerer and senior, she does not behave insecure, she doesn’t even hide her scar with mask or makeup shows how unbothered she is about it, I like that about her.
From what we know about the past Arc of Gojo, Utahime is the only confirmed senior of Gojo, Getou, and Shoko. Mei Mei is most likely older than Utahime (mei calls Utahime by her given name, but uta addresses her as ‘Mei-san’, I think she is at least 3-4 years or even more older than Utahime, personally). Kasukabe was not even mentioned in that arc so he is ruled out as well. Utahime has probably studied in the same school as them, and that’s why she is pretty close with Shoko. I think it's also the reason Gojo trusts her so much, since he has known her from the days of his youth.
Gojo however doesn’t trust Mei Mei, its was quite clear in goodwill arc, but for some reason he does acknowledge Mei, and calls her with honorific ‘mei-san’. Mei is a woman who grooms her brother and uses him as part of her technique, she is apparently more respected by Gojo than a genuinely good human like Utahime. Thats probably because Gojo puts strength on pedestal. Mei was ready to do anything to become strong (so that she can earn more money lol), I think Gojo respects that, whereas I don’t think Utahime prioritises strength over the connections she has, which can be considered, at least in Gojo’s eyes (cause he cant really relate to normal human experience), as weak which stuns her individual growth as sorcerer. Utahime isn't selfish or someone with ego, she is one of the very few adults we have seen that actually care about students on personal level.
From her limited manga panels and Databook information, we can make out a few things.
• She IS smart and doesn’t believe in what is told to her outright. When Gojo pointed out about the possibility of mole, she didn't believe him immediately, rather when the attack in the event happened it was then she acknowledged Gojo’s theory to hold weight. She doesn’t react without enough information, as shown from the past arc with her mission with Mei Mei. I would conclude that her specialty is her level-headed thinking.
• She genuinely cares about the well-being of people around her on a more personal human level, as shown with her she interacts with her students and how she wants Shoko to quit smoking. Unlike many jujutsu sorcerers, she is not selfish or possess ego. Her kindness is also returned as every single one of her students loves her.
I personally dont even think her it's relevant to her characterization, but maybe that's just me. I think her character shines when it's contrasted with Gojo's, but fighting or not fighting doesn't matter much to me, being stronger doesn't make you good character. But a simple answer to her being weak would be no. From this statement of Gege alone.
If she had no offence at all, she would probably be grade-less like Shoko/Ijichi. Well, she is not. That means she fights. She has quick reflexes from what we have seen with her encounter with the dude with luck CT. Also, she was quick enough to react during the attack from Kenjaku.
She is working in Kyoto, the capital of the jujutsu world, and she is directly under the noses of higher-ups. The fact that she is a head teacher in Kyoto is itself commendation because it’s not a position just anyone not worthy enough would have been appointed to. Higherups love traditional techniques, as mentioned by Panda during encounter with Haraki and Kirara.
I believe Utahime’s technique is one that higher-ups would love. They would not put someone with less knowledge or capability as in charge at all. She is not just a mere high school teacher. Her position is the same as Gojo, but in Kyoto, she supervises sorcerers.
Her not being grade one is irrelevant to me as well, many sorcerers in jjk don't seem like their grades plus their is a lot of politics surrounding grade system itself, so those rankings are probably not even correct markers of strength or strength areas. She has survived till date is impressive enough, haibara died early (both him and nanami were unable to deal with a grade 1 curse back in the day, that’s how fast sorcerers die) She is a full fledge sorcerer. She takes missions as well if we go by this panel from 0.5.
Gojo and Utahime contrast.
• Gojo’s relationship with his students is well, decent. He goes out of his way to teach and save strong ones (I can’t imagine him being a good teacher to, say, Momo or Miwa). He also literally sent Inumaki and Panda to get their asses completely destroyed by Geto cause he knew it would piss off Yuta and give him his powerup, not so great move for a teacher. He recognises their struggles but at the same time doesn’t seem to understand them. Save Yuuji and Yuuta, no one really respects him. Whereas Utahime’s students adore and protect her, they solve their problems together. They genuinely want the system to change and let their intent know about this during all the vs battels in Goodwill arc. Kyoto kids were really trying Tokyo kids to understand the problems in the system, but all of their common remarks were ‘I don’t care’.
(Gojo is a nuanced character, he ain't this perfect human people make him out to be, while he does care about people around him, he does NOT understand them well, this comes from the solitude he lives in. While he does not want to be alone, he also doesn't understand anyone who is not as strong as him, which furthers the gap between him and others, his entire character is quite tragic honestly.)
• Utahime’s CURSED TECHNIQUE was a delight. It can boost anyone within a zone, including herself. How it contrasts with Gojo, you might ask. Gojo is the strongest when he fights alone. Everyone else just drags him down, it is spelt out to us multiple times in the story. Whereas Utahime can help even someone like Ichiji cast a powerful barrier, at the same time give Gojo a great boost. Gojo’s technique literally separates him from the world, but Utahime brings them within her zone.
(Utahime technique was brilliant! Its honestly like literal manifestation of how she is as a human herself. She values connections, and her technique is probably THE best support technique in jjk. It makes others strong, including the caster. She is dragging no one down, and no one is left behind. Its almost like people feel weaker with Gojo around, and they get stronger with Utahime around, lmao.)
• This brings another contrast, individual/isolation and collective/connection. Utahime asks her students to get along, they even fight together, have each other’s back, and are even emotionally more connected to each other. While Gojo tells Megumi that everyone dies alone, and jujutsu is an individual sport, he is teaching his students to value individual strengths more.
(Needless to say that both things are quite important, but Gojo’s conversation with Megumi was quite interesting because, ironically, Gojo died because of the very same reason, he fought sukuna all alone, not that anyone could have helped him without dragging him. Also funny cause the reason students and others were able to defeat sukuna was because they worked together. Yuji came out of that cog mentality, where he was trying to discard his humanity to become a curse killing machine, to become more human/more himself once again, and flipped the game which was being played on sukuna's rules, where superior ego/strength wins, and made it about humanity, where yuji saved megumi and defeated Sukuna, love yuji my boy.)
• Their CONNECTIONS with other people are also something to look at. Gojo’s character central theme is his isolation/solitude. Many ppl say how he was used and never saw as humam in the story, well its not incorrect, but it's not completely accurate either. Most of the people he trusts didn't see him that way, including his students, they might not be as close to him or even might not respect him, but they always saw him as human, their whole frustration was that he HIMSELF didn't see as one, he behaved mightier than thou, thats why canonically Utahime and Nanami really dislike his company. He is the cause of his own solitude, shoko literally says, "What do you mean alone? I was there," shows us that much. He draws that line by himself. In chapter 236, he even acknowledges that, despite loving people around him, he didn’t understand them, and wasn't understood by them. He saw others as "different" than him, him and geto were "strong" according to him, means they were like "same" species, to him others were different species, he can love them and be loved by them, but there is no deep understanding. There was a reason he longed for a bond like once he had with geto, where they were equally strong. That's why he tries to reach out to sukuna, he projected his own isolation on sukuna, while sukuna doesn’t feel that way, sukuna has entirely accepted his solitude, he has completely discarded his humanity, he just wants to be the pinnacle. Gojo isn't much different from sukuna, he is quite self-centered and egoistic himself, it's just that, if Sukuna is "perfected ego" then Gojo’s ego is not perfect, he didn’t entirely disregard his humanity, he did crave connections, that's why in that battle, sukuna won. In a battle of strength and ego, a perfected ego always wins.
I can say for sure Shoko is canonically closer to Utahime than Gojo. She got so worried Utahime didn’t call for two days, Utahime sends her parcels to Shoko, she stopped smoking cause Utahime insisted. Utahime probably bonds with her on a more personal and human level. Unlike gojo, Utahime is very very human, she doesn’t possess that kind of ego, Shoko and Utahime’s friendship last more than a decade but Gojo couldn't even keep that one bond (Geto) he created with someone else, because what initially brought Gojo and Geto together was strength, but what keeps Uta and Sho together is human connection. Utahime is genuinely more loved and is closer to people. Gojo is well, he is alone and on top above everyone else.
(Again, not to say Gojo and Shoko are not close at all, Shoko is also one of the people Gojo trusts, but she is definitely much more closer to Utahime.)
Utahime is everything Gojo is not and vice-versa. Gojo can do a lot of things others can, but if there is one thing that he absolutely can’t do, is what Utahime can (making others stronger).
The problem with these two is that, even though they have aligned goals, shared values, same path, and a lot of trust in each other. They DON'T really respect each other's way of life. Utahime can't respect Gojo’s self-centered behavior that he seems unaware about (lol) and the way he is unable to understand others more personally by deluding himself in his head that strength is needed to form connections, neither can Gojo respect Utahime who doesn’t seem to care much about strength in first place.
On paper/in theory, their team is great if they work together. They complement each other, but Gojo is still stuck in his own head about his isolation. Granted, Utahime can not provide him the satisfaction of equal fight and equal strength, but why does she need to? Her beauty is that she isn't like Gojo. She values bonds, she knew her students so well that she was able to find out about mole through the process of elimination. Watching Gojo and Utahime working together was a delight. The 200% hollow purple technique was amazing.
The problem with Gojo is that all his relations will end up in tragedy, because his entire character is tragic itself. He couldn't even maintain one bond he formed in his life and also couldn't even be the absolute strongest and pinnacle. He couldn't even discard his humanity entirely to become like Sukuna, but he couldn't even fully accept it to become weaker and more humane, he wanted to die fighting someone stronger, he loved his powers and strength. So he did end up tragic, but as he himself said, he was satisfied with it, so who am I to take that away from him.
I am pretty sure Utahime will live in the end or at least I want her to live, but it's Gege's story (a beautiful one as well) so it's his wish. I do wish some more interactions with her and students.
Again, be respectful people. I am a jjk fan, and I sometimes like to write analysis. I like to stay far, far away from discourse, so please don't do that here.
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