The Aspects of Toji Fushiguro
Dissection of this panel to highlight Gege’s detailed approach to storytelling.
#jjkmanga
The primary way of looking at this panel is through what i like to call Toji’s persona. Badass, sarcastic, uncaring. He’s degrading them in a thoroughly tongue in cheek manner, gloating about his superiority despite his birth. This ties to all his outward mannerisms too. +
In this interpretation he neither truly believes those 3 are blessed nor does he believe he’s a monkey. This arrogance and ego is also how some people take his statement when asked about megumi, a surface level reflection on a deeper struggle within him. +
We can see this isn’t the case through recontextualisation. Megumi is his ‘blessing’, the ‘heart’ that kept him from destroying the zen’in like maki would go on to do, and it’s the first evidence for his false persona. +
His words start to take on a different meaning. Instead of arrogance, it becomes tinged with self-loathing and the internalisation of trauma. His hatred starts to seep through the cracks as he laments his place in the world. +
In fact this is the reason he dies. In order to go against the society that stepped on him and to reaffirm that he is strong his emotions get the better of him, further evidence of how deeply his childhood actually affected him. +
He views himself as that same monkey on some level, the years of abuse moulding his identity. We see this in his plan to make megumi leader, he doesn’t think they’re inherently wrong, it’s more that HE was wrong for them. +
He chooses the word ‘blessings’ which is interesting on a couple levels. ‘Blessing’ is the same name he gave his son, the reminder of his saving grace (mamaguro) and the one to whom toji wanted to give a better life. The ‘warmth’ that stopped him from burning down the village. +
Secondly he lumps them all together as blessed, even Riko, someone who had nothing besides a pretty awful fate to be a vessel. He therefore views anyone that is born with a purpose as someone inherently more special than he. +
This matches with his lack of CE. He’s an outcast, someone who was born with nothing and was made sure to know he held no value because of this. It’s actually ironic because of how special he turned out to be, he was just unable to see that. +
The final layer is the religious ties to narrative, something gege implements pretty seamlessly on so many occasions. In this case it’s ‘Journey to the West’ with toji/gojo being Sun Goku/Buddha respectively. +
Toji’s ties to the ‘Monkey King’ are overt. His physical abilities, heavens nurture (heavenly restriction), use of weapons, the initial disregard of the jade emperor (zen’in), his rebellion against heaven and above all the need to prove his strength that leads to his downfall. +
In the story Son agrees to play a game with the Buddha, in order to show off his abilities and best the pinnacle of heaven, similar to toji fighting gojo for basically the same reasons. Gojo post RCT would be the Buddha in this example. +
Toji’s return in shibuya is even lightly foreshadowed through the story, where the buddha traps son under a mountain for 1000 years but he eventually comes out. I do think the ultimate point of this will be tied to Maki however.
Theory talk but Son was originally captured by the bodhisattva Guanyin (Kannon=Kenjaku) and could see evil after torture by fire (the burnt Maki can now see curses). Could hint to Maki’s importance going forward. Toji’s darker parallel who lost the ‘warmth’ he never did. +
There’s a lot i didn’t get into but i thought this would serve as a good example of layers to Gege’s writing that i believe a lot of people overlook, and it’s not specific to this case. Here is Toji being raw if u prefer that 👍🏼
End
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