Before you begin to read, please allow me to inform you that there are spoilers ahead for the anime adaptation of Jujutsu Kaisen up to episode 43. I tell you this because, unlike the lawless land of Twitter where the social contract of posting about weekly shows with some semblance of awareness that many people have lives and can’t watch new episodes immediately when they come out has been left in tatters by the need to chase clout, this blog values preserving your individual experience with a show.
Since last Thursday, I have been doing a good amount of thinking about how Jujutsu Kaisen‘s 43rd episode killed off Nobara Kugisaki, a character who at least to some degree up to this point had been presented as the third in the main trio of making up the heart of the show (although arguments can and have been made about how she is treated relative to the other members of said trio, Yuji Itadori and Megumi Fushiguro).
Personally, I was not much emotionally effected. I knew it was coming (thanks to insistence of Elon Musk’s Twitter on showing you posts from people you do not follow) and I had also seen snippets of the scene (thanks to the same, and also the erosion of the social contract I referenced in unnecessary length in the intro to this post). Had that not been the case, though, I think my reaction would have been roughly the same due to how unceremoniously Nobara is offed. Unless you were the type to find a painfully rote flashback, which is for some reason narrated by a side character who appears to only exist for the purpose of telling us information about Nobara wholly unrelated to anything else happening in the midst of the sound and fury of the Shibuya Incident arc and another character who appears to be meaningful to Nobara but we’ve never seen before, meaningful for reason, her death lacks any sort of weight or substance. And I like Nobara.
In fact, the way that Nobara is killed is such a stereotypical example of the classic fridging trope (you know, where a character [usually a woman] is killed in the story to provide some form of motivation for another character [often the protagonist, usually a man]) that I found myself checking my calendar to see if we hadn’t been transported back eleven years into the pass where conversations about fridging were abundant because the trope was so ever-present. Hadn’t we left this kind of shoddy writing in the past?
But no! exclaim the Jujutsu Kaisen faithful! There is no sexism or bad writing to be seen here! This is simply the brutal reality of Jujutsu Kaisen! It is Gege’s way, they say, with the arrogance befitting the oddly casual way they refer to the original mangaka. After all, we have also recently seen the demise of fan favorite Nanami, notably a man. Plus, there was that volcano cursed spirit, who perishes after an epic fight with Sukuna. Oh, yeah, and the two high school girls who are simply trying to get their beloved Satoru back get a very ignoble death. Not to mention the guy who was Mechamaru, and some other cursed spirits that get exorcised. This is what the Shibuya Incident arc is all about; it is following the famous writerly advice of “killing your darlings.”
Maybe they are right. Maybe the glut of violence and death is simply the nature of Jujutsu Kaisen, which already showed that it’s… checks notes not afraid to murder an innocent girl who had been destined to serve as the reincarnation of some jujutsu sorcerer semi-deity or something. Hell yeah, anyone is fair game. Brutality is the name of the game, and any character who survives ends up gets their dose of trauma.
I recall another show that wasn’t afraid to kill its character, even eager to do so. Its name, which has not been uttered in many years, was Akame ga Kill! Perhaps Akama ga Kill! was slightly more delighted to dance in the rain of its characters’ blood, slightly more joyous in its celebration of violence and eagerness to prove it didn’t give a **** about putting your fave’s decapitated head on a stake (yes, I’m still bitter) than Jujutsu Kaisen. I remember, in the wake of losing my favorite pink-haired character, writing a desperate essay pondering whether Akame ga Kill! was perhaps a refutation of the pointlessness of violence (草).
But then, too, the show’s defenders reveled in the fact that Akame ga Kill! didn’t care about your feelings about its characters. At least, unless your favorite character was the titular Akame or Esdeath, predecessor of Honkai: Star Rail‘s Kafka (or Tatsumi, I guess), you could probably expect them to die in a way that made you feel a bit sick. Very cool. Very edgy.
I’ve gotten a bit off track. Back to Nobara.
What is interesting about Jujutsu Kaisen‘s decision to knock off the only female member of its main trio (technically I have not yet made an accusation of sexism here, by the way) is how Nobara’s death relates to what I’d call the “unspoken contract” between writer and reader. While a writer can presumably do anything in their story, stories still work in certain ways that audiences have come to expect.
For instance, say you were to put a girl in the orbit of the main protagonist of your story, along with another guy. And say, based on her proximity to the other two, you created an expectation that these three characters were the core of your story—maybe even to the point that they were its heart. Then, imagine you were to mostly sideline this character during the most consequential arc of your story, have her nearly die, and then bring her back only for her to be immediately killed, with the murderer doing so with the explicit intent of creating a sort of motivation for another member of that trio.
What, exactly, is an audience to think about that? Are they to think that you’ve beguiled them with an illusion based on the expectations they’ve developed as a result of the story’s structure? Are they to see this as a clever inversion of convention and applaud? Or might they feel a little betrayed that someone who by appearance seemed a key part of the story ends up discarded, with little real attention? And what might this situation—an incident, you could even call it—do to the audience’s trust in the author’s future invitations to invest themselves into the work, world, and characters again?
Because the reality is that to bring an audience along, an author most offer something up in return for the audience’s attention. They must construct an almost Faustian-like deal in which they and the audience participate in equal measure, which gives the audience a reason to care. The author offers the work and its contents, and the audience offers, to varying degrees, their heart.
What has Jujutsu Kaisen done with its audience’s heart by killing off Nobara in the manner it did? What is the precise nature of the contract made between author and audience? And, most importantly, is the audience’s trust in Jujutsu Kaisen fulfilling its end of the contract still intact? In a fandom context where characters so often reign supreme above all else, can the audience still believe that they can and ought to care?
Whether it intended to or not, Nobara’s death has invited all these questions to the forefront. I think I know my answers. I’m curious what the answers of others are.
Mage in a Barrel 
It reminds me a bit of conversations I’ve had around Game of Thrones – which was kinda made famous over the harsh “no one is safe” character deaths. Thing is, as they kept doing these deaths people just started getting less invested in any of the characters. Why bother caring about the story of someone when their life might suddenly get unceremoniously cut short for shock value? And as GoT went on it also became clear that it wasn’t really “no one is safe”, it still became clear that there were some main characters who would stay around for a long time.
In JJK we know that Yuji and Megumi are going to survive for at least near the end of the series, and I’d be surprised if Mahito died in this fight considering he’s being built up as a major villain (though I’d be happy if he did, because I also find him kinda boring).
So all this has done is just make clear who is actually important, and I’m going to be way less interested in any new characters who get introduced after this arc because the author has now shown their hand that everyone else is disposable.
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Interestingly enough, I was actually thinking about GoT’s final season as I was writing this post. I never watched it and know it only by reputation so I decided not to go there, but even not knowing the specifics I still observed the wholesale falling out of love with the show by the general public. But I didn’t know enough to mention it in the post.
Regarding JJK, though, the kind of betrayal of expectations I was talking about really comes clear with Nobara, who the series made seem important. But the manner in which she died is important, too, because Nanami’s death is framed much more elegantly, gracefully, and with dignity. Nobara just kinda… dies. It’s not even really shocking. So was she important or not? It seemed like she was, until she wasn’t.
And I think that’s why what you say about new characters being shown as disposable makes you less interested. Why would you invest when “anyone can die”? Sometimes people say they want this (not saying you did), but I don’t think people actually want this when it comes down to it.
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Having just discovered this blog and having character death on my mind.
I think the only thing I’ve really seen to succeed in “No one is safe” is something that really does kill basically every character (or all) because its the apocalypse or something and it’s like “ah that really is the story”.
Or something like a horror story or Danganronpa where you know the score going in is that most characters will not have a happy end.
Other wise it is as you say, it becomes apparent which characters actually live and not at threat of an axe to the head and which new characters I stop investing in because I know they are going to die and only get development usually right before death.
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First off, welcome to the blog! Appreciate you dropping by and reading my writing!
Second, I like what you said about only certain stories succeeding at the no one is safe. The “knowing where the score is going” thing is definitely important to, in terms of setting audience expectations appropriately. Otherwise, the audience can start to feel like they’re being played with and that’s rarely good
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I’ve not watched the series, but from books I’ve read and other series I have watched, I do agree that the manner in which a character dies is important. Whether or not the reader [viewer] is shocked or surprised or saddened or angered, it does matter (at least to me) how the writer presents/handles it and does impact whether or not I will engage again. Thanks for your insights!
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It’s a shame, Nobara was a brilliant character. Even giving her a 20 episode offscreen training arc would’ve been more to my preference
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Well, now she gets an indefinitely long offscreen training arc 😬.
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[…] Who Will (and Won’t) Trust Jujutsu Kaisen after Episode 43? (Mage in a Barrel) […]
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A bit late, but not quite as much as I would have been, had it not been for anifem, who linked you.
A bit of background: I enjoyed the first season of Jujutsu Kaisen mostly for its array of fun characters and good dynamics. I’m old enough to have seen all sorts of character deaths, important characters or not, and I’m not really against it. But during this season… I just wasn’t invested in the story. I didn’t like the initial Gojo arc at all; no particular reason – I just found it boring. The Shibuya arc so far… is better. It has its highpoints and character moments. It kills people… fine.
Nobara’s death? I didn’t want her to die, but, well, if important characters are going to die she was the “obvious” choice. The sacrificial maiden, so to speak. Shounen fighter series often don’t know what to do with their female main characters, so maybe an early death with a cool gesture is better than a string of appearances that lack substances and no development to come.
And this is where the flashback confused me: so the author does know what to do with her. I liked the backstory, sort of. It was nice to see a new side to Nobara. But it’s… weird to open up development right before you off the character. I can see the show going in different directions: that flashback was a farewell gesture and nothing comes of it; Nobara’s going to be replaced by one or two new characters just introduced; or Nobara isn’t quite gone yet (I imagine her coming back with a phantom of the opera mask).
As for the two teenage girls being offed; they made a picture with their cell phone and we don’t yet know what exactly the nature of that phone is (and if it has to remain intact for the powers to work). That’s sort of a checkov’s gun, and again one that might never go off.
Honestly, I’ve been watching season one of JJK as a fun distraction, so I have no intuition as to the where the writing goes. My brain half-imagines a scenario where Sukuna takes over, and jujutsu sorcerors and cursed spirits alike have to scramble for survival. Compared to that, Nobara’s death is the consolation price in brutality. Trap the protagonist in the villain and treat him like an abused pet to villain. How about that?
As for the sexism… what people never seem to grasp in their defences is that the sexism dwells in the trend, not the show. And what sort of trend it is… well, that’s hard to extricate. Upreply I called Nobara the “sacrificial maiden”, but that’s a fairly amorphous term, and it doesn’t fit quite like a glove. What we’ve seen here isn’t really the same sort of scenario as, say, Aerith in FF VII (never played that game, so maybe I’m wrong). Fridging, as you name it, actually comes closer – but that’s also not quite it – too much impact before-hand, and more the emotional trigger than the motivation. It’s more a quite, hard-to-describe through-line in anime: I’m not deliberately killing off the girl; I’m killing off the character I have the least plans for, which is often a girl, because I buy into the cultural idea that girls and boys are different and I have less of an intuition how to write girls than boys. Maybe? If you want to show brutality you’re cruel to the innocent and vulnerable, with a cultural hierarchy of children, pets, then girls. You know, things the boys want to protect. Maybe? I could improvise more. There are plenty of cultural threads you can’t really avoid. It’s like triggering cultural landmines with your storytelling.
Personally, Nobara was one of the main draws for me for the shows, and if she’s gone than there’s one thing less to draw me in, but then the second season hasn’t done that good a job of drawing me in in the first place, so how much of a loss is it? And as a viewer I’m hardly in the centre of the target demographic, so I’m not much of a loss to the show’s bottom line either.
In summary, losing Nobara lessens the appeal of the show, but is no deal breaker. The sexism is fairly obviously there, but it’s in the cultural throughlines and not the text proper; if that were a deal breaker, I’d watch precious few anime. I watch a lot of it. It’s a little early to judge, anyway, as the fall-out matters, too (and I’m not 100 % sure she’s gone; anime characters tend to be impossibly resilient).
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Hello and welcome back! Always nice to see a familiar face in the comments of these ever rare posts. AniFem has really done me a solid here.
As always, you leave plenty to consider in your thoughtful response. I will say that while I enjoyed the Gojo/Satoru flashback arc, I’ve found the Shibuya Incident arc less engaging mostly for its big focus on action at the cost of most everything else. The action is cool, but action by itself is still just action, no matter how impressive the craft behind it.
I targeted the flashback in particular because it seems to me so pointless immediately preceding Nobara’s death. Why bother letting us see another side to her if that side will never come to fruition in the story (I’m assuming she’s fully dead because if she’s not that’s another type of cheap I don’t want to get into).
Now, as for the sexism stuff, I’m not sure I agree that sexism dwells only in the trend and not the show—both in the general and specific sense. Generally, if a sexist trend exists in a show, the sexism endemic in the trend by (I think) a simple law of transference thus exists in the show. Writers make choices, and the choice to follow a trend is a choice; said another way, they’re not victims of the trend.
Specifically in the case of JJK, I again don’t know that I can dismiss the sexism claims for a couple reasons. First, JJK is filled with many powerful women, among which Nobara is counted even if her in-universe strength is less. Why is it a woman who is in this position to die by her weakness, when clearly not every woman has to be weak? Nobara could just have easily had some kind of secret jujutsu art that protected her in that moment, but she dies. Second, when you kill one high school girl in your flashback arc who perishes without doing much of anything, then kill two more who perish violently without doing much of anything, and then kill another who gets to do a bit but ultimately dies without resistance, that’s more than just coincidence. That’s a pattern. So I don’t know that I buy that JJK gets a pass for just following a common trend.
That said, I did say in the post that I didn’t technically make an accusation of sexism. There are other mitigating narrative aspects to consider. But I do think those points I’ve offered are somewhat convincing. Not that I care too much; for me, it’s more of an interesting intellectual exercise than something I’m angry about.
Ultimately, as you say, with her dead there’s one less thing to draw you in. It sounds like you’re not too fussed when all is said and done, but I gather it might not be the same for everyone. Very interesting to see the different ways people respond to this kind of stuff!
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Hm, I’m not sure how much we (dis)agree here. I’m not talking about giving JJK a pass. It’s difficult to express myself here. “Dwells in” is a spatial metaphor I’ve been using, and metaphors aren’t… precise? Let me try a different approach.
If people casually poke you in the shoulder all over again in the same spot, then eventually even a very light poke is going to hurt. Even if it’s (customarily) a friendly greeting, or if it’s an accident. The attention should be on the cumulative effect, the circumstances that make pokes easy, awareness how some people are poked more than others, and such. So a discussion about the qualities of a particular poke are often… besides the point – when you let yourself be drawn into discussions of its… ferocity. Defenders talk about stuff like intention (it’s a friendly poke, it was an accident), or fairness (I get poked, too, and do you see me complain). Then the answer to that might be, you don’t get it, I get poked all day, and always in the same spot, you too? And the answer to that is often meh, you’re just too sensitive.
To get back to the “dwells in” metaphor, I’d say it’s probably more accurate to say that JJK participates in the trend, metaphor-wise dwells in it, rather than the other way round. It’s not that good a metaphor, though, since it’s not “the TREND” – it’s not a single “place” anything can “dwell in”. And it’s even more complicated if you talk responsibility – people. Who should have done what? And what would have been the effect of that.
Either way, the sexism’s there. It’s more a matter of focus. I don’t think Nobara’s death was that badly done; but it occurs in a shounen trend of protagonists – boy/rival-friend/girl. You see that everywhere. I probably prefer Nobara’s death in JJK to, say, Ochako’s sidelining in MHA (I watched only three seasons). So what now? Not killing off the one girl in the opening trio creates a potential problem, too – if killing off main characters becomes a thing to the point that it’s possible to tell that gender confers a magical armour. Not sure what problems that would be. But the underlying pattern of raising “girl” as a character-trait in the opening trio is what makes sure of that some problem will arise. It’s an outgrowth, a more specific repition on top of a more general repition. And somewhere down the road it’s an outgrowth of social practise.
I’ve always found genderswapping the entire cast and seeing what changes in the reception a fun thought experiment. You really lay open your prejudices about gender that way.
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Okay, I do understand your poke metaphor a little better than the one you ere using before. I don’t think I agree necessarily that attention should go only on the cumulative effect rather than the individual instance, though.
To be fair, though, the sexism thing isn’t really what I was all that interested about in the first place. The fridging is there, but it’s boilerplate and not interesting. Overall the point I was trying to make is that killing off a character whom you’re told the audience is important but not doing so in a meaningful way runs the risk of alienating audience members—both in the specific reaction to the death and in their ongoing trust in the expectations the story seems to be implying. And when trust is gone, so is your audience.
The sexism aspect makes it all a bit more bitter and, having seen a lot of it, can make you feel tired. But the problem originates in the decision and the method. Because if her death had felt more earned or more grown out of her character (in say, the way Nanami’s is sort of a conclusion of his “work and work and work” persona), I might not have had a problem with it. As it is, though, she’s just a pawn in Yuji’s story (like many female characters before her) & that’s what feels like a bit of a betrayal of her character.
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Not “only”. You can’t talk about a trend without examples. I guess what I’m saying is that if you don’t frame it in terms of trends what you get is a game of mutual blame slinging that leads nowhere. Anyway, I agree it’s a side-point.
As for the betrayal, I can follow the argument and have no issues with it. Personally, though, I don’t much care, mostly because plot has never been one of my priorities. I thought her death was handled well in terms of mood mostly. As for plot; yes – I agree: pawn in Yuji’s story. Makes me roll my eyes and move on. Doesn’t shake my trust in the story, which season 2 has been dismantling right from the beginning. By the time Nobara died, I’d already been sifting for the good bits anyway; I’ve got this auto-filter in place (I watch a lot of bad anime, too) that I tend to customise for shows. Makes gauging my reacting somewhat harder. I’ll say this though: I don’t think a more heroic exit would have pleased me more. I’m too much of a cynic for that; I don’t much like heroes.
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I think you’ve nailed it, and I really appreciate seeing someone pointing out the pattern of behavior while holding this story responsible. I picked up JJK after hearing about S1’s excellent cast of women characters, and it’s so bleakly funny to compare coverage of the show’s gender representation between 2021 and now. I do feel let down, but it’s familiar. It’s yet another show in the stack of “subversive” shonen that has fridged, sidelined, or ghosted some of their most promising characters because of their gender. I know I (a woman) am not this show’s target audience, but I am in the audience, and I like knowing I’m not alone in this disappointment. Thanks!
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JJK’s female cast is kind of funny because like, yes, the ladies in the show are diverse in terms of personality, ability, looks, and strength, but also a lot of them are just… kind of limited in what they actually get to do.
Anyone calling it subversive for that reason (or others, really) is being silly. It might have a bit of a darker edge, but we’re definitely not breaking any new ground here and we definitely are retreading other ground, including some less than worthwhile paths. Even if the show isn’t aiming at one particular audience, it still ought to do better by its characters.
Glad you enjoyed the post. 🙂
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[…] this isn’t just my contrarian streak rearing its head again or just about what the show did with Nobara. If nothing else, Jujutsu Kaisen‘s Shibuya Incident Arc is yet another example (see: Eromanga […]
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