Gojo's birthday reawakens Jujutsu Kaisen fandom's grief

One of Jujutsu Kaisen's most popular characters, Satoru Gojo, has his birthday fall on December 7, 2023. While most birthdays are a cause for celebrating life and taking pride in the individual's accomplishments, or just any excuse to have cake, Gojo's birthday this year is being treated much like a funeral.

The Jujutsu Kaisen fandom continues to mourn the fate of the strongest jujutsu sorcerer in both the manga and the anime, especially considering his fate was sealed on October 2, 2023, from chapter 236 of the manga. The same heartache was shown when Gojo was sealed in the Shibuya Incident depicted in the anime's episode 33.

Disclaimer: The following article contains spoilers for the Jujutsu Kaisen anime and manga. All opinions are exclusive to fans and the author.

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Jujutsu Kaisen fandom continues mourning Satoru Gojo

Gojo's sealing in the anime

Gojo's sealing and reactions on Twitter (Image via Sportskeeda)

The first of the mourning comes with Satoru Gojo's sealing in the Jujutsu Kaisen anime. This particular bit of fandom mourning came when Gojo was sealed in the Prison Realm after killing Hanami and over 2,000 transfigured humans in a matter of seconds.

Gojo was exhausted from this effort, having tanked his jujutsu energy reserves and his limitless technique. Kenjaku distracted him for only a few seconds, making Gojo drop his guard as the Prison Realm took him. It took a while to process his energy, but it was specifically designed to hold him, so there was no way for him to break out.

The fandom is crying over that, among all the other things worth crying over in the Shibuya Incident, because Gojo's sealing means a lot to the world of Jujutsu Kaisen. Yuji has now lost two mentors and a friend, and his sanity hangs by a thread. Megumi also lost his surrogate father.

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Gojo's death in the Jujutsu Kaisen manga

Gojo's death and reactions (Image via Sportskeeda)

At least, Satoru Gojo being sealed meant he'd inevitably be broken out of it, as Jujutsu Kaisen fans correctly predicted. What fans couldn't predict was Gojo's death in the Shinjuku Showdown arc in the manga. In a fight worthy of anime and manga legend, Sukuna and Gojo battled for supremacy in the aftermath of the Culling Game.

The struggle was worth the wait, yet many manga fans were dismayed when Gojo was revealed to have been cut in half by Sukuna. It took all of Sukuna's energy, and he almost died multiple times throughout the fight, but Gojo ultimately met his end at Sukuna's hands.

Gojo's death ultimately hurt the fandom in more ways than one. Gojo's absence in the story was felt hard, as many problems could've been resolved with his presence there. Gojo died shortly after being rescued, and a lot of fans felt his death was unfair because of how many new power sets were spontaneously invented and let the mangaka know how they felt.

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Many fans of Jujutsu Kaisen's Satoru Gojo are treating his birthday like either a call to revive him from his death or a late funeral and celebration of his life and weirdness. The strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer has plenty of fans who loved his presence, his fun attitude, and the fact that he was powerful without boasting too hard about it.

Gojo's loss caused some to stop reading and following the series, as with any popular character that fans loved too much getting killed. But others continue as they get what Gojo had been about philosophically: that the world is better in the hands of the young people that he trained.