Barcelona's Guiu doing Gojo's Domain handsign is everything a Jujutsu Kaisen and football fan could want

Modified Jun 12, 2024 17:00 GMT

Saturday, June 8, 2024 saw Marc Guiu, a player on the Barcelona B team (also known as FC Barcelona Atlétic) celebrate a score with a Jujutsu Kaisen inspired pose. The Barcelona B striker celebrated his goal by making Satoru Gojo’s Domain Expansion hand sign after scoring, which was later posted to the footballer's Instagram.

Guiu scored the goal for which his Jujutsu Kaisen-themed celebration came into play at the perfect timing, getting Barca a tying score against the opposing UD Ibiza team, also known as Unión Deportiva Ibiza. Guiu’s goal helped start a rally which resulted in his team’s eventual 5-3 victory, earning them a spot in the promotion play-off final.

Marc Guiu’s celebration has both football fans and Jujutsu Kaisen fans ecstatic

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As is typical of anime celebrations in football, it’s exciting to see how simple it is to get the two fandoms on the same page with each other and equally excited about the same thing. While Jujutsu Kaisen fans in particular are reveling in yet another sign of their series’ dominance, general anime fans are also excitedly celebrating the medium’s presence in pop culture.

Some fans are even going as far as to make edits of Guiu as Gojo saying his iconic “nah, I’d win” line, which is certainly fitting considering the striker’s role in Barca B’s victory. Others are instead focusing on what this says regarding the popularity of both Gojo specifically and Akutami’s manga series on the whole:

“GOJO YOU WILL ALWAYS BE FAMOUS,” celebrated one fan of Akutami’s series.

However, as mentioned above, fans are also expressing their love for football in responses to the post, even combining it with their love for Akutami’s series. One user’s response encapsulates this perfectly, posting:

“This is why barcelona is bigger than Real Madrid.”

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In any case, it’s clear that Akutami’s series has a home in professional football among both players and fans. This is especially exciting considering how other global sports leagues have collaborated with other anime properties recently. Two notable examples stem from author and illustrator Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece manga series, who collaborated with the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams last year and will collaborate with the MLB’s Boston Red Sox in August.

While it’s difficult to assert that Guiu’s celebration will lead to similar events in the world of football, it’s clearly a proper first step on that path. Likewise, as sports leagues continue to see the intersect of these fandoms both from their players and paying spectators, collaborations such as the above only become more and more likely.

Author and illustrator Gege Akutami’s original Jujutsu Kaisen manga series first began regular serialization in March 2018, and has since become a global phenomenon as highlighted above. This was largely done on the back of MAPPA Studios’ television anime adaptation of Akutami’s series, which recently concluded its second season near the end of the 2023 calendar year. The manga is currently progressing through what should be one if its final arcs, if not the last overall.