Highlights
- The Shibuya Incident in Jujutsu Kaisen was only possible because Gojo was taken out of the picture, leading to the death of many characters.
- The Prison Realm, a cursed object, played a crucial role in allowing the Shibuya Incident to unfold as it did.
- Pseudo-Geto used meticulous planning and an ingenious plan to trap Gojo using the Prison Realm, taking advantage of his weakened state.
In Jujutsu Kaisen, the entire Shibuya Incident was only able to happen because Gojo was taken out of the picture, leading to the death of thousands of innocents, as well as the end of many fan-favorite characters. Despite being the most powerful sorcerer of the modern era, Gojo still isn't above the rules of Jujutsu itself, as fans have seen in the past few weeks in the anime. Pseudo-Geto was able to halt Gojo in his tracks due to meticulous planning.
The reason why Gojo was taken out of the picture and the Shibuya Incident was allowed to unfold as it did was because of the Prison Realm. Since this cursed object is what allowed Jujutsu Kaisen's most important arc to play out, it can be stated that this is one of the most important objects in the entire series and so, let's take a look at what this Prison Realm is!
What is the Prison Realm?
The Prison Realm is a highly powerful Special Grade cursed object that can effectively trap anyone within itself for as long as needed. It is a red cube that is covered in eyes on all sides and is small enough to fit in a person's hand. The cube itself was said to have been crafted from the remains of a notable Buddhist Monk who went by the name of Genshin and despite the striking appearance of the cube, it is typically wrapped up in talismans when it is not being used, similar to Sukuna's fingers.
The Prison Realm is activated when the wielder of the cube says 'gate open'. This causes the cube to expand, with four of its corners shooting outwards to display a thin, fleshy red mass that contains a massive eye in the middle of it. To use the Realm on a specific target, as it was used on Gojo, it must be placed within four meters of them, and once this happens successfully, the cursed object then latches onto the target, negating all cursed energy and techniques to trap that target within itself. This was seen as it seemed to bypass Gojo's Infinity technique.
Once the wielder says 'gate close', the Prison Realm shuts, blocking the target from the outside world. Inside the Prison Realm, the target is essentially outside of time itself, as it does not pass inside the space of the cursed object. Due to this, the person inside does not age, nor can they die of starvation or thirst. During his imprisonment, Gojo described his time inside the Prison Realm like 'when work is insanely busy' and that it went by in a flash, despite being trapped for almost a month.
The Prison Realm, despite its amazing power, can only contain one person at a time though, and can only be used again if the person inside is freed or decides to take their own life. Because of this, Gojo was trapped inside the Realm and was absent for the entirety of the Shibuya Incident which numbered a total of 19 days within the manga, but took 3 years in real time serialization to show his return into the story.
Sealing Gojo
Even though Gojo is not exempt from the rules of Jujutsu and Cursed Energy, the way that the Prison Realm works on him is quite different from how it works on others due to how strong he is. For anyone else, a mere instance is required to seal them inside the Prison Realm after chanting the incantation of 'gate open' but Pseudo-Geto knew that for Gojo, even that would be too slow due to his perception with the Six Eyes technique. So, this led to him coming up with an ingenious plan that would allow him to seal the powerful sorcerer.
At the very start of the Shibuya Incident, a veil was lowered onto Shibuya that would only permit Gojo to enter the area. Due to this, Gojo was the only sorcerer in Shibuya at the time. Eventually, Gojo was lowered to the train station, where he went up against the Disaster Curses and hundreds of transfigured humans but despite their great numbers, they were still no match for his overwhelming strength. However, we would find out that killing Gojo was never the plan.
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Due to the innumerable transfigured humans killing all the normal humans and wreaking havoc, Gojo activated his Domain Expansion for 0.2 seconds, enough to completely immobilize and freeze everyone in the vicinity. When he did this, he blitzed through all the floors of the station and killed all the transfigured humans in the span of a few seconds. He was successful in getting the job done, though it was so taxing that he had completely worn himself out at that point.
This is when Pseudo-Geto moved in from the shadows. Taking advantage of Gojo's current state, he placed the Prison Realm in front of the very tired Gojo to trap him. Though he could still have escaped, Pseudo-Geto played a psychological game on Gojo, appearing in front of him in the body of his best friend, Suguru Geto and speaking in his familiar voice. This caused Gojo to stay in shock and disbelief for long enough for the Prison Realm to trap him. However, even after his imprisonment, the Prison Realm needed time to process Gojo.
How to Escape the Prison Realm
Typically, the only person who can free the one trapped inside the Prison Realm is the wielder of the cursed object, and in this case, it's Pseudo-Geto. However, seeing as how Gojo was the biggest hindrance to his plan, he took the Prison Realm and threw it down an 8000-meter trench, hoping that if Gojo were to somehow escape, the intense amount of pressure at that depth would end up killing him. Aside from accessing it through this seal, there are two other known ways to free the person trapped inside the Prison Realm.
The first is accessing the Prison Realm through its 'back end'. The Prison Realm that was shown to trap Gojo is considered the 'front' and the back end was revealed to have been in the possession of Master Tengen in the Culling Game. Though it was sealed up in hopes of keeping it out of the hands of those who would use it for evil, this seal can still be opened by any cursed tools that can negate Cursed Techniques, such as Toji's Inverted Spear of Heaven or Miguel's Black Rope.
However, seeing as there were no such tools on hand, Master Tengen alerted the heroes of the location of a character named Angel, who had a cursed technique called Jacob's Ladder, which could negate all Cursed Techniques within its range. After finding Angel and using her technique, the heroes were finally able to release Gojo from the Prison Realm in the Culling Game arc!
Jujutsu Kaisen can be streamed on Prime Video.
