Highlights
- Satoru Gojo is the face of Jujutsu Kaisen and one of the most iconic anime characters, known for his incredible powers and striking appearance.
- While Gojo is praised for his strength, there are criticisms about his failures in achieving certain goals and backing up his claims, leading to doubts about his role within the larger story.
- However, Gojo's character is complex and layered, with lofty ambitions. He undergoes significant character development and strives to create a better world through his students, showcasing his true strength and power.
Despite Jujutsu Kaisen having a lovable main character in Yuji Itadori, there is no doubt that someone else is considered to be the face of the franchise. In a series filled with memorable characters, no one quite comes close to the popularity enjoyed by Satoru Gojo, who has now become one of the most iconic anime characters of all time. With his incredible powers, lovable personality and striking appearance, Gojo is usually the character that most people think of when it comes to modern anime.
However, despite his star power, many in the community are far more critical of Gojo's role within the larger story of Jujutsu Kaisen. To some, he is an absolute powerhouse who failed to beat certain characters and to others, he is someone who simply could not back up all of his claims. While these may or may not be true, the conversation is far more nuanced than that as Gojo is a very layered and complex character with very lofty ambitions, so, let's take a look at whether or not Satoru Gojo is a fraud in Jujutsu Kaisen!
Where he failed
One of the more common reasons people tend to consider Gojo a fraud is because of all the things that he failed to do. Despite owning the title of the strongest sorcerer of today and being designated as a Special Grade, many fans tend to think that Gojo still couldn't achieve his goals despite having all the power to do so, something that had been a theme since he was very young.
Firstly, he failed to protect Riko Amanai. Season 2 of the Jujutsu Kaisen anime began with a brief rundown of the Hidden Inventory arc where both Gojo and his best friend Geto were tasked with transporting the Star Plasma Vessel to Master Tengen. On their way, however, they encountered the Sorcerer Killer, Toji Fushiguro, who was able to swiftly defeat both Special Grade Sorcerers and kill Riko to start a chain of events that would decide the fate of both characters. Although this would end up with Gojo unlocking his potential and becoming the unrivaled strongest character, it was only achievable after he failed his objective.
Secondly, Gojo also failed to properly exorcize Jogo in season 1, who would later go on to wreak a lot of havoc upon Shibuya and all of its inhabitants, as well as greatly damaging Maki and Nanami and also killing Naobito Zenin. Many feel that Gojo should have been able to make quick work of the Disaster Curses at the very start of the Shibuya Incident but his arrogance and overconfidence got the better of him, allowing for Kenjaku to imprison him within the Prison Realm.
The biggest reason why people call Gojo a fraud is due to his extremely anticipated fight against the King of Curses. After being trapped within the Prison Realm for over 100 chapters, Gojo was eventually released and made a dramatic return by facing off against Sukuna. After being given some time to prepare, the two strongest sorcerers in the world would eventually fight it out in a spectacular, multiple-chapter-long battle sequence which saw the scale tipping both ways at different points in the story.
Despite putting up an amazing effort by killing Mahoraga and Agito and greatly injuring his opponent with his Ultimate Hollow Purple technique, Gojo unfortunately meets his end in this fight. This battle showed that overwhelming strength is inferior to greater knowledge of cursed energy. With Gojo being hyped up as the strongest sorcerer and stating on multiple occasions that he would win against Sukuna, he still lost against the King of Curses.
Moreover, in the dream sequence after his death, Gojo revealed that Sukuna wasn't even using all of his power, causing fans to be even more disillusioned with Gojo and his seemingly empty claims throughout the series. Despite receiving great praise from his enemy, many still took the opportunity to call Gojo a fraud once more after Sukuna was definitively declared to be the strongest sorcerer in all of Jujutsu Kaisen.
What he achieved
Throughout the series, Gojo's motivations and ambitions in life are shaped by all the experiences that he has gone through ever since his teenage years in Jujutsu society. The aftermath of the Hidden Inventory arc showed that Gojo underwent massive character development as all of his views on regular humans and the responsibility of the strong had changed since the start of the arc. He was closer to his best friend Suguru Geto than anyone else on the planet, so the evil and betrayal by Geto only furthered Gojo's resolve.
What Gojo truly wanted more than anything, even more than being the strongest, was to recreate all of Jujutsu society from the ground up. He realized that those in charge held the same views that he once did, about how the weak should be of no consequence to the strong and how non-sorcerers are essentially useless in the world. He even knew that if he were to kill all of the superiors, more would just sprout out and take their place, starting an endless cycle that perpetuates the same result over and over again.
So, Gojo tried a new tactic. He began to teach and foster students with the potential to eventually move up in the Jujutsu world and lead it with humility and compassion. He took it upon himself to realize Geto's goals, before he took his turn to evil, for Jujutsu society to end up being an institution that protected the weak and the non-sorcerers instead of shunning them. Gojo's ideology was to create a better world through his students, something which may be fully realized at the end of the series.
Many in the community of Jujutsu Kaisen tend to forget Gojo's true strength as well because of his loss to Sukuna. His limitless technique, in conjunction with his Six Eyes, turned him into a walking calamity who couldn't even be touched. His Blue, Red, and Purple techniques are some of the most destructive in the series, his limitless is the perfect defense and the Six Eyes gives him the most efficient control of cursed energy imaginable.
All of these attributes come together to make a character so powerful that even the strongest curses in the series (the Disaster Curses) were easy work for him. This meant that Gojo could only be defeated by the greatest cursed energy user of all time, Ryomen Sukuna, which itself is a testament to how strong Gojo actually was.
Jujutsu Kaisen can be streamed on Prime Video.
