The Situation regarding Jujutsu Kaisen is really weird (Seriously spoilers past Season 1, Spoilers of Current Manga Arc)

[Rover]

The 'trio' of characters being largely safe from anything major in the plot from affecting them negatively is a well-worn shonen trope. Nobara getting offed like that was to showcase the stakes the author was willing to play with. It almost never happens that primary cast members in a Shonen trio get offed.

Click to shrink...

But offing, or otherwise sidelining, the girl in the shonen trio is not the trope-smashing move he thinks it is. It's the trope itself. So it's a stunt with no real purpose. Plus, he already did this with Yuji 'dying' but surviving and training unbeknownst to his friends.

 

[Reyes]

Please tell me that's a parody post, because holy shit. lol

Click to shrink...

Looking at the posters sad history its not.

 

[WindUp]

As for dangling her fate like a carrot, I really don't feel any major way towards it. The fact that nothing 'definitive' has been said yet to me tells me she's fine. And as for fan-favorite cast members we haven't seen in years, we also haven't seen Todo in nearly as long, not to mention even had a single name drop for him, and yet I see no one making threads about Yuji's best friendo.

Click to shrink...

This is the part that confuses me, there's all this uproar about Nobara but outside of the two main guys, and Maki, who from the season 1 part of the series has really gotten a lot of love? Panda? She's very clearly alive but I'm not sure how much of a role she has left to play in the series, especially on the accelerated path we seem to be on.

I don't even think JJK is that great of a series but I don't get this wanting it to be something it isn't. Gege clearly prefers a dynamic supporting cast for Yuji and Megumi that is based around the continuously escalating plot (which basically starts with Gojo getting sealed) rather than a static supporting cast that gets moments to shine throughout the series. Even in the culling games there have been long stretches without either of Yuji or Megumi appearing themselves. To me Nobara'a treatment is consistent with the rest of the non-main 2 cast in that they are all basically expendable. You could basically make the same thread but with the title as "It's been 80 chapters, how do we still not know if Todo can use Boogie Woogie without his hand?"

You can definitely argue that there is some inherent sexism in the fact that of the 3 first year characters, the two guys are the main characters with near-Gojo potential and the woman has middle of the road potential and ends up as more of a secondary character. This is reflected in the special grade sorcerers as well, outside the Geto/Gojo duo, Yuta gets one of the most impressive non-Gojo victories in the battle royale without even using his full power while Yuki has a short fight with the big bad where she gets destroyed. Just because Gege acknowledges sexism in world of the series does not mean his own work cannot fall victim to it as well unfortunately.

 

[Bengraven]

Damn I didn't realize some people took some of these posts wrong. Let's all just debate kindly.

What also gets me in the "he'll tell us later" camp is I don't think it's a stretch to say Gege loved Nobara. Her dynamic, her relationship with the main two guys and Maki, the jokes. He LIKED writing her. He meant for her to be a big part. Maybe the story fell away from her in his overreaching arc as he started to refine his meta lore but you don't put that much love into a character without having a payoff later.

She starts the series materialistic but also strong willed and confident, though it covers up a bit of insecurity. She grows in the next couple arcs finding inspiration through the other players in this story and changes to a stronger, more personally confident person.

If she died she'd have a more impactful moment than Nanami on Ryuji and on readers.

So I think she's alive and he has a reason for letting her stay quiet.

 

[PaladinCharge]

I legit stopped reading when Nobara "died" cuz I looked up if she was really dead and found all this shit. Disappointed she still hasn't come back. That series was so good, too. A large part of what sold me on it was even this article from Ana Diaz at Polygon: https://www.polygon.com/2021/2/17/22278866/jujutsu-kaisen-women

I might come back to it at some point, especially when Nobara comes back (she better come back), and I'm glad to hear Maki is even more prominent, but still, damn, the squandered potential.

 

[WindUp]

What also gets me in the "he'll tell us later" camp is I don't think it's a stretch to say Gege loved Nobara. Her dynamic, her relationship with the main two guys and Maki, the jokes. He LIKED writing her. He meant for her to be a big part. Maybe the story fell away from her in his overreaching arc as he started to refine his meta lore but you don't put that much love into a character without having a payoff later.

Click to shrink...

Obviously we'll never know but I do think this is basically what happened. The series just expanded in scope so much towards the end of the shibuya incident arc that the only way to avoid it ballooning into a 500-600 chapter series was to drop a lot of the existing side characters and hyper focus on the plot and fights. Which unfortunately removed a lot of the richness of the series, although I honestly don't see how it could have been avoided in a story that is essentially written week-to-week.

 

[Deleted member 3208]

It's not even an odd situation. To me, Gege wanted to attack big Shonen tropes throughout JJK, as well as put a very obvious counter-culture message aimed at society at large at the heart of it, and decided to pull a GRRM to show that no one in the cast is safe.

The 'trio' of characters being largely safe from anything major in the plot from affecting them negatively is a well-worn shonen trope. Nobara getting offed like that was to showcase the stakes the author was willing to play with. It almost never happens that primary cast members in a Shonen trio get offed.

As for dangling her fate like a carrot, I really don't feel any major way towards it. The fact that nothing 'definitive' has been said yet to me tells me she's fine. And as for fan-favorite cast members we haven't seen in years, we also haven't seen Todo in nearly as long, not to mention even had a single name drop for him, and yet I see no one making threads about Yuji's best friendo.

Click to shrink...

I can understand not getting of Itadori, but when why not have Megumi being the one between life and death? Shounen already have a big problem with female characters. Having Nobara disappear for like 2 years is quite disappointing.

If he wanted to break shounen tropes then bring more female characters into action or play more important roles.

As for besto friendo Todo, last I know is he lost a hand, but is still alive. Unlike Nobara.

 

[Bengraven]

Obviously we'll never know but I do think this is basically what happened. The series just expanded in scope so much towards the end of the shibuya incident arc that the only way to avoid it ballooning into a 500-600 chapter series was to drop a lot of the existing side characters and hyper focus on the plot and fights. Which unfortunately removed a lot of the richness of the series, although I honestly don't see how it could have been avoided in a story that is essentially written week-to-week.

Click to shrink...

Exactly.

I kind of said it in an earlier post but I've thought about it more: he seems to be focusing on characters who are a part of the full jujutsu sorcerer world. Characters with connections to the school's past, the big 3 families, the brain, the alliance of cursed sorcerers, etc.

Nobara is from a rural area has no connection to anyone except that she's a friend to the people with the greater connections. She's not part of the politics like say Panda. So she would just be there as flavoring - we have room for all these new faces because we're going to kill them off as the culling part of the culling game. Same reason other characters are MIA right now.

But when she comes back she will have a reason to be there.

 

[Cantaim]

I don't know why people keep bringing up Todo the situation isn't the same. There is nothing ambiguous about his status he lost his hand and is unable to preform his signature technique on his own anymore. Nobura got a hole blown through her head and the manga has left it up in the air as to what happened to her for about two years now. The situation is not the same lol.

 

[Reyes]

I don't know why people keep bringing up Todo the situation isn't the same. There is nothing ambiguous about his status he lost his hand and is unable to preform his signature technique on his own anymore. Nobura got a hole blown through her head and the manga has left it up in the air as to what happened to her for about two years now. The situation is not the same lol.

Click to shrink...

Pretty much like I said earlier some folks are pretty disingenuous comparing the two.

 

[Lotus]

I dunno why people keep bringing up characters like Panda or whatever to defend Nobara's lack of screentime when they were never on the same level perception-wise

Also, "A lot of characters have been shafted, not just Nobara", is not the winning argument y'all think it is lol...

Obviously we'll never know but I do think this is basically what happened. The series just expanded in scope so much towards the end of the shibuya incident arc that the only way to avoid it ballooning into a 500-600 chapter series was to drop a lot of the existing side characters and hyper focus on the plot and fights. Which unfortunately removed a lot of the richness of the series, although I honestly don't see how it could have been avoided in a story that is essentially written week-to-week.

Click to shrink...

Eh nah that's just how Gege writes in general, got nothing to do with Shibuya

Case in point, look how he handled the traitor subplot lol

Felt like he got bored of most of them following that school tournament esque arc

 

[SneakersSO]

I can understand not getting of Itadori, but when why not have Megumi being the one between life and death? Shounen already have a big problem with female characters. Having Nobara disappear for like 2 years is quite disappointing.

If he wanted to break shounen tropes then bring more female characters into action or play more important roles.

As for besto friendo Todo, last I know is he lost a hand, but is still alive. Unlike Nobara.

Click to shrink...

Honestly, while I can agree that offing Megumi would've hit harder in this regard, it would've meant closing off a larger storyline with the character they'd been setting up, whereas Nobara was a far easier target to kill off.

And as far as making a female character far more important, its hard to argue that he didn't literally wind up doing just that with Maki, and given the implications that her story arch has for the entire story of JJK (Toji and by extension Maki are considered fatebreakers in the world of JJK precisely due to them existing outside of the realm of cursed energy), I really don't think its any significant issue what he's done so far, although its perfectly fine to be a disappointed Nobara fan.

 

[SneakersSO]

I don't know why people keep bringing up Todo the situation isn't the same. There is nothing ambiguous about his status he lost his hand and is unable to preform his signature technique on his own anymore. Nobura got a hole blown through her head and the manga has left it up in the air as to what happened to her for about two years now. The situation is not the same lol.

Click to shrink...

'Todo's situation isn't the same'

We have no idea what has happened to Todo since Shibuya, in the same way we have no idea what happened to Nobara. Is Nobara dead? Did Todo get his hand re-attached? Has either scenario *ever* been confirmed? No, it hasn't. Gege's specifically dancing around this topic on purpose, so as far as I am concerned, Nobara's still alive. If Gege wanted to kill her off fully, he'd do so with 0 ambiguity.

As for Todo, Hikari at the end of his fight is also missing an arm, and specifically states he can have it healed later and wasn't bothered by it, and just like Todo, Hikari's arm plays a direct connection in how he uses his ability, so if Hikari is able to have his arm healed by someone else, it stands to reason that Todo could as well. Todo is one of the break out stars of this story and hasn't been featured in it for 2 years at this point as well.

 

[Bengraven]

'Todo's situation isn't the same'

We have no idea what has happened to Todo since Shibuya, in the same way we have no idea what happened to Nobara. Is Nobara dead? Did Todo get his hand re-attached? Has either scenario *ever* been confirmed? No, it hasn't. Gege's specifically dancing around this topic on purpose, so as far as I am concerned, Nobara's still alive. If Gege wanted to kill her off fully, he'd do so with 0 ambiguity.

As for Todo, Hikari, at the end of his fight is also missing an arm, and specifically states he can have it healed later and wasn't bothered by it, and just like Todo, Hikari's arm plays a direct connection in how he uses his ability, so if Hikari is able to have his arm healed by someone else, it stands to reason that Todo could as well. Todo is one of the break out stars of this story and hasn't been featured in it for 2 years at this point as well.

Click to shrink...

Exactly. And once again, Todo isn't part of this meta story going on now. He doesn't have the connections the major players have.

I think after TCG we're going to revisit the lingering things.

 

[Tace]

I do think Nobara is still alive. Gege wouldn't leave it ambiguous for no reason, he's had no problems showing us character deaths before.

 

[RochHoch]

I can understand not getting of Itadori, but when why not have Megumi being the one between life and death? Shounen already have a big problem with female characters. Having Nobara disappear for like 2 years is quite disappointing.

If he wanted to break shounen tropes then bring more female characters into action or play more important roles.

As for besto friendo Todo, last I know is he lost a hand, but is still alive. Unlike Nobara.

Click to shrink...

Megumi is the deuteragonist, he practically shares the main character role with Itadori at times

I hate to say it, but it's clear in Gege's eyes that Nobara just isn't that important. It's a shame.

 

[Mirage]

Yeah outside of Maki you won't be getting much.

Black Clover remains the best weekly action series when it comes to its female cast.

Click to shrink...

Wait really? I might have to actually check out Black Clover. This was one part I liked about the JJK anime, and then I learned what happened later.

 

[SneakersSO]

You can definitely argue that there is some inherent sexism in the fact that of the 3 first year characters, the two guys are the main characters with near-Gojo potential and the woman has middle of the road potential and ends up as more of a secondary character. This is reflected in the special grade sorcerers as well, outside the Geto/Gojo duo, Yuta gets one of the most impressive non-Gojo victories in the battle royale without even using his full power while Yuki has a short fight with the big bad where she gets destroyed. Just because Gege acknowledges sexism in world of the series does not mean his own work cannot fall victim to it as well unfortunately.

Click to shrink...

I just really don't think Gege is keeping score of how many women or men are strong or featured in the story. Its just natural storytelling to me; I fucking highly doubt that if Gege was this inherent sexist that folks seem hellbent on painting him as, that'd he'd make a storyline with a misogynstic troll as the antagonist, and have the strongest female character shown in the series thus far destroy them, twice. Maki will, with utmost certainty, wind up playing a pivotal part in this story and is the major factor in upending the big bad's plans. Gege has specifically pointed this out in labeling Toji, and therefore Maki, as fatebreakers due to their relationship with cursed energy (mainly that they live completely outside of the system).

You can be upset that Yuki wound up jobbing to the big bad of the series, but to me, it goes a heck of a long way towards showcasing just where this Big Bad ultimately falls on the power spectrum of this story, and Yuki is a character whose entire story arch was summed up, and she completely sat out all of its major events. Also, i'm not sure why folks expected that in a manga series where characters routinely are killed in fights, that Yuki should somehow survive despite the fact that not a single character who is driving the plot was there and there was no chance in hell Yuki was going to beat the big bad of this entire story in their fight. It would've been the same had Mechamaru beaten Mahito.

 

[mael]

I agree with all the criticism toward JJK but that's still miles better than MHA,
I have this kind of curse that if I start a manga or something it has to either shit the bed like Bleach or somehow never end like HxH.
It would make sense for JJK to shit the bed.

Oh and the minute the big bad showed in front of the fodder duo, I knew they were dead....and of course the one surviving is the dude with the girl being fridged to show how bad the bad guy was.
I could have done without that couple of chapters and have more focus on the culling game.

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

Waiting for Maki to just become the MC. We almost there.

 

[Cantaim]

'Todo's situation isn't the same'

We have no idea what has happened to Todo since Shibuya, in the same way we have no idea what happened to Nobara. Is Nobara dead? Did Todo get his hand re-attached? Has either scenario *ever* been confirmed? No, it hasn't. Gege's specifically dancing around this topic on purpose, so as far as I am concerned, Nobara's still alive. If Gege wanted to kill her off fully, he'd do so with 0 ambiguity.

As for Todo, Hikari, at the end of his fight is also missing an arm, and specifically states he can have it healed later and wasn't bothered by it, and just like Todo, Hikari's arm plays a direct connection in how he uses his ability, so if Hikari is able to have his arm healed by someone else, it stands to reason that Todo could as well. Todo is one of the break out stars of this story and hasn't been featured in it for 2 years at this point as well.

Click to shrink...

I can't believe I gotta say this, but this

Does not have the emotional weight and uncertainty of this

The situations are not the same lol. No matter how much people want to equate the two.

 

[mael]

Waiting for Maki to just become the MC. We almost there.

Click to shrink...

Maki is really the MVP.
Her and Okkotsu are why I haven't dropped this like a bad habit.

 

[Dougieflesh]

I agree with all the criticism toward JJK but that's still miles better than MHA,

Click to shrink...

Being one step above the floor is not an accomplishment. JJK just had another woman get destroyed like 3 weeks ago.

 

[BlackGoku03]

'Todo's situation isn't the same'

We have no idea what has happened to Todo since Shibuya, in the same way we have no idea what happened to Nobara. Is Nobara dead? Did Todo get his hand re-attached? Has either scenario *ever* been confirmed? No, it hasn't. Gege's specifically dancing around this topic on purpose, so as far as I am concerned, Nobara's still alive. If Gege wanted to kill her off fully, he'd do so with 0 ambiguity.

As for Todo, Hikari at the end of his fight is also missing an arm, and specifically states he can have it healed later and wasn't bothered by it, and just like Todo, Hikari's arm plays a direct connection in how he uses his ability, so if Hikari is able to have his arm healed by someone else, it stands to reason that Todo could as well. Todo is one of the break out stars of this story and hasn't been featured in it for 2 years at this point as well.

Click to shrink...

Agreed.

Gege will tell the story how he wants. If he wants to sideline characters, then fine. I'm not going to use it as an excuse to make some of the leaps posters are making here though…

 

[Jonathan Lanza]

What do you guys that don't want Gege to be vague thought about the end of The Sopranos? What do you guys think about Souls games story telling? Legit curious because there's absolutely nothing wrong nor new about the way he's handling this.

Click to shrink...

The problem with the vagueness on the subject is how it is presented in this page right here.

This just doesn't feel like how 2 human beings would talk about someone who is either permanently injured or dead. Keep in mind he didn't ask "Is she dead?", he asked "what happened to her?" and then gained a full understanding of the situation through nothing but a grimace. It's especially strange given how to the point Megumi tends to be. It comes off as a cheap trick. Make no mistake that being vague about something and then filling in the blanks later when you need a new story is the oldest trick in the book and plenty of manga do it, but the more blatant it looks then the worse it looks for the manga and this instance always looked incredibly blatant.

The end result is that the vagueness doesn't really serve a purpose. It's not like The Sopranos or Dark Souls because those mysteries will never truly be revealed, they are something to think about for time immemorial, conclusions for you to come to on your own. This isn't that case. This WILL eventually be answered, they WILL eventually confirm if Nobara is dead or not and when it happens the question is going to be....

"Why did it take this long for them to say this?"

people want the reveal sooner rather then later because the longer they hold it off, the higher the payout needs to be and we've reached a point where there is almost no way Gege can pay it off in a satisfying way. That's why people say it's messy.



And let's be clear here. Nobara was a main character. You're right in that she's not anymore and hasn't been in like 3 years. But she was. There is no world where a characters gets as much screentime and promotional time as Nobara did where she wasn't intended to be a main character. Obviously things changed but this isn't a Gon and Killua situation where the characters stories ended in a satisfying way. Nobara's story ended with a flashback about why she became a sorcerer which maybe to some people is a satisfying conclusion but for many others seems more like a basic backstory then anything. Hardly a satisfying end note.

 

[mael]

Being one step above the floor is not an accomplishment. JJK just had another woman get destroyed like 3 weeks ago.

Click to shrink...

I'm still watching AND reading MHA. I'm not telling you JJK is this genius shit.
The main villain of JJK is fucking uninteresting to the point of boredom.
It's even worse in that he's removing interesting characters from the story.

I'm telling you I clearly need to get better reading material.
I have no idea why MHA wasn't about a rando powerless dude managing to be THE super hero in a world full of overpowered monsters instead of this boring shit and why JJK somehow revolving around this allknowing nothing of a villain that no one can touch for some reason.

I can't believe I gotta say this, but this

Does not have the emotional weight and uncertainty of this

The situations are not the same lol. No matter how much people want to equate the two.

Click to shrink...

Hey Todo might really bleed out and trip or something!
Really the same thing!
</s>

 

[WindUp]

I just really don't think Gege is keeping score of how many women or men are strong or featured in the story. Its just natural storytelling to me; I fucking highly doubt that if Gege was this inherent sexist that folks seem hellbent on painting him as, that'd he'd make a storyline with a misogynstic troll as the antagonist, and have the strongest female character shown in the series thus far destroy them, twice. Maki will, with utmost certainty, wind up playing a pivotal part in this story and is the major factor in upending the big bad's plans. Gege has specifically pointed this out in labeling Toji, and therefore Maki, as fatebreakers due to their relationship with cursed energy (mainly that they live completely outside of the system).

You can be upset that Yuki wound up jobbing to the big bad of the series, but to me, it goes a heck of a long way towards showcasing just where this Big Bad ultimately falls on the power spectrum of this story, and Yuki is a character whose entire story arch was summed up, and she completely sat out all of its major events. Also, i'm not sure why folks expected that in a manga series where characters routinely are killed in fights, that Yuki should somehow survive despite the fact that not a single character who is driving the plot was there and there was no chance in hell Yuki was going to beat the big bad of this entire story in their fight. It would've been the same had Mechamaru beaten Mahito.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, I basically agree with this. My point was that the "natural storytelling" has favored the male characters in general and I think it's valid to be frustrated by that. From when they are introduced it is very clear that Fushiguro has much more relevance to both the plot and world than Nobara. And as soon as he pops his domain expansion it basically splits the trio into the Megumi/Yuji tier and Nobara on her own as more of a supporting character. This all happens in season 1 of the anime so I do think people who are saying that the treatment of female characters in season 1 is great and afterwards become terrible are a bit off the mark. But it is basically a fact that women being less powerful / important than their male peers is a pattern both a) within JJK and b) throughout the shonen genre so I understand why people are annoyed and frustrated when it comes to Nobara's fate. I do think it is basically consistent with Gege's approach to the story in general since the Shibuya Incident began though.

 

[Rover]

Didn't the lady with the scorpion ponytail also just die offscreen a couple chapters ago?

 

[SneakersSO]

But offing, or otherwise sidelining, the girl in the shonen trio is not the trope-smashing move he thinks it is. It's the trope itself. So it's a stunt with no real purpose. Plus, he already did this with Yuji 'dying' but surviving and training unbeknownst to his friends.

Click to shrink...

Yuji 'dying' is not the same as him outright offing a character and leaving her fate completely unknown. As for it being the trope itself - i'm sorry but what other manga killed off their female trio member? Even JJK hasn't actually done it (yet). Sure, he sidelined her, but then promptly turned Maki into one of the most important characters to his story arch and gave her multiple archs where the entire focus was solely on her, something Maki NEVER got prior to Shibuya.

Its pretty clear Gege is not interested in actively juggling his entire cast in the story on an ongoing basis. This is in part why he never fully expanded on Geto's original team of Cursed Users, or showed off characters like Todo or loads of the Kyoto cast members after Shibuya, or even showed off Kusakabe in any major way. Gege wants to keep the focused on cast light so as to keep the story moving along, in large part because he really wants to end it in a quick fashion versus dragging this story out.

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

Didn't the lady with the scorpion ponytail also just die offscreen a couple chapters ago?

Click to shrink...

She got captured, but she's as unimportant as the helicopter dude who also got captured.

 

[SneakersSO]

Yeah, I basically agree with this. My point was that the "natural storytelling" has favored the male characters in general and I think it's valid to be frustrated by that. From when they are introduced it is very clear that Fushiguro has much more relevance to both the plot and world than Nobara. And as soon as he pops his domain expansion it basically splits the trio into the Megumi/Yuji tier and Nobara on her own as more of a supporting character. This all happens in season 1 of the anime so I do think people who are saying that the treatment of female characters in season 1 is great and afterwards become terrible are a bit off the mark. But it is basically a fact that women being less powerful / important than their male peers is a pattern both a) within JJK and b) throughout the shonen genre so I understand why people are annoyed and frustrated when it comes to Nobara's fate. I do think it is basically consistent with Gege's approach to the story in general since the Shibuya Incident began though.

Click to shrink...

I mean, you can feel that a gulf opened up between Nobara and the others, but the path that her power set was going in as of Shibuya essentially confirmed that she would've wound up being one of the strongest cast members by a mile, and that is one of the reasons why i'm convinced that Nobara is not dead (as well as Gege never showing it despite having ample opportunity to do so).

Nobara's powers as of right now are the only ones who can affect the soul, and since Mahito's powers have now been completely removed, something affecting souls is still a major factor, and is an attack almost no one in the cast could defend against - a Curse User who can affect souls and also isn't a Curse is probably one of the worst match ups for the story's big bad, not to mention every other big bad.

 

[SneakersSO]

She got captured, but she's as unimportant as the helicopter dude who also got captured.

Click to shrink...

Helicopter dude is dead. The jet girl is still alive though, but we don't know if she was captured or not.

 

[WindUp]

Its pretty clear Gege is not interested in actively juggling his entire cast in the story on an ongoing basis. This is in part why he never fully expanded on Geto's original team of Cursed Users, or showed off characters like Todo or loads of the Kyoto cast members after Shibuya, or even showed off Kusakabe in any major way. Gege wants to keep the focused on cast light so as to keep the story moving along, in large part because he really wants to end it in a quick fashion versus dragging this story out.

Click to shrink...

You can just look at Naruto and how long it took to wrap that shit up to see what the downside of having to give everyone's favorite character a moment to shine is. To me JJK is very reflective of "modern shonen" in that it has a much leaner approach to storytelling and actively does not want to be a 600 chapter series (not saying this is inherently good or bad)

 

[Broseph]

You be very careful with your words now, very careful.

Gege addressed this already with both Megumi and Yuta, all parties involved are not confortable with the topic because they know how Yuji feels about it due to Sukuna committing genocide and destroying everything.

You might not like the way he handles it but you straight up cannot say he's not addressing it, you are just desperate to find an answer that suit *you*. The full details about her state will be known when he as an author decides is the best moment.

You are silenced from now on so don't bother, you just are not capable of discussing trivial things properly.

Click to shrink...

I haven't watched JJK and all I know about is anime discussion I hear peripherally but this is one of the most unintentionally funny posts I think I've ever read

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

And as soon as he pops his domain expansion it basically splits the trio into the Megumi/Yuji tier and Nobara on her own as more of a supporting character. This all happens in season 1 of the anime so I do think people who are saying that the treatment of female characters in season 1 is great and afterwards become terrible are a bit off the mark.

Click to shrink...

Nah, this ain't it IMO. Megumi and Yuji have far more story focus than Nobara who is just "there," but there's no way you can say that the episode that had a double Black Flash from Yuji and Nobara to conclude S1 set her as a supporting character. Hell, when Nobara got dragged into the portal, Yuji asked Megumi if he should stay behind to help him instead of following Nobara - stuff like that is an actual rarity to see in a shounen. S1 ends with Yuji and Nobara committing respective murders in a tagteam fashion on near special grades and earning their promotion to Grade 1 (as did Megumi). Oh, and after the fight where Nobara was as much a key player as Yuji, she also said she's killed peeps before in a way that formed solidarity with Yuji.

Season 1 ends very much with Nobara on par with the boys. This ain't a fucking Sakura situation.

 

[SneakersSO]

I can't believe I gotta say this, but this

Does not have the emotional weight and uncertainty of this

The situations are not the same lol. No matter how much people want to equate the two.

Click to shrink...

Okay, you posting pictures doesn't indicate how these two situations are or aren't the same.

The reason Nobara's fate is ambiguous is because the author, on 2 separate occasions, chose not to reveal her fate even though in like 1 or so chapters right after this panel with Nobara, would tell us that she may not be dead. Compare this to any other character he has killed off, which their fate was specifically indicated as to what happened.

Until Gege outright confirms she's dead, she isn't. We can think Todo will never use Cursed Energy or his CT again, but the series has already shown there are multiple ways this can be remedied.

 

[Lordfifth]

I have no idea why MHA wasn't about a rando powerless dude managing to be THE super hero in a world full of overpowered monsters

Click to shrink...

Looooool.
Go read batman my guy, he somehow is the greatest superhero in a world with wonder woman super man and the flash.

 

[SneakersSO]

You can just look at Naruto and how long it took to wrap that shit up to see what the downside of having to give everyone's favorite character a moment to shine is. To me JJK is very reflective of "modern shonen" in that it has a much leaner approach to storytelling and actively does not want to be a 600 chapter series (not saying this is inherently good or bad)

Click to shrink...

To me, part of what has made JJK one of the best modern Shonens is specifically that he is culling on the bloat there.

There are fucking LOADS of world building stuff Gege could've done if he so chose, and we'd be here for 10+ years, going through casts of bad guys to serve as fodder for our cast of good guys, until readership/viewership begins to dip and they gotta wrap it all up.

I think its an incredible compliment to Gege's writing that folks can get so attached to a character like Nobara (or any of them for that matter) and feel that their omission is a personal slight. One of my favorite characters shown thus far is Higaruma and they were in the story for a volume or so, and we've seen a single panel of him with 0 dialogue in over a year.

 

[mrmoose]

It feels like he's taking a page from HxH or something with all the sidelined characters and the deep dives into complex rules and stuff. I'm not sure I'd read too much into it, but I guess we'll see.

 

[Cantaim]

Okay, you posting pictures doesn't indicate how these two situations are or aren't the same.

The reason Nobara's fate is ambiguous is because the author, on 2 separate occasions, chose not to reveal her fate even though in like 1 or so chapters right after this panel with Nobara, would tell us that she may not be dead. Compare this to any other character he has killed off, which their fate was specifically indicated as to what happened.

Until Gege outright confirms she's dead, she isn't. We can think Todo will never use Cursed Energy or his CT again, but the series has already shown there are multiple ways this can be remedied.

Click to shrink...

Yea I'm out if y'all wanna equate the two have fun.

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

One of my favorite characters shown thus far is Higaruma and they were in the story for a volume or so, and we've seen a single panel of him with 0 dialogue in over a year.

Click to shrink...

I need a fucking panel of him judging the US military already!!

 

[Rover]

Yuji 'dying' is not the same as him outright offing a character and leaving her fate completely unknown. As for it being the trope itself - i'm sorry but what other manga killed off their female trio member? Even JJK hasn't actually done it (yet). Sure, he sidelined her, but then promptly turned Maki into one of the most important characters to his story arch and gave her multiple archs where the entire focus was solely on her, something Maki NEVER got prior to Shibuya.

Click to shrink...

Maki (probably my favorite character) had like a chapter where she goes and kills everybody in her clan. And then a chapter much later, she gets the Sumo lesson. And now she's finally back in combat, and already nearly dying from the encounter. But those weren't really 'arcs', and her part of this arc is yet to be seen - she could die in her next fight, for how badly its' been going with every other character. It's not even like it's generating tension, it just sucks to keep seeing something interesting finally happen again, and then they die. It's getting really stupid.

Its pretty clear Gege is not interested in actively juggling his entire cast in the story on an ongoing basis. This is in part why he never fully expanded on Geto's original team of Cursed Users, or showed off characters like Todo or loads of the Kyoto cast members after Shibuya, or even showed off Kusakabe in any major way. Gege wants to keep the focused on cast light so as to keep the story moving along, in large part because he really wants to end it in a quick fashion versus dragging this story out.

Click to shrink...

I mean I think the complaint about Nobara and Maki boils down to the manga being badly written, and not following through with substantial character development. It's normal to want to see characters go through a story and watch them grow and build relationships. Gege writes this stuff like he gets bored with the characters and story halfway through, and then erases it.

The Culling Game has absolutely been about juggling too many characters in a story that was doing just fine with fewer people in it. This arc feels like an excuse to just make some other kind of manga, not even a good one, and introduce a bunch of throwaway characters and convoluted attack explanations. I sometimes wonder if the "culling" part of the game is to kill the readership of the manga - "can your attention span survive the inane waste of time this thing has become?"

 

[mael]

Yuji was dead for a whole of 2 chapters, totally the same as Nobara being in this undead stasis for 2 years!

Looooool.
Go read batman my guy, he somehow is the greatest superhero in a world with wonder woman super man and the flash.

Click to shrink...

That still somehow would be less boring than the development we got in MHA.
Also Batman's main antagonist is clown with no super power whatsoever.
Like literally the whole point of how comics are done is to kind of match the threats with the hero dealing with them.
It's why Superman doesn't deal with street level crime.

The premise of MHA with some dude become the best superhero starting from nothing is more interesting if the dude isn't gifted his powers by superman.

Regardless an unpowered Deku in MHA could have been a nice contrast to OnePunchman with its superhero being the most powerful of all.
Instead we have 2 OPM mangas and worse super hero manga with MHA.
At least MHA will end one day and it's getting somewhere even if it's not somewhere interesting.

 

[Reyes]

Yea I'm out if y'all wanna equate the two have fun.

Click to shrink...

Don't expect anything from Sneaker and you won't be disappointed

 

[SneakersSO]

Again to folks wanting to use her sidelining as a springboard towards Gege being inherently sexist, you have to completely factor out what Gege did with Naoya and Maki, and not just once but twice. For a story that wants to be lean and wrap up quickly, Gege has given a fuck ton of screen time to a character who was not considered a primary cast member, gave them incredible badass moments, and from a feminist point of view, has drawn her in completely non-sexualized ways and even left her fully scarred from her previous fights.

Maki is not a pretty character. She has done heinous things, including killing off her own family members, and has directly destroyed the narrative incarnation of misogyny twice. Gege did all this while taking precious screen time away from all of their other story threads, in a story that he is purposefully trying to keep lean. I get it, you want Nobara as well, and i'm sure she will be returning, which is going to make this thread seem as pointless as it is.

 

[Bengraven]

Waiting for Maki to just become the MC. We almost there.

Click to shrink...

 

[Uncivilized Elk]

MHA literally has a girl fall on the MC and the booba land on his face - aren't you glad you're reading such tripe?
(Wasn't that shit also like right after some heavy emotional development or something?)

Also that nude cover of a 15 year old girl who is supposed to be invisible made me wanna puke.

Fuck MHA.

 

[Viale]

Geez, is there any shonen that handles their girl characters well? I don't feel like that's a big ask.

 

[mael]

MHA literally has a girl fall on the MC and the booba land on his face - aren't you glad you're reading such tripe?
(Wasn't shit also like right after some heavy emotional development or something?)

Also that nude cover of a 15 year old girl who is supposed to be invisible made me wanna puke.

Fuck MHA.

Click to shrink...

And don't forget about that small pervy dude being a pretty central point of the class because we always need a pervy dude leering at the small cast of female characters.

 

[Lulu]

best shonen girl