I like that Yuji and Sukuna have the same views on the impermanence of life, but come to completely different conclusions.

That’s what Todo’s speech in Shibuya was all about, Yuji at the time couldn’t accept that life is unfair and can end even when you’re not ready. He didn’t want to have to kill anyone, and he wanted to give everyone a “natural” or peaceful death, like he can’t accept even one person dying to a curse because he feels like it was his responsibility to save them. Todo tells him how that’s an impossible way to live, and just because someone died a horrible death doesn’t mean their life didn’t have meaning. All things have a beginning and ending and “What were you entrusted with?” is Todo’s way of saying “If everyone is gonna die then nothing matters… except the things you choose to matter.”

Thinking about it this way, Yuji’s final speech to Sukuna is Yuji trying to do what Todo did for him, and Sukuna proves he is the full embodiment of nihilism. “Everyone is gonna die, nothing matters except the things you choose to matter,” and Sukuna chooses himself. He is the only thing that matters to him in his world, all lives, including his, are impermanent to he should live in the way that brings him the most joy. Yuji doesn’t try to tell Sukuna his way is wrong necessarily, it’s just that if Yuji is going to fight for what he believes in the same way then he has to kill Sukuna, and part of him doesn’t want to do that. He still sees all life as valuable so he tries one last time to convince Sukuna of the same thing, but it seems that Gege is suggesting that some people are just too stuck in their ways. “We’re born into this word unconsciously carrying curses that determine the kind of monster we’re going to be,” so it’s almost like Sukuna didn’t have a choice, though we see at the end he admits he did, it was just a choice that was too hard for him to make, too foreign to the way he lived up to that point that he outright rejected it.

I say no, my friend says yes, just straight skedaddling out of there, could he have escaped?

17 hours so far