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Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 was perhaps the most anticipated conclusion to an arc in this series to date, and it left behind as many questions as it answered for the anime-only fans. The episode showed Suguru Geto’s journey from a Jujutsu Sorcerer to a Curse user as he and Gojo became guardians of new wards.
In the previous episode, Toji defeated Geto and delivered Riko’s body to the Time Vessel Association, after which he ran into a revived Gojo. After a second battle, Toji was killed by the boy, and he told him about his son, who would soon be sold into the Zen'in family. Later, Geto rushed to the compound and found an emotionless Gojo carrying Amanai’s body.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 is titled Premature Death. The episode features the death of a character close to the protagonists as their paths diverge after a tragic incident, making Suguru aware of the flaws of the Jujutsu society. Episode 5 brings the colloquially known Gojo’s Past arc to a melancholy but hopeful conclusion.
Disclaimer: The article contains analysis and mention of canon typical violence. Readers’ discretion is advised.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5: Geto becomes a Curse User as Gojo’s Past Arc comes to an end with return of familiar faces
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 began with the narration that started the series. After Riko’s death, Satoru and Suguru had a busy summer filled with missions and exorcisms. Gojo perfected his Infinity and Limitless and was well on his way to perfecting his Domain and his Reversed Cursed Technique. As a result, he started going on solo missions, leaving Geto to go on missions on his own.
The narration makes it clear that this isolation and the vile side effects of his Cursed Technique completed Suguru’s disillusionment regarding the unsustainable truth of the Jujutsu Society. He finally saw his work as the thankless job that it always had been, and the trauma from the Star Plasma vessel incident propelled him down a path that was as different from his previous righteous altruism as possible. This culminated in him addressing the non-sorcerers as "Monkeys" for the first time.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5: Yuki Tsukumo and the truth of the Jujutsu world
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 then moved on to Geto and Gojo’s third year, by which point Geto has progressed significantly towards his ultimate deflection. One afternoon, he ran into Yu Haibara, who was leaving for a mission and asked to bring him a souvenir. At that moment, Haibara and Geto met Yuki Tsukumo, the other Special grade Sorcerer apart from Gojo and Geto, who entered the scene with Aoi Todo’s iconic dialogue:
“What type of girls do you like?”
Yuki told Geto about her dream to treat what she called the root cause of the issues in the Jujutsu society. She explained that Curses were born from the Cursed Energy that leaked out of humans. So in order to eradicate curses, there were two possible routes to take. One was to eradicate Cursed Energy from humans, other was to teach them to control their Cursed Energy like sorcerers.
The experiments in the first avenue were perfected in the case of Toji Zen’in (she did not call him Fushiguro) and his Heavenly restriction. However, it was a tricky thing to get Heavenly restriction to work properly, which brought her to the second route. Compared to non-sorcerers, Jujutsu Sorcerers released almost no Cursed Energy.
This was because the balance between the production and consumption of Cursed Energy for sorcerers was fairly even. So if everyone was a Jujutsu Sorcerer in the world, no Cursed Spirits would be born. These words had a profound impact on Geto, who remembered the Time Vessel Members. He then suggested, quite seriously,
“Why not kill all non-sorcerers then?”
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5: Yu Haibara's death and Nanami Kento
Tsukumo, while shocked, told him that while this was a viable road to orchestrating a forced evolution, it required genocide, and she was not crazy enough to go down that path. Upon her prodding, Geto confessed that he no longer believed that Jujutsu Sorcerers existed only to protect non-sorcerers.
He did not understand the purpose of sacrificing sorcerers so that despicable people like the Time Vessel Association members might go on living. Yuki informed him that the part of him that wanted to hate the "monkeys" and the other part that resisted those thoughts were at war. While Geto would have to make a choice soon, he was not there yet.
She also informed Geto that, despite what happened to Riko Amanai, Tengen had been stabilized because they had another Vessel or a similar alternative prepared. While Geto had conjectured as much, he was nonetheless a bit more disillusioned about his world.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 then moved to days later, when Kento Nanami returned from his and Haibara’s mission with exhaustion, a body full of wounds, and a dead classmate. Nanami informed Geto that while it was supposed to be a Grade 2 Curse, it was actually the Guardian Deity of the region, which made it a Grade 1 mission unfit for the two second-year students.
Geto reassured him that Gojo took the mission, which prompted Nanami to bite out that Gojo should take every mission from now on. As he stared at the lifeless body of his dead junior, Geto had the thought that perhaps at the end of the race to save non-sorcerers lay a mountain of dead friends. It is easy to see that Haibara’s death solidified Nanami’s desire to leave the Jujustu world and Geto’s contempt for the non-sorcerers.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5: Nanako, Mimiko, and Geto- Sama
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 then took another time skip to September 2007, when Geto was assigned to a village that suffered from a Cursed Spirit’s vengeance. After getting rid of the Spirit, Suguru found two children, the twins Mimiko and Nanako Hasaba, locked in a cage.
It became evident that the villagers tortured and abused the girls simply because they possessed Cursed Techniques, wrongfully accusing them of the Cursed Spirit’s existence. This, quite obviously, became the straw that broke the camel’s back. Geto asked the villagers to step out, and he used his Curses to kill all 112 residents of the village.
He finally made a choice and decided to follow the plan to make a world for only Jujutsu Sorcerers. Much Later, Yaga Masamichi was given access to the case file, which detailed the event and Suguru’s new status as a Curse User at large, with a kill-on-sight order on his head.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5: The Strongest and the Curse User
Later, Yaga informed Satoru about Suguru’s deflection, which shocked him. Yaga conveyed that they found traces of Suguru’s Cursed Energy in the Geto household, along with blood splatters. They concluded that Suguru killed his parents, who were non-sorcerers. Later, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 moved to Shinjuku, where Geto came to greet an unbothered Shoko days after his deflection.
Shoko asked him if the allegations were true and what he planned to do next. His answers made her realize that he was grasping at straws, but she made no moves or comments other than calling Gojo there and fleeing the scene. As Gojo angrily confronted Geto, he was shocked by his friend’s changed ideals.
However, Geto reminded him that it was wrong of Gojo to ridicule his visions when it was possible for Gojo himself. As he was leaving, Geto brazenly told Gojo to kill him if he wanted, since there would be some point behind that action too. Gojo could not unleash an attack against his dearest friend, whom he would not see for the next ten years and who left him with the confounding words:
“Are you the strongest because you are Satoru Gojo, or are you Satoru Gojo because you are the strongest?”
Later, Yaga asked Gojo why he let Suguru go, but understood that the answer was obvious. The encounter made Gojo realize that he can only save those who want to be saved. Therefore, being the strongest by himself would only push his weaker comrades towards resentment and insanity, and most certainly towards their deaths.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5: Evolution
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 then shifted to the headquarters of the Time Vessel Association, which had been disbanded in the previous year. However, their patrons and the structure of the organization remained. Geto was brought here by Shiu Kong and was seen to have adapted Nanako and Mimiko. He debuted his priest avatar, which viewers are familiar with from the first season and the film.
He announced his intent to take over the organization, which was met with major discontent. He made an example out of Sonoda, crushing him with a curse, and restated his plans to take over the organization with the simple words:
“You will obey me, Monkeys.”
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5: Megumi Fushiguro and Satoru Gojo
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 then jumped to a year later, when a 19-year-old Gojo visited a shabby locality in Tokyo in search of Toji Fushiguro’s son. After he found 6-year-old Megumi Fushiguro, he informed the boy of his situation. While the child seemed surprisingly aware of his and his sister’s situation, he refused to hear anything about his father when Gojo tried to confess to killing Toji.
When told about the Zen'in family, the boy agreed to go there only if his sister Tsumiki would be happy with the clan. When Gojo denied such possibilities, Megumi took a hostile stance, which impressed Gojo. He promised to take care of everything, with the condition that the child would grow to be stronger than him.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 then fast-forwards to October 19, 2018, when a grown-up Megumi was seen trying to wake Gojo up along with Yuji Itadori and Nobara Kugisaki. As the other two were fooling around, Megumi asked Gojo why he was smiling. Gojo answered the boy with the same word that Megumi had said to him nine years ago:
“Betsuni (It doesn’t matter/nothing).”
Final thoughts
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 is essentially the tragic middle of Gojo and Geto’s story, the ending of which the viewers already know. This episode points out the glaring flaws of the Jujutsu Society and the inherent tragedy of Suguru Geto’s fate. Everyone around Geto was unable to see how the boy was crumbling, including Gojo, Haibara, and his teacher.
Only Yuki Tsukumo was shrewd enough to understand Geto’s inner thoughts, but she was also wise enough to realize that only Geto could make the ultimate choice, and in the end, he did. The episode raises the question that has plagued manga readers for years: could anyone have altered Geto’s fate by helping him? It has long divided the fandom, with one side holding that Geto was always headed this way.
The larger fraction, however, believes that many people could have helped Geto out of this mindset by being more attentive and giving him more care. In Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5, both Gojo and Haibara ask after Geto, but the point is that they took his answers at face value.
That is not to say that either of them could have helped the boy. Perhaps the only one who could have intervened was his teacher, Masamichi Yaga. While it would be wrong definitively to say that Yaga could have stopped Geto from going down this road, it remains a possibility.
Even if no one else holds this view, Yaga would always blame himself for what happened to his student. He has stated his regrets in earlier arcs, but at the same time acknowledged that regret doesn’t matter in the long run. The underlying truth of this episode is that the destruction of the Jujustu World was always inevitable.
With the way the Jujutsu Society and the Human World feed off of each other’s worst impulses and feed off of each other’s vitality, their balance is always going to be tilted in favor of the humans, leading Jujutsu Sorcerers to their deaths. However, a replacement for this system has not been devised yet, and Geto’s Genocidal ideals can in no way be considered a valid replacement.
However, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 5 does leave off on a hopeful note with Gojo seeing his students and remembering that he is no longer alone. He had stated before that Hakari, Yuta, and Yuji could one day be his equals and that Megumi likely has a higher potential than Yuji. On the other hand, the ending also signals the beginning of the Shibuya incident arc, which, as manga readers would know, is anything but hopeful.
Be sure to keep up with more anime news and manga updates as the series progresses. Here are Jujutsu Kisen Season 2 release schedule and Episode 4 review.
