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Hello all, this thread will continue the last upgrade thread I made. Void Manipulation and Concept Type 3 for jujutsu was contested in the last thread and in the interest of passing the other abilities, it was decided to move this discussion to another thread. I would ask that a staff tag the mods who participated in the discussion last thread so they can make their piece known again in addition to Ontology experts such as DT, and Ultima, given the gridlock last thread. So, without further ado, I will be addressing those arguments again.
Background
As established in the Ontology thread, Buddhism is an inseparable component of jujutsu and the overall ontology of the jujutsu kaisen verse. Gege himself even ascribes to Buddhism being an integral foundation of the story's mythos. While there is a large volume of direct correlates we could point out here (which can be found in the ontology blog), I will stick to those I find most important.
With the context out of the way, I want to address the abilities from the last thread that had some contention. Starting off we will address void manipulation. As a brief summary, Sunyata is a concept from Buddhism that espouses that all things in existence inherently lack identity and are always changing. Thus, all things contain a certain "emptiness" from which different forms can arise from. In the JJK verse this has been alluded to and outright mentioned as a part of the verse, so let us look at the important mentions and implications.
Conclusion: Barrier users and Black Flash users should be given Void Manipulation. Information type 2 for the verse should be given specific Non-duality for the material-spiritual split and Void should be considered a layer beneath this.
Concept Manipulation Type 3 for CT
This section I would like to keep short as a lot of the information should be common knowledge and also because of the consequences of the above information. As we know by now, the JJK ontology is founded upon by void which then sparks Info type 2 to give form to the Material/Spiritual split that most humans live their lives by and generally understand. Due to this, reality is inherently driven largely by mental processes which must use a conduit of physicality (Tengen needs a body for their consciousness, Kenjaku propagates his ego via the brain, incarnated sorcerers need a host body, etc). This is first established by curses themselves. The weakest of curses exist as an amalgamation of the thought content possessed by their owners before death or trauma. Imaginary vengeful spirits are the result of collective human conceptions such as the Nine Tail fox and most other notable curses are the result of human conceptualization towards different phenomena such as grasshoppers, smallpox, the Earth, the Sea, etc. We also know that barriers are conceptual, given their construction being mediated through the use of symbology and imagery when manifesting into reality, also making said constructs "non-existent". This ontology is obviously very important to understand how CE is operating to perform CT.
When it comes to CT, we are directly told that Cursed techniques operate by targeting a concept. In addition to this, as seen with Sukuna, the target of the technique can also be switched to concepts (which makes sense given CT works on cursed spirits). This is directly proven to be universal by Kenjaku who is using gross knowledge of CT to figure out yuki. This is separately confirmed when Kenjaku states that the entirety of his cursed spirit army is now useless against Yuki due to her ability to ignore concepts. Mahito also espouses that humans are inherently trapped by the concepts that dictate their life via interaction with the soul. In addition to this, we learn from Urauma that their cursed techniques encapsulate "the essence" of Ice with her frost calm, which directly would correlate to something conceptual given the above. As discussed in this thread [2] with DT, such things would indeed qualify as Concept Manipulation type 3 at the bare minimum, thanks to their encapsulation of essence and JJK's inherent ontology.
Conclusion: All CT gain type 3 concept manip outside of those who qualify for type 2.
Staff Vote:
Agree:
Disagree:
Other:
Background
As established in the Ontology thread, Buddhism is an inseparable component of jujutsu and the overall ontology of the jujutsu kaisen verse. Gege himself even ascribes to Buddhism being an integral foundation of the story's mythos. While there is a large volume of direct correlates we could point out here (which can be found in the ontology blog), I will stick to those I find most important.
- The system of jujutsu and the golden age of cursed users directly proceeded Tengen's spreading of Buddhism and Jujutsu side by side in the period preceding the Golden age of sorcery; the Hieian period. This is important as it establishes Tengen as an authority on jujutsu and as the one who spread knowledge of it throughout Japan, thus creating a formalized system that led to the establishment of Jujutsu society, so much so, that the first cohort to hear her teaching were considered the standard of jujutsu innovation. It also clearly ties into the system of jujutsu to Buddhism as the two were taught complimentary to one another by Tengen. Thus, the ontological truths of Buddhism clearly play a crucial role in Jujutsu overall.
- Jujutsu is a phenomenon that almost exclusively appears in Japan. This phenomenon can once again be attributed to Tengen. Tengen only spread his teachings to those in Japan, and while jujutsu did exist before Tengen (evidenced by users such as Dhruv and the existence of the foreign Ganesha curse), outside of Migeul and his tribe's mysterious rope, the phenomena has only been observed in countries with a history of Buddhism (China, Japan, and India). Tengen further cemented this by creating barriers surrounding Japan in order to keep CE influence confined to a strict area.
- Buddhism is directly intertwined with the power system and verse ontology. We've seen the cycle of rebirth exist, CE acting as purification and thus removing one from the cycle of rebirths, Tengen dissociating his ego to become one with the universe, etc. More directly, we have things such as mudra being integral to domain users conceptualizing their domains. These mudra typically directly correlate with their character in some way. This is extremely important given the conceptual mechanics of how barriers work.
With the context out of the way, I want to address the abilities from the last thread that had some contention. Starting off we will address void manipulation. As a brief summary, Sunyata is a concept from Buddhism that espouses that all things in existence inherently lack identity and are always changing. Thus, all things contain a certain "emptiness" from which different forms can arise from. In the JJK verse this has been alluded to and outright mentioned as a part of the verse, so let us look at the important mentions and implications.
- Mahito is an excellent starting point given his ability gives him extreme insight into the nature of the souls and the ability to read souls. Mahito outright claims that Buddhist monks/practitioners were "experts of carving out their soul from external matter" and Mahito points out that the Buddhist monk he befriends is able to seem precisely because of his deep practice of Buddhism. This is important because it establishes once again that Buddhism has a direct correlation to jujutsu and cursed energy. It's also important to note that Mahito makes these comments about Buddhism after reading through a copy of the "Heart Sutra". This important teaching in Buddhism encapsulates the concept of Sunyata with its famous quote " Form is emptiness, emptiness is form" further highlighting it's direct correlation to the jujutsu world.
- Next, I will move on to Gojo, as he has had two experiences with this "void". The first time this happens is after Gojo experiences near death at Toji's hands. This causes him to experience "the core of cursed energy" at death's door and skyrockets not only his physical ability but also his grasp of jujutsu. We clearly see the "core" Gojo describes is the black canvas with white dots intermixed that Gege constantly uses when speaking of ontological concepts. We see this rear its head again when Gojo is deciphering how Sukuna is redirecting unlimited Void to Megumi. The six eyes is clearly able to gaze beyond Sukuna to see the canvas housing Sukuna and Megumi's soul.
- We see Gege utilize this same canvas imagery when discussing how Cursed techniques are passed on.
- Black flash is another perfect example. This mark of pure cursed energy control is accomplished by applying cursed energy to an attack in 0.000001 seconds. This creates a distortion in space which once again unlocks "the core of cursed energy" exposing the same black (where the technique gets its name from) starry canvas and bringing the user immensely closer to a true understanding of cursed energy.
- Notably, when Kenjaku is discussing how life takes shape, he explicitly mentions that cursed energy is what gives form to humans, sorcerers, and curses alike in the form of possibilities. We know this also extends to animals as well given Mei Mei's binding vow. Kenjaku mentions that this form (which his goal is to perfect) is "always flickering darkly in chaos," and we are given a shot of the white form taking shape in the darkness. This is important as it confirms the idea the "form" and "possibilities" exist distinct from sentient and beings and that this energy/chaos directly drive the progression of life and existence. Kenjaku also alludes to this non-dual nature when transporting humans from his barrier as a means of staying true to his binding vow, here, he states that the "space between dream and reality is a curse". This harkens back to the concept in jujutsu that the mind/body split is a false duality [2] underlined by information. Information being necessary to dictate form from emptiness, and this "information" is always "flickering in chaos" and being driven by sentient beings who exist as a totality of those levels of reality.
- Sukuna is our second most important character, as he is consistently shown to be associated and interacting with this void. When Sukuna is trapped inside Mahito's domain, the scenery switches from the audience's perspective of Mahito/Nanami within his domain and explicitly shows us the interaction of Mahito's domain/Sukuna's innate domain and soul occurring on the black and starry canvas. Here is able to hit Mahito from his innate domain due to the temporary linkage. When Sukuna fights we can also at time see this canvas be portrayed (although in a grey tone given it's superimposition over reality). Here you can he slashes Mahoraga with his slash only visible to us. He then exclaims that "Mahoraga can see it" after he adapts and counters his next volley. Similarly, when Sukuna finally gets his hands on Yuji, we can see that the only time we can his slashes are when we get this grey paneling, indicating a layer of reality that only Sukuna can see. Sukuna's ability to paint his domain over reality also directly touches upon this concept of Finally, we see this a final time with Sukuna when he explains how he cut through infinity. During this scan, Sukuna discusses how he needed to target beyond just space and the world, but ultimately hit existence itself to put him in a pack. During this scene we clearly see Sukuna once again cutting through this void, only this time it's completely black like the others and not grey, indicating Sukuna is hitting the bare bones existence unlike his normal slashes.
- Finally, we get to our last and most important player: Tengen. As you know, Tengen is an immortal hermit who acted as the founder of the formalized understanding of Jujutsu that persists to the modern era, as well as the person responsible for zoning the influence of jujutsu across the world. As discussed earlier, Tengen did this while also spreading Buddhism, underlying how intertwined the two systems are. We know that because Tengen was able to dissolve their ego and become one with existence that their consciousness is effectively immortal. In fact, the keep their ego as a distinct entity, they must use barrier jutsu to separate themselves from existence. this is why she requires a star plasma vessel so that she can animate once again by rewriting the physical information of her host. Now, early on we are told by Gege in the databook that Tengen lives in a "special barrier" (this barrier stated to be the "essence of jujutsu" [2]) that only those invited by Tengen can enter. We are later informed that this barrier is a "Sunyata Barrier" which allows for advanced barrier users to completely configure its shape. The natural state of this barrier is inherently blank but can be formed into fractal geometry, movies theatres, etc. During Tengen's explanation, he directly states that these Sunyata barriers are configurable by barrier users to some extent (depending on their skill) and we are given a direct footnote to contextualize the meaning of Sunyata which is as follows
This footnote is obviously important as it contextualizes the "special barrier" that Tengen was stated to exist in, explains why the space in the barrier can be configured by people, and also directly translates this nature to barrier users, who, despite never stepping foot in the barrier, would be able to somewhat configure it due to experience using barrier techniques in general. For proof of this, we can look at the first time an individual awoke their domain on screen which happens to bring us back to Mahito. When Mahito first realizes his innate domain, he discusses feeling the core of his soul (note the same black starry canvas) and then creates a barrier to trap Nanami. We clearly see that this barrier consists of the same canvas shown a trillion times throughout this thread as it lifts Yuji away to isolate him."Sunyata is a Buddhist concept of emptiness, which all things are ultimately made out of"
Conclusion: Barrier users and Black Flash users should be given Void Manipulation. Information type 2 for the verse should be given specific Non-duality for the material-spiritual split and Void should be considered a layer beneath this.
Concept Manipulation Type 3 for CT
This section I would like to keep short as a lot of the information should be common knowledge and also because of the consequences of the above information. As we know by now, the JJK ontology is founded upon by void which then sparks Info type 2 to give form to the Material/Spiritual split that most humans live their lives by and generally understand. Due to this, reality is inherently driven largely by mental processes which must use a conduit of physicality (Tengen needs a body for their consciousness, Kenjaku propagates his ego via the brain, incarnated sorcerers need a host body, etc). This is first established by curses themselves. The weakest of curses exist as an amalgamation of the thought content possessed by their owners before death or trauma. Imaginary vengeful spirits are the result of collective human conceptions such as the Nine Tail fox and most other notable curses are the result of human conceptualization towards different phenomena such as grasshoppers, smallpox, the Earth, the Sea, etc. We also know that barriers are conceptual, given their construction being mediated through the use of symbology and imagery when manifesting into reality, also making said constructs "non-existent". This ontology is obviously very important to understand how CE is operating to perform CT.
When it comes to CT, we are directly told that Cursed techniques operate by targeting a concept. In addition to this, as seen with Sukuna, the target of the technique can also be switched to concepts (which makes sense given CT works on cursed spirits). This is directly proven to be universal by Kenjaku who is using gross knowledge of CT to figure out yuki. This is separately confirmed when Kenjaku states that the entirety of his cursed spirit army is now useless against Yuki due to her ability to ignore concepts. Mahito also espouses that humans are inherently trapped by the concepts that dictate their life via interaction with the soul. In addition to this, we learn from Urauma that their cursed techniques encapsulate "the essence" of Ice with her frost calm, which directly would correlate to something conceptual given the above. As discussed in this thread [2] with DT, such things would indeed qualify as Concept Manipulation type 3 at the bare minimum, thanks to their encapsulation of essence and JJK's inherent ontology.
Conclusion: All CT gain type 3 concept manip outside of those who qualify for type 2.
Staff Vote:
Agree:
Disagree:
Other:
Last edited: