Gojo’s Death Explained: How Did Sukuna Kill Gojo In JJK?

Jujutsu Kaisen chapter 236 was stake through the heart for Gojo fans. Just when it felt like Gojo had turned the tide of the battle with his Hollow Purple in the previous chapter, Akutami blindsided everyone.

Not only did Sukuna overturn the deficit somehow, he was also able to kill Gojo. This is certainly not the topless Gojo that we were hoping to see.

Despite the narrator stating that Sukuna was scared for the first time in over 1000 years, chapter 236 turned the tables completely.

Naturally, questions were raised as to how Sukuna was able to cut and kill Gojo!

Gojo was a fan favorite, and even the strongest sorcerer of the current times. This only made it harder to believe that he would lose out of the blue to his opponent, who was clearly dead!

But fret no, in this article, we’ll explore how exactly Sukuna killed Gojo by catching him unawares!

How did Sukuna kill Gojo? Gojo’s death explained!

To answer in short, Sukuna killed Gojo by using Mahoraga’s slashing attack as a base. This helped Sukuna to bypass Gojo’s infinity and cut his body in half. 

The whole confusion surrounding Gojo’s death majorly happened because Sukuna’s killer move – the world cutting slash – happened offscreen. One moment we have Kusakabe saying that Gojo will win, and the next chapter we are introduced to Gojo in the dreamscape at the airport!

That was a bitter pill swallow. But earnestly, it was too soon to write off Sukuna. After all, the King of Curses had come prepared with a plan to take down the strongest sorcerer of modern times!

He himself provides the answer to how he was able to cut Gojo in chapter 236. Let’s understand that better!

We know that Sukuna had been using Mahoraga to adapt to infinity. Infact his road to victory hinged on this move. Sukuna had earmarked Infinity as his biggest obstacle in the fight against Gojo. And using Mahoraga was the only way to counter it.

However, there was more to this plan of his, and this is where Sukuna’s ingenuity and his skill in Jujutsu shows up.

Not only did Sukuna want Mahoraga to adapt to infinity, he also wanted to use Mahoraga’s adaptation as model or a blue-print to base his own attack. Meaning, even if Gojo is able to destroy Mahoraga, Sukuna would still be equipped with an attack that can bypass infinity.

So, despite all the fraud allegations against it is important to concede as Gojo fans that this plan was a stroke of brilliance from the King of Curses.

Basically, Sukuna wanted to use Mahoraga to help HIM come up with an attack which will penetrate Gojo’s inviolability. And Mahoraga did help Sukuna succeed in creating such an attack!!

Remember how Mahoraga had let loose a slash cutting Gojo’s arm? There lies our key in understanding how Sukuna killed Gojo

Sukuna explains Mahoraga’s adaptation in order to explain how things worked out for him. And Mahoraga had enough time to adapt to Gojo’s Infinity twice.

The first time the shikigami transmuted it’s own cursed energy to overcome infinity. However, this wasn’t something that Sukuna could have pulled off!

This resulted in him forcing Mahoraga to adapt more, and this time to come up with an attack which Sukuna can use. This is why Sukuna told Mahoraga that the shikigami was his shadow, and not Megumi’s!

The shikigami obliged and adjusted a slashing attack in a way that it would cut anything and everything in front of it, even space, existence and the world. In front of such an attack, there wasn’t anything that Gojo’s infinity could do.

Now, this slashing attack was something that Sukuna could copy, and that’s precisely what he did. But then, it wasn’t an altogether new attack. In the following chapters of JJK, we understand that this world cutting slash of Sukuna is a dismantle slash, with the range of the cursed technique increased to encompass space as a whole!

And when Sukuna was on his last legs, he used this world/space cutting slash. But then, everytime we see Sukuna use the attack, we see him chant and point his hand. So how exactly did Sukuna manage to catch Gojo off-guard, especially since he was in a losing position.

How did Sukuna catch Gojo off-guard to cut him?

Gojo possessed the se six eyes, which let him perceive cursed techniques like none other in the JJK universe. He should have been able to see that an attack was coming based on the cursed energy welling forth from Sukuna right before he activated his cursed technique – six eyes or not!

This was explained to us in chapter 235!

Despite that, Sukuna was able to cut Gojo without the latter realizing it. The fandom had initially theorized that Sukuna could have used a binding vow of some sort to catch Gojo off-guard. And this assumption was proven to be true come chapter 255.

In order to actually use the dismantle that cuts the world, Sukuna needed to use the enmaten hand sign, the same one he uses for his domain expansion. However, since Gojo’s hollow purple left him crippled, with only one hand, doing that was not possible.

So, in a last ditch effort to cut down Gojo, Sukuna made a binding vow wherein could activate the world cutting slash without the hand sign. This let him catch Gojo off-guard. Check out the translations from chapter 255 provided by lightning below!

The lack of hand-signs and chant meant that Gojo probably took it easy, and by the time he could react to the attack by judging the cursed energy that welled forth, it was already too late! He was topless.

Sukuna’s binding vow also meant that he now had additional activation requirements. Along with the enmaten, Sukuna would also need to chant and he must point his palm in the direction of the cursed technique. Basically, the world cutting slash became nerfed due to the binding vow, because Sukuna could no longer catch his opponents unawares.

What are your thoughts on Gojo getting killed off-screen by Sukuna? Do you think it was an asspull? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!