Another chapter of Jujutsu Kaisen and another time fans are throwing heat on the author Gege Akutami. The fandom had been quite disappointed with Nobara’s unexplained return to help defeat Sukuna in the climax of the Shinjuku battle arc.
And now, in the latest chapter of Jujutsu Kaisen, Gege pulled another blunder by off screening a very anticipated rematch between two characters. What’s more, both of them die without explaining how and why. As a result, fans expect studio MAPPA to fill in the gaps.
Jujutsu Kaisen chapter 268 concludes the fight between Hakari and Uraume
The rematch between Hakari and Uraume commenced in Chapter 245, which was released on Dec 18, 2023, and it took Gege around 10 months to conclude the fight. And most of it was pretty much off-screened, to the point that fans thought the author forgot about them.
Hakari vs. Uraume began with Uraume using “Frost Calm” to freeze Hakari’s hand but Hakari managed to quickly counter back, prompting Uraume to affirm that Hakari’s regenerative speed surpasses even Gojo’s and Sukuna’s.
Uraume attempted to halt Hakari by throwing icicle shards at him, but their attempts were unsuccessful.
After throwing Sukuna’s lackey at multiple buildings, Uraume had frozen the water pipes to rupture them, preparing for their next attack. Both the fighters charge against each other and that’s where fans last saw them going about.
Many apologetics of Jujutsu Kaisen had faith that Gege would do the fight justice but what they have realized is that the whole Hakari vs. Uraume fight was merely used as commentary for the battle against Sukuna.
During the times when Gege cut to their fight, Uraume was mostly talking about Sukuna and hyped him up and then the author immediately cuts back to Yuji and Co. vs. Sukuna.
One fan on Reddit was spot-on with this prediction by saying that, since fans had already caught a glimpse of their fight in Tokyo 1 during the Culling Games, their rematch wouldn’t add anything relevant to the story.
As soon as Sukuna vanished like Muzan in chapter 268, Uraume and Hakari knew that the war was finally over. Sukuna is defeated and there’s nothing more to do. As a result, Uraume said their final words to Hakari before reducing to ashes, Avengers style.
This conclusion got fans all riled up, as they felt Gege was rushing quite a bit. Hakari vs. Uraume could have been a thing of its own, like Kenjaku vs. Takaba or even Sukuna vs. Kashimo were.
The first encounter set up a lot of expectations but their final bout was merely serving as filler for Sukuna vs. everyone.
While Gege screwed up their encounter in the manga, studio MAPPA can actually redeem the situation by showing the fight in its entirety while animating the arc.
MAPPA is the only hope for Jujutsu Kaisen fans to get the ending they want
As of writing this article, Studio MAPPA has yet to release Jujutsu Kaisen season 3, which is expected to adapt the Culling Games and Shinjuku Showdown arcs.
The staff members responsible for making the anime have the liberty of expanding on stuff that was left out by the author.
For instance, MAPPA brought in Hajime Isayama on board to adapt the final episode of Attack on Titan and Isayama added more dialogues along with additional scenes inserted by the anime staff into the anime.
That adaptation, according to fans, was much better than the manga’s conclusion.
Similarly, Studio MAPPA can do the same with Jujutsu Kaisen, specifically with Hakari vs. Uraume. Since the manga cannot be changed now, Gege can use the anime to redeem themselves and do the fight justice by explaining to the staff how the battle actually went about.
This could make manga fans really excited for the anime, despite how the manga will conclude in 3 chapters.
Jujutsu Kaisen is now available to watch on Crunchyroll and Netflix.
