Did Sukuna need Mahoraga to attain the World-Cutting Slash in Jujutsu Kaisen? Explored
Jujutsu Kaisen fans were quite surprised when the manga showed Ryomen Sukuna using the World-Cutting Slash thanks to Mahoraga, to defeat Satoru Gojo. However, there has been a recent debate regarding whether the King of Curses could have gotten the same result without the legendary Shikigami, which leads to explaining what he did.
Using Mahoraga's ability to adapt to any attack, Sukuna had the creature go up against Gojo's Infinity, which was regarded as near-invincible in Jujutsu Kaisen. Once he got an understanding of how to bypass it, he managed to strike with the World-Cutting Slash, so there is an argument to be made that he could have gotten the same result but not with the same degree of effectiveness.
Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers for the series. Any opinion expressed here belongs to the author.
Explaining whether Sukuna needed Mahoraga or not to get the World-Cutting Slash against Gojo in Jujutsu Kaisen
As mentioned earlier, Ryomen Sukuna, now in Megumi Fushiguro's body, got access to the Shikigami known as Mahoraga and managed to tame it. Therefore, he used the creature's ability to adapt and sacrificed it to analyze Satoru Gojo's Infinity and the best way to bypass it because that Shikigami, if it managed to survive long enough, would deliver a way to withstand that kill of the sorcerer.
On paper, Sukuna has shown throughout the series that he is smart enough to analyze an enemy and swiftly defeat him or her, hence why that and his sheer mastery of Jujutsu made him the King of Curses. Therefore, he could probably come up with the plan to bypass Infinity even without Mahoraga but the latter made things a lot easier for him.
The sheer power of Mahoraga and its ability to adapt kept Gojo busy while also giving Sukuna time to come up with his World-Cutting Slash. Sukuna would have had to put himself in harm's way to come up with this strategy, so the Divine General wasn't a must for his plan to work but was a massive help to get it done without major consequences, especially considering he had to fight other sorcerers after Gojo.
The legacy of the Gojo vs. Sukuna battle
It is very clear that Ryomen Sukuna vs. Satoru Gojo is going to go down as the most iconic Jujutsu Kaisen battle of all time, especially by the time Studio MAPPA adapts said combat. This fight features the two strongest sorcerers of the series and finally settled the debate regarding who is the most powerful, although fans of both characters continue to debate until this very day.
Furthermore, this battle highlighted all the different elements of the series' battle system, including their mastery of Domain Expansion and their Cursed Techniques. While the conclusion of the battle, which was the World-Cutting Slash taking Gojo's life, is still controversial in the fandom, the vast majority of readers truly enjoyed this fight.
Final thoughts
It is very likely that Sukuna would still have gotten the World-Cutting Slash without Mahoraga in Jujutsu Kaisen but the latter certainly made it easier for him. This also highlights Sukuna's cunning nature and mastery of all forms of Jujutsu, which got him the upper hand over Gojo.
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