I Believe Nobara's Return Only Hurt Jujutsu Kaisen Because of the Timing

As one of the most popular new-gen series, Jujutsu Kaisen has been at the forefront of animanga discussions in the past year. The main reason for this is its highly divisive ending, filled with controversial narrative decisions. Along with the bold choice Gege made to kill off most of the main cast, a moment that several readers were not a fan of was the return of the tritagonist, Nobara Kugisaki.

While many believe that her return itself was at fault and hurt the series, I hold a different view. The choice to bring Nobara back to life was consistent and also somewhat expected. However, what Gege got wrong was the timing of her return. At a time when Jujutsu Kaisen fans were already feeling disappointed with the author for wasting several characters, he did not do himself any favors with his treatment of the female main character.

To start, Nobara had always been a favorite of mine and countless other fans because of her headstrong personality and bonds with Itadori and Megumi. Due to this, her apparent fate in the Shibuya Incident Arc came as a highlight of the series. During the multiple chaotic events occurring on the battlefield, Nobara fell victim to Mahito’s transfiguration technique.

In her final moments, she smiled and told Itadori that her experience as a sorcerer wasn’t so bad before half of her face was blown apart. This event further pushed the protagonist into depression, following the recent loss of Nanami. However, Gege had never intended to make her stay dead. Right after Nobara’s supposed end, Nitta had shared that the sorcerers were working towards healing Nobara, and even though her chances were slim, she was not conclusively dead.

In the space of shonen anime where death fake-outs are so common, Gege had already set up the foundations for Nobara’s return through this. Unfortunately, despite the countless reader expectations and theories on how Nobara would come back, Gege placed her character on the back burner.

During the events of the Culling Game Arc and the Shinjuku Showdown Arc, the cast expanded rapidly, perhaps too much, since many plot threads were left unresolved. Nevertheless, given how late into the series we were, many fans, including myself, began to believe that Gege had simply forgotten about Nobara.

There had been no mention of her for a long time, and Jujutsu Kaisen was approaching its conclusion. Regretfully, at this point, Gege made a deeply controversial choice. This was the return of Nobara Kugisaki. As I had already mentioned earlier, due to the nature of her return, the series faced heavy criticism.

However, Nobara’s return itself was not unwarranted. She had never been confirmed to be dead, and her skill of Resonance was one of the few that could directly hurt the soul. This is exactly what she did, too, as her ability let Megumi escape Sukuna’s clutches, and the King of Curses was defeated by Itadori.

The issue that I faced with her return was the timing of it. Nobara is a character who breaks the stereotype of poorly written female characters in shonen anime. She is individualistic, powerful, and has several key moments on her own. However, the only purpose of her return was to serve as a plot device. The grand moment of Nobara coming back to life was reduced to just one scene where she used Resonance to harm Sukuna, and the day was saved.

She had been so removed from the plot since the Shibuya Incident Arc that I could not feel impressed with her appearance right before victory, especially when the rest of the characters had worked so hard to defeat Sukuna.

Nobara’s treatment was not befitting of a tritagonist who had an intriguing character arc of her own. Her relationship with her childhood friend was never explored properly, and her complex home life was only mentioned in passing during the Jujutsu Kaisen epilogue.

How Nobara’s Return Could Have Been Better in Jujutsu Kaisen

Nobara’s return was crucial in Jujutsu Kaisen, and defeating Sukuna without her would have been impossible. At the same time, I feel the execution could have been done much better. Reintroducing Nobara earlier in the series would have allowed her to be more meaningfully involved in the narrative stakes, rather than solely being used as a last-minute trump card against Sukuna.

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By revealing her sometime during the Culling Game Arc, fans could have enjoyed seeing her bond with Itadori further, as well as her reaction to Megumi’s captivity. Hence, even if she had not directly participated in the Shinjuku Showdown Arc, her presence would have carried more weight.

Another potential route could have been to not include Nobara in the final fight at all. If Gege devised another way to kill Sukuna and save Megumi, Nobara’s return could have served as a cameo at the very end. I believe this would have been much more poignant and helped avoid the perception that she was merely a "cheat code" to defeat Sukuna. It could have also provided a touching conclusion to the main characters after their turbulent life.

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