u/MysteriousDog5909

Be warned this is going to be a lot of yap, but I'm covering things that I feel are never talked about. This maybe could have been multiple posts, but all the points work together so oh well. Honestly though, I love what Gege did with this fight, it's so multifaceted and there's so much you can discuss about it.

Many people like to bring up how Sukuna held back in domain clashes and that Gojo could never win them if Sukuna didn't worry about adaptation. However, they never mention how Gojo was also disadvantaged in his own way. Remove these barriers and the clashes would be too close to call even against Heian form. This argument boils down to two factors, the differences in prep time and the tangible downstream effects it had on their clashes.

Whether intentional or not, Sukuna's prep time starts from chapter 1. At that point Sukuna lives in Yuji's body and gets to experience his greatest rival treating him as a student. Gojo displays the ins and outs of all his abilities and gives Sukuna an understanding of who he is as a person. This gives Sukuna a real advantage. Gojo shows Yuji a major hidden weakness to Infinite Void and Sukuna uses that to take the second clash. On the flipside, Gojo is fighting someone who only lives in legend with only a vague description on what he can do.

This gap in knowledge really presents itself in Gojo's use of basketball domain, or should I say his lack of it. The fact that he wasted two clashes before coming up with it is honestly hard to defend. No matter which way you slice it, against an open domain of 200 meters the obvious vulnerability is the outer shell. Gojo already knew he could use basketball domain so why didn't he? You might argue it's because he didn't know how an open domain and closed barrier would interact, but this is flawed for two reasons. For one, if he didn't know how they would interact, why would he not gamble on the safest bet? This would be the basketball domain as it's best equipped to protect the most glaring weak point. And on top of that we know that's not the reason, because if it was then Gojo would have used basketball domain on the second clash. At that point he knows how their domains interact and yet he still didn't basketball.

The real explanation is that the idea to use basketball domain to counter open domain is something Gojo had to come up with on the spot. It was a spur of the moment inspiration discovered through trial and error, not a preplanned tactic. And that is... kind of ridiculous??? People used to claim that Gojo didn't know Sukuna had an open domain, and this is exactly what caused that confusion. My honest opinion is that this boils down to plot more than anything, but if I had to give an inverse explanation, it's that Gojo waltzed into that fight with 0 forethought. Perhaps looking to enjoy an actual challenger and not even wanting to ruin the surprise of what such a prospect might bring.

But this is a stark contrast to the meticulousness Sukuna entered the fight with. My main gripe here is that Sukuna was given the major weakness to Gojo's domain while Gojo wasn't. If Gojo got to experience Sukuna's domain with his own eyes AND have Sukuna explain to him exactly what it can do while also showing its flaws and counters, there is simply no way to argue that Gojo doesn't use basketball domain from clash 1. Even in the existing story, it's already difficult to explain away.

Now this probably plays a bigger role in the clashes than you might think. Yes Gojo would have 5 clashes to actually work with instead of just 3, but it's more than that, HE WOULD HAVE MORE OUTPUT. This is another thing no one brings up. We know that the brain damage from domain clashes is the main reason Gojo and Sukuna lost output, but people conveniently leave out that this was happening on completely different timetables. Sukuna only started experiencing it at clash 4 and took the brunt of this effect only after the clashes were already over from infinite void, but Gojo was experiencing it from clash 2. By the time Gojo and Sukuna actually fight in the 3 minute clashes, Gojo has already given himself permanent brain damage twice. We even see the image where it looks like he almost passed out for a second. Meanwhile, Sukuna is at 100% and has taken 0 damage.

People bring up how it still took Gojo 3 minutes to win a clash against Sukuna who was pausing DA, but leave out how this is a weakened Gojo. There's only one time where Gojo is actually at full strength in the domain clashes and it's clash 1, what do we see there? Gojo with no CT remains relative to domain buffed Sukuna while simultaneously blasting RCT at max output. This is honestly an insane feat, we see how debilitating the use of RCT is on a sorcerer's fighting capability. This is why beforehand I felt that it was a little weird how it still took Gojo 3 whole minutes to win against Sukuna after flipping these massive advantages. That's when I looked at the panel above and realized that clash 3 and on was never full power Gojo. In fact, based on the information we've been given, he's already lost around 40% of the output he will in the entire fight.

I say all of this to point out how even against Heian Sukuna that doesn't hold back, Gojo does not necessarily lose the domain clashes. Claiming that as a fact is a result of surface level reading and ignoring of context. If you allow Gojo to have equal foreknowledge and not go in nerfed, he gets 5 full clashes to perform at the insane level he was at in clash 1. Now I'm not saying Sukuna doesn't have his own advantages, stronger body, 4 arms, and no need to pause DA. Are these enough to last 15 minutes against full strength Gojo? It very well could be or it very well could not, impossible to say. There's too many unknowns.

None of this even factors things like teleportation or an earlier use of unlimited purple, but that would just get off topic so never mind it. This post exists mainly to dispel the idea that Heian Sukuna low or mid diffs if he doesn't hold back. Gojo vs Sukuna will always be a high diff fight and Gojo has viable ways of winning even against an open domain. (I actually do think Gojo is generally a slightly stronger character overall🤭, but that's beside the point. This post is about the specific matchup between them)

Objection 1: Gojo didn't have lower output because he hadn't reached 5 clashes yet

5 is not a magic number. The only reason it's special is because it happened to be the point where the brain damage was so bad they couldn't open domains. But losing their domains is not what lowered their output, it's what CAUSED the loss of their domains, that being the brain damage Gojo experienced disproportionately. You might still claim the brain damage didn't lower output until clash 5, but why? Your reasoning would be completely arbitrary. The reason you can put a hard number like 5 on domains is because they are a binary, but output is not a binary, it's a matter of degree. If output loss is caused by brain damage, you would need to prove why the degree of brain damage wouldn't correlate with the degree of output loss.

Objection 2: If Gojo really had lower output, why didn't the narrator say so?

This is just a writing technique where information is withheld in order to have a big reveal. Gojo's loss in output wasn't mentioned because it would spoil the big moment where his domain fails. If not, we would be clued in that Gojo can't keep this up forever and ruin the surprise. It's still foreshadowed with the nosebleed panel, but outright statements are avoided for the sake of a more thrilling fight.