u/Used_Yak_1959

In chapter 258, we see Sukuna bring out his flames in order to try and incinerate everyone in his domain.

In chapter 267, we see Yuji attack Sukuna with his sure-hit, then do some kind of hand gesture that immediately causes flames (circled in red) to erupt out of Sukuna's chest. These flames not only persist throughout the rest of the fight, but they spread across Sukuna's body. They reach up to his face, engulf his back, and even spread down to his arms.

We also see Sukuna's face both before and Yuji does that mystery hand sign, and its only after these flames are summoned that Sukuna's face shifts from fairly clear to clearly burning.

Again, Yuji has:

1. The exact same technique as Sukuna

2. Shown the ability to set his opponent on fire

3. Said fire looks nearly identical to the flames that Sukuna summons, spreads across the target like fire would, actually burns Sukuna (so it isn't just a visual effect), and persists until Sukuna is defeated

Why isn't this evidence of Yuji having and using Furnace? Sure, he didn't come out and say "Furnace: Open!" but he checks every other box does he not?

Maybe I'm missing something so lmk what you all think

Fellas, don't let anyone ever convince you that this man isn't the GOAT.

I don't care what the "Itatheory" copers say; Gege has made it abundantly clear that Yuji (comfortably) sits at the top of the verse. He is HIM.

You cannot look me in the eyes and seriously try to argue that these two are even remotely comparable

The gap in both sheer scale & skill here is genuinely night and day. You show any other manga reader these panels and they're coming to the (frankly obvious) conclusion that Yuji dwarfs Sukuna, but here people will fight tooth and nail to argue the opposite 😭😭😭

If we use Gege's own guidelines for determining the skill of a Sorcerer, Yuji is objectively at least as skilled as Sukuna is. I'd argue he's actually more skilled in this regard since the scale of his max subtraction feat is drastically greater than Sukuna's, but even if you want to chalk this up to an output difference (or even Sukuna "just not needing to" ever do this), Yuji's skill being equal to Sukuna's is undeniable.

We know that the Black Flash is one of the biggest differentiators in understanding CE. Sorcerers who experience the sparks of black grow exponentially more than those who do not, and we've seen characters force growth and unlock new things by landing Black Flashes, and we're directly told that Yuji has surpassed even Gojo's record of Black Flashes, and has seemingly been hitting them for decades given how he casually throws them out in Modulo without any effort or surprise.

Modulo takes place in 2086. We don't know Sukuna's exact age, but he's never shown to be an elderly man while Yuji, despite his physical youth, is in his 80s. His time & experience is at least on par with Sukuna's if not immensely greater, so he's had much more time to perfect his craft than Sukuna has.

We are directly told that Yuji's body fundamentally remembers Sukuna's extreme Special Grade Jujutsu, which is part of why he's able to learn so quickly. Sukuna used his Domain Expansion in Yuji's body several times, which means Yuji should subconsciously remember using an open barrier Domain Expansion.

Yuji's potential is also highlighted to us numerous times throughout the series. Gojo (someone widely acknowledged to be fiercely competitive with Sukuna) states that he has potential comparable to his own. Uraume hints at Yuji having potential equal to Sukuna. Sukuna himself acknowledges Yuji climbing up to his level, and Yuji clearly has the mindset for it as well. He was trained by the strongest of his era, and a core part of his character is defined by wanting to be the strongest in order to save others.

Given how ludicrously powerful he is in Modulo, it's clear that he wasn't sitting around on his ass for decades. He clearly elevated his craft and grew exponentially in strength. He's mastered Blood Manipulation to a level Kenjaku thought impossible by adding tracking to Piercing Blood without losing speed. Sukuna did not do this for him. He copied Sukuna's hand Dismantles, which were only used when Sukuna was in Megumi's body. Sukuna did not do this for him; there is no muscle memory for Yuji to rely on. Yuji clearly had to study how Sukuna used his techniques, and was evidently able to master said techniques.

With all this in mind, I'm genuinely curious, why are people so opposed to Yuji leeching anything off of Sukuna? I've seen so many people argue "Sukuna could do that if he wanted to!" with no real evidence whenever Yuji's feats are brought up, but these same people are enraged when you do the same thing for Yuji?

Again, Yuji has:

• Jujutsu Skill objectively on par with Sukuna's (if not considerably greater)
• Potential repeatedly touted to be on par with Gojo & Sukuna's
• The mindset and motivations to capitalize on said potential
• Muscle memory or "hidden potential" (don't know the best wording for this) of Sukuna's Jujutsu
• An exponentially greater amount of Black Flashes landed than either Gojo or Sukuna (thus should be far closer to the essence of CE than they are)
• Drastically greater experience than Gojo & Sukuna
• Demonstrated the ability to copy techniques used by Sukuna even outside of his body
• Elevated his techniques to a level previously stated to be impossible by Kenjaku of all people
• Elevated his CE manipulation to a level never before seen, even including the likes of Gojo & Sukuna

So why are people so opposed to giving Yuji things that Sukuna has performed? Why is an open-barrier DE out of the question? Why can't he perform the WCS? Why is his domain supposedly less refined than Gojo & Sukuna's? Why can't he perform comparatively simple techniques like Domain Amplification, Fuga, hell even Cleave??

With everything we've seen from him and everything we know about this power system, Yuji having these abilities is not only likely, but IMO it should be expected. People always shout "Itatheory!!" from the rooftops because we never saw him try in Modulo, but is there an actual reason for this that's grounded by anything substantial? or do people refuse to give him anything that isn't explicitly shown or stated to us for no reason other than not wanting Yuji to be stronger than (whoever)?

Curious what y'all think so lmk

please stop doing this shit

I've seen and commented on many TLs here, but I have yet to make one myself & I want to change that. In the future, I'd like to have every (relevant) character on the list, but I've decided to narrow it down to the stronger ones as of right now since its already complicated enough and I frankly don't give a damn about the weaker characters

General Notes:

• Placements are based off a mix of feats, narrative, and matchups
• Characters with different "forms" (Yuta, Tsurugi, Maki, Gojo, Geto etc) will eventually be added & differentiated
• Names of the tiers shouldn't be taken too seriously & characters at the top of a tier aren't necessarily gapped by the bottom characters of the tier above

Preemptive Clarifications:

• Mahoraga is being scaled in its base state/prior to any adaptations. It is this high due to having the AP to wound calamities, being low end relative to them in speed, and having the durability to withstand (some of) their attacks
• MBA Kashimo is being scaled under the assumption that his opponents are fighting in character. I don't normally do this since MBA is inherently OOC, but doing so makes his matchups simpler for me
• I could see Prime Yuta realistically being anywhere from 2-5, but since we haven't actually seen him, he's tentatively 5th
• Mahito's placement is pretty flexible for me, as I think he solidly beats/has arguments for beating several characters above him (Kashimo, Hakari, Yorozu) but may also lose to characters below him (Yuki, Jogo(?))
• I have Uro above Ryu mainly because of her technique being pretty busted & her being insanely hard to hit in general, but I can understand Ryu being above her since he's a physical monster
• Hakari is above HR because I think Jackpot Hakari's stats are criminally underrated, and his matchups are a lot more forgiving since his immortality via JP and reroll sequences via Domain Expansion allows him to make more mistakes against incredibly lethal characters (ex: Kashimo, Uraume) and still win. He loses to them in a direct 1v1 though.
• I adhere pretty strictly to the narrative of the Heavy Hitters being relative, so I can't put Hakari or Toji/Maki above one character and not have the others right next to them in good faith
• Toji is slightly "stronger" than Maki due to having more tools despite being equally skilled as fighters & sharing stats. He's a dirty little feat leech but it is what it is
• Uraume is being scaled under the assumption that she has HWB. There are no feats or statements proving she has it, so it is technically a headcanon, but personally, her not having HWB while being such an elite fighter (and Sukuna's right hand) is unthinkable. If you think she's lower and/or a complete domain victim, that's fine by me since I can't disprove it. Regardless, she's still incredibly lethal, glazed by the narrative, and held her own against Hakari for a considerable amount of time
• Curse Naoya could honestly be moved a couple spots higher IMO, but I'm not sure on how valid that is. Definitely open to suggestions there

Anomalies:

• Takaba: Should be obvious why, but I think his placement is dealer's choice
• Amped Maru: Arguably not very combat-applicable + requires an immense amount of external support, but (objectively) performs feats on the greatest scale in the verse
• Tsurika: Considerably worse stats than complete HR Tsurugi, no domain immunity, and the inability to wield the SSK to its full potential is rough, but they're also able to throw out calamity level slashes seemingly whenever Rika feels like it, so I'm not sure where exactly to place them

IDFK:

• Higuruma: Absolute nightmare to definitively place. People call Mahito a matchup merchant but this man is infinitely worse. I need help with this one
• Megumi: Obvious potential/"If" man jokes aside, it's hard to place him. What did Sukuna piloting his body do for him? Did he gain Shrine? Did he complete his Domain Expansion? If so, how refined is it? Is it open? Did his stats improve? If so, by how much? Did he gain RCT/DA? etc
• Completed HR Tsurugi: I've interpreted his complete HR as being equal to Maki & Toji's physically, but there's no confirmation on him being able to "see" like they can or not. If he can, then he'd be right up next to them, but if not, his SSK will be drastically less effective and he falls in the rankings a bit
• Miguel: Heavily glazed by the narrative, but the central point of Gojo's explanation of his stats varies wildly depending on the translation, he doesn't have any defenses against Domain Expansions (and is canonically weary of them), and has the "anti-feat" of his only showing of AP dealing negligible damage to Sukuna. Struggling to determine where he should be placed
• Geto: Where do I even begin with this guy. I value the narrative a lot (using the story to help scale characters in said story is expected and valid) but holy shit is this guy a nightmare to scale. No shown RCT but conflicting translations on if he has it or not. Complete domain victim if we go off shown feats, but narratively makes zero sense for him to have a 30% chance against Gojo if he instantly loses to Infinite Void, but he was also written before Domain Expansions were a thing. His body and technique is a significant chunk of Kenjaku's strength, but most of his own feats are circular/scale nowhere, and the vast majority of his Curses (especially the strongest ones) are entirely featless question marks. Where he should be placed is completely beyond me; please help

Will try to answer questions and I am obviously open to suggestions since I want to improve this over time, so lmk what y'all think.

Having a Domain Expansion is not a feat for said domain's refinement.

Kenjaku stating that Yuki's Domain Expansion would have faired better in a clash than her Simple Domain is not evidence for exceptional refinement. It is an incredibly obvious, well-known assertation that DE > SD.

Yuki does not "domain diff" anyone with a domain. Arguing otherwise is completely impossible without headcanon and extreme vibescaling.

"And if Okkotsu's grandkid loses, I'll clean up that mess too"

I swear, I've seen the exact same posts made over and over again by Karma farming bums. Hell, I've even seen my own stuff posted here and on other subs.

I know this much easier said than done, but if the mods could find some way to ban posts with the exact same titles and contents, that would be great.

The conditions of Sukuna's WCS are directly explained to us.

1. He must hold the Malevolent Shrine hand sign.

2. He must recite the full chant for the WCS (Scale of the Dragon, Recoil, Twin Meteors, Dismantle!)

3. He must direct the trajectory of the slash with a (third) hand sign.

We see Sukuna throw Kashimo to the side then immediately follow up with a Dismantle grid that instantly ends the fight. There is no Malevolent Shrine hand sign, no chant, and no third hand directing the attack. Sukuna meets NONE of the conditions for the WCS here.

The "Kashimo died to a WCS net!!" hogwash needs to die.

I cannot believe this needs to be explained, but no, Sukuna with half of his CE reserves, gutted output, gutted RCT, no 10 Shadows, no Domain Expansion, and brain damage from Infinite Void is NOT stronger than full power Meguna.

True form Sukuna is physically superior to Meguna, but that only applies when all variables are constant. Heian body Sukuna's unquantifiable stat amp, extra arms, and extra mouth does not make up for him losing 6-10 fingers worth of CE, a considerable amount of output, unhindered RCT, an entire CT, and Malevolent Shrine.

Wanking a character to the moon and justifying it by saying that they are "relative to true form Sukuna" when that Sukuna was drastically weakened is incredibly disingenuous and needs to stop.

Additionally, you are not "relative" to someone if you land zero hits on your opponent, are on the backfoot for the entirety of the fight, get instantly slaughtered by the first use of their technique, and are viewed as nothing more than an appetizer by said opponent.

Saw this post talking about how Modulo Yuji and Kashimo share the feat of being able to turn off their CE, but I think its a little different.

Panda quickly deduces that Kashimo is able to turn his CE on and off and that he must be skilled because of it. Modulo Yuji's feat looks similar at a glance, but there is a key distinction. Yuji isn't turning his CE off, but rather actively concealing it.

When Osuki attacks Yuji, we see Yuji use the same application of Shrine that Sukuna uses in order to safely defend against bladed weapons without actually touching them. Yuji also doesn't budge an inch when he effortlessly catches a CE-reinforced man jumping out a building and plummeting towards him with one hand.

Given how much CE-less Yuji struggled to defend against attacks from a Grade 1-esque opponent like Higuruma, it should be fair to say that Yuji wouldn't be able to (or at the very least would struggle to) block an attack from Osuki, who Yuji states to be "pretty tough" without reinforcing himself even if his base body got a bit stronger as he aged.

Gojo explains that CE flows into your CT in order to activate it, which means Yuji would not have been able to use the chainsaw Dismantles to block Osuki's axe if he wasn't using CE. Yuji being able to reinforce himself and use techniques without any CE being sensed is something we have not seen from anyone else. It is a feat exclusive to Yuji.

Kashimo is essentially just flipping the switch on his CE, while Yuji is using his the whole time. You just can't sense it until he's about to nail you with a Black Flash.

The higher ups have sealed away u/CrazyOverCandie for 5 days, but she's made a Binding Vow

1. She won't spam the sub with schizo slander posts anymore

2. In exchange for her character development, the seal is undone, and she is released from the Prison Realm

(I also can't make fun of her zero CE Sukuna take for the time being 🤬)

Slides 1-3: Subtraction & skill

It is directly stated by the narrator themself that the better a Sorcerer is at subtraction (cutting out hand signs, incantations, movements etc) the more skilled they are at Jujutsu.

Against Mahito, Yuji effortlessly cubes the entire environment and his opponent in the blink of an eye with the maximum subtraction possible. People often downplay this by highlighting how Sukuna can also send slashes out without moving, which is true.

However, it should be abundantly clear that Yuji's feat absolutely dwarfs Sukuna's in comparison, as his maximum subtraction slashes cut down both Mahito and soul Shibuya in an instant, while Sukuna's maximum subtraction slash gets blocked by Kusakabe. Sukuna is weakened here, but (without his domain) he has no feats outside of this proving he scales anywhere near this level of destruction in general, much less without moving a muscle.

Yuji is able to unleash this ridiculous level of destructive power casually while Sukuna evidently cannot. He is better at subtraction, and thus he is a more skilled Sorcerer.

Slides 4-10: Output

I see a lot of people try to downplay Yuji's infamous Dismantle feat by chalking it up to "just range" but that makes zero sense given what we know about Shrine: Higher output = bigger slashes.

Sukuna shows this fact himself. After his fight with Gojo, Sukuna was the most fresh and had the highest output against Kashimo. This is also the time where his slashes are (by far) the biggest and most imposing. Sukuna then brawls with Yuta, Yuji, and Rika and loses a considerable amount of output from accumulated damage & Yuji's soul-splitting punches, and when Sukuna unleashes the same classic Dismantle net we're all familiar with, they are visibly smaller and weaker.

Several chapters later, Sukuna has sustained even more damage (Jacob's Ladder, countless Yuji punches, Maki's SSK wounds etc) and his output is even lower than it was in Yuta's domain. His output is so low that even Ino, someone who doesn't physically compare to Yuji, Yuta, or Kashimo in the slightest, is able to survive his slashes. Coincidentally, Sukuna's slashes are visibly even smaller than they were before, showing a clear trend between Dismantle size and CE output.

Why does this matter?

Yuji's slashes dwarf anything Sukuna has ever shown by orders of magnitude. Regardless of whether you're a Tsurika slash believer or not, Yuji doing at least one of those slashes is inarguable, meaning Yuji has enough output to fire off a slash that spans multiple city blocks and is capable of causing an explosion comparable in size to Gojo's Unlimited Purple and Sukuna's Furnace + Malevolent Shrine combo.

Sukuna, on the other hand, has zero scaling to this. Against Mahoraga, his slashes are consistently far smaller than Yuji's. Against Ryu, his Dismantle is far smaller than Yuji's. Even against Gojo, his toughest opponent ever, his slashes are still far smaller than Yuji's.

Some argue that Sukuna has "never needed to" unleash an attack that big and could do so if he wanted to, but if you ask me, saying that Sukuna can take his slashes from cutting down buildings to ravaging multiple city blocks with zero feats, statements, or loose implications to back that up seems far more headcanon-y than the (frankly obvious) other conclusion that Yuji simply has better output.

Slides 11-17: Raw strength

Sukuna's body is undoubtedly special & insanely OP, but not for the reasons that some people argue. The narrator explains the incredible advantages Sukuna gains from his unique body, but notably says nothing about his raw strength. Plenty of people love to say that Sukuna is "superhuman", which is technically true. After all, how many 7 feet tall, musclebound, 4-armed monsters do you know in real life?

Thing is, there's nothing special about Sukuna's body beyond this. He's insanely tall, unbelievably muscular, and has double the arms of a normal person, but there's nothing implying that without Cursed Energy, Sukuna would be physically superior to any other human with that same physique.

This does not apply to Yuji. Yuji is actually superhuman in the sense that no normal person could ever even remotely compare to him physically. At 15 years old, Yuji was able to fight on par with Higuruma (Grade 1 level) without being able to control his CE. Outside of fully heavenly restricted people like Toji, Maki, and Tsurugi, nobody comes close to Yuji's natural strength and that includes Sukuna.

Yuji's natural superhuman strength should be even more impressive in Modulo as well. Gege directly states that Yuji is "probably" going to continue growing, and in Modulo he is drawn notably bigger and taller than he was before.

This is important because the series emphasizes the importance of a Sorcerer's natural strength. Gojo highlights Miguel's physique and attributes a lot of his strength to that physique and Kenjaku's belief that the strength of the body is the deciding factor in most Jujutsu battles.

With all that said, I now have to ask:

If Yuji is more skilled at Jujutsu, has (drastically) superior CE output, and also has a natural body much stronger than Sukuna's, how does one come to the conclusion that Sukuna is still stronger than him?

I haven't seen this exact point brought up before so I'm curious what you all think

Yuji has already shown astonishing output and godlike CE manipulation, but if the amount of incantations and movements you can omit determines your mastery over Jujutsu, then wouldn't Yuji casually performing arguably the most impressive Shrine feat in the series without a single chant or without even needing to move make him the most skilled Sorcerer in the verse?

From this logic, if he's the most skilled Jujutsu practitioner and has the power to match said skill, would he not be a strong top 1 contender?