The puppet of carnage!
For a character who is dead, Toji Fushiguro certainly has made quite a lot of appearances in the Jujutsu Kaisen manga. It would also be safe to say that he has in some way influenced the overall flow of incidents in the series.
The best example of this would be the Shibuya Incident Arc.
When Toji got reincarnated, the hype was real! There was a sense of fear, when it came to what he’ll do to the main trio, and also a sense of excitement, to see him go wild over there.
When Granny Ogami made Toji come back to life, he was only supposed to help them beat Ino, Itadori and Fushiguro, and defend the barrier which restricted sorcerers from entering into Shibuya.
P.S: If you want more details regarding the curtains and barriers in the Shibuya Incident, check the article below. I assure you, this is an important piece of information!
Read More: Curtain/Barrier In Shibuya Incident Arc Explained!
But when it comes to Toji, we know that nothing is predictable. And the same thing happened here. He went berserk and caused mayhem. He had no sight of friend or enemy and just wanted to fight till his body broke.
All that aside, there are two big questions surrounding Toji coming back to life in Shibuya. How exactly did he reincarnate, and why, in the end, did he kill himself?
How did Toji come back to life in Shibuya? Ogami’s technique explained!
To answer in short, Toji came back to life in Shibuya because Ogami used her Seance Cursed Technique to summon the information of his body into her grandson!
Toji came back to life in chapter 95 of Jujutsu Kaisen manga.
Technically, Toji’s isn’t alive here. Nor did he ACTUALLY come back to life. Simply put, it was a shape-shifting technique.
To better grasp what really happened, we need to understand Granny Ogami’s Seance Technique.
Granny Ogami’s seance technique allows her to invoke a dead person by summoning the information of both their soul and the body. She can use either her own body or someone else’s as a vessel for this summoned information, giving it a physical space to occupy.
The vessel then shape-shifts to match that of the summoned person. While she used her grandson as the vessel in Shibuya, in the past she had also used herself as one.
In order to summon the dead, the remains of the person she is summoning needs to be consumed by the vessel. In Shibuya, Ogami’s grandson is seen eating the remains of Toji from a capsule.
Side Note: The information of Toji that was summoned was not the one who fought Gojo Satoru in the Hidden Inventory arc, but the one who was at the peak of his powers. This was from a time when he was still Toji Zen’in. And so Ogami used that name to invoke him.
As I mentioned above, Ogami can summon both the information of the body and the soul. However, when the information of the soul is summoned, there is a possibility that it will overwrite or suppress the vessel’s soul and even resist the will of the sorcerer who cast the technique, who in this case is Ogami.
To avoid this she only invokes the physical information about the body. She did the same in Toji’s case too.
But if that was the case, how did Toji gain control over the grandson’s body? Because, when Ogami gave him orders, he straight up rejected it, and went berserk instead.
Toji’s return: A glitch?
When Toji returned in the Shibuya Incident Arc, it was accompanied with a glitch. Ogami only summoned the physical information of Toji’s body, however, his body definitely was not like the others.
Just to remind you, Toji Fushiguro was a recipient of the heavenly restriction. He was born with zero cursed energy and off the chart physical abilities. He is an anomaly of sorts.
When summoning the physical information of Toji, Ogami overlooked the effects that Heavenly Restriction might have on her technique. And that proved to be a deadly oversight. She ended up giving birth to a puppet of carnage and in the process forfeited her own life.
The reason? Toji’s body caused a glitch in the system.
As I mentioned above, Toji’s will was never supposed to be invoked. Ogami’s grandson should have been in control of his own body. However, Toji’s body being special caused the grandson’s soul to be suppressed.
The connection between the soul and the body is something that is still being explored in the manga, and we don’t have a very clear answer on how Toji’s body was able to overwrite the soul. However, it is clear that heavenly restriction did play a role in it.
However, the glitch doesn’t end there.
Toji killed Ogami. However, the seance technique did not end with her death. Ideally, the possession should have ended when the cursed energy in the grandson’s body ran out completely.
However, Toji’s body required no cursed energy to function. And therein lies the reason for him being able to cause mayhem in Shibuya for as long as he wanted.
But then, it didn’t last for long, because eventually while fighting Megumi, Toji decided to kill himself. This naturally left a lot of people wondering why.
Before we get to the next section, it would be better if you checked out the following article first, as it will help you get a better understanding of Toji. It is kinda long and I don’t want to repeat the same points in this post again.
Read More: Why did Toji leave and sell Megumi to the Zenin clan?
Why did Toji kill himself?
To answer in short, Toji killed himself because he realized that he could rest in peace knowing that Megumi was not a part of the Zen’in clan. He felt he had no clear purpose to stay there any longer, and decided to kill himself.
Just a small thing I want to point out before we discuss any further: Toji didn’t seem to be in control of the body the whole time. At points his eyeballs were shown to be black and sometimes they were white. I am assuming when it was white, Toji was somewhat in his senses. And this was when he decided to kill himself.
If you read the article I linked above, you might have gotten a better understanding of Toji’s psyche and his inferiority complex.
He was entrusted by Megumimama to look after Megumi, but thinking the Zen’in clan would be a better place for a prodigy like Megumi, Toji decided to sell the kid rather than bringing him up himself.
A freeloader, who was a ball of insecurity looking to prove his worth to his own hollow self, was never a match for one of the four big clans of the Jujutsu World, is what Toji thought at that time.
In chapter 113, however, we get more insight into his thought process. Just after making a deal with Naobito Zen’in to sell Megumi for millions, he is seen convincing himself that he really didn’t care about what would happen to Megumi from there on.
However, judging from his actions, that was a lie. It feels like Toji always regretted his decision of selling Megumi to the Zen’ins. He never could truly make peace with the choice he made.
To add to the above linked article, I would say that ignoring Megumi (and maybe forgetting him) was Toji’s way of feeling less guilty about his actions. But that feeling of regret never really left him in my opinion.
Why? Because during his final moments (in the Hidden Inventory arc) he tells Gojo about the deal involving Megumi and asks him to intervene very subtly. His pride did not allow him to beg, but he did convey a request of sorts in that moment hoping Gojo would rectify a mistake that he made.
In short, Toji did not want Megumi to go to the Zen’ins, a place where he himself stood out as a misfit, a place that only valued people based on their talent and powers. He wanted Megumi to have a better life than being a valued piece for his cursed technique.
However, during his final moments, all he could do was hope. Because he never thought he’d get a chance to meet Megumi or make things right. And so, he died with that tiny bit of regret in his heart then.
However, at Shibuya, Toji surprisingly came back, and was able to interact with Megumi. For a moment when he was not a puppet of carnage, he asked the all important question to his son.
Did Megumi go by the name Zen’in or was he Fushiguro? It was also a question to himself – did he end up ruining his son’s life, or did Gojo listen to his prideful plea?
The answer: Fushiguro.
At that point Toji was satisfied. There was nothing else he wanted to hear more. And he felt that there was no point in him staying there any longer. His son was growing up to be a strong and capable sorcerer, even without joining the Zen’in.
In the end, for a man who was hollow and prideful, Toji turned out to be someone who cared about his son above anything else. His insecurity and twisted views might have prevented him from doing the right thing before, but knowing that his choices didn’t affect Megumi, he was happy to let go at that point and cause no more damage.
This time, however, he could truly rest in peace!
No matter how you look at it, Toji is a nuanced character. And it is always fun to break down the many layers of his persona.
What are your thoughts on Toji killing himself? Do you think it was a satisfactory ending for him? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below, or hit me up on Twitter/Reddit!