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does ryoumen sukuna is simp???
yes, yes he does (but here's an overanalysis why:)
you see there was a callback to ch.9 in ch.118 that got lost in translation
when i first read the manga in english i missed it, so i thought i’d share just so everyone knows how highkey sukuna’s simping is
from ch.9:
the context is that megumi is fighting sukuna; nothing too out of place here
but in japanese:
if we only look at what is pronounced what sukuna is saying is “show me (what you’ve got)!! fushiguro megumi!!” (hence the english translation “entertain me”); normally when shounen manga says “show me (what you’ve got)” it is with the phrase “見せてみろ (misete miro)” , literally meaning “let me see”
but here sukuna replaces “見” with the kanji “魅”: the pronunciation is the same (mi), but whereas “見” means “see” and the phrase “show me (what you’ve got)” is very common, “魅” means to “bewitch”, “fascinate”, “enchant”, or “charm” (translation taken from wikitionary), and the phrase “魅せてみろ” (“bewitch me”) is virtually never used because why would it ever be used like bro you’re coming on way too strong tone it down a little
anyway so the dude is literally yelling “bewitch me!! fushiguro megumi!!” in megumi’s face (in fact a chinese translation i've seen is somewhere along the lines of “make me fall for/obsessed with you!! fushiguro megumi!!” which i think is neat but that’s beside the point) but because it is pronounced like “let me see”, and “bewitch me” is a very rare phrase, megumi thinks sukuna is lamenting his wasted potential and just goading him into doing better—when in reality sukuna is challenging him to impress sukuna personally; as far as i could tell, given how he interprets sukuna's words in the flashbacks shown when he first uses domain expansion, he never knows what sukuna really means and honestly someone should write a miscommunication fic about it
but then it gets even better:
this is from ch.118 (so SPOILER ALERT for the shibuya arc and the manga in general):
megumi has summoned his strongest shikigami (it’s basically self-destruct but more complicated procedurally) and is currently out cold and dying; the only known way to save megumi is to defeat said strongest shikigami, which is precisely what sukuna is doing here
pause, rewind—some background info for this scene: in ch.9 (at the end of megumi’s fight with sukuna, when megumi is desperate) megumi tries to summon his strongest shikigami, i.e. he wants to self-destruct and take sukuna out with him—hence why he says the things about how he never once regretted saving yuuji—but yuuji comes back (and promptly fucking dies) so sukuna never learns in ch.9 that megumi wants to self-destruct to kill him
but here in ch.118, megumi has summoned that strongest shikigami, and sukuna approves of its strength, saying “if it was me from that time, it may have been able to defeat me”—if megumi had summoned the strongest shikigami in ch.9, sukuna might have lost
basically: sukuna is really fucking impressed (cf. ch.9, where he tells megumi to "show me (what you've got)!!" or “bewitch me!!”)
you see, in the second-to-last panel with the hands, sukuna says “you showed me the way... fushiguro megumi!” which is not necessarily an inaccurate translation, but the callback gets lost in translation
look at the raw scan:
in the panel with the hands, once again we have the very rare phrase of “魅せて” (“bewitch”) but this time with past/present perfect tense
if we only look at what is pronounced, in ch.9 we have “show me (what you’ve got)!!”—and here in ch.118 we have “you have shown me (what you’ve got)... fushiguro megumi!!” but looking at the rare phrase with the kanji “bewitch”, in ch.9 we have "bewitch me!! fushiguro megumi!!"—and here in ch.118, sukuna is saying “you have bewitched me... fushiguro megumi!!”
in ch.9, sukuna sees potential, and he demands that megumi exercises it to "bewitch him", while in ch.118, sukuna sees that megumi has actualised his potential to the fullest, and sukuna is, as promised, "bewitched"; considering the role sukuna plays in megumi's big breakthrough with domain expansion, sukuna's line in ch.9 is both encouragement and prophecy, and given that this is only their second time meeting (if you could call it that, seeing as megumi's unconscious) megumi and his powers are strangely significant to sukuna, so much so that he becomes "bewitched" over it and voluntarily fights the shikigami to save megumi
tbh however you look at sukuna’s dialogue it’s a nice little callback to ch.9, and it would be so interesting to see what akutami gege does with sukuna's fascination with megumi moving forward; as of ch.138, yuuji has already noticed it, and is actively questioning sukuna's motives
my personal take on this is that while sukuna's interest in megumi is most likely incredibly selfish, it is by no means impersonal: the specific choice of the word "bewitch" demands that megumi impresses sukuna subjectively—it is not the general "get stronger", but a personal "bewitch me", with the focus being taken away from megumi's powers to sukuna's personal feeling (even though the two are definitely linked); if (when) sukuna uses or manipulates megumi in the future, his focus won't be solely on megumi's powers, simply because he is personally invested to some extent; and even though i'm sure this isn't where the series is headed, i would love to see any potential conflicts between sukuna's selfish interest in megumi's powers and his personal investment in megumi
the entire plot with sukuna in shibuya is some really really—and i cannot stress this enough—really fucked-up shit, and i'm sure whatever he is planning to do with megumi it won't be fluffy and wholesome either, but at the same time im endlessly entertained by the idea of sukuna being the megumi simp to end all megumi simps so there’s that