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What does it mean to be the best?

To become the best you have to be the undisputed peak of your field, surpassing everyone there is to surpass, but what does it do to you to be the best for a sustained period?

Something that a lot of shonen battle manga tends to include in one way or another is the idea of “The Strongest.” Whether it be Saitama’s futile search for an equal, Goku’s never ending hunger for the most skilled foe he can face, or the stark coldness that fills Satoru Gojo when Geto leaves him alone at the pinnacle of Jujutsu Society. 

I want to take a look at how the concept of being the best has manifested in modern shonen manga, and how it’s role has fundamentally changed over the years, I particularly want to take a look at that last example, Satoru Gojo, as an endpoint for where we stand in the industry today.

Modern animanga has had a far more varied view when it comes to the role of the strongest than we have historically seen. Classically, becoming the strongest has been either a goal, or a direct means of obtaining one. Naruto’s life goal is to be the Hokage, but to do so it is a necessity that he become the strongest Shinobi in the leaf village, Giorno Giovanna wants to become a Mob Boss, but in order to do so he has to defeat arguably the strongest stand user in his entire timeline. You get the point. Becoming the strongest generally isn’t exactly the goal, but whatever the goal is, becoming the best is absolutely necessary to procure it. 

This notion of being the best as an end point, or direct path TO an end point, while it makes for a great and satisfying ending to a long running manga, it fails to acknowledge one of the most important aspects of becoming the best, it isn’t an event, being the best is a status. Becoming a UFC champion for example isn’t the end of the story, but is simply the next step in it. Though due to the nature of these ultimately being stories told in a manga, generally written by a single person, the story has to end someplace, but ending the story with this crucial next step in a characters life leaves on the table a potentially interesting character study following them getting what they always wanted, was it worth the effort? Was it all they’d ever hoped it would be? Now I’m going to be the first person to say this but thankfully, Boruto exists so that we can answer some of these questions in the case of Naruto Uzumaki.

Naruto

Naruto Uzumaki was brought into the world with nothing, his parents were both killed on the night of his birth, and the demon that killed them and massacred his home village was sealed inside of him leading to everybody in the village shunning him as they’re cautious of him letting Kurama out. Truly, Naruto was destined to be alone from the beginning. I’m not going to recap the entirety of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden in this post, but if you’re here you’ve most likely seen the show and understand the struggles Naruto has to endure to become accepted by his village, having to fight practically an entire world war on every single front to mention just one.

Growing up Naruto had nobody to look out for him, nobody to stop him from making mistakes or guide him throughout life, the only time he could get anybody to acknowledge his existence was when he caused havoc and became a general public disturbance around the village, and when he claimed that he would become the Hokage.

What exactly does the position of Hokage mean to Naruto? To him growing up it had to mean acceptance. The Hokage is a position that, as the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village, effects every single member in it. And to be in that position means you’d have to be recognized by the entire village as worthy and Naruto, someone who was shunned by the village his entire life, desperately needed to be recognized.

To Naruto, that’s what becoming the strongest meant, it was his path to being accepted for who he is, to conquer the loneliness that was perpetuated throughout his life growing up, to show the village that he isn’t a threat, and he’s stronger than the demon fox inside of him. That’s why Naruto fought so hard, that’s what he strived for throughout the entire series.

But is that really what happens once Naruto DOES become Hokage? Well yeah, to a point. In Boruto, we see Naruto living out the life he’d always dreamed of, he has a family, everyone in the village loves him, and Sasuke is back in the village helping as the Shadow Hokage. From what we can see in Boruto, becoming the Hokage truly did end up meaning everything that it originally meant to him.

Boruto is great because so many people followed Naruto’s journey to become the Hokage that, whether you think it was done well or otherwise, seeing him finally live out that dream is incredibly cathartic, but what if we were to begin the story with someone who has already attained their goal, what then would life look like, what do you do when nothing in this universe can possibly threaten your position as the strongest.

Saitama

Saitama, the main character of One Punch Man.

If you haven’t watched or read One Punch Man I’m sure you can guess the gimmick from the name. The main character Saitama is so strong that no matter the villain, he is able to defeat them in a single punch, though they stretch the definition later on in the mange. That being said one might ask, in a genre defined by the question “can he win,” what’s left for a story where you already know the answer going in?

Unlike most shonen battle manga, the utter dominance that Saitama has over everyone else in the story isn’t framed as a good thing, he isn’t some righteous hero who fights for the good of humanity. He does it because he needs money, in his own words he’s only a hero “for fun.”

Similarly to the later example Gojo, Saitama’s strength completely disconnects him from his job, how can he take being a C class hero seriously when he’s as strong as he is? And for that matter, what does being the strongest even mean to Saitama? The answer is that to him, t’s a burden.

When Saitama set out to train, he didn’t intend to become the strongest, he just wanted to hold his own as a hero, he was tired of his boring 9-5 life and just wanted to do something interesting with his life. But in doing his training he somehow broke his “limiter” and ended up becoming the strongest hero ever to live, and that was just too far from him.

Saitama literally dreams of being challenged, he cannot stand the lack of effort it takes to defeat each enemy, he only wanted to be excited every day, but with his immense strength, even that alludes him. He gets more excitement from playing video games with King than fighting world ending monsters.

To Saitama being the strongest is a curse, a burden that he has to bear, dooming him to never feel the rush of excitement you feel when you don’t know if you can best an opponent ever again.

Satoru Gojo

“All sorcerers know Satoru Gojo” 

In the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, Gojo is an omnipresent factor in the very concept of Jujutsu sorcery. As it’s modern-day peak, everyone else is forced through comparison to him.

This quote from Hakari perfectly sums up what Gojo means to the jujutsu world, just his birth shifted the balance of the jujutsu world, there is not a single aspect of jujutsu society that remained the same once he came into existence. Gojo is, due to the circumstances of his birth, a focal point for jujutsu society.

Every single sorcerer either knows Gojo personally, or knows about him, imagine if your field of work or study had one definitive peak, one person who everybody knows is the absolute best in the world at anything and everything that’s related to the skill that your job takes. That person would be adored and, what I’d argue is more important for Gojo, dehumanized.

Gojo never had the chance to be a person. He was born with the incredibly rare combination of the Six Eyes which allow for pin point cursed energy control, efficiency, and knowledge of any cursed technique that he can see. In combination with the cursed technique infinity, which makes an effect similar to there being infinite space between him and everything else giving him the ultimate defense, as well as arguably most destructive and powerful offensive capabilities in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen. This once in a hundred generations combination of abilities instantly made Gojo the strongest sorcerer of today.

We don’t get to see very much of Gojo’s life growing up, the only glimpse at his early life we get is a single shot from Toji’s perspective. Toji is another character who struggles with strength, similarly to Gojo, he was ravaged by expectation, but from a different perspective. The Zenin clan is incredibly power hungry, pursuing leverage over the other important Jujutsu families in every way possible. So for them to create a child with zero cursed energy whatsoever was seen as a stain on their reputation. No matter what Toji did, having no cursed energy made it so that he would never be enough for his family. Toji eventually turned to assassination to make a living, having the heavenly restriction of no cursed energy led to him being physically stronger and faster than most jujutsu sorcerers could ever hope to be so it was one of the few jobs he could easily take on. The first job we see him take on is to kill Satoru Gojo as just a little kid. That one shot though, that one shot of Gojo noticing Toji from a distance and staring directly at him displays such an immense level of apathy, and at such a young age is so disheartening to see. Gojo has been inundated with years upon years of being told that he is and always will be the best, that by this point, even though he’s still a kid, barely 12 years old if I had to guess he is completely and utterly devoid of emotion.

This is what astounded me about the character of Satoru Gojo, he is completely and utterly detached from his surroundings, as his technique is clearly meant to represent. He can participate in jujutsu society sure, but being so ridiculously strong makes it so that he can never make true contact with anything, in a very literal sense, how could he ever truly understand what it means to be human if he’s so detached from other humans at large.

The next time we see Gojo his condition has somewhat improved, in his teenage years he began to attend Jujutsu High, and at that school he met the single most important person to his development, Suguru Geto.

Suguru Geto fulfils the one role in Gojo’s life that he never thought could be possible, not JUST a genuine human connection, but true understanding. Geto has a cursed technique that allows him to control other cursed spirits, and as Gojo hasn’t yet mastered Infinity at this point of his life, Gojo is no longer considered the strongest, he and Geto are the strongest, together.

Gojo would only see this level of connection at one other time in his life, which we’ll get to, but having someone who was at his level of power grounded him, in a society centered around fighting, not having to try to win any fight will detach someone from reality.

But having Geto there fundamentally changed how Gojo saw the world. With somebody he could truly understand and open himself up to Gojo had the chance to live like anybody else despite his immense and isolating power.

But as we all know, Toji would resurface, killing a young girl that Gojo and Geto were tasked with protecting named Riko Amanai, who was to be the “Star Plasma Vessel,” the exact details of what that means are complicated, but effectively she’d have to sacrifice her life to save the world. Geto offered her an out, the chance to live on her own life free of the responsibility of the Star Plasma Vessel, and she agreed. Unfortunately before she could take Geto’s hand and walk together back to her life, she was shot dead by Toji. This event led Geto down a spiral which would result in him vowing to kill all non-sorcerers, 99% of the world’s population considering how rare they are and that practically only Japanese people become sorcerers, which of course would lead to his attack on Jujutsu High in JJK 0, and ultimately, his death at the hands of Yuta, a young child struggling with his own immense power who Gojo took under his wing. There Gojo watched as his last chance for true connection, true understanding, faded away before his eyes. Not even able to bring himself to curse his hateful friend at the end.

This is where we find Gojo when the main characters of Jujutsu Kaisen are introduced to him at the beginning of the story. A cold, self-absorbed, lonely man. He opens himself up to his students to a point sure, but from that moment on the true responsibility of being the strongest takes hold of Gojo’s heart.

And that brings us to where Gojo’s story truly ends. Sukuna, known as the strongest sorcerer in history, was fully released from his shackles and able to roam free after having restored all his lost power. As their ace in the hole, Gojo was sent in alone to fight him, confident in his ability to take care of Sukuna for good. Prior to this fight, Gojo outright stated that a full power Sukuna would “give him a little trouble” but that there would be no way he could lose. And maybe he was right, but this wasn’t just Sukuna’s full power, due to the circumstances of his revival, Sukuna had gained the one ability in the Jujutsu Kaisen world that would allow him to kill Gojo.

At the conclusion of the fight, Gojo had just struck a decisive blow against Sukuna, he’d destroyed that technique Sukuna gained that would allow him to kill Gojo and ripped apart his body at a molecular level. But what he couldn’t account for was a once in a lifetime instant, distance negating attack from Sukuna that not even Gojo with his Six eyes that allow for pinpoint visualization of cursed energy could see. Though when Gojo was cut in half and lay bleeding on the floor, the look on his face wasn’t surprise, not disdain for the fact that his students would have to finish the job and many of them would likely die, but in his final moments, after having finally been bested by perhaps the only version of the only sorcerer in history who could have done so, what Gojo felt was true understanding, and satisfaction.

A man who’s entire life, save for a few golden teenage years, couldn’t be understood or make any true connections cause of his unfathomable power. In his final moments, found understanding with another who’s journey through life was defined by his status as… the strongest.

A final note about Gojo I’d like to discuss is this misguided idea that the cast of Jujutsu Kaisen only thought of Gojo as a weapon, in my opinion it’s a very surface level reading of Yuta’s decision to use his body, they cared so deeply about him but the dissonance between him and the rest of the characters was because of what I discussed before, in that he was so disconnected from them power wise that he just wasn’t able to make any true connection, the true tragedy about that moment isn’t that nobody else cared, it’s that Gojo himself didn’t care. When Yuta asked Gojo if he could use his body should he lose the fight against Sukuna, he responded with yeah sure whatever I don’t care. Gojo cared so little about his physical safety that he so nonchalantly agreed to have his body taken by Yuta, even if he projected an aura of confidence, it was simply a facade as we see in the final chapter during his flashback with Yuji. He went into this fight knowing he’d likely die, and he’d made peace with it.

So what does being the strongest mean to Gojo? It means responsibility, responsibility to win fights, to train the next generation, to be a good role model, from the beginning Gojo was burdened with the responsibility that comes with being the strongest, and when he’s finally defeated, he smiles as he knows he no longer has to hold the world on his shoulders, that he’s done good enough that the next generation can help each other shoulder that burden.

What does this mean?

The point that I wanted to make with this post isn’t that “um actually being the best sucks.” But more that I wanted to point out this shift in the industry and how it characterizes the strongest, from idolization to isolation, semi-realism has permeated this generation of character study and it’s an interesting shift to see the industry take. The people who grew up reading classic shonen stories like the big 3 are of the age where they’re leading the industry now, and with that comes new thematic throughlines that, might not have been interesting to older mangaka to explore, one of those being what it means to be the strongest, in a more realistic and consistent light than it’s been explored through in the past. I mean this idea of what it means to be the strongest is baked into Satoru Gojo’s character in the deepest most integral way possible, and that’s ultimately the tragedy of his character.

Being the strongest has been a goal or necessity FOR one in anime and manga for almost as long as the shonen battle genre has existed. And while time has changed the way that we talk about it, it’s interesting to me that it has become so integral to modern shonen storytelling.