“𝑇𝑒𝑙𝑙 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠𝑛’𝑡 𝑠𝑜 𝑏𝑎𝑑” An analysis of Nobara Kugisaki from Jujutsu Kaisen:
Gonna slap a spoiler warning here, if you haven’t read Shibuya then please leave.
Nobara Kugisaki is normal. In a world of death and despair she represents humanity in its purest sense and acts as a grounding factor to those around her.
She is superficial, she cares about money and does whatever she wants, becoming a Jujutsu Sorcerer purely to escape her rural background.
As a sorcerer she is paralleled to be the ideal Grade 1. She takes particular interest in Nanami’s strength and is even questioned by Mahito in her soul’s potential to be as strong as Nanami’s later. We are told that Grade 1s are the group which upholds society and balances it.
Nobara doesn’t have some sad backstory, her dad isn’t some destroyer of fates, she isn’t the child of some evil mastermind curse, her only tragedy is a friend moving away and Gege is careful in making us aware that even Saori goes on to live a normal life.
Nobara’s sense of elegance and maturity is copied from Saori at a young age as she attaches herself to the teenager as someone in her hometown who is like her.
This sense of self is what makes Nobara human, she is fully aware of who she is and what she likes and she makes no attempt to be anything different to fit into the Jujutsu World.
This nearly jarring sense of humanity is where Nobara is so important to the series She represents Yuji’s human side and goes a long way in balancing him and reminding him to be human as his life descends into chaos.
For all of the learning and fighting Yuji does one of the few people we ever see him be open and honest with in conversation is Nobara. This conversation at the end of Origin of Obedience is among my favourite in the series.
Even in Shibuya when Yuji would otherwise have been at the pit of his despair fighting Mahito it is Nobara who reminds him that he is not alone, giving him the hope to push through.
And then she dies.
Nobara’s death isn’t some grand sacrifice, she doesn’t go out destroying a horde like Nanami or sacrifice herself for the greater cause like Mai. Nobara simply is touched in combat and dies a normal death.
Amongst her final thoughts she gives us the chair analogy. Nobara says in the anime that she only has chairs in her life for so many people, people she deems worth of her time. The empty chairs represent the spaces for normal people she has reserved.
Every so often a crazy person pulls up their own chair and takes a seat. Everyone who has touched Nobara’s life is shown sitting in chairs that are not the standard she has set for herself with the chairs surrounding her. Nobara surrounds herself with people true to her.
She left home because people in her hometown were incapable of filling the chairs but what we really see is that Nobara was never looking for the right type of people to fill them. She thinks everyone in her hometown was crazy when really they were just people.
Her final thoughts are of her, Yuji and Megumi simply being friends. She remembers them all being together and simply enjoying themselves because this is what Nobara was in the story to do, to be a friend and to be a person.
Nobara’s end is Yuji’s breaking point and is one which we never really see him bounce back from. Without Nobara to humanise him we see Yuji become relentless and cold in his pursuit of Mahito at the end.
Nobara was loud, brash and strong. She lived a normal life and in the end, it wasn’t so bad.
I think that’s all I have to say. There’s some nice symbolism with her name meaning Wild Rose etc but I didn’t know where to fit it in. I think I’ve maybe been a bit unclear at points so please let me know if I can explain more.
Also I think this line is Gege directly telling us Nobara isn’t dead. For Mahito to have even have had a thought that he couldn’t one shot Nobara is telling.
