Jujutsu Kaisen revolves around Itadori Yuuji and his connection with Sukuna, the King of Curses. The story thrusts Itadori into a world of curses and jujutsu sorcerers after swallowing a cursed item hosting one of the sorcerers' biggest nightmares, Sukuna. Apart from the main narrative hosting developments surrounding Sukuna and Gojo Satoru, other interesting lead characters such as Megumi Fushiguro feature interesting additions.
At first, Fushiguro Megumi resembles the typical Jujutsu sorcerer with solid cursed techniques and the typical devout conviction that cursed spirits must be eliminated. However, after a few episodes, viewers witnessed Megumi’s potential, and in the season's final episodes, Jujutsu Kaisen revealed Megumi's incomplete Domain Expansion Chimera Shadow Garden.
Megumi's Hidden Talents As A Sorcerer
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The first thing to note about Megumi is his connection with the Zen’in Clan. Megumi is a descendant of the Zenin Family and the son of Toji Fushiguro, a character revealed later in the manga series. The members of the Zenin family are exceptional sorcerers with splendid cursed techniques, so it’s not surprising that Megumi is cut from the same cloth. However, Megumi unknowingly limits himself with his ideals and beliefs despite his remarkable potential.
First off, Megumi spouts the belief that life is unfair & unjust, and sorcery is just a means for ensuring that fair humans get to experience life fully, without interruptions from the world of the evil curses. In episode five of Jujutsu Kaisen, the show started hinting at Megumi's hidden talent through Sukuna. Ruffled by Itadori’s quick growth as a Jujutsu sorcerer, Megumi consulted Gojo Satoru, one of the strongest jujutsu sorcerers, to train him. As usual, the perceptive sorcerer and teacher pointed out that Megumi has incredible potential as much as Itadori. However, Fushiguro holds himself back unknowingly because he can't unlock his potential due to his team-play mentality.
This speaks volumes of Megumi's personality, wanting to work together with others and relying less on one's individual ability. However, Gojo's advice," when you die, you will be alone," triggers a spark within Megumi that doesn’t fully ignite until his fight with the special-grade curse, Finger Bearer. Sukuna also noticed a unique characteristic of Fushiguro's technique. Unlike other shadow technique users in Jujutsu Kaisen who require seals to summon shadows, Megumi manifests his summons directly from his shadow, accentuating how rare his ability is. After discovering this fact, Sukuna questioned Megumi’s reason for running away from a special-grade curse he could handle just fine, surprising Megumi. However, it wasn’t till the 23rd episode of the First Season that viewers witnessed Megumi’s partial harness of his true abilities.
Megumi’s Incomplete Chimera Shadow Garden
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To fully understand Megumi's Chimera Shadow Garden, one needs to know how Megumi's Ten Shadows technique works. The Ten Shadows technique is an in-bred sorcery skill, exclusively harnessed and inherited by members of the Zen’in clan. Simply put, users of the Ten Shadows technique can summon ten shikigami from seals or shadows, using it to fight in their stead or as a defensive mechanism.
The Ten Shadows technique is revered for being as powerful as Gojo's Six Eyes, inherently resident in the Gojo family. Even Sukuna acknowledged the technique as formidable during his battle with Megumi. Megumi has only summoned six different shadows to assist him in battle in the anime: Divine Dogs with their incredible curse detection skill, Nue with its flight ability and electricity-based attacks, Demon Dog and its deadly claw attack, Toad and its ensnaring feature, Great Serpent and its large size and potent offensive attacks, using its mouth and Max Elephant’s control of liquid.
Debuting in episode 23, the Domain Expansion, Chimera Shadow Garden was Megumi’s last resort during the nerve-wracking fight with a Finger Bearer more powerful than the one Sukuna faced earlier in the series. After the curse briefly knocks Megumi out, he recalls Gojo's speech, especially the words, “Dying to win and risking death to win are two different things.” The brief memory hardens his resolve so well that Finger Bearer visibly flinched for a moment before Megumi unleashes his unstable Domain Expansion. The first noticeable feature of Chimera Shadow Garden is that it is a half-baked Domain Expansion; even Megumi acknowledged it as incomplete. Consequently, it lacked the typical feature of the standard Domain Expansion, which guarantees that attacks will surely hit their targets within a Domain Expansion.
Regardless of the feature's absence, Chimera Shadow Garden was still quite a technique, and it accomplished Megumi's temporary goal – to defeat Finger Bearers in order to rescue the kidnapped Kugisaki Nobara. Chimera Shadow Garden visibly boosts and expands Megumi’s Ten Shadows technique to an entirely different level. Noticeably, the floor of the Domain Expansion is coated in a shadow-based fluid hosting frogs. This fluid increases Megumi’s speed, allowing him to move at fast space by surfing on the coating. Another impressive part of the technique is that Megumi can create doubles of himself, like the renowned Shadow Clone jutsu in Naruto. So, the body-double feature increases Megumi’s attack pattern allowing him to catch his opponent unaware. Finally, while using this technique, Megumi's Ten shadow's manipulation heightens, allowing him to attack the Finger Bearer without notice with Demon Dog.
Creating a Domain Expansion as a first-year student is a remarkable feat displayed by Megumi Fushiguro. Even though his Domain Expansion is incomplete, the technique is dangerous for even special-grade curses. Fans can only eagerly await the complete form of Chimera Shadow Garden, which is sure to be adapted since it has been revealed in the manga.