Warning: Contains spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen #236.Jujutsu Kaisen chapter #236 was the most shocking chapter in the series, and it even caused a popular manga to go on hiatus. Fans around the world have had strong reactions to Gojo’s sudden death in chapter #236. Some Jujutsu Kaisen fans abandoned the manga altogether in response, and others went so far as to build shrines in Gojo’s honor to mourn his death.
Gojo’s death in Jujutsu Kaisen was a huge shock to fans around the world, including those in the manga industry. Recently on Weekly Shonen Sunday it was announced that Fly Me to the Moon will be on a short hiatus and the reason given is because series author Kenjiro Hata needs to recover from the shock of Jujutsu Kaisen #236. This isn’t the first time fans have had such an extreme reaction to a manga series, and considering how much of a fan Jujutsu Kaisen Hata is, it’s no surprise that these events would impact Fly Me to the Moon.
The author of Fly Me To The Moon has always been a fan of Jujutsu Kaisen
It’s strange that Jujutsu Kaisen put Fly Me to the Moon on hiatus, Kenjiro Hata has long been considered a fan of Jujutsu Kaisen. For example, Tsukasa has posed for Sukuna’s Shrine of Evil multiple times in the manga, with its name and domain extension even being mentioned explicitly, and one chapter even has Yuji appear in cameo. References like this and others make it clear that Hata revered Jujutsu Kaisen, so the idea that he would have such a big reaction to Gojo’s death not completely unfounded.
Jujutsu Kaisen is not the first time people have had a big reaction to Manga
Fly Me to the Moon’s Kenjiro Hata and others have had extreme reactions to Gojo’s death, but this isn’t the first time something like this has happened. For example, Oshi no Ko’s Mengo Yokoyari once said that she needed to take a break from X because of how stressed Chainsaw Man had become after Power’s death. More famously, when Ashita no Joe’s Toru Rikiishi passed away in 1970, an actual funeral was held in his honor with 700 fans in attendance. These examples make it clear that no matter how extreme the reaction to Gojo’s death, manga fans have been doing things like this for decades, so it’s hardly anything new.
If there’s anything to take away from all of this, it’s a statement about how attached people are to fictional characters. While it may seem ridiculous to have such visceral reactions to fictional characters, people will always bond with stories that resonate with them, and manga is no exception, even in the decades before social networks became popular. Kenjiro Hata had to pause Fly Me to the Moon after what happened in Jujutsu Kaisen this is just the latest of these events to occur, and given how popular the series is, it’s unlikely to be the last before the series ends.
Source: Polygon, Anime News Network, X, WordPress.