I recently watched a video of brocedes (Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg) and satosugu (Gojo and Geto – from the anime Jujutsu Kaisen) edited to the 1975’s ‘about you’, posted on Tiktok by the creator @kiss4geto_. As I watched the edit, I realised why the dynamic portrayed in jjk between the two fictional characters of Saturo Gojo and Suguru Geto was so powerful and beloved by fans – because it is so rooted in reality and true human behaviour. The parallels between satosugu and brocedes lie beyond the tendency that the fandom has to project romantic ships onto them and onto the intrinsic nature of both their external and internal circumstances. Two extremely close – some may even say best – friends who excel in their respective professions so much and get so far ahead of the curve that the only thing left is to become rivals to one another in their pursuit of (their own versions of) success.
One of the most glaring similarities between the two is exemplified in the phrases both have expressed in some way alluding to the idea that they can only be understood by one another. Gojo is raised around the prophecy that he is the greatest and strongest, and thus feels he can only be understood by people who are as strong as him because only they could understand the weight and the burden of living your life as a weapon. We see how they both relate in this way (the feeling of existing solely as a weapon for others) when we see the toll that consuming curses has on Geto – as his eyes become sunken and he loses his energy. ‘Exorcise, absorb. Over and over. Exorcise. Absorb. No one else understands what cursed spirits taste like…Who am I doing this for?‘.
A similar phenomenon is implied when all of the sorcerers are asked what Gojo is to them and all of their responses converge down to the idea that Gojo is the ‘strongest’ or their saviour. Both examples show how each of these characters could not be separated from their duty as tools for the jujutsu society. In their teenage years, Gojo and Geto are indiscernible in their strength and this enables both to form the strong friendship that they do, because they understand each other wholly or at least more wholly than their peers. This is illustrated in a scene where Geto is asked the question of who Saturo Gojo was, to which he replies: ‘He was my best friend. But we fought, and it’s been like this ever since’, showing that, to him, Gojo as a person comes before whatever his abilities make him.
But how do two sorcerers in this fictional world relate to the two prolific Mercedes drivers? Well, when Nico Rosberg retired in 2016 after winning his first and only world drivers championship after 18 years, it came as a shock to most of the formula one community. The one person who it did not come as a surprise to was his former best friend and greatest rival, Lewis Hamilton, who said ‘I am sure it is a surprise to many people. I am probably the only person who thought it was not a surprise because I’ve known him a long time,’. As a driver himself, Lewis recognised the time and effort that the sport takes from its drivers and understood that Rosberg’s desire to start a family almost necessitated his departure from the sport which they had both worked much of their lives towards. ‘We had always talked about being champions and when I joined this team and Nico was there, which is also something we talked about when we were kids.’
Nico became a champion and Lewis knew that was enough for him, because he had achieved the dream they had both dreamt together, side by side. This mirrors the feeling of only being understood by the one friend who has reached the peak of their abilities alongside you. In the same way that Gojo and Geto understood each other at the summit of the sorcerer society as the strongest, Nico and Lewis understood each other at the pinnacle of F1 as the fastest. We see the idea of ‘he was my best friend, but we fought and its been like this ever since’ in the fact that Hamilton and Rosberg while on ‘neutral’ terms as of late, have never truly put in effort to rectify what they had.
The parallels however, don’t end there. In Jujutsu Kaisen, the crushing pressure of responsibility and being the strongest pushed each character to opposite extremes. Upon the death of a student they were tasked in protecting, Geto experiences deep emotional turmoil and suffering, which leads to him to entertain radical ideas of getting rid of all non-sorcerers so people like himself and his once inseparable ally no longer have to exist as tools or weapons. This is because (he concludes that) if non-sorcerers don’t exist, then curses (born of negative human emotions) will also cease to exist so less sorcerers will have to die in their endeavour of controlling the curses. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Gojo internally vows to become stronger – the strongest – in order to never fail others the way he feels he had failed Riko that day. After this, Gojo does in fact become the strongest and Geto pursues his own end goal – leaving the jujutsu society to do so.
While Gojo couldn’t fathom the extent of Geto’s suffering, Yuichi Nakamura (Gojo’s voice actor) confirms that he understands how Geto reaches the radical conclusion that he did, rather than seeing a shift in their relationship his impression is that ‘ah, they end up thinking in completely different ways’ despite experiencing the same thing as their own living of that experience differs. This shows that their divergence and ‘breakup’ is not rooted in hatred and resentment (which we know because after catching up to Geto after his first mass murders, Gojo cannot bring himself to attack his friend) because Gojo doesn’t even believe his friend is being irrational, only that he cannot walk the same path because his own conclusions and views are different.
Although Nico doesn’t turn to mass murder (rather to building his family) the brocedes split echoes of something awfully similar. In every year leading up to 2016 after Lewis joined Mercedes, the tension slowly notched up each season before crescendoing to a breaking point in the infamous crash at the Spanish Grand Prix in 2016. In the years before that, there was the controversial yellow flag drawn by Nico in Monaco to hinder Lewis’ ability to put a lap in, the collision that cost Lewis his front wing in Belgium and the aggressive move by Hamilton that forced Nico wide in Austin (where he won the championship that year) which led to Rosberg famously throwing the second place cap back to Lewis before going to the podium. All of these individual moments (and many more not privy to us) pulled the threads of their friendship so taught that the snap was inevitable. Both drivers in their pursuit to being the fastest, to becoming the champion, fractured the friendship they forged in youth and eventually, when Rosberg won in 2016 – at a point when their relationship had been broken for a while – his once closest ally, understood how he came to the conclusion to retire. Not that he agreed with this decision, just that he could understand his rationale – because he’d known him a long time, been in the same position as him and knew of his dreams and goals.
Nico dreamed of a championship alongside him, had been the fastest alongside him, and so he knew that once this was achieved, he would leave to pursue the next thing – his family. At the time, Lewis said ‘that was his choice and I respect his decision – go out on top while you can. I have a different viewpoint. I won the championship the last two years and I gave an opportunity each year to have another shot for someone.‘ Lewis chose the other extreme; to keep being the fastest and eventually become the greatest (which he, arguably, has already become). To solidify his name forever, he searches still for his (official) eighth title – something that Nico understands, although that is not where his rational conclusion led him.
All this to say that I really enjoyed connecting the parallels and similarities between these two sets of characters and people. Some of this may seem far-fetched, but was still fun to do nevertheless! Linking back to how this started, it really solidified how well written Geto and Gojo’s dynamic was because its so real and well within the realm of reason – so much that we can draw real life references to it. I am fond of all four subjects of this article and their subject matter and would be interested to see if there is anything I missed/ doesn’t make any sense so let me know˙⋆✮
-oknaima💌