Jujutsu Kaisen: What Happened to Geto & Gojo After Riko’s Death? Personality Change Explained!

The Gojo’s Past Arc was a small and bittersweet insight into the personal history of Satoru Gojo that explains, actually, how much he has changed over the years and what led to him becoming as he is. At the same time, it is a story that explains how Suguru Geto changed and how he became – slowly – the villain that we’ve seen in Jujutsu Kaisen 0. Now, there was a trigger for all these changes – the death of Riko Amanai -and we will use this article to explain to you how Riko’s death influenced the two of them and how their personalities changed radically after this tragic event.

Before Riko’s death, Sugru Geto was a moral compass who actually thought that jujutsu sorcerers needed to protect non-sorcerers, while Gojo was more carefree about that and did not attack any morals or ideology to their powers. But, after Riko’s death, Gojo’s stance changed, and he became a much more caring person, while Geto slowly started to question his ideals and hate non-sorcerers, especially when he found out that they were actually the source of the cursed spirits; this is also when he started calling them “monkeys,” and this prompted the change.

The rest of this article will be a personal journey through the lives of Suguru Geto and Satoru Gojo in Jujutsu Kaisen. We will briefly recap the events that influenced them and explain how their personalities changed over time, how they both became significantly different persons, with one becoming a much better person while the other transforming into a villain. There will be spoilers from the series in this article, so we must warn you about that so you can prepare yourself.

Riko Amanai’s death changed everything, including Geto and Gojo

Both Geto and Gojo are among the series’ most popular characters. With that, there has always been a lot of talk about their personalities and how they changed, especially in Geto’s case, since he became a villain later in the series. Before we actually explain the change, we have to tell you about how they were before it happened, i.e., before the tragedy that slowly changed them into what they were later.

Satoru has, from the very beginning, been a very complex person. He usually behaves casually and cheerfully but has also shown that he can be cold, ruthless, and even maniacal when in a specific state of frenzy that we’ve seen during his clash against Toji Fushiguro.

He is quite confident in his skills and abilities, so he generally gets on people’s nerves. On the other hand, he can remain fully composed under pressure, although he can get into a state of frenzy that has a positive effect on his powers but a negative effect on his morals.

When he feels that sacrifice is inevitable, he will put his adversaries’ destruction above preserving the innocent, although he would never actually harm anyone for his own gain. Despite his arrogance and power, Satoru is actually more human than he initially appears and is severely saddened by Riko’s death, going to retrieve her body from the Time Vessel Association.

Gojo initially did not attach any ideology to jujutsu. He was simply so self-confident that he did not care too much about any ideological points, which was often a point of conflict with Suguru Geto, who was the group’s moral compass. Gojo wasn’t evil; he just didn’t care for the philosophy behind their actions – he had a job, he did the job successfully (because he was the best), and that was it.

He simply did not care about anything else, which is why he had Geto act as his moral compass at the time, as Gojo didn’t really know if something should be done. He went with his gut feeling or his instinct, which wasn’t always morally correct, so he had Geto. And this says a lot about Geto as well.

Back in the day, Suguru Geto was very different from the villain we’ve seen in Jujutsu Kaisen 0. He was a calm person, quite friendly, and extremely polite. He seemed to care for people a lot and understood the fine intricacies of human emotions, which he regularly applied in various situations.

He also had a very strong moral compass and advocated a very firm moral philosophy, according to which jujutsu sorcerers were responsible for the protection of non-sorcerers because they were stronger. Non-sorcerers had no means of protection; they were helpless against the curses, which is why the jujutsu sorcerers had to adhere to high moral standards and protect those people.

Geto was the moral compass of the group, and he firmly believed that a jujutsu sorcerer is not allowed to kill without reason, which is why he stopped Gojo from slaughtering the non-sorcerers of the Time Vessel Association who were applauding Riko’s death.

Gojo was furious and wanted to murder all of them because they were such horrible people, but Geto, although not as firm as usual, dissuaded him, telling him that they did nothing except be morally disgusting, which was not enough to act.

This was the state in which we found the two of them in 2006, but a tragedy changed all of that. Namely, after having a lot of fun in Okinawa, Gojo and Geto took Riko to Tokyo, where Toji attacked them. As Gojo decided to stay and fight their enemy, Geto took Riko to Tengen’s location.

Riko was initially proud to be the Star Plasma Vessel, but at one point, after experiencing how beautiful life can be, the conviction from the beginning disappeared, and when she was offered a choice by Geto (who said that he and Gojo would not force Riko to merge with Tengen if she did not want to), she burst into tears, crying that she wanted to live and not be turned into someone’s vessel.

And just when the conviction seemed to result in something, a bullet burst through Riko’s head and killed her. The bullet was fired by Toji Fushiguro, who would ultimately be killed by Satoru Gojo, who was devastated by Riko’s tragic death. So, no, Riko Amanai did not merge with Master Tengen and did not fulfill her role as the Star Plasma Vessel.

But, while she did avoid that, she still met a very tragic end, as she died from a bullet fired by the villainous Toji Fushiguro. Toji then took her corpse to the Time Vessel Association and gave it to their leader; Gojo later recovered it in a scene that proved to be the turning point for both Gojo and Geto and which we have described above.

So, Riko’s death changed everything; that is the general conclusion. But how? And why? Well, we shall explain that now, as this is truly a crucial moment for understanding the development of both Gojo and Geto.

As far as Gojo was concerned, the reckless and seemingly narcissistic guy was saddened by Riko’s death. Although he managed to compose himself, Riko’s death changed something in him, and for the first time in his life, he realized the fragility of human life and just how important his own role was.

It wasn’t a change that happened overnight, as Gojo would go on many more individual missions later before deciding to become a teacher. Gojo, for the first time, realized what Geto had been saying – he realized that the humans, i.e., the non-sorcerers, couldn’t protect themselves from threats, and since he saw while hanging out with Riko that humans can be a lot more than just “missions,” it changed him for the better.

Despite the frenzy he was in while fighting Toji, Gojo did not lose himself, and it was a mere moment of chaos caused by the sorrow he felt because of Riko Amanai’s death. He wanted to slaughter the members of the Time Vessel Association simply because they were so disgusting to applaud the death of an innocent child, which angered him so much, but Geto stopped him from killing them.

Still, Gojo then realized that things were not always black and white and that there were layers of both good and evil, and that made him more sensible to the intricacies of human personalities, turning him, eventually, into a dedicated teacher who cared a lot about his pupils and about protecting others. This was a wholly different and better Gojo that came out of this tragedy.

On the other hand, Geto wasn’t so sure of himself anymore. Seeing how deplorable people could be, his firm moral convictions shook. And although he did stop Gojo from killing the bystanders, his explanation wasn’t as firm as before. He said and stopped Gojo, but he did not believe in his words as firmly as before.

Riko’s death also saddened him, but unlike Gojo, who realized that this demanded even more dedication, Geto saw the worst of humanity in this chain of events, and it started to change him. Slowly, over time, he would go on more missions by himself, and at one point, the cycle of ingesting curses and saving people from curses seemed more and more pointless to him.

The memory of the humans applauding Riko’s death kept haunting him, and with each ingested curse, it haunted him more and more, ultimately changing him. He started despising humans, considering them to be lower beings, and this was also the first time that he called them “monkeys.” Ironically, Geto’s idea of having a world without curses did not change; he simply grew to hate humans because he saw the worst of what humanity could offer.

When he later found out, after being taught by Yuki, that non-sorcerers attract curses more than sorcerers, he twisted her wish to find a solution to this issue into a solution that involved the massacre of all non-sorcerers, believing that if he were to eliminate the “monkeys,” that the curses would stop appearing. And that is when he became a villain.

As we’ve said, this was a thorough and detailed analysis of this change, in which we’ve explained everything – the before, the cause, and the after. It was sad to see Geto become a villain, especially since a changed Gojo was devastated by that fact, especially since he failed to return him to the side of good. But that’s how it happened, which is why these two are so well-written characters.