 They say that if you're not a member of the Zen and family, you are not worthy as a jujutsu sorcerer, and if you're not a jujutsu sorcerer, you're not worthy as a human being. Tochi Zenin would learn that, in some of the most cruel ways, he was harassed and abused from the moment he was born, despised by his own family for his weakness, even thrown into a swarm of cursed spirits, creating that scar on his mouth. Tochi would become known as the invisible man for his ability to mask his presence, and still, I think that was something he learned growing up in the Zenin clan, overshadowed by so many talented jujutsu sorcerers. Tochi would learn how to fight by honing his five senses using his innate physical gifts and outwitting the more gifted, quote, blessed opponents. Along with physical abuse, the Zenin family left an even greater scar on the heavenly restricted child. He would go on to later refer to himself as a monkey when in the presence of Gojo and Geto, calling them blessed. These are words I'm sure that Tochi didn't just come across. These are words that he was psychologically abused with. The Zenin family already sees nonjujutsu sorcerers as less than human, and so a monkey is the perfect relative. Tochi would grow to see himself as worthless and inadequate, and would leave the Zenin family with a burning desire to prove himself. This worldview created the perfect assassin, a heartless, stone cold killer who specialized in sorcerers, a man who was incredibly insecure and who chased after the chance to prove himself to what felt like the entire world that he was enough. Tochi and Maki differ because Maki can walk away and make a clean break, aiming to take the system down and to become head of the clan one day, flipping the system onto its head. But Tochi internalizes the hatred his family had shown him. He had become a prisoner of their attitudes and their abuse, and it makes sense for the invisible man. He didn't have anyone, no friends, no family. He didn't even have a twin to share at least a tiny bit of that burden. Tochi lives a life of solitude. Being known as a sorcerer killer, coupled with his disposition that he has developed, everything Tochi does is out of spite and revenge for his treatment. His worldview was shaped by the Zenin clan, no matter how backwards their teachings were. He internalized it all. If he is a monkey and Jujutsu sorcerers are the ones worthy to be called human beings, it's only right for him, a monkey, to prove to his elders what his value truly is. Tochi's diligence and most of all his pride led him to become one of the most formidable assassins in the Jujutsu world. The sorcerer killer is incredibly diligent when studying his prey. We see that in the fight against Gojo. Not only does he remember the Six Eyes, he makes sure to inform himself about all of his abilities and all of his techniques, noting that he is the first Gojo family sorcerer in hundreds of years to wield both Six Eyes and the Limeless technique. But more than that, he knows exactly what these abilities entail. He brought very specific cursed tools and spirits to counteract the particular effects of blue and red and of the Six Eyes. Tochi devised a plan to overload Gojo's senses and to use his heavenly restriction as his primary tool to get the great sorcerer on the defensive and to force a stoppage of his cursed technique. All the while, Tochi rarely calls Gojo by his name. More than once, Tochi refers to Gojo as the Six Eyes. The invisible man is meant to contrast both Geto and Gojo, but he is much like Gojo in one aspect. Like the Six Eyes, he too places great importance on strength. For him, it's because he searches for affirmation and for Gojo, it's a tool that can bring significant change in the world. Tochi is incredibly powerful. The heavenly restriction has given him superhuman strength, speed and senses. He is a master of a multitude of weapons. He is a master planner because his jujutsu knowledge is vast. He has used all the resources available to him. Tochi was able to correctly assess Geto's ability and the type of sorcerer he was in mere moments, forcing Geto to fight in close quarters, his one weakness. His battle with Gojo tells you all that you need to know. He is a meticulous planner and a tactical mastermind. He killed Gojo temporarily. That should have been a massive triumph for Tochi's philosophy, but it's all the proof he needs to rise above his massive insecurity. He finally gets proof of his value, and yet when he defeats Gojo and Geto, that is when he calls himself a monkey. He calls them blessed. Tochi has an inferiority complex created by the Zen and family. He is unable to see how gifted he truly is, unable to see how blessed he is. Tochi had all of this, all of these abilities, all of these triumphs. He defeated Gojo and Geto, the two strongest sorcerers alive, and yet it couldn't fill him up. It could not satisfy him. He needed more, and so Gojo rises from the dead. When Gojo returns, there's an initial look of fear on Tochi's face, but in the panels that follow, his look has become elation. The sorcerer killer is overjoyed at the fact that Gojo has returned, and he is hungry for a battle against the fully realized limitless technique, against the fully realized sick size. Tochi now has a chance to defeat the strongest sorcerer alive, the Satoru Gojo. The panel where he runs into battle with a grin plastered on his face is such a memorable one. Tochi's pride and his ego are really only filled when he can defeat sorcerers, and it only lasts mere moments. Tochi has run away before, and he finds no harm in that, but here he ignores this uneasiness. He ignores his instinct, his fear. Tochi throws his fear aside when there is a chance to do something monumental. When there is a chance for Tochi's insatiable desire for self-affirmation can be realized, he throws it all away. Here is a chance for him to discredit the entire Jujutsu world, the entire Jujutsu system, to crush it, to discredit the Zenon family who has tortured him and who has made him suffer. Taking down the pinnacle of the Jujutsu world, this is what Tochi desires. Here is that pride and that insecurity and that desire to prove himself all on full display. Tochi's head and heart were at odds, and he allowed his heart to take over. Tochi at his core desired something he could never really gain, approval. He says that he deviated from his true self, but one could argue that this is Tochi's true self. All of the years of torment and suffering have created an unstable man, and that is the true Tochi. Someone who desires to crush the beliefs and dreams of his abusers, by any means necessary. A man who has lost his morality along the way and only understood the world in terms of power. He wants to prove all of that to others, but most of all to himself. He's fighting an internal battle constantly, and here for once, he finally loses by shugging off that uneasiness and warning. But he isn't angry or upset that he lost. Tochi's upset at the fact that he lost his way. This ego driven individual, that was the man he was before meeting his wife. That was the true sorcerer killer. It's why he says he's rusty, that he's only remembering how to do this. Because he hasn't been the sorcerer killer, the invisible man in a long time. That anger, that pride, those were the emotions of a different man. This Zen and household, the family, causes instability in Tochi, but he mellowed out once he met his wife. He gave up his pride, perhaps in hopes to heal and to build a life with this woman whom he loved deeply. Tochi Fushiguro was a new man, a clean break. He deserted one of, if not the most powerful Jujutsu family. He even renounced his Zen in name. He would connect with his true self, he said. But when she dies, the cruelty of the world shows itself once again to Tochi. Aside from Megumi, he lost the only good thing in his life. The one person who was able to help him change for the better. And he responds to this by adopting this nonchalant, despondent attitude. He delves into gambling again. He doesn't care about anything and morality is a part of that as well. He will do any job, anything for the right price. Running away wasn't an issue for him, nor was accepting the fact that he was a monkey without a blessing. He tried to make himself believe that he wasn't fighting for anything anymore, that it was just for money. His apathy simply masked it all. I don't care, I don't care anymore, he says. Tochi was truly spiraling without his wife on a path to self-destruction. Fighting Gojo for the second time was where that journey ended for him. One of the most consistent themes in Jujutsu Kaizen is a sorcerer or a character's regret when they die. This is Tochi's. He really believed that he had moved on from the Zenin clan. He thought he'd put all of those years of suffering behind him. But again, I think losing Megumi's mother brought him back to the self-loathing, angry, vengeful person that he was. His loneliness grew and those feelings came crawling back. His pride yearned for something. He regrets that this is the person he has become. Tochi even tears up over it. He regrets that he wasted his life yearning for approval and validation from people who never cared about him. That he spent his whole life trying to prove to himself that he was worthy. That he was strong. I said that one could argue that this was Tochi's true self, this angry, self-loathing person. But on the other hand, I truly believe that his circumstances created the man he was. That his true self is the mellowed out, calm person we were never able to see. Tochi's true, maybe kinder self was hidden underneath all that pain. That is a man we will never know. Instead, we know the stone-cold killer, the man who took out a harmless child, who took out two teenagers, nearly killed one of them. In the end, the self-proclaimed monkey was a prisoner of fate. With a hole in the left side of his body, Tochi's last thoughts were about his son. The one person he did care about. He now has to leave behind for good. All because of his petty pride. After all this, the last piece of the fushiguro puzzle is Tochi's role as a father. When Megumi is first mentioned to Tochi, he replies nonchalantly, even asking who that is. Whether he genuinely forgot about Megumi's existence or not, whether he never even cared, whether he did, we'll never know. But Tochi is a curious case as a father. His son has no idea who he is, he has no idea of his past or anything. He means nothing to him. For Megumi, Tochi abandoned him and his sister. For Megumi, Tochi didn't even care to figure out his gender, as his name is a feminine given name. That is his view of his unknown father. But there is more to that puzzle. Tochi named his son Megumi, a name that he intentionally chose, which means blessing. Tochi truly views Megumi as a blessing in his life, one of his only blessings, since he was born a monkey, as he would call himself. Megumi and his mother were the two things in his perception that were untainted. That not even his genes, his cursed genes, could affect this boy. Megumi was a gift from his wife whom he truly loved and who helped him in a world in which he felt truly alone. And I think he viewed his son in a similar light. We also know that Megumi is the one who inherited the Ten Shadow. A cursed technique said to even rival the limitless technique, which means that Megumi, like Gojo and like Geto, was a truly blessed sorcerer who could one day become strong. And while he may have thought of his son in such a positive light, he abandoned his child. Tochi perhaps felt that he had no business caring for a child. A man so unstable, so broken as he was, possibly thought that it was better for his mother to take care of him. We learn that after Megumi's mother's death, Tochi planned to even sell Megumi to the Zenon clan. The same family that abused him, that tortured him, that made him this way. It seems cruel at face value. And yet, there was a level of understanding that the Zenon clan could possibly do a better job of raising Megumi into a powerful sorcerer than he could, knowing that Megumi was a prodigious sorcerer. Tochi knows that the Zenon clan is particularly horrible to women and to those without cursed energy, so Megumi and Tochi's treatment would have been radically different. He understood that, and he believed that that life would be better than what he could provide, especially considering the dejected, apathetic man he becomes after Megumi's mother passes. In his final moments, he thinks about his son and his wife, and while he initially wanted to die without any last words, he instead tells Gojo about Megumi. Tochi respects Gojo, the only man who was able to see him, a part of him believed in Gojo. In the lengths that he went to save that girl, in the man that he was. Maybe because he offered Tochi respect, and a chance to say his final words. Maybe because of all this, he believed that Gojo could raise Megumi better than the Zenon clan would. So he tells the sorcerer about his son. Maybe Tochi has become such a prisoner to power, a slave to strength, that he entrusted his son to the most powerful sorcerer alive. He entrusts his son's future into Gojo, the very man that killed him. At least in his final moments, Tochi had a bit of clarity. Despite his failures as a father, I believe that Tochi loved Megumi. In the few moments that he regained his humanity in Shibuya, he gives his son a rare genuine smile. And he was proud that his blessing took his mother's name. His name. And Tochi took his own life, so he didn't have to kill his son. Tochi is but a product of the Jujutsu system. It of course doesn't justify anything that he's done, but we understand the reason behind who he is. We understand what makes him tick. Tochi is another one of Jujutsu Kaizen's tragic characters. Another one who died full of regrets. Tochi believed that he had risen above his conditioning, above his own temperament. But in the end, he became a victim of it. A victim of the Zen Incline. A prisoner forever shackled by his family's abuse, shackled by his own pride. Tochi, though, was given a second chance. At this time, Tochi took his final breaths in control, at least free to choose the circumstances of his own death. This time for a reason. Tochi died as a proud father.