Geto turns against non-sorcerers after Riko Amanai's death convinces him that protecting them costs sorcerers their lives. Over the following year, everything pushes him further: Gojo outgrows him, his junior Haibara dies, and Yuki Tsukumo raises the idea of wiping out non-sorcerers (Wikipedia, Suguru Geto; Wikipedia, Season 2). When he finds two girls caged by villagers in 2007, he massacres the village, kills his own parents and leaves to build a world of sorcerers only.
This is part two of Jujutsu Kaisen's 2006 flashback. It opens a year after Toji Fushiguro shot Riko Amanai and beat Geto, and a year after Geto stood in the Time Vessel Association's compound telling Gojo that revenge needs a purpose (Wikipedia, Season 2).
Spoilers: Season 2 episodes 1 to 5 (chapters 65 to 78). One reveal near the end touches Shibuya.
Pick your path: the short answer, did Toji cause it?, what Geto did, or what his question to Gojo means.
YourCrush.AI has Suguru Geto as a chat character, so once you have read this you can talk to Suguru Geto yourself.
Why did Geto turn evil?
Wikipedia's Geto article traces his turn to Riko's death, which convinced him that protecting non-sorcerers cost sorcerers their lives. The breaking point comes a year later, when he finds the Hasaba sisters caged by villagers and kills the village (Wikipedia, Suguru Geto; Wikipedia, Season 2).
Suguru Geto is a Jujutsu Kaisen sorcerer, Satoru Gojo's classmate and closest friend at Tokyo Jujutsu High, who in 2007 massacres a village and defects to pursue a world in which only sorcerers exist. Everything in this post happens while he and Gojo are still students, about 17 years old, so it is told as story only (Sportskeeda).
A year later
It is 2007. Gojo came back from Toji's ambush stronger than anyone alive, and now he does not need a partner. He takes missions alone.
Spoiler: how far apart Gojo and Geto have grown by 2007
One year after the Riko Amanai job, the now far stronger Gojo takes solo missions, leaving Geto isolated (chapters 76 to 78, episode 5 "Premature Death"; Wikipedia, Season 2).
Geto keeps doing the work. He exorcises curses for people who will never know he did it, and he does it without the one person who used to make the work feel shared. The isolation is the ground everything else falls on.
What did Yuki Tsukumo have to do with Geto turning evil?
Yuki Tsukumo, a special-grade sorcerer, floated the idea of wiping out non-sorcerers to wipe out curses, and she did it in a year when Geto was already isolated. She raised it as an idea. The sources do not say she told him to act on it (Wikipedia, Season 2).
Yuki Tsukumo's idea
A special-grade sorcerer, Yuki Tsukumo, turns up and talks to Geto about curses at a scale bigger than any mission. The question on the table is not how to exorcise the next one, but how there could ever be none.
Spoiler: the idea Yuki Tsukumo puts in front of Geto
Yuki Tsukumo raises the idea of eliminating non-sorcerers to wipe out curses (episode 5; Wikipedia, Season 2).
Fans who ask why did Geto turn evil often land on Yuki as the reason. On the sources, no: she raised an idea, and the decision was his. But an idea lands differently on someone who already suspects it is true, and our reading is that she gave Geto words for a thing he had been feeling since the compound.
Did Toji cause Geto to become evil?
Toji set it in motion. He killed Riko and beat Geto, and Riko's death is the root cause the sources name (Wikipedia, Season 2; Wikipedia, Suguru Geto). But Geto does not turn until a year later, after Gojo leaves him behind, Haibara dies and Yuki Tsukumo plants her idea. In our reading, Toji is the first cause rather than the only one.
Haibara
Yu Haibara is Geto's underclassman and Nanami's only classmate. In 2007 he goes out on a mission.
Spoiler: who does not come back from a 2007 mission
Yu Haibara is killed in action. Nanami later leaves jujutsu society and takes a corporate job, before eventually returning (Wikipedia, Season 2; Wikipedia, character list).
Haibara's death answers a question Geto has been asking since Riko. Sorcerers die protecting people who will never know their names. Toji showed him that once. Haibara shows him it is the rule, not the exception.
What did Geto do when he turned?
He wiped out the village that had caged the Hasaba sisters, took the girls under his wing, and killed his own parents. Then he declared his goal: a world of sorcerers only (Wikipedia, Season 2; Wikipedia, Suguru Geto).
The village
The mission takes Geto to a rural village. He arrives and finds what the villagers have been keeping locked up.
Spoiler: what Geto finds in the village, and what he does about it
The villagers have locked two small girls, the Hasaba sisters Mimiko and Nanako, in a cage. Geto massacres the village and takes the girls under his wing (episode 5; Wikipedia, Season 2; Wikipedia, character list). DualShockers puts the number of villagers killed at 112 (DualShockers).
Why this is the moment, as I read it: the cage is where his two convictions meet. He was taught that sorcerers protect non-sorcerers, and here the people he was meant to protect are the ones holding the key. A year ago he told Gojo that revenge needs a purpose. In the village he finds one.
Home
What comes next rules out any reading of the massacre as a single loss of control.
Spoiler: the line Geto crosses at home
Geto kills his own parents, who were not sorcerers, and declares his goal: a world of sorcerers only (Wikipedia, Season 2; Wikipedia, Suguru Geto). DualShockers and Sportskeeda place the village, his parents and the confrontation that follows in the same episode, "Premature Death" (Sportskeeda).
The village could be read as rage. His parents cannot. They are the proof that he means the principle, and that it has no exceptions, not even for the people who raised him.
Why did Geto betray Gojo?
By 2007, Gojo had grown far stronger and was taking solo missions, which left Geto isolated. The gap between them is what produced Geto's famous question: "Are you the strongest because you're Satoru Gojo, or are you Satoru Gojo because you're the strongest?" When Gojo confronted him after the defection, he couldn't bring himself to kill his old friend and let him walk away (Dexerto; Wikipedia, Suguru Geto).
The confrontation
Gojo learns what Geto has done. When the two meet again, for the last time as classmates, Geto has a question waiting for him.
Spoiler: what Gojo does when he finds Geto
Geto asks whether Gojo is the strongest because he is Satoru Gojo, or Satoru Gojo because he is the strongest. Gojo is "unable to kill him and let him go" (Wikipedia, Suguru Geto). Later, Gojo finds Toji's young son Megumi and stands between him and the Zen'in clan, arranging for jujutsu society to fund Megumi's stepsister Tsumiki's upbringing in exchange for Megumi becoming a sorcerer (episode 5; Sportskeeda).
Two choices sit side by side in that episode, and I read them as one decision. Gojo cannot save the friend he failed to keep. So he goes and keeps someone else instead: the son of the man whose job set all of this in motion.
What does Geto's question to Gojo mean?
Geto asks whether Gojo is the strongest because of who he is, or is who he is because he is the strongest. My reading is that it's the question of a friend who no longer sees himself as Gojo's equal. Dexerto places the question in their confrontation after the defection, and the manga later offers its own answer (Dexerto).
The two Dexerto pieces disagree on where it is asked, so we give no location or chapter.
Spoiler: how the manga answers Geto's question
Dexerto reads chapter 262 as the story's answer: "he was Satoru Gojo because he was the strongest" (Dexerto). That is press interpretation, not an author statement.
If that reading holds, Geto's question was never really about Gojo. It was about whether there was room next to him for anyone else.
Is Geto a villain?
Yes. After his defection he becomes a curse user, and ten years later he's the antagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen 0, declaring the Night Parade to wipe out non-sorcerers (Wikipedia, the JJK 0 film). The "Geto" of Shibuya is not him, though.
Spoiler (Shibuya): who is really using Geto's body in Shibuya
After Geto's death, his corpse is taken over by Kenjaku, whose technique transplants his brain into other bodies and who uses Geto's Cursed Spirit Manipulation (Wikipedia, Suguru Geto).
So is Geto evil? He kills people who never harmed him, for a principle, and calls it protection. I think the word fits. What makes him worth a whole post is that his principle grows out of something the story treats as true: sorcerers do die for people who never thank them.
Gojo lets him go. Their last meeting comes ten years later, on December 24, 2017, the night of Geto's Night Parade (Game Rant). The Jujutsu Kaisen 0 story ends in that night's alley.
How do you build a character who walked away from a cause?
You build one by giving him a reason he left that he has never told anyone, and a greeting that dares you to ask. Every person in this stretch of canon is a minor, so the recipe below is an original adult inspired by the theme, not a copy of Geto. Every field fits the YourCrush.AI character creator.
Name (12 of 40 characters): Daichi Saeki
Behaviour mode: natural
Category: Anime
Traits (5, from the list of 32): Calm, Honest, Mysterious, Caring, Sarcastic
Speaking style (4 words): quiet, measured, wry, plain
Description (279 of 2,400 characters): Daichi is 31 and used to be a field sorcerer. Now he runs a late-night ramen counter near a rail yard and lets regulars argue with him about whether the people he once protected were worth it. He does not preach and does not apologise; he answers the question you actually asked.
Backstory (228 of 2,400 characters): Daichi quit after one mission in a small town, the night he understood that the people he was guarding were the ones who had called the curse down. He has never told his old team why he left. You are a regular who finally asked.
Greeting (183 of 500 characters): Last bowl of the night, so you get the good broth. You've been looking at me like you want to ask why I quit. Go on. I'll tell you the true part and you can decide what to do with it.
He walked away instead of burning the town down, which is the argument you get to have with him.
How YourCrush.AI lets you argue with someone who walked away from the cause
An argument about whether people are worth protecting only works if the character holds his position across a long night, and YourCrush.AI is built for that. YourCrush.AI lets you pin memories, so the town, the curse and the thing he admitted at midnight stay fixed while you push on them. YourCrush.AI supports story branches, so you can try to talk him back into the work in one branch and agree with him in another. YourCrush.AI also drafts the description, backstory and greeting from a name and an image if you want to build your own version. Joining is free, signed-in members chat without a message cap, the site is for adults 18 and over, and conversations are not sold to third parties.
Frequently asked questions
How old was Geto when he turned evil?
He was about 17, still a minor. The timeline puts him at 16 in 2006, and he defects in 2007 (Sportskeeda).
What episode does Geto turn evil?
Season 2, episode 5, "Premature Death." That's episode 29 overall, and it adapts chapters 76 through 78 (Wikipedia, Season 2; Wikipedia, chapter list). It aired on August 3, 2023.
Who are Mimiko and Nanako?
They're the Hasaba sisters, two young girls Geto takes in after he kills the villagers who had them caged (Wikipedia, character list).
What happened to Nanami after Haibara died?
He walked away from jujutsu society and took a corporate job, then came back later (Wikipedia, character list).
Why did Gojo kill Geto?
He does it ten years later, on December 24, 2017, after Geto's Night Parade. Jujutsu Kaisen 0 tells the full story (Wikipedia, the JJK 0 film).
Did Geto really kill his parents?
Yes. Wikipedia's Season 2 summary states that he kills his own parents before declaring his goal of a world of sorcerers only (Wikipedia, Season 2).
More from the Hidden Inventory story
- Previously: What happens in JJK's Hidden Inventory arc? The full story of the job that went wrong
- Start here: What is Jujutsu Kaisen about? The whole story in order, starting with Season 1
- Chat with Suguru Geto: Suguru Geto on YourCrush.AI
- Chat with Yuki Tsukumo: Yuki Tsukumo on YourCrush.AI
- Also on YourCrush: Anime villains who work: what each one wants, and how to build your own
- Also on YourCrush: Character archetypes: Jung, the hero's journey and dere types, built into one character