It’s time to talk about one of the biggest manga endings of the year. Jujutsu Kaisen was a really big Jump title with a lot of action and a whole lot going for it. Its popularity was pretty high and it got a big budget movie and anime to itself. I definitely had a great time with it and I think it’ll be remembered fondly. I may not have been crazy about the ending but at the end of the day the ending is a small part of the experience. This is a series that was with us for a long while and had time to bring in a whole lot of fun plots and battles. You don’t just forget about all of that.

The manga follows a kid named Yuji who is pretty much on his own once his grandfather died. Yuji has always been physically gifted to the point of being a metahuman but is otherwise normal. Well one day some monsters show up and Yuji ends up swallowing a demon finger which seals the demon Sukuna within him. Yuji is now being carefully watched by a group of sorcerers in the Jujutsu world who think that he could end up being a massive threat. Some want to murder Yuji while others want to use him as a valuable asset. Yuji figures he will make the best of things for as long as he can and decides to help fight the evil spirits.

First up we have the pre arc which introduces us to some of the other sorcerers like Megumi, Nobara, and Gojo. The series sets the tone early on by introducing us to another friend who seemed like he was going to be a main character only to get bumped off early. Jujutsu Kaisen is a series where generally speaking nobody is safe. The series starts to walk this back a little towards the end but I would say that the theme i still accurate. In this world you are constantly risking your life and the line towards death is a very narrow one. It’s why several characters talk about the subject, how they would like to go and how they wouldn’t.

Kaisen’s main cast is also a lot of fun so it’s easy to see why fans are saddened that we don’t get to see the dynamic for very long. The big 3 hanging out with Gojo only happens a few times as they are almost always split apart. It’s rough but that’s just how it goes. Fortunately we have a lot of good side characters as well and if you’re really into action then you’re all set because a lot of the series is basically nonstop action. It does get rather text heavy with the abilities though so you better be sure that you can keep up.

I’d say in some ways the first big arc is the tournament against the upper classmen which transitions immediately into one of the more powerful demons challenging them. It’s always cool to see more characters show up and the tournament being a wide range survival type means that we got to see a whole lot of them at once. Todo leaves a fast impression and while some of the characters on the other team ended up being fodders, I was glad to have more opponents. You want to introduce as many characters as you can early on in order to really flesh out the world and I’d say the series did a good job with that. There is a whole lot of lore going on here.

This is even a series that doesn’t always explain everything. There are quite a bit of details that are kept in the background like Kenjaku’s plan where a bunch of people still don’t keep that part straight. Other parts simply aren’t finalized and you jut have to choose your own ending for it. I’ll go more into the ending in general but generally I don’t mind not having every question answered. Leaves more room for you to imagine what probably happened off screen.

After that we have Mahito running around, some more demon attacks and Megumi getting some rare moments to shine and then we jump into the prequel arc about Gojo’s past. This is a pretty massive arc because Gojo has been such a mysterious character so it was nice to learn more about him. It’s fun to see how cocky that guy is. He really hasn’t changed over the years at least on a surface level but by the end you can see how he did crack a little. It feels like he was more genuine before the time skip and now it’s more like a facade. He is a complex character though which leaves room for a whole lot of interpretations which I really enjoy.

Then we get to the famous arc which is Shibuya. This was a terrific arc in the manga and I dare say the anime even elevated it further. Shibuya is an arc that brings all of the characters together and in that way it feels like it is hard to top. (Although impressively enough, I would say that the climax managed to top it) There is a lot of nonstop action here and it’s cool to see all of the big shots going up against each other. It’s the kind of arc that only works because this has been a fairly long series so there was time to introduce all of these characters. It would not have nearly the same impact if we hadn’t known the characters beforehand.

It’s the reward you get for reading along for so long. It’s always risky waiting or a bunch of characters to face off in the end game because you need to keep people sticking around until then and Kaisen pulled it off. Also it is so rare for any series to be taking place in a big city environment so that made me appreciate this even more. Like in Yuji vs Choso we had them using the building in the fight and all of the other battles did something similar like Gojo in the train station. Lets get more manga with the city vibes like this!

Finally we get to the final arc which is the Culling Games. It’s definitely a lot more mixed than Shibuya but the highs are the peak of the series. We get what I would call the really old school type finale of everyone going off to fight Sukuna one at a time. It’s a super hype way to end the series. I may have some issues which I’ll get into later on but this was climactic. Then of course before all of that you had a whole lot of battles. This is basically a giant tournament after all and it’s one that has a ton of convoluted reasons to keep track of.

We even have the government getting involved later on which was definitely interesting. That storyline pretty much just gets dropped but we can assume that they will return and cause more and more trouble until they are either destroyed or the sorcerers are on the back foot. It’s not an ongoing fight that you can really have until one side is wiped out because neither one will budge.

A big positive I have to give the series right away here is that there is a very minimal amount of fanservice. For the most part it just isn’t a factor and that’s great. In general I would say modern manga are a whole lot better with that than they used to be. The story gets to take center stage this way and it is also a good sign that the manga takes itself very seriously. I will always be here to praise that when it happens.

Meanwhile the art is also pretty good. It sometimes has a bit of a rough look but that works with the general vibe that the series is going for. The fights are always clear which is the important part and you really feel the hype. Mix that in with the solid writing and you can see why the series got so big. I’ll say right now that I did really enjoy all of the big exposition and text bubbles here. I tend to enjoy theory crafting and ability explanations so it was all handled well. There are some exceptions from movies and anime but yeah this kind of dialogue I can read all day.

The nonstop nature of the series does mean that there is rarely any downtime. I know a lot of the characters don’t get to talk or hang out too much which can be rough but I can’t say that I minded it. I’m generally more of an action guy myself after all so if this is what had to happen for the battles then I’m all for it. The characters show a lot of stamina considering how long they had to be fighting for.

Now I did have issues with the ending which is a separate matter. Skip these next two paragraphs if you haven’t read the series yet. Begin Spoilers There’s no way Gojo would lose to Sukuna! I still think that whole fight was busted. Yes, Sukuna had a lot of fancy powers and was a serious threat but Gojo was too broken by this point in the fight. The idea of a single slash blindsiding him still has to be one of the worst twists to a fight. It had to be off screen because the author knew nobody would buy that. It just goes against everything we had seen before that point. Yeah I still shake my head just thinking about that. It was not a good idea by any means.

The whole time I was waiting for some kind of a twist but it never happened. In the end Kenjaku’s plan was also rather weak and I don’t totally wrap my head around why he had to wait and become Yuji’s mother to pull it off. I think part of this was waiting on Tengen but it feels like his plan would have been a lot smoother if he just kidnapped Yuji after birth or hid him away. A lot of characters somehow avoiding death in the end was a bit cheesy but I’m definitely more okay with that since I like a happy ending. It just felt like parts of the ending were rather rushed or the author wrote himself into a corner and wasn’t sure how to end it. Most of this could have been ended with a Gojo victory but that’s how it goes I suppose. End Spoilers

Okay so that’s a pretty deep dive into the series itself, now lets talk about the characters. There is a fairly large cast here so buckle yourself in because this is about to get real! I won’t go into literally everybody, you can read the series for that but I’ll at least get into the big figures here and anybody who seems worthy of a writeup. Naturally we will start with the main character himself, Yuji Itadori.

Yuji is one of those main characters who may get overshadowed at times because his abilities are a whole lot simpler than most. Basically he can hit opponents really hard. At least for 99% of the series that is his power. His punches can even rock an opponent’s soul which is really impressive but compare that to characters who need 3 pages worth of text to explain their abilities and you can feel the difference. Of course I like physical abilities so that is A ok with me. He has super durability as well which helps him compensate there.

As a character he is definitely really solid. A good hero who wants to do the right thing and is also able to just unleash on a villain once he’s had enough. He is absolutely willing to down someone like Mahito who is basically unable to turn good. He maybe gets a little overly sentimental at the very end but hey it’s hard to be too down about a character for wanting to spare the enemy. At the end of the day he is a good guy after all.

Then we have the rival Megumi and he is definitely more of a mixed bag. Part of the problem I’d say is that he doesn’t get much screentime and doesn’t feel super impressive. I’d say his summons are a pretty solid matchup for Yuji so in a fight he could stand a chance at least until Shibuya but after that he is probably getting wrecked pretty fast. It would have been good if Megumi could have gotten more scenes at the end to really show his stuff or something like that but in the end that just wasn’t in the cards.

After that we have Nobara to round out the trio. She is a fun character who also suffers from a lack of screentime. Her ability to land a hit on an opponent from any distance as long as she has their DNA is super handy. You could even say that it is a rather broken ability and perhaps that is why she had to be written out. She has a lot of good general confidence as well. So Nobara is definitely fun and helps make the cast more enjoyable. Physically her stats are basically human so she is best used as a support fighter once the others have gotten the villain into a vulnerable state. Then she can spam her abilities from afar to throw him off.

Gojo comes next and that guy is a total MVP of the series. It’s easy to see why he is such a fan favorite because the guy is awesome. His Infinity power is really handy and the guy is basically the embodiment of confidence. How can you not love a character like that right? The author was also very smart in waiting until the very end to have his big fight with Sukuna. As a result it was one of the most anticipated fights in all of manga with a ton of build up. I would argue it’s a fight that can be mentioned in the same breath as Goku vs Frieza, Naruto vs Sasuke, and Luffy vs Kaido as fights that were hyped up for ages and really delivered. it was incredibly climactic and no matter what flaws I had with the aftermath, he actual battle was absolutely top tier.

Seeing this in real time was really incredible. I also really appreciated Gojo’s origin story as a nice window into how he became the man that he is today. I’d ignore every part of the airplane scene since that seemed wildly out of character. Other than that he was shown to be a really caring guy, a good mentor, and someone who you could trust to have your back. Any scene with him in it really flipped the script on the villains. Additionally, I also liked how ruthless he could be with the villains. When it comes to cursed spirits he would just end them and also put the corrupt council on notice that they would be ended as well.

It’s pretty well explained that the society is super corrupt in a lot of ways and so you are glad that Gojo doesn’t just let them do whatever they want. Just the knowledge that he could try to take them down is enough of a deterrent. Unfortunately even then he can’t protect everybody. Another big character in the series is Yaga who generally seems like a nice guy. Unfortunately things don’t go so well with him and he’s a perfect example of one of those characters who has an abrupt end to his character arc that was unexpected. I can’t say that I ever became a big fan of his but he wasn’t bad. Another character to help flesh things out.

Kusakabe is someone who got likable a lot quicker. It’s easy to empathize with him since he’s a fairly ordinary guy trying to stay alive while all of these powerhouses are duking it out. It’s definitely not an enviable position to be in and yet the guy constantly finds himself in a really rough place. He ends up squaring up against the strongest villain in the series more than once. He may not be someone you can count on to win but at least he’ll buy time.

Shoko is more of a meme than anything as she almost never gets to really do anything in the series. She has a lot of potential and her healing is supposed to be top rate but yeah don’t expect her to be appearing too often. I like the concept of her character though. She’s certainly better than the shifty Mei Mei who shows up for profits and then dips as soon as possible. She’s definitely not the most heroic character by a long shot and tends to be more on the annoying side. Her scenes with Ui Ui are particularly brutal. Ui Ui may help out at times but yeah I could do without him.

Two sorcerers who are even pointless though are the sumo wrestler guy and then later on the Kappa. They basically appear for a quick training scene to power someone up but that’s it. You can safely ignore them but I don’t regret their appearing. After all, with the Culling Games we needed a lot of different sorcerers for all of the matchups. So these guys helped to fill in a few of the slots even if there wasn’t a whole lot else going for them.

A sorcerer who appeared later on that actually did leave a good impression was Takaba. This guy loves joking around and has a casual reality warping ability where anything that he finds to be funny can come true. There are likely some limits to this ability even though we don’t actually get to see those. It was a very interesting twist to the final arc as things would just get a lot happier and more comedic when he was around. It also works out pretty well that he showed up near the end since it’s definitely possible that he could have gotten annoying if he was around for too long.

Now Higurama is a real highlight. As soon as he showed up he left a really great impression. I already love court room plots, characters, and scenes. So throwing in a character like that was a really great idea. He actually did make a real difference in the series as well. He’s fairly jaded by the start of his appearances and then warms up near the end. There’s just a whole lot to his character and I’d have liked to have seen more of his abilities. There really just wasn’t time for him to get any more action scenes once we were that deep into the series.

Mai is one of those characters who ended up having a smaller role than I was expecting. She still played a pivotal role in the end but ultimately would not become one of the strongest fighters. I blame her weapon, you’re never going to go all that far with a normal gun. It’s just not a weapon that is meant to take on powerful opponents in any verse. There are very few exceptions and she starts out as a bully anyway so it’s not like she had much time to be a hero.

The rest of her team generally falls into that role. Look at poor Miwa. She basically became a meme and nothing ever went right for her. The manga teases something that will happen near the end and it’s extremely underwhelming. Ultimately you may enjoy her as a character because she is a lot of fun but at the end of the day that’s about all that she has going for her. It would have been nice if she could have gotten one big moment to end things off with.

Todo gets a huge role though and stands out from the others. For starters his clapping teleportation is incredibly useful and even at the end of the series it is generally considered to be one of the best abilities in the verse. The amount of uses that it has is absolutely incredible and beyond that he is just a fun guy to have around. He had a good personality the whole time and always enjoyed a good fight. Those tend to be big green flags for me. Todo also got to be involved in just about all of the big fights which was fortunate.

Meanwhile Maki is another big character and she certainly got a lot of development throughout the series. She started out as a fairly tough fighter but not one of the top tiers. Well, by the end she can hold her head high as one of the big ones. Her physical abilities are great and she’s very no nonsense. It would have been nice to have seen a bit more of her personality post time skip but at the end of the day she still got her share of action. It was always fun to watch her fight.

I do have to put one knock against her though which is when she erased the Zenin clan. Yes the clan was evil but it’s made clear that she completely wiped them out with no exceptions. We see her execute even people who could not fight back and that’s when you start to go from vigilante into full blown villain territory. Kaisen has always been a series where the heroes don’t even try to cling onto a moral high ground so there isn’t much of an uproar about this but I still thought that it was going a little bit too far. It just didn’t leave a good taste to be having a “hero” do all of that. There had to be another way to pull this off.

There are comparisons made to Gojo threatening to murder all of the elders and ultimately another character doing this but the main difference is that all of the elders were involved with what was going on and you can’t say the same for everyone in the Zenin clan. Speaking of Yuta, he certainly gets a pretty big role in the series. He originally started out as a protagonist in Kaisen 0 after all and it was a lot of fun to see him show up here. It was definitely an awesome intro and from there he never looked back.

Yuta is one of the biggest powerhouses of the series after all and by having his own volume first, it really felt like he was a crossover character stepping foot into the main series. You appreciated all of his scenes all the more as a result and the fact that he got to face off with Geto’s body once more. Not Geto himself but the effect was still there.

Panda is given a good amount of hype in his own right but I wasn’t the biggest fan of his. In part it’s because I didn’t find him to be all that impressive in a fight and also because his personality just isn’t as bombastic. It’s one of those cases where there is nothing super wrong with him, he’s just not my kind of character. Hey that has to happen sometimes. Then we have Toge whose ability to make you do whatever he says is extremely handy. As a result he is kept away from the action for pretty much the whole series. It would have been nice for him to have gotten more to do. As it stands I would say he is a good character but there really isn’t much to say about him.

Junpei is one of those characters who was set up for a whole lot of action but ultimately didn’t last too long. That said, I didn’t like him as much as most people did. I appreciated the unexpectedness of his ending but at the same time as a character he was tricked way too easily. It made him look like a grade A sucker. Unfortunately he likely would have been bumped off either way but he didn’t need to make it so easy. That’s something that will always be a huge slight against him.

Then we have Hakari who really debuts late in the series. He got mentioned fairly early on too, but that’s just how it goes. Well he’s a fun character and I like how his ability forces you to play games with him. The visual novel for example was crazy and also just so unique. The author was maybe having a bit more fun than he needed to in terms of all the dialogue and everything but it really did force you to understand what his opponents were going through. Imagine having to remember everything about how to counter the ability when you are in a life or death fight.

Momo is one of those characters who doesn’t get anything to do and it’s easy to see why. She can ride a broom and that’s about it. She was so underwhelming from the start and never really got better. Then you have Kamo and the series sort of started to give him some importance but quickly took it away again. He had potential but just needed to do more to really join the big shots. Even when he got a team up with Maki it just felt like he was holding her back. Muta is the final member of the team who could actually fight and even then he made the worst moves possible.

I have a lot of points against him for betraying the team. His end was just so obvious the whole time and he puts everyone into a lot of trouble. There was no real going back for him from that point so I didn’t like him nearly as much as others. Yuki is a character who had very limited screentime but managed to make it count. I liked her mass ability. It was one of those abilities that is fairly simple but Gege managed to make it a little more intricate. He is certainly good at doing that. Would have been nice if she could have had one more fight though. I say that a lot with these characters and it shows just what a big verse Gege created in such a short amount of time.

Then we have Nanami who was a good intro instructor to Yuji. You don’t figure that he would last too long but he managed to make an impact. He’s one of those general all around types. Nothing too fancy in terms of ability or skill but still above average and enough to hold his own with most of the villains in the series. I was satisfied with the amount of fights and action that he got.

Finally you’ve got Tengen who is just annoying the whole time. He’s a perfect embodiment of all the corruption in the Jujutsu world. He continues to exist on the blood of innocents by sacrificing people which is messed up. When it comes time for a fight, he is powerless against the villains who matter. This guy tends to be a waste of space and you feel no real sympathy for him at all. Not much changes if you remove him from the series to be honest.

On the villains side we have Naoya who actually ends up being a really fun character. He’s the kind of guy who is very stubborn and determined. He keeps on returning over and over to take down the heroes and it is a good trait to have. The guy is a straight up villain and there is nothing ambiguous about him at all. He really works in the role though and was one of the more entertaining villains. That is really tough considering just how many colorful villains there are out there. I wouldn’t have minded if he got to appear even more to be honest.

Then we have Toji who is the best villain in the series. He is basically a human who stays fit and has a heavenly restriction that makes him extremely powerful. It’s a classic case of David and Goliath when he fights Gojo and that is part of the appeal since typically you would expect the hero to be the underdog. It’s why you have an easy time enjoying Toji here because he is using the tactics and planning you would typically expect out of Batman and he really dominates whenever he is on screen. Now here’s a character that I would have absolutely loved to have seen more of in the series. There is just so much to do with him but alas there is only so much time.

He certainly gets more screentime than Haruta which is a good thing. That guy is basically well known for being super weak and petty the whole time. What a thing to be known for right? I don’t even like the guy ironically, he’s just annoying the whole time. He’s also not very powerful and so he always has to rely on getting lucky with the matchups. But hey that’s his power so in a way it is fitting.

Uraume is much more interesting but she doesn’t actually get to appear very much. She’s sort of like Sukuna’s right hand man and her ice abilities are really impressive. Unfortunately most of her fight was off screen but from what we sae, she was very capable. I liked the concept of her a lot.

Then we have Miguel who wasn’t a villain for very long to be honest. That was back in the 0 days and here he shows up as a hero. His role is small but it was pretty cool seeing him show up for the final battle. Everyone got to contribute a little bit. Likewise for Geto who doesn’t appear much in the series at all yet he plays a massive role in it. He introduces a lot of concepts and debates into the series. Ultimately it’s just a bunch of lip service from a mass murderer with crazy ambitions but I always enjoyed the conversations. The guy also did go through a lot which is very clear.

Choso is one of the more fun antagonists with his initial aggression towards Yuji and then their bonds from then on. He was definitely real loyal and his blood powers were very good. Sometimes a big 180 personality shift like that may not work but in his case it did thanks to the circumstances around all of that. It was definitely a moment that the author planned out very well.

From the original villains the one with the smallest role is probably Dagon. He looks the least impressive initially and even by the end I would argue that he is probably the weakest. He does get a good fight and has a cool looking super form but ultimately this guy is more flash than substance. You can’t really put him in the same category as Jogo or Mahito. Those guys slam him every time.

Jogo has the worst luck I’ve seen for a big villain. He has to go up against the two strongest characters in the series. That’s an extremely rough fate and so while he is very powerful, we don’t get to see that very often. He is a very fun character either way though. Ultimately he had his own pride and fought hard til the end. I could definitely respect that and he even had the nice “Be proud” moment so the villain gave him respect as well.

Hanami has the rough luck of fighting Gojo but before that she did a lot of dominating as well. Her plant powers are really fun and she can also fight in hand to hand combat at an extremely high level. Another top tier villain and it reminds you of just how broken the group was. If not for Gojo then they could have easily taken down the Jujutsu society. All of the heroes combined would have really not stood a chance at that point.

Kashimo is one of those famous “Potential Man” characters. He had a really intense intro that caused a lot of people to become big fans of his but ultimately he never lived up to it. His ending was easily one of the most anti climactic ones out there. It’s very easy to make fun of him and hopefully the anime extends the sequence. As rough as it was, ultimately I still liked the guy. He just needed more screen time but still generally had a good personality that was exciting. I also tend to like thunder powers quite a bit.

Then we have Mahito who is one of the biggest villains in the series. The guy made things very personal with Yuji and the series really gave them time to develop this matchup. Both fighters really wanted to murder the other by the end of it. I remember enjoying Mahito enough where I wanted to see him fight Gojo but they barely get to interact at all. Ultimately it’s a terrible matchup for Mahito since it’s not like he can even touch Gojo. That removes his main advantage after all. Mahito is in a lot of ways like the Joker and it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a hero vs villain rivalry as solid as this one. Maybe even since the Goku vs Frieza days which sounds pretty crazy but I would argue that either way this was a top tier one. Yuji probably shouldn’t have won in the end when you consider the power imbalance there.

Kenjaku is one of those villains who got worse and worse the more that he appeared. His plan just wasn’t all that great and while the randomness of it was intentional, it just didn’t feel fitting for such a mastermind villain. He really needed a better ending. There are a lot of fun memes due to how it ends as well. Like becoming someone’s mother and giving birth to a big character may have become relevant plot points by the end but it makes you wonder why he did the plan the way that he did. It all feels random once again and takes away major points from his mastermind status. If he had a more graceful end then it probably would have aged his character better.

Finally you have Sukuna who did end up being the final villain. This guy was hyped from the start and the series did a tremendous job with him. It’s not every day that a character gets to live up to the hype and make it to the end but Sukuna actually did this. There’s nothing else you could say except that it is very impressive. Sukuna got a number of super forms and kept pulling out techniques from under the hat. He knew how to really exploit all of the rules of sorcery and bend them to his whim. It made him the perfect final antagonist. I already discussed the matchup before so while I don’t think Sukuna should have lasted as long as he did, it still made for a really exciting climax. I don’t think we’re likely to see one quite as long and packed with characters for a very long time.

Now the series did end with a lot of unresolved plot lines, ideas, and concepts but like I said that’s fine in general. I don’t mind making up my own theories to fill in the blanks. I do think the weirdest one was how the series seemed to be implying that Yuji had some kind of reality warping with the delusions he showed Todo and Choso. For both of those to be coincidences was a real stretch so I didn’t quite buy into Gege’s plan there.

Kaisen is great no matter when you read it but I will say that it will feel a bit different without the live commentary. This is one of those series that was really fun to read live. There were so many twists and turns that generated a ton of discussion and memes. Again I don’t think we’ll be seeing anything quite so elaborate out of a manga again for a very long time aside from One Piece which has been around for so long. Kaisen really got to join the all time greats in how good it was at encouraging debate.

Overall, Jujutsu Kaisen is a great manga. It really nailed all of the big things that I would look for in a manga like solid characters and great fights. It made it to a pretty solid length as well. Naturally I wish it could have kept on going for a longer amount of time but at the end of the day it’s enough to be satisfied with. I would definitely recommend this title. It may be a tad darker than some Shonens but at the end of the day it is still a classic Jump title at heart. It has a lot of good messages and keeps you absolutely engaged the entire time. It’ll be difficult for any of the new up and coming titles to really defeat it.

Overall 8/10