I know, I’m two months late, but I wanted to discuss a piece of media I’ve been stewing over lately that has made me think.

Some JJK Manga spoilers ahead. Anime-only watchers, please be wary.

“Emerge from the darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure.”

I hold Jujutsu Kaisen (2019) in extremely high regard when it comes to storytelling in Manga.

Sure, Chainsaw Man (2018) might be darker, Dandadan (2021) might be funnier, but no mangaka even comes close to Gege Akutami’s mastery when it comes to story-telling.

Events that occur in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen have an unrivaled weight. The world of Jujutsu Kaisen feels real.

I attribute this authenticity to the tight web of internal logic that holds the reality of Jujutsu Kaisen together.

At this point, you might be thinking, “What type of hallucinogenic is this guy on? In what world does having a giant talking panda as a classmate rank as high on the scale of realism?”

Domains, barrier technique, cursed objects, historical tie-ins. At every turn, Akutami pulls together the disparate threads of contemporary shonen manga tropes and weaves it into his world.

Explaining your technique to the enemy? In Jujutsu Kaisen, this seemingly arrogant and irrational action literally increases the effectiveness of an attack in the laws of equivalent exchange that govern its world.

Born without cursed energy? You get to be special (looking at you, Toji), not just because the mangaka needs you to be a chief antagonist, but because the bounds of heavenly restriction bless you with heightened senses to compensate for your lack of cursed energy.

Want to increase your temporary cursed energy output? Instead of meaninglessly powering up to the heights of unreal-ism like Goku or Deku, make a binding vow to never touch your weapon again, or put something of high value, like a life on the line. That’ll cause the effectiveness of your ability and technique to skyrocket near instantaneously.

This in itself isn’t a new concept. Fullmetal Alchemist (2001) premiered a world premised on the laws of equivalent exchange near two decades prior to Jujutsu Kaisen 0’s release.

What I posit elevates Jujutsu Kaisen far above its contemporaries however, is that no one has any plot armor. Not Yuji, not Gojo, not even Sukuna is exempt from these rules. And so, as I’ve said before, every chapter in Jujutsu Kaisen has weight. Because there really aren’t any takesy backsies.

“A true sphere is thought to be impossible. It has no contact area, so it generates infinite pressure.”

While the anime does a wonderful job of pushing the bounds of animation to bring to life the fights of the Shibuya arc, reading the manga afterward left me with a visceral sickly feeling. Like the one you get right before heartburn kicks in.

Move past the conceptual coolness of everyone’s cursed techniques, the wellspring of technique displayed in the art, and what you’re left with is the ethos that drives the Shibuya arc, and everything that comes after. Jujutsu Kaisen has a clear stance on the correct way to live in its world.

Time and time again, we are shown that sorcerers of the modern era and those from the Heian era all share similar levels of strength. In the latest chapters, we are even presented with showdowns between heavyweights like Gojo and Sukuna, Kenjaku and Takaba, Mahito and Yuji, and Kenjaku and Yuki. Chiefly, the sorcerers of old all appear to share one common mantra, of creating a world based purely on strength and nothing else.

In fact, it appears that such a hierarchy is heralded as the correct one, with characters who rely on the goodwill or cooperation of other sorcerers dying near instantly despite their individual strength (I’m looking at you Yuki). Conversely, it is at times of most need that monsters like Gojo and Sukuna realize the essence of strength and the heights of their potential. In these moments, as Gojo confesses to Amanai, they no longer fight for a cause or reason. They fight for their own pleasure.

“Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the honored one.”

A quote originally from the Buddha, uttered by Gojo at the epicenter of his growth during his showdown with Toji, and bestowed upon Sukuna by the narrator in his massacre at Shibuya. Is it any wonder that the two strongest characters in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen are not at all driven by friendship, camaraderie, teamwork or anything even close?

Above all, they’re selfish to the core, drunk on their power, a textbook hedonist. Really, the only thing that distinguishes Gojo from Sukuna is that he is the insane freak of nature on the side of sorcerers.

And yet, we as readers do not condemn him for it. Nor does the manga insinuate that Gojo or Sukuna are mistaken in their assumptions.

As Gojo articulates, “You can make a flower bloom, you can admire it, but you can’t tell that flower ‘I want you to understand me’”.

If the power levels in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen arise from cursed energy output, and the strongest characters are those with the highest levels of cursed energy output, then it is helpful to see where they attain such levels of cursed energy from.

Early on in Jujutsu Kaisen 0, we learn that cursed energy arises from strong, volatile emotions and malevolent intent. Chiefly, they can blossom in periods of hatred, regret and fear. After all, Rika’s near bottomless cursed energy seems to arise from the warped perversion of regret and longing Yuta felt for his lost childhood love.

Perhaps then, the greatest thing to fear in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen is what lies within ourselves, and each other. After all, is it not humans who inflict the greatest forms of terror upon each other? Geto realised this much earlier than anyone else, and yet he too was deemed weak by the narrative because of his ties to his “family”.

Therein, I believe, lies the horror of Jujutsu Kaisen. It is the horror Yuji is made to grapple with when the human curse, Mahito, insists they are the same. It is the terror that Yuji accepts when he later tells Mahito “I wanted to reject you, convince myself that you were wrong, but I’m you.” There really isn’t much separating those working at Jujutsu High from the curses bandied around Geto (now Kenjaku). Ultimately, we are defined by the things we choose to sacrifice and by the things we gain in return. Whether that be creating a world of only sorcerers, or creating a world where you stand at the top.

This brings us back to where we started. The equivalency of exchange is so immediately relatable not simply because we have seen this concept before in other works like Hunter x Hunter (1999) or Fullmetal Alchemist. Rather, its because every person unconsciously processes it on a daily basis. This is what most HL Econs students mindlessly define in their essay introductions as “opportunity cost”.

Is that not what the world of Jujutsu Kaisen is premised upon?

True, bottomless fright arises from living in a world where we have enough agency to take responsibility, but not enough agency to make those responsibilities easy.

Jujutsu Kaisen shows us a world where every decision is heart-wrenching and the pain of every consequence is amplified. Jujutsu Kaisen shows us a world that is our own.

Thanks for reading!

(PS. There are some other works I would like to recommend. I definitely don’t have it in me to write about them, but Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995) and Pluto (2003) are two fantastic pieces of media I recently finished. Do give them a look!)

SDG.