James Nicoll Reviews

Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 1, by Gege Akutami

Gege Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen is an on-going Japanese horror manga; it’s been serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump since March 2018. Volume one collects the first seven issues.

Exemplary athlete Yuji Itadori declines to join any of his high school’s sports teams. After all, this would mean leaving the Occult Research Club. Itadori isn’t especially interested in the occult, but the club (at least one club is a mandatory activity) doesn’t insist on actual attendance, which gives him time to spend with his dying grandfather. As well, the club has but three members — Iguchi, Sasaki, and Itadori — and without him, it would dip below the minimum membership threshold for a school club and be subject to summary disbanding. 

Which, as it turns out, would have been a good thing for Iguchi and Sasaki.

While faffing about with the occult, the students come into possession of a talisman. Of course, the two older students see nothing dangerous in trying to open it, as they don’t really take the occult seriously. While they are busy tampering in what should remain sealed, Itadori is accosted by Megumi Fushiguro, who is at that very time trying to track down the cursed talisman. Of course, Itadori and Fushiguro are too late to prevent Iguchi and Sasaki from unleashing the curse. 

Fushiguro is an accomplished adept, but he’s not strong enough to deal with the curse. Itadori discovers that his physical prowess is useless against a living curse. Desperate to save his friends, he swallows the talisman, the severed finger of a cursed human named Ryoumen Sukuna. He is instantly imbued with awesome occult power … or to put another way, immediately possessed by a demon of remarkable power and malevolence. Bad news for Itadori’s friends; worse news for Itadori.

There was only one chance in ten thousand that Itadori would survive eating the finger. Having survived, he is now technically a curse himself. While it is impressive that he can resist Sukuna’s attempts to control their shared body, the rules are pretty clear on how to handle someone like Itadori: execution for the greater good. 

Itadori’s ability to survive eating talismans, as well as his ability to resist active possession, convince Fushiguro’s superiors to defer execution. Let Itadori live for now so he can consume the other talismans made from Sukuna. Once that task is finished, then Itadori can be slain. 

Many people would run from such a fate but for reasons of his own, stalwart Itadori embraces a task only he can do. This is the beginning of his curse-fighting career….

~oOo~

There is a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why a random high school would have problems with curses. Curses are the manifestations of bad feelings, and they tend to gravitate to places that create trauma. Thus, all high schools attract curses. Most of them aren’t unlucky enough to have students who help curses to take physical form¹.

There’s also a perfectly reasonable explanation as to why the occult authorities don’t do a better job of policing curses. Shamans are rare and, if volume one is anything to go by, their careers tend to be spectacularly brief. If that were not enough, there’s no particular correlation between occult talent and social conscience. Many people with the ability to fight monsters turn down the opportunity.

The art in this manga is well done; the plotting seems twisty enough (I see from looking ahead that the lead character dies in the next volume, but I assume he gets better). But Jujutsu Kaisen didn’t click for me, perhaps because it looks like it’s going down a long, grimdark path. Others may enjoy it more than I did. 

Jujutsu Kaisen is available here (Amazon US), here (Amazon Canada), here (Amazon UK), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Book Depository), and here (Chapters-Indigo).

1: Yet another high-school setting that would be vastly improved by easy access to competent therapists. And by not permitting occult clubs, even very small ones.