Summary
Plot
Introduction, Cursed Womb, Cursed Training and Vs. Mahito arcs
Yuji Itadori is an unnaturally fit high school student living in Sendai with his grandfather. He regularly avoids the track team due to the time commitment required for it, despite his innate talent for the sport. Instead, he chooses to join the Occult Research Club; due to the freedom it allows him in attending, he goes to visit his dying grandfather in the hospital every day.
In June 2018, on his deathbed, his grandfather instills two powerful messages within Yuji: “always help people” and “die surrounded by people”. After his grandfather’s death, Yuji interprets these messages as one statement: everyone deserves “a proper death”. He is then confronted by Megumi Fushiguro, a sorcerer who can control curse-animals called “shikigami” who informs him of a high-grade cursed charm talisman at his school. His friends at the Occult Club unsealed the talisman, a rotting finger, which attracted Curses to the school, creatures that are brought about through negative emotions and are strengthened by consuming magical powers present in sorcerers or such charms. Yuji swallows the finger to protect Megumi and his friends and becomes the host of Ryomen Sukuna, a powerful Curse. Due to Sukuna’s evil nature, all sorcerers are required to exorcise him (and by extension, Yuji) immediately. However, despite being possessed, Yuji is still able to retain control over his body for the most part. Seeing this, Satoru Gojo, Megumi’s teacher, decides to take him to the Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School to propose a plan to his superiors: postpone Yuji’s death sentence until he consumes all of Sukuna’s fingers, allowing them to kill Sukuna once and for all.
During his early time as a first-year jujutsu student, Yuji forms quick friendships with Megumi and Nobara Kugisaki, a brash and talented up-and-coming jujutsu sorcerer from Morioka. On a mission to detention center that has become infested with a “curse womb” forming a special grade Finger Bearer, Megumi encounters Sukuna holding Yuji hostage by ripping his heart out. Unable to do anything, he watches as Yuji seemingly dies from the blood loss.
Only known to Gojo and a select number of others, Yuji is still alive and continues to train directly under the mentorship of Gojo in the art of cursed techniques. At the same time, a group of cursed spirits plot a multi-layered attack on the world of jujutsu sorcery, including the cursed spirit Mahito, whose “Idle Transfiguration” can reshape the soul of any human, and Suguru Geto, a disgruntled jujutsu sorcerer. Gojo is ambushed by one of those cursed spirits, Jogo, whose domain expansion (a barrier technique creating personalized encapsulated space) is destroyed easily by Gojo. Mahito enlists the help of the young Junpei, a boy who has been bullied and wants to use his power to fight back against his oppressors. Yuji meets 9 to 5 sorcerer and former salaryman Kento Nanami, who investigate victims of Mahito’s Idle Transfiguration. By happenstance, Yuji meets and strikes up a quick friendship with Junpei. However, they come to conflict with one another when Junpei’s bitterness grows after his mother was killed by cursed spirits; Mahito arrives and kills Junpei. A distressed Yuji and Nanami fight Mahito and only barely win when Sukuna forces Mahito to escape. Yuji vows to never lose again.
Kyoto Goodwill Event, Death Painting and Gojo’s Past arcs
At the exchange event between the Tokyo and Kyoto jujutsu schools, Yuji reveals his survival to the world. Some want him dead immediately, while others side with Gojo to keep him alive temporarily. He strikes up a quick brotherly relationship with Kyoto’s third-year Aoi Todo. Alongside Todo, he and the other jujutsu students and staff repel an invasion of the school by Mahito and Hanami, a cursed spirit who is environmentally conscious. During the battle he uses several consecutive punches called “Black Flash,” a distortion in space that significantly empowers his cursed techniques. By the end of the battle, he and Todo are able to fight off Hanami long enough for Gojo to defeat the curse though they miss Mahito stealing artifacts from their storage inventory. Later, Yuji is assigned on a mission where he comes across two brothers who are both a Cursed Womb: Death Painting with curse and human blood. He and Nobara kill them, though Yuji expresses regret when he realizes they have physical bodies and that he disrupted their tight-knit brotherly bond. Meanwhile, Megumi uses a partial domain expansion from his bottled-up emotions of his step-sister Tsumiki being in a coma from a chance encounter with a cursed spirit to kill a Finger Bearer and obtain another one of Sukuna’s fingers. Afterwards, the trio is promoted to being first-grade sorcerers.
Flashbacks reveal Gojo’s past as a jujutsu student in training, friends with Suguru Geto. He and Geto fail to protect a young girl from Toji Fushiguro, Megumi’s father, an assassin from the Zenin clan without the ability to use cursed techniques. Toji dies in the process, while Geto decides the world must be cleansed of non-sorcerers so that no more cursed spirits can manifest.
Shibuya Incident arc
A mole in Kyoto Jujutsu Tech is revealed to be Mechamaru, actually a cursed corpse piloted by the severely disfigured second-year student Kokichi Muta. Kokichi betrays Mahito and attacks him with a massive manned and armored version Ultimate Mechamaru, though is trapped and killed when Mahito unleashes a speedy domain expansion on him. Mahito escapes with his life. On October 31, Geto and the cursed spirits lay a screen over Shibuya. Various jujutsu sorcerers including Yuji, Megumi, Nobara, Gojo, Nanami and other arrive at the scene to fight them. Gojo systematically culls off cursed spirits including Hanami but is caught in the Prison Realm, a special-grade object sealing him away in a pocket dimension. Pseudo-Geto also reveals that the real Geto died a long time ago and that he is now under control of an ancient sorcerer named Kenjaku. Yuji searches for Mahito to take revenge on what he did to Junpei and is guided by an implanted earpiece created by Kokichi, whose construct guides him to Mahito. Grade 2 jujutsu sorcerer Takuma Ino fights a curse user named Ogami, who transplants Toji’s spirit into her grandson’s body; Ino kills her, but Toji gets away. Megumi and Yuji defeat curse user Jiro Awasaka and head to the subway tunnels. Megumi and other jujutsu sorcerers including head of Zenin clan Naobito Zenin fight Dagon, a special grade cursed spirit while Yuji fights Choso, brother to the two Death Paintings. Toji exorcises Dagon and meets Megumi; proud at seeing that his son kept the Fushiguro name and not Zenin, he commits suicide.
Nanako and Mimiko, curse users who are twin sisters and deeply loyal to Geto, force-feed ten of Sukuna’s fingers to Yuji. This awakens Sukuna, who fights Jogo across the skies of Shibuya after Sukuna kills Nanako and Mimiko. Jogo wants to force Sukuna into a Binding Vow but Sukuna refuses, easily winning the battle by replicating and amplifying Jogo’s firepower. Sukuna also saves Megumi from Mahoraga, a powerful shikigami. Yuji and Nobara watch as Mahito kills Nanami. After Mahito touches Nobara and begins to initiate Idle Transfiguration, Nobara seemingly kills herself by splitting open the left side of her face so that he cannot influence transfigure her. An enraged and helpless Yuji fights with Todo against Mahito. The battle ends with Kenjaku absorbing Mahito. Choso arrives and reveals Yuji is his brother. As the incident finally ends, Kenjaku emerges victorious, revealing that he has been jumping from body to body for thousands of years and implanted Binding Vows, which in turn awakens thousands of new sorcerers throughout Japan including Tsumiki. He then releases many curses that he had been storing up and releases them onto Japan, the first step into creating chaos and a world of cursed spirits such as the Heian period.
Perfect Preparation, Itadori’s Extermination and Culling Game arcs
In the aftermath, Yuji and Megumi team up with second-year Yuta Okkotsu (from Jujutsu Kaisen 0) as well as Yuki Tsukumo, a special grade jujutsu sorcerer and one of the most powerful sorcerers of all time along with Choso and second-year student Maki Zenin to meet with Tengen. Tengen, an immortal, part-curse part-human jujutsu sorcerer, tells the group of Kenjaku’s plan to merge Tengen’s consciousness with the human population of Japan. The Culling Game, Kenjaku’s all-out war between the jujutsu sorcerers and curse users of Japan, is about to begin. Yuji, Megumi, and second-year sorcerer Panda become allies with Kinji Hakari and Kirara Hoshi, third-year sorcerers. Maki kills the entire Zenin clan after her twin sister Mai sacrificed herself for Maki; Megumi becomes the Zenin clan’s new leader (and one its only remaining members) after Naobito died fighting Jogo. The Culling Game begins.