*Minor spoilers ahead for season two of Jujutsu Kaisen. If you aren’t caught up, then read with caution. You’ve been warned.*
When Naruto first debuted in 2005, it immediately captivated viewers with the premise. A monstrous demon called the Nine-Tailed Fox is sealed away within our protagonist, Naruto. The ultimate evil quite literally boiled inside our hero from the very first chapter, occasionally bubbling to the surface in a display of terrible, uncontrollable power. It was a brilliant concept.
Over the course of the series, Naruto and the Nine-Tails (Kurama) developed an interesting relationship. What started as the classic good guy vs bad guy plot grew into an intriguing but tenuous alliance, then a heartwarming friendship. While I have my complaints about the series as a whole, I think that Kurama has a brilliant arc. When Boruto killed him off, it was genuinely tragic! What was once the series’ big bad had become one of its most lovable characters!
Jujutsu Kaisen is NOT that kinda story, and Ryomen Sukuna is NOT that kinda character.
Sukuna is one of the best anime bad guys I’ve seen in a long, long time! Every single scene with this character stands as one of the best in the show! He is one of my favorite characters in the whole series!
But why? Why is Sukuna such a brilliant villain? Is it his incredible design? His godly powers? Is it the incredible voice work by Junichi Suwabe? The jaw-dropping music tracks we get every time he shows up?
No, but all of that certainly helps his case.
Sukuna is Evil with a capital E! Every single time he shows up, you know some crazy shit is about to go down! This dude owns some of the most badass and intense fight scenes in all of Jujutsu Kaisen, and by the time he’s done, there will be at least one dead body left in his wake!
Not that he’s satisfied with one. If he can, he’ll go above and beyond to create as much destruction and misery as is physically possible. Sadism doesn’t even begin to describe it. As Nanami says, he exists purely to satiate his own pleasure or displeasure. In either case, someone is ending up mutilated and/or dead.
Like Gojo, Sukuna knows he’s the strongest thing around. If he wanted to, he could kill anyone that stands against him faster than they could even blink. But remember: this Curse is a sadistic bastard. He treats people and even other Curses as a hungry cat might treat a mouse.
A fantastic example can be found in season two. Sukuna is throwing hands with another Cursed Spirit, laying waste to everything around them. Some side characters see this madness and reasonably decide it’s time to retreat. But Sukuna has other plans. Right as a massive attack comes flying their way, he appears out of nowhere, stopping all of them in their tracks, and forces them to play his twisted game. Only when he says, “Go!” are they allowed to run for their lives. Even a second sooner, and he’ll kill them himself.
Remember: he was in the middle of a city-devastating brawl that he started, and he took the time to mess with these people he’d never even met before. Why? Same reason he was fighting in the first place: shits ‘n giggles.
Yet Sukuna’s god-like powers are only half of what makes him so terrifying. His sadism goes well beyond the physical and into the psychological. This bastard knows exactly which buttons to press to break his victim’s spirits. Especially Itadori; he knows he can’t kill our hero without killing himself, so he instead uses every available opportunity to manipulate, traumatize, and emotionally torture him.
God, I wanna use the season two examples so bad, but I don’t wanna spoil it any more than I already have.
In season one, Mahito uses his power to mutate and murder Itadori’s friend, Junpei. Out of desperation, our hero calls on Sukuna for help, banking on the spirit to pull a Nine-Tails and begrudgingly help him out. But as I said earlier: this ain’t that kinda story, and Sukuna ain’t that kinda character. Instead, the King of Curses gleefully declares that he won’t do anything, then laughs in Itadori’s face as his friend slowly and painfully dies. He even acknowledges that this is a golden opportunity to move his plans forward, but he decides not to simply to hurt our protagonist.
Evil with a capital E.
Sukuna’s appearances are even more striking due to their rarity. He only takes control about once a season, and usually not for long. Most of the time, he’s just chilling inside Itadori’s head, plotting his schemes literal seasons ahead of time. Yet even when he isn’t active, he’s always there. Lurking. Waiting. Being a petty son of a bitch.
One of my favorite examples of this comes at the end of season one. Itadori and the gang take down a group of Special Grade Curses, securing one of Sukuna’s fingers as a result. They all make it abundantly clear that they’re gonna hide it away for safe keeping, as to not make the Curse any stronger than he already is. Itadori reaches for it…
…and Sukuna opens up a mouth on his hand and swallows the finger whole. Doesn’t even say a word. This motherfucker was cackling to himself like Bart Simpson when he did it, too, I refuse to believe he wasn’t!
Fear is Sukuna’s favorite weapon. He relishes the feeling of striking terror into every living thing around him, humans, Jujutsu Sorcerers, and Cursed Spirits alike. Dude is so powerful, evil, and terrifying that people wonder if it’s alright to even breath in his presence!
Yet despite what you’d think, he does hold a certain amount of respect for people who defy him. At least, the ones strong enough to last longer than a millisecond. If he’s genuinely impressed by or interested in someone, he isn’t afraid to show it. Hell, the reason he hasn’t killed Fushiguro, like, three times over is because he’s invested in the boy’s potential. And let’s not forget when he acknowledged Jogo’s strength, despite the Spirit being unable to land even a single blow against him.
In a lot of ways, Sukuna is an inversion of Gojo. Whereas Gojo uses his strength to protect and uplift the weak, Sukuna uses his to gleefully crush and torture those beneath him, like a sadistic child pulling the legs off of an insect. Both share a mutual respect for those strong enough to go toe-to-toe with them, limited in quantity as those people may be.
This is why I find Sukuna so captivating. He is the most despicable, heartless, and evil character in the entire series. Yet beneath it all, there’s something distinctly human about him.
But even still, it doesn’t make him relatable, likable, or redeemable. If anything, his brief glimpses of honest humanity makes all of his evil actions even more despicable! You know he has enough of a heart to know the difference between right and wrong. Yet he doesn’t care. He goes all-in on being the despicable King of Curses for no reason beyond the fact that he loves it!
Sukuna is an absolutely brilliant villain. Terrifying yet charismatic, evil yet respectful, sadistic and unpredictable, he steals the show every single time he appears without fail. He is a masterclass in writing villainy that has more than earned his place in the anime hall of fame.
Although one question remains:
How does he react to Itadori’s awful taste in movies? Does he just sit back in awe and wonder what the hell he’s looking at? Maybe that’s why Itadori likes them; they’re the only things that make Sukuna shut up and take a nap.
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