Ideals VS Reality: The Tragedy of Itadori Yuji

**Disclaimer: this article is written by an anime-only Jujutsu Kaisen fan. I have not read the manga and at this point in time have no intention to. As such, I’ll be covering material from the first two seasons of the anime and no further. I acknowledge that future events in the story may change this analysis, making it more inaccurate as time goes on. Even so, please refrain from posting any spoilers of events to come in the comments. Thank you!**

Shounen is by far the most popular genre of anime and manga. Despite this, shounen heroes are among the most disliked and criticized in the entire medium. Even the most popular shows have vocal sections of their community that adamantly hate their leading men.

But in all my years of watching this genre, I’ve never seen a protagonist more disliked by the audience than Itadori Yuji of Jujutsu Kaisen.

The outcry of hatred I’ve seen for this character is beyond crazy. Everywhere I went, I found complaints, gripes, or just mean-spirited comments. “He never contributes anything!” some people say. “He’s not even the main character of his own story!” others cry. Typical internet behavior. You get the idea.

Personally, I never felt one way or the other about Itadori. I thought he was a fine, if standard, shounen protagonist. The main thing keeping me watching was other characters, like Gojo or Megumin or Sukuna.

But that all changed with the Shibuya Incident. As did Itadori himself.

There is far more to Itadori’s character than meets the eye. Hidden layers that I didn’t notice until now. Now that they’re truly starting to emerge, I can safely say that Itadori Yuji was the best protagonist Jujutsu Kaisen could have asked for.

If you listen closely enough, you can hear the Gojo and Yuta stans all sharpening their stakes. Better get a move on before they get any ideas.

The Wound: Help Others

Itadori’s story begins, ironically enough, with the end of someone else’s.

Growing up, Yuji’s only family was his grandpa. Hardly good company; he was a grouchy old man with no other relationships beyond his grandson. At some point, he got sick, so now he lives out his days in a hospital bed.

In the first episode, his grandfather passes on some elderly wisdom to Yuji. He urges the young man to use his strength to help others, even if it’s only once, even if it’s just one person. More than that, he wants Yuji to die surrounded by people who care for him.

Then he’s just… gone. No violent coughing, no dramatic flat-line droning, no final breath, nothing. The old man just falls asleep and quietly passes on. It’s so swift and unexpected that both Yuji and the viewer don’t even realize it happened until he checks to be sure. It’s so uneventful that it almost feels chilling.

Small wonder then that his grandfather’s final words would utterly change Yuji’s world view.

The Want: A Perfect Death

Having born witness to his grandfather’s end, Yuji determined to do all he could to do as his grandfather asked. He saw what a sad and lonely death looked like and he works to avoid that at all costs. The only way he could see to do so was to use his strength to help others and make friends. Y’know, typical shounen protagonist motivations.

Then he ate a finger and his life got flipped upside down.

By becoming the vessel of Sukuna, Yuji signed away his entire life. The only reason he isn’t executed immediately in episode one is because he needs to eat all twenty of Sukuna’s fingers and bring the King of Curses down with him, thus permanently defeating the ultimate evil of Jujutsu society. Whether now or later, the road he walks has only one destination: death.

But this didn’t bother Yuji. In fact, he embraced the role eagerly! He sees himself as the irreplaceable hero, the only person in the world who can end this terrible evil. What better way to fulfill his grandfather’s wish than that?

I’ve seen plenty of video essays (namely this one by Radman, go watch it, it’s a great video) that describe Yuji as having a ‘Main Character Complex’. At first, I didn’t understand this point; he’s literally the main character, after all. But after the Shibuya Incident, I started to see their point.

One of Yuji’s most prevalent character traits is his love for movies. It comes up repeatedly in the series, in his training and his friendship with Junpei. He even references other shounen manga at one point, whining that he can’t use Cursed Techniques, and thus can’t perform moves like Dragon Ball’s Kamehameha or Naruto’s Rasengan.

On the surface, it’s just a dumb fun character trait that makes him a slightly more realistic teenager. But I posit that his love for media is what painted his view of the world. He sees things simply. Curses are evil, Sorcerers are good, and Yuji wants to help people so that he doesn’t regret the way he lived. He sees himself as the protagonist in one of those stories, the special hero that can do what no one else can. The details and specifics don’t bother him. Again: typical shounen behavior.

What he fails to realize is that he doesn’t live in that kind of world.

The Lie: Meaning in Ending

In order to understand the rest of Yuji’s character arc, we need to discuss the setting of Jujutsu Kaisen.

The world Yuji lives in is grim, brutal, and unfair. Curses are born from the negative feelings of humans, and those aren’t going away anytime soon, so neither are Curses. Selflessness leads to suffering, and only the most selfish and cruel rise to true power; see Gojo and Sukuna. Sorcerers are limited and disposable. Most of them get killed before they even graduate high school. It’s an endless bloody cycle so maddening that one of the prerequisites required for the job is ‘be crazy!’

We saw what this did with Geto at the start of season two. Once, he was a kind man who devoted his strength to protecting those without it. But the brutal, fruitless loop of the job twisted his morals and turned him into a monster. This is not a world where the idealistic can last; it bends them, distorts them, breaks them. All simply because that is the way it is.

A lesson Yuji learned the hard way during the Shibuya Incident.

Yuji’s morals and beliefs get absolutely shredded in this arc. First he’s directly confronted by someone whose family members he killed, someone who shows genuine sorrow and rage at his losses, thus calling Yuji’s own morality into question. Hard to feel like a hero when someone is fighting to avenge the brothers that you murdered.

Then Sukuna goes on a rampage in his body, slaughtering thousands of people with malicious glee. Yuji doesn’t just see it, either. He relives the memories as if he himself did the killing. His being the ‘chosen one’, the only one who can contain Sukuna, directly caused the deaths of everyone in Shibuya except for him.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, he gets thrown into another fight with Mahito, who kills not one, but two people that Yuji cares very deeply for right in front of his eyes. That would be enough to break anyone, especially someone as sensitive and caring as Yuji. So naturally, Mahito decides it’s still not enough. The Curse absolutely demolishes Yuji, delivering a monologue tearing down all of the kid’s beliefs whilst he beats the boy bloodier than he’s ever been beaten.

Being a Sorcerer isn’t pest control work. Curses aren’t just evil monsters. The conflict between them is war. A clash of ideals and existences vying for ownership of the very world itself. Yuji isn’t a hero, nor is Mahito a villain. They’re both just cogs in the wheel made to fit a role. Whether they live or die, the war will keep on going without a care. There’s no meaning in death, nor is there such a thing as a perfect death. Death is just death. Nothing more or less.

What’s especially twisted about it is: Mahito is right. And Yuji can’t deny it anymore.

The Need: Entrusted Tasks

At this point, Yuji is left utterly broken, defeated, and alone. His sense of purpose, identity, and morality, all of them were torn to shreds in a single night. He can’t even muster the energy to fight any longer. It’s the lowest point of his entire life, so much so that he’s given up and embraced death.

Until, that is, Todo appears. Being the caring brother that he is, Todo lays it out straight for Yuji. People die. Sometimes for no reason. Trying to assign meaning and purpose to their deaths to make them ‘worth something’ or ‘perfect’ isn’t just impossible, it ignores and insults everything that person lived for.

They are Jujutsu Sorcerers. Their job is to kill curses because no one else can. When their comrades are killed, it’s up to those left behind to finish their work and see that they didn’t die for nothing. All they can do for those they’ve lost is keep on living and fighting.

So Yuji lets it all go. Good and evil, heroes and villains, purpose, meaning, he abandons it all. He decides that if there is any meaning to his actions, someone else will figure it out centuries down the line when he is dead and gone. For now, all Yuji can do is fill his role as a cog in the machine and keep killing Curses.

Even if the machine itself wants him dead.

Conclusion

And that is the story of Itadori Yuji. Not the most uplifting character arc, I will say. But it is important to note that it’s not over yet; we’re only around the halfway point. All we can do now is wait to see where it goes going forward.

The other thing is read the manga, but nah. Not yet.

I can see why so many people dislike Itadori. But for the kind of story Gege Akutami is trying to tell, I don’t think he could be better. There’s far more too him than some people are willing to give credit for. I just can’t bring myself to hate this pink-haired emotionally tormented dork.

Thank you all very much for reading. I’ll see you again come season three. The arc where everyone in the world is gonna try and kill Yuji.

God damn, Gege, can you give the kid a break?