Warning: Contains spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen chapter #271In a matter of months, I've gone from a ive fan of Jujutsu Kaisen reached its conclusion, I find myself totally enchanted. Jujutsu Kaisen is unlike any shōnen I've ever seen or read. With Jujutsu Kaisen, Gege Akutami has crafted a masterful narrative with thrilling combat and stunning presentation. That isn't why I love it so much, though.

Jujutsu Kaisen touches where it shouldn't. Characters like Yuji, Megumi, Gojo, and Sukuna click with one another in ways they shouldn't. Gojo and Sukuna are drawn to each other's raw power; Megumi doesn't care that Gojo killed his father; Sukuna openly respects Megumi; Yuji can't help having a soft spot for Sukuna. It might go without saying that Jujutsu Kaisen is bizarrely profound. Philosophically, in fact, it's anathema to the norms of today's shōnen. For that reason, though, fans easily miss its most interesting considerations.

Jujutsu Kaisen Isn't A Run-Of-The-Mill Shōnen (And We Shouldn't Act Like It Is)

Jujutsu Kaisen Is Essentially Different From Other Battle Shōnen

Jujutsu Kaisen is nothing like its competition. Right down to its very foundations, Jujutsu Kaisen is a subversive series that has always taken aim at major shōnen like Naruto. Consider the cursed energy system. The result of humans' negativity, cursed energy exists in stark contrast to the energy systems of other series like Naruto (chakra) and Dragon Ball (ki). The fact that the primary enemies—cursed spirits—are the embodiment of this energy shows an interconnection between non-sorcerers and sorcerers, humans and curses, and ultimately, good and evil.

Nothing in Jujutsu Kaisen is arbitrary. The concept of binary instability is at the very core of Jujutsu Kaisen. Fans miss it simply because, culturally, it's not very intuitive. What could be called the Western canon has predominantly seen things in of concrete good and evil, without much room for uncertainty. However, once you start seeing Jujutsu Kaisen as a series that aims to make these binaries as fuzzy as possible, it's something impossible to unsee.

The Worst Jujutsu Kaisen Characters Are Probably Better Than You Think

Jujutsu Kaisen's Structure Allows For Deep Complexity

The best example of this is Mahito. Mahito is a curse, but he's intelligent and humanoid. Since he's a curse, too, Mahito was birthed by humanity. A curse ordinarily just exists to torment people and avoid exorcism. Mahito is not an ordinary curse, though. As he identifies humanity as an enemy, he also identifies with humanity. He sees himself as a better kind of human, and because he literally grows up and evolves as he takes lives, he sees humanity as the cost of his perfection.

The lines between curse and human are further blurred by Mahito: his desire for validation from Kenjaku and affirmation from Sukuna is palpably Freudian. Would I let Mahito kill me for his cause? Of course not. But I can understand how his ideas of good/evil and his general sense of value would be completely different from my own. In fact, the sense of repulsion I get from Mahito is the very thing that he should make me feel. Looking at things in this light, Jujutsu Kaisen opens wide to new interpretations.

As the series concludes, Jujutsu Kaisen emphasizes living authentically and choosing what one lives and dies for. Those themes were there the whole time, though. The problem is that to see them, you have to grasp why characters like Mahito and Geto think like they do, at a fundamental level that would beg for more empathy than the average fan spares them.

The Controversy Around Jujutsu Kaisen's Finale Shows How Fans Misunderstand It

Jujutsu Kaisen Shouldn't Be Read Like Other Shonen

In that perspective's absence, such themes run the risk of cliché. Jujutsu Kaisen's finale has drawn a lot of accusations of being rushed, lazy, and careless. The most egregious, I think, is calling Sukuna's shift after his loss an example of "the power of friendship" or a "redemption arc". It simply drives home the binary fuzziness that's always been part of the narrative.

This becomes apparent if one tries to see Yuji and Sukuna as a binary compounding other binaries: good/evil, human/curse, present/past, and so on. From the binary's genesis when Yuji ate part of Sukuna's body all the way to Sukuna's possession of Megumi's body, Sukuna's soul shared space with Yuji's. The fact that Yuji's soul can dominate Sukuna's is the reason sorcerers and curses take an interest in him in the first place.

It's also only possible because Yuji and Sukuna are related. Jujutsu Kaisen is about the inseparability of perceived opposites. In Jujutsu Kaisen, humans and curses, good and evil, and souls and bodies can't be defined without one another. Without Yuji, Sukuna couldn't have returned; without Sukuna, Yuji couldn't be a hero. To drive home the point of this inseparability, Yuji is eventually revealed to be the son of Sukuna's reincarnated twin brother, Jin Itadori. Even Yuji's ability to manipulate cursed energy later is the result of Sukuna's influence.

Jujutsu Kaisen was written to be the explosives clearing the ground for new construction.

So when, in the end, Sukuna changes his view of Yuji, it's unsurprising to me. Yuji and Sukuna recognize the dependence of one on the other. As Yuji says to Sukuna: "I'm you". It also doesn't signal Sukuna's value system changing; the opposite—when Mahito asks why his position changed, Sukuna simply says that he lost. Sukuna always valued raw power, and his brutal outlook reflected that. Yuji's strength over Sukuna showed him the weakness of his values and the strength of Yuji's own, so he submitted.

This is also intimated by Yuji's discussion with Gojo in the same chapter. Both Gojo and Sukuna were titans of individual strength; that's the reason that fans clamored for and hyped up their battle for so long, and the reason that they were so disappointed when Gojo lost. But Gojo's individual strength isolated him, and he said that he hoped the other sorcerers would find a strength different from his own.

The collective strength employed by Yuji and the other sorcerers was greater, in the end, than Sukuna's individual strength. Both Gojo and Sukuna knew that. It's not just that Gojo never intended to win against Sukuna. It's that if Gojo won, it would ruin Jujutsu Kaisen's steady-from-the-start attempt at undermining the comfortable assumptions of shōnen manga.

Gojo had to lose to show that Jujutsu Kaisen is different. It isn't a story where "good" automatically wins over "evil". It isn't a story where Gojo dies so Yuji can claim his rightful glory as the protagonist. Jujutsu Kaisen isn't a story where stray criminals abuse an agnostic power system, nor is it a story where ideas appear as gimmicks or spur-of-the-moment power-ups before disappearing.

Jujutsu Kaisen was never meant to be a run-of-the-mill shōnen. I think Gege meant for it to be read as a purgative targeting shōnen's goofy self-certainty, signed and stamped from the belly of the beast. It was written to be the explosives clearing the ground for new construction. In a genre where things tend to be oversimplified, Jujutsu Kaisen is a series that exists to show just how complicated and interconnected the world actually is, and fans do it a disservice by missing that.