Jujutsu Kaisen is a battle-focused anime/manga series created by Gege Akutami. The story follows Yuji Itadori, a high school student who sets out to eat the 20 fingers of a powerful cursed entity in order to prevent them from being used for evil, even if it means being executed after completing his mission. Yuji has one of the most unusual motivations in Shounen manga, and that's part of what makes him such an endearing protagonist.
He starts out with many advantages, but to face the many cursed spirits and jujutsu sorcerers he encounters, he develops a host of new skills that help him keep up with opponents with far more experience than he has. Given his natural talent, it's only a matter of time before Itadori develops the necessary skills to be a competent jujutsu sorcerer, with his range of abilities already being quite impressive in itself!
10 – Fast Learning
Shounen action stories often focus on the development of their main characters. Even among his peers, Yuji is able to pick up new skills and techniques at breakneck speed. Before entering Jujutsu High, he had very little combat training and no cursed energy training but managed to acquire advanced martial arts and cursed energy manipulation within a few weeks.
Gojo developed a training regimen that involved Yuji watching movies to learn how to regulate his emotions and cursed energy. A few hours later, Yuji had already understood. When he first met Todo, it only took a few minutes for him to not only improve control of his cursed energy but also to adapt to Todo's fighting style and perfectly synchronize with him in battle.
9 – Curse Resistance
As the main energy system behind Jujutsu Kaisen fights, cursed energy is used by both Jujutsu sorcerers and the cursed spirits they fight. While all sorcerers have a curse resistance level, Yuji's is extremely high, especially for someone who only discovered cursed energy in his teens.
The most obvious example of this is Yuji's ability to host Ryomen Sukuna early on. Sukuna is known as "the king of curses" due to his immense amounts of cursed energy. Just one of his fingers is enough to turn any curse into a massive threat. However, Yuji is able to consume all 20 fingers without losing complete control of his body. Even when he was fed 10 fingers at once, he didn't lose his body for a long time.
8 – Pure Physical Strength
While the use of cursed energy is the source of the most powerful abilities in JJK, most sorcerers and even cursed spirits incorporate physical attacks into their arsenal. Even the strongest sorcerer, Satoru Gojo, has been seen using his fists in battle. Yuji is easily one of the most dangerous sorcerers in this regard, thanks in part to his immense physical strength.
While the reason for Yuji's strength is somewhat vague, its effect on his fights is unmistakable. Even before he learned to use cursed energy, Yuji could throw a shot put with enough force to dent a metal pole. Once he learns to add cursed energy to his blows, he gains the ability to hit cursed spirits with all that force, resulting in devastating blows.
7 – Martial Arts
While brute physical strength is a huge asset to Yuji, it won't get him very far without some sort of improvement. This improvement comes in the form of Yuji's martial arts. He was previously trained in karate by his grandfather, but as the series progresses he learns new techniques, including several of the "radio" martial arts.
His martial arts skills allow him to take on everything from curses to other sorcerers, despite his lack of an innate cursed technique. He has techniques such as the "knee release" and "manji kick", which, when combined, allow him to instantly duck and transfer his momentum into a powerful kick to his opponent's face.
6 – Weapon Proficiency
Using weapons is not an easy task, and people really need to understand how a particular weapon feels in their hands before even thinking about using it competently in battle. However, Itadori's natural talents allow him to use weapons effectively in battle from the moment he picks them up.
This talent makes him a competent and powerful jujutsu sorcerer, able to defeat waves of enemies while wielding a weapon, which is no small feat. Couple that with his cursed energy, and it's easy to see why he has the potential to surpass Gojo.
5 – Fast Movement and Reflexes
Given how damaging cursed spirits and other malevolent individuals can be in this series, it's easy to see why having quick reflexes is imperative to avoid unnecessary harm. Fortunately, Itadori understood this lesson and honed his reflexes perfectly.
It helps that his speed is naturally fast due to his athletic build, allowing him to quickly grasp the best possible way to deal with any threat that could possibly harm him. These reflexes saved him several times during difficult confrontations with powerful enemies.
4 – High Durability and Resistance
While it's ideal to avoid damage by dodging strikes, it's also highly unrealistic to assume that a fighter will be able to dodge every possible blow. Even someone as physically gifted as Itadori is incapable of this feat, which makes the fact that his body is tough enough to absorb some damage without being knocked out useful.
He also has a large stamina pool, meaning he won't get tired quickly in battle despite trying his best. This is great in a battle of attrition, as Yuji can fight the best of them in a prolonged fight without worrying too much about the consequences.
3 – Poison Resistance
While most of Yuji's abilities come naturally to him, this one actually comes from Sukuna's influence on his body. Sukuna is an extremely powerful being with several abilities. These abilities actually include poison-based abilities, giving Sukuna himself a high resistance to poisons of any kind.
Yuji inherits this passive ability and is shown to be immune to poison, even those used by cursed spirits like Eso and Choso. He also has resistance to any abilities that interfere with the soul. As Sukuna attacks anything that tries to harm him, trying to manipulate Yuji's soul means being attacked by Sukuna himself.
2 - Divergent Fist
Generally, jujutsu sorcerers have innate techniques that are ingrained in them from birth. This allows them to do things like Gojo's "limitless" or Megumi's shadow manipulation. Without a technique of his own, Yuji developed the "divergent punch" as a way to use his cursed energy in a unique way.
The "divergent punch" acts like a piston when Yuji punches something. His fist makes contact first and then the cursed energy follows right after, causing each attack to hit twice. This is good not just for raw damage, but for catching opponents off guard. As strong as this is, Yuji later stopped using it as he learned to control his cursed energy even better.
1 – Black Flash
As the "divergent punch" showed, cursed energy doesn't always hit its target at the same time as a physical attack. This is generally undesirable, but if the delay is within 0.000001 seconds, it results in a "black flash", essentially a critical hit that does much more damage and heightens the senses for a while afterward.
Usually, the "black flash" is something sorcerers do completely by accident. The record for consecutive black flashes was only 4 and was set by Keito Nanami, who claims he didn't even do it on purpose. Yuji, on the other hand, reaches a point where he can use the "black flash" on purpose. Not only did he equal Nanami's record for consecutive flashes, but he used the technique more times than Gojo himself.
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