Premiere
22-06-2025
Warning: The following contains spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2, now streaming onCrunchyroll.
Throughout any lengthy saga, there come times when a single conflict or difference in ideology comes to define the journey, and this can change and evolve many times before the story concludes.Jujutsu Kaisenhas many ideas that could be interpreted as “central” to the narrative, andwhile it’s not quite finished yet, the contrast between two particular characters strongly hints at what that ending might look like.
Yuki Tsukumo and Kenjaku are very odd characters both in the world they inhabit and from a writing standpoint, given how little is known about them by the time they begin to command the stage. Once they do, the dichotomy presented between them cuts to the core ofJujutsu Kaisen’sthemes and proposes the two most likely outcomes of this constantly escalating battle.
Yuki and Kenjaku are Anomalies
First, it’s important to emphasize why these characters stand out so much, and a lot of it has to do with aesthetics. Yuki Tsukumo shows up once in Season 1 and then twice in Season 2 - at the start and then again at the very end. Despite this - and this might differ from person to person - she has a magnetism about her that commands attention and conveys importance. It might not be clearwhyshe’s here, but it certainly feels like she’s supposed to be, and that’s what counts.
Yuki channels levels of understated cool matched only by the works/designs ofKinoko Nasu and Takashi Takeuchi of Type-Moon fame. She’s practically a color-swapped Aoko Aozaki, if nothing else because few characters can make denim jeans lookthis muchlike a serve. Her attire is casual but her personality and presence are anything but, something helped by Noriko Hidaka’s performance. Her mature voice gives her an air of wisdom.
Kenjaku Is Not A Real Character (But it Kinda Works)
Kenjaku is an even larger anomaly. By the end of the Shibuya Incident, when his true identity is revealed, he doesn’t fully feel like a character in himself, which is a major detriment to the story, but not without some benefit. Having taken over the body of Suguru Geto, Kenjaku effectively co-opts his charisma such that it wouldn’t be a stretch to imagine that fans subconsciously think of him as Geto still.It’s not even that he’s “evil Geto"now because he already was before he died.
There’s more to be said there about how Geto and Kenjaku are so symbiotic in this manner, less so for their motives or even their methods, but rather for the ultimate objective they strive for. For now, the important part is how Yuki bridges the gap between these two characters and the viewer’s understanding of Kenjaku in contrast to her own ideals.
Understanding Their Objectives
It all begins with Episode 29, when Geto and Yuki first meet and where the latter educates the former on the two methods forhow to prevent cursed spirits from existing. Option #1: rid the world of cursed energy. Option #2: allow all humans - and not just sorcerers - tocontroltheir cursed energy. At this point, Yuki thinks that Option #1 is off the table and that optimization of cursed energy is the solution, but the exact method eludes her.
Geto, having wrestled with his purpose as a sorcerer and his feelings about humans, slips up and suggests the elimination of all non-sorcerers. Much to his surprise, Yuki admits that it would be the easiest way, but harbors no illusions that it’s a sensible course of action. Rather than judge him for saying it out loud, she asks him earnestly about his feelings toward non-sorcerers and tells him that he still has the power to choose which path he wants to take.
The Difference Between Geto and Kenjaku
Unfortunately,Geto didn’t choose to remain a jujutsu sorcererin the service of humanity and instead sought to optimize cursed energy through natural selection. The key difference between Geto’s approach to doing so and Kenjaku’s, however, is where they focus their efforts. For Geto, it was done out of malice towards humanity and focused on culling and herding them. Kenjaku, on the other hand, seeks optimization by focusing on curse users themselves.
Kenjaku isn’t interested in saving the world from cursed spirits. To him, they are a part of the natural order. He orchestrated the Shibuya Incident to createthe conditions for a new golden age of jujutsu. As Yuki returns in time to save the main characters, she resumes her debate with the husk formerly known as Suguru Geto, but neither of them is the same. In the time since her last appearance, she’s returned to putting faith in Option #1, freeing humanity from cursed energy.
What This Means For The Ending
They discuss their philosophies while the principal cast watches on, licking their wounds. Again, considering how little time has been spent getting to know the two of them, it might strike some as an odd writing choice. But if anything, these two are the perfect ones to present this dichotomy preciselybecausethey are so obtuse and seemingly detached from the established hierarchy that the viewer has become familiar with.
Because the show primarily follows Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara, who are all students,the story largely shows a perspective of the worldthrough the lens of what that institution wants them to see. It doesn’t focus on people like Miguel or Yuta or even Yuki, who stand apart from the system and are likely on uneven terms with the higher-ups. But the longer the story has continued, the more impossible it has become for the main characters, and the audience, to ignore these things.
What This Series Is Truly About
The central mission of Season 2 was to tell the audience that the story is not what they were told it would be about. It’s not about fighting curses and protecting regular humans, and it’s not about going on adventuresto slowly collect Sukuna’s fingers. Both of those things are eschewed quite handily by the end of the Shibuya Incident. No,Jujutsu Kaisenis about the characters fighting to determine what the future of their world will be, whether they like it or not.
No matter howJujutsu Kaisenends, it CAN NOT return to the status quo. The society depicted is inherently corrupt, brimming with systemic inequalities and unconscionable disregard for human life. Children are sacrificed to preserve Tengen,clans like the Zenin perpetuate archaic and sexist traditions, and on the whole, sorcerers' lives are wasted. It’s easy to admire characters like Nanami, but it’s a bitter pill to swallow when it’s made clear that he is an exception to the rule.
In the aftermath of Season 2, Japan is in chaos, and the world has become aware of the existence of the cursed energy. Yuki and Kenjaku represent the two extremes likely to emerge from this chaos, whether they’re alive to see it by the end or not. Either humanity will be liberated from cursed energy or grow with it to survive. Put another way, as a modern fantasy,Jujutsu Kaisenhas to either forsake its “fantasy” or embrace it and cast off any trace of “modernity.”
