Gege Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen has always been a significantly impactful series no matter what it does. From the fleshed-out characters to the gripping storyline, there is always one factor or another that comes into play within the series. It holds a massive part in the darkness that it explores. The series is not afraid to jump from one tragedy to another, making it amongst the top three dark shonen works.
In this manner, the exploration that each character and arc has is not limited either. A character may have more to them than they led with and some might be hidden in the depths of the shadows. A majority of the characters can be aligned as good or bad. However, that is not how Akutami sees them.
Also Read: Gojo May Have to Sacrifice His Most Valued Possession to Return in Jujutsu Kaisen
Gege Akutami is Not Someone to See their Characters as Black or White
Shared via Comicbook, Gege Akutami addressed the audience with how they see the characters of Jujutsu Kaisen. There are both heroes and villains in the series. Sometimes they can be seen as good, sometimes they can be seen as bad. Other times they can shift their morals by either manipulation or shift or their own understanding of life.
“If there was one thing to mention, it was that no one holds the ultimate truth, the ‘good guys’ as well as the ‘bad guys.’ Some seek to kill the hero out of pure selfishness, but others are led to this decision by logical reasoning. If no one is really right then no one is wrong either. Each character is guided by his own ethics.”
Akutami stated that each character has their own set of ethics and morals that they follow. Whether it is their driving force for good or evil, it is, in their eyes, good. Mahito as a character was born of humanity’s evil. This means that he is born of hatred and pollution around the world. So was he made evil by his own conflicted morals or was it humanity that forced him to become like that?
Sukuna as a character, even Akutami sees him to be pure evil, killing for the sake of killing. Causing destruction for the sake of it. However, it is not that he is purely black as a moral character either. He was born of a rough childhood, he learned to care for others. He fought and he became the King of Curses. In the end, it is not about whether or not a character is good or bad but more about what makes them like that in the first place.
Jujutsu Kaisen Characters are People
There is a difference between seeing a character as part of a story and seeing a character as a person. For a writer, these differences are clear and widespread. For the director, they are visually placed in front of them and kept decorated for them to play with. For an audience, it has more to do with the understanding and attachment they have with the characters than anything else.
Characters like Geto Suguru and Junpei were all hurt. They were traumatized and they were forced to bend according to the world they saw. No matter how good they were as people, it was their experiences that forced them to take paths they would have never affiliated themselves with. Gege Akutami specifically treats their characters as people and not pawns in a story. This is why the deaths impact much more than they would in other stories. To represent your characters as people and not as parts of a story makes them so much more significant than they might first stand out.
Akutami in specific gives importance to even the smallest characters. Whether they are there for a short arc or simply an episode. Junpei, Mai, Mekamaru, and so many other characters that die still hold a place in the fans’ hearts because they were part of their own journey.
