MAPPA Studios has done a terrific job in animating the fight scenes for Jujutsu Kaisen. Apart from depicting Gege Akutami’s original story, the studio has often gone a step further in describing certain scenes. An example was given by the director of Jujutsu Kaisen Episode 41, who revealed that he took inspiration from Shin Godzilla to depict the perspective of ‘ordinary people’ in the anime.
Upon its release in the 2018 Shonen Jump magazine, Jujutsu Kaisen immediately took to readers’ fancy with its twisted plot and sorcerer battles. The anime debuted in 2020 and it was followed by Season 2 in July 2023. One of the most famous arcs in the second season, the Shibuya Incident Arc, features a battle between Sukuna and Mahoraga.
Jujutsu Kaisen Director Took Inspiration From Shin Godzilla For Sukuna Versus Mahoraga
Occurring in Chapters 118-119 in the Jujutsu Kaisen manga, Mahoraga vs. 15-Finger Sukuna was an incredible duel that featured flashy techniques and the implementation of multiple cursed tools. The shinigami used the Sword of Extermination to match Sukuna’s abilities and predict his movements until the sorcerer used Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine.
Ryomen Sukuna combined a Binding Vow with the Domain Expansion to increase its power and radius. The result was that it prevented Mahoraga from healing itself, apart from widescale destruction to the surrounding buildings. Numerous citizens die due to the outburst of energy and the cursed techniques also leave the land barren.
While the Jujutsu Kaisen manga couldn’t describe the destruction properly with its black-and-white pages, Episode Director Harumi Yamazaki took it as a challenge. He captured the suffering of ordinary citizens during the battle of ‘much stronger individuals’ in Season 2 Episode 17. The director’s words in an interview have been transcribed by Fusetter:
“I thought the parts of the original story where the ordinary people were involved and suffered damage were quite unclear, and since I like Shin Godzilla, I wanted to make a video that depicts the disaster from the ordinary people’s perspective rather than focusing on the battle between Sukuna and Makora [Mahoraga].”
Despite the destruction that the 15-Finger Sukuna created, he wasn’t able to take down Mahoraga with the combo of two techniques. The villain instead used a flaming arrow aimed at the shikigami’s head, before Mahoraga could adapt itself to Dismantle or other slashing techniques, to finally annihilate the Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General.
Also Read: Only One Jujutsu Kaisen Character Other Than Sukuna Has Defeated Mahoraga
What is Shin Godzilla? Know About The Inspiration Behind Jujutsu Kaisen Episode 41
Shin Godzilla was the highest-grossing live-action Japanese film of 2016. A part of the Godzilla franchise, the monster of the Kaiju film was inspired by the 2011 tsunami and earthquake in the Tōhoku region, which was the most powerful earthquake in Japan, and the Fukushima nuclear disaster that arose from the Tōhoku disasters.
Unlike the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings that inspired the Western fan-favorite Godzilla, Shin Godzilla was based on tsunamis and earthquakes. The movie was released in July 2016 for the domestic market and earned over 6 million yen in its first weekend. It grossed $75.4 million in Japan and $78 million worldwide but got mixed responses from the English audience.
As natural for a Godzilla movie, Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi’s Shin Godzilla symbolically portrayed the destruction caused during the 2011 Tōhoku disasters. A landfall occurs the moment the creature awakens in the movie. The Self Defense forces and the Japanese government aim to bring down the monster but it leaves much destruction in its wake before being frozen.
SUKUNA VS MAHORAGA FULL FIGHT
THANK YOU JJK TEAM ❤️ pic.twitter.com/6fcUOmInfS
— Jujutsu Kaisen (@JJKcontents) November 16, 2023
Much of the popularity of Shin Godzilla arises from the suffering it created for ordinary humans. Japan rebuilds itself at the end of the movie when the beast is subdued, but Gege Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen gives a much darker picture. Civilians are killed, the land is left barren, and there is clearly no place for human existence in the world of sorcerers, as was seen in Riko Amanai’s case.
