The Repentance of Itadori Yuji: A Literary Analysis of Jujutsu Kaisen

The only thing we know about Ryomen Sukuna’s past is that he was born alone and unwanted.

When Itadori Yuji finally opens his domain, he doesn’t even know of that lone fragment of Sukuna’s humanity, and yet their souls achieve resonance nonetheless, allowing him to bring the King of Curses into a simulacrum of his old hometown. This is new sorcery for the both of them, and the ultimate conclusion of their fight hangs in the balance of what happens next. And so, for a time, neither is willing to make a move.

Yuji’s entire character throughout Jujutsu Kaisen can be best described as a coping mechanism. At the beginning of the series, his goal in life was to protect others, to give them a ‘good death’ as a way to live on while being burdened with his grandfather’s regrets. He didn’t want to see anyone else die in the same way. In spite of this pursuit, he continuously watches those he cares about die in battle against curses, always leaving something unfulfilled. He wanted only to save those around him, and yet he outlives them time and time again.

It is at this breaking point that he decides his new purpose is as a cog in the machine- as a sorcerer who simply kills cursed spirits. A soldier. He could not protect the ones he cared about, and so he will simply do what remains with his capacity for violence: Kill. Similar to his fallen mentor, Nanami, it is a role he has an obligation to fulfill given his talent with sorcery. This hollow purpose is the only worth he can derive from his life, and the only reason he can find to keep living.

Now, in the eye of the storm, Yuji takes a stroll through his hometown with Sukuna and reminisces about how it lost many of the things that made it his, and, in many ways, stopped being a place for him after he moved away. It grew cold, it grew quiet. The memories are dear to him, but attempting to reconcile them with the town’s far duller reality leaves them feeling hollow. With this in mind, he begins to tell Sukuna about the purpose in bringing him there.

While Yuji once felt sad about the things he loved in his hometown fading away, he can look at it now and feel content. Similarly, he once allowed himself to believe that the purpose of life was to make the very most of it, fearing regret at its end. Now, though? He has regrets he cannot ever resolve, and must find a way to live on. For his own sake, he doesn’t feel so strongly about his purpose either, and must simply accept life for what it is. To him, it isn’t legacy or purpose or joy or any other specific thing that makes living worthwhile. It’s backwards to believe one needs to justify their existence. And, in an attempt to prove this to Sukuna, Yuji looks at himself- he looks at such an aspect of his own humanity, something he loved and can never get back, and he shows it to the greatest curse upon his life.

At long last, he takes the final step toward understanding the intrinsic value of a human life. He bears all of his regrets and failures, his inability to find worth within his self imposed roles. And, at the end of it, Itadori Yuji forgives himself. He finds he is no less worthy of existing because of any of it.

Sukuna, essentially, says he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t really understand why Yuji is showing all of that to him. After all, Sukuna does not have morally gray motivations, nor a sympathetic backstory. From the day of his birth until the day of his death, he is a curse upon those around him. He has gone out of his way to subvert every shred of humanity one may find in him. He prefers himself this way, and can scarcely imagine someone feeling bad for him. Yuji, despite this, understands him perfectly. He understands what it’s like to reach for a role in desperate confusion, and he can see that Sukuna’s inability to value the lives of others stems from him failing to find any value in his own life. That is why Sukuna rejects everything and everyone- why he rejects all of the dichotomies and structures and associations people try to place him into.

Sukuna doesn’t fight for a reason, and he would hate to do so. He only exists to run down the clock until he dies, and, as much as he’d like to say he fights for enjoyment, Sukuna ultimately lashes out because the world rejected him. He is allowing the prophecy he was born into to be fulfilled. Yuji knows how empty this feels firsthand, and, in his empathy, he offers Sukuna a chance to reject it. To exist because he deserves to, not for any particular reason, but simply because it’s better than the alternative. Sukuna rejects this, stubbornly holding onto his place in the world even until the moment of his death. He dies pointlessly and pathetically, with no care for himself or anything. He does not try to assert any worthwhile reason for him to exist as he does, he doesn’t explain why the world needs curses like him. Stubbornly, he remains worthless. He remains a curse.

Yuji originally sought to help people die properly, becoming Sukuna’s prison in pursuit of that goal. In the end, Sukuna was the final person he tried to grant closure and redemption, the final burden he would choose to bear. It is only fitting that the King of Curses should likewise be the final person he would fail to save.