The Jujutsu Kaisen (JJK) vs. My Hero Academia (MHA) debate is often reduced to the confrontation of two philosophies, namely the optimistic heroism of a Plus Ultra world, and the cold and brutal reality of cursed energy. As MHA has been refining the classic superhero experience over the years, Gege Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen has continuously broken the shōnen format by making choices that feel irreversible and a power structure that favors intelligence over sheer strength. JJK does not simply put its characters in a place where they are expected to be heroes, but a place where they must live, in a world in which the monsters are human in their misery and the heroes are mostly just as damaged as the monsters themselves.
Here, we will be evaluating eight particular arcs that took the tropes common in a series such as MHA and brought them to a level of narrative complexity that is seldom reached by the world that Kohei Horikoshi created. Be it a tournament arc which suddenly becomes an assassination mission or a climax where the two engage each other in a strategic game of chess with the gods, the storytelling of JJK frequently finds itself without the safety-net of the classic shōnen. Displaying the most significant scenes of the manga, one will understand the main reason why some viewers consider that Jujutsu Kaisen has gone beyond the hero-student formula and built something much more brutal and thought-provoking.
My Hero Academia: 13 Characters With The Saddest Backstories
When it comes to sad and tragic backstories in My Hero Academia, these characters in the anime series have had it the worst.
Fearsome Womb Arc
At the beginning of My Hero Academia, Deku has the “Main Character” shield to save him multiple times, but the arc Fearsome Womb threw his safety out of the window right from the start. Gege Akutami created the mood of fear that has never been repeated in MHA by murdering the protagonist Yuji Itadori in the first ten chapters. Sukuna’s appearance was not just a power-up moment; it was a horrendous example of an uncontrollable evil that was able and ready to kill the life of the host just to make a point.
This arc was the beginning of the theme of the whole series as it established the fact that not even the main character is immune to the effects of his/her world. Although the background of MHA is extensive use of the power of friendship to pull students out of hopeless cases, the Fearsome Womb arc revealed that in JJK, insufficient power leads to brutal and unceremonious death. It served as a wake-up call to the viewer that this was not a hero academy, but a meat grinder of sorcerers, and the initial battle wasn’t so real as the training sessions that Deku had gone through at the beginning.
Cursed Child Arc (JJK 0)
The prequel arc of Yuta Okkotsu is a much more haunting examination of the power of love than anything is at UA High. Love and bonds typically serve as inspiration in MHA, whereas JJK 0 plays with this aspect by transforming a childhood pledge into a Grade-Special Curse. The love story between Yuta and the monstrous Rika is a work of psychological horror genius, which combines a mixture of true love with the horrifying truth of the unintentional spiritual enslavement.
The climax of this arc, in which Yuta comes to terms with his “Pure Love” and opens up Rika’s true potential, is more emotionally rewarding and story-wise complicated than the encounters that MHA has had with villains. It addresses the issues of sorrow, shock, and the burden of heritage in a manner that is very adult. Although MHA characters attempt to be icons, Yuta struggles to discover the will to live in the face of the monster he made, which creates a unique emotional base that appeals to the heart more than any other cliché: the heroic spirit.
Kyoto Goodwill Event Arc
The UA Sports Festival in MHA is a favorite tournament arc. However, the Kyoto Goodwill Event Arc overtakes it with an act of deadly political intrigue. As the students are meant to be in competition, the Kyoto school is directed to go and kill Yuji Itadori. This subversion transforms an otherwise ordinary sporting event into a survival game with tensions as the main characters are forced to attack their allies and cope with the unexpected invasion of Special Grade cursed spirits.
There is also a layer of depth to the power system, with Domain Expansion and a multifaceted Cursed technique turning the battle into a puzzle that needs to be approached tactically, instead of who can punch harder. In contrast to the Sports Festival as a PR event for heroes, the Goodwill Event brings to the fore the corruptness and brutality that is deep-rooted in the Jujutsu Higher-Ups. It is a cynical and high-stakes version of the school rivalry trope that makes the friendly competitions in MHA look like child’s play by comparison.
Who’s That Character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s)Medium (5.0s)Hard (2.5s)Permadeath (2.5s)
Perfect Preparation Arc
Maki Zenin’s part in the “Perfect Preparation” arc is a harsh, unapologetic examination of clan politics and revenge that the MHA “Todoroki family drama” never quite has the courage to explore. As the Todoroki plotline is about reconciliation and healing, Maki prefers complete, systematic destruction. Years of mistreatment by the Zenin family lead her to be a “Human Weapon”, and she kills her family members one by one in a series that resembles a high-fantasy adaptation of John Wick.
The brutality of such an arc is an ode to the fact that JJK allowed its characters to be monsters in the name of their ambitions. Maki does not make the transformation a heroic awakening, but a sad and necessary event due to a broken system. This moral hand-holding is precisely what JJK has over MHA; it assumes the audience can cope with a main character who murders hundreds of people in their quest to cause liberation and that makes it a much more immersive and thrilling story to watch.
Jujutsu Kaisen: Panda’s Story in the Culling Game is Heartbreaking
The fallout of the Shibuya Incident affects everyone, but Panda especially goes through a lot in Jujutsu Kaisen’s Culling Game Arc.
Culling Game Arc
The Culling Game is an IQ-level battle royale that stretches the logic of supernatural fights well beyond the MHA logic of the Quirk. Bringing on board a very convoluted rule system and a point-based system of survival, this arc throws characters into a series of lethal deathlock scenarios in which strategy is as vital as mana production. The sheer range of techniques in play, whether in the four-way standoff in Sendani or the reality-warping humor of Takaba, causes the final war of MHA to seem tiresome by contrast.
The only thing that makes this arc really stand out is the sheer unpredictability of the matchups. In MHA, characters are usually aware of the good guys getting a way to win by adding a new power-up, whereas in the Culling Game, characters are regularly maimed or killed in a manner that seems permanent. It is a cutthroat, life or death red meat contest that transforms the whole world into a sorcery laboratory, demonstrating that Gege Akutami can write multi-layered and complicated fights that make the reader think about how the winning was done.
Hidden Inventory Arc
Hidden Inventory is generally regarded as one of the best prequel arcs in manga history that surpasses any kind of origin story that MHA has ever created. The arc examines how a soul is corrupted very slowly and painfully by concentrating on the youth of Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto. The transformation of Geto, who started as a righteous protector of the weaker ones and developed into a genocidal leader of a cult, is treated with a certain amount of subtlety and tragedy that allows the villains of MHA to look like Saturday morning cartoon characters.
The resolution of the arc is the death of Riko Amanai, which comes as a devastating blow that confirms the fact that the so-called heroes could fail even in those few situations when they are the strongest of the strongest in this world. This is not just an element of the plot, it is the trigger of the whole conflict of the series. Although MHA tends to provide rationales as to why a character is cool or heroic, Hidden Inventory describes why the world of JJK is fundamentally broken, making the supernatural action based on a thoroughly human tragedy that does not fade away even after the chapters are closed.
Jujutsu Kaisen: Gege Akutami Reveals Who Is Stronger Between Gojo And Sukuna
Who was stronger between Gojo and Sukuna has been a long debated question in the JJK fandom. Gege teases the answer to this.
Shinjuku Showdown Arc (Gojo vs Sukuna)
The ultimate fight of the “Modern Era” is the Shinjuku Showdown between Gojo and Sukuna where a battle of gods occurred, and it did not disappoint the hype. As opposed to the end games of MHA, which may be crowded with the abundance of side characters, this fight was a pure and high-level tactical battle. Each chapter added another dimension to the logic of Domain Expansion and Reverse Cursed Technique, which were like a professional game of chess between two creatures who were no longer bound by human restrictions.
The ending of this battle even reverberated across the entire anime world since it had the audacity of doing something that no one had ever thought of before, and that is killing the most popular character of the series in a final, vicious manner. It was not a glorious sacrifice with an emotional speech at the end, it was completely abrupt, bloody, and it changed the entire power structure of the manga. Such a degree of storytelling boldness is something MHA has always shied away from, choosing instead safer and more conventional endings that are devoid of such dramatic power as The Strongest Falling.
Shibuya Incident Arc
The Shibuya Incident is the benchmark of the gold standard of the War Arc, a ruthless spiral into anarchy that permanently changed the order of things. In MHA war arcs, there is a common sentiment that the protagonists are being nurtured by plot armor, yet Shibuya dismantles them in a systematic way. In several hours, the most powerful sorcerer in the world is imprisoned, extremely powerful Grade 1 sorcerers such as Naobito and Nanami are harshly murdered, and Nobara is taken out of commission for good, while Tokyo city transforms into a cursed desert.
The tension that the pacing of Shibuya creates is a masterwork as it switches between one tense situation to another without giving the reader time to relax. It is not only about the fights but about the complete crumbling of the society that the heroes were attempting to defend. At the conclusion of the arc, it is a different world from JJK, and the era of heroism is dead. It is this readiness to burn the whole narrative base that causes Shibuya to be miles ahead of anything that MHA has ever tried to do.
Jujutsu Kaisen
- Release Date
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October 3, 2020
- Network
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TBS, MBS, CBC, Tulip Television, BSN, tys, NBC, HBC, RKK, i-Television, SBS, IBC, BSS, MRO, OBS, TUF, RSK, TUY, tbc, RKB, SBC, KUTV, RBC, UTY, RCC, MRT, atv, MBC
- Directors
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Ryohei Takeshita, Masataka Akai, Chie Nishizawa, Daisuke Tsukushi, Tomomi Kamiya, Kakushi Ifuku, Ken Takahashi
- Writers
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Hiroshi Seko
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Yuichi Nakamura
Satoru Gojo
