Jujutsu Kaisen Needs To Kill Its Most Evil Character Already

The supernatural action anime Jujutsu Kaisen, based on the manga created by Gege Akutami, has plenty of high-stakes and major deaths that have propelled the story forward. However, there is one character in Jujutsu Kaisen that has overstayed their welcome and should be killed off already: Sukuna.

WARNING: This article contains spoilers from the Jujutsu Kaisen manga, including plot points that have not been shown in the anime as of 2024.

Jujutsu Kaisen Needs to Kill Sukuna

After being teased since the beginning of the series, Jujutsu Kaisen needs to finally up and kill the evil sorcerer Ryomen Sukuna if it hopes to progress and achieve narrative closure. Sukuna has been a major presence in Jujutsu Kaisen since its opening chapter, revived when one of his magically preserved fingers was consumed by the series protagonist Yuji Itadori. Though Yuji retained control of his body and was supernaturally empowered by this, Sukuna has since regained full power and emerged as an active and prominent antagonist in Jujutsu Kaisen.

The need for Jujutsu Kaisen to kill off Sukuna is already compounded by the news that Akutami has strongly alluded to ending the manga series in 2024. The final destruction of Sukuna is something that not only serves as a payoff to the overarching saga and journey of its main characters but admittedly feels like it has taken its sweet time to reach this grand, long-promised culmination. Here’s why it makes sense on multiple levels to kill off Sukuna and what his inevitable death entails for Jujutsu Kaisen as a whole.

Why Sukuna Needs To Die

Simply put, Sukuna has just overstayed his welcome, with a prolonged and presumably climactic fight that feels like it gives the more elongated manga/anime fights a run for their money. Since making his full return, Sukuna has engaged most of the main cast from Jujutsu Kaisen in a series of hard-hitting battles as the manga builds to its climactic finale. Sukuna has even gone as far as to fight a seemingly resurrected Satoru Gojo, the late Jujutsu Sorcerer, only for the warrior’s identity revealed to be Yuta Okkotsu using Gojo’s body to resume the fight.

The fight with Sukuna was always a foregone conclusion and was always going to be one of the last battles in Jujutsu Kaisen, but it has gone on far too long, not unlike the overextended fights in Dragon Ball Z. Sukuna has outlasted Jujutsu Kaisen’s presumed final antagonist Kenjaku, who was dispatched comparatively quickly and anticlimactically compared to Sukuna. Jujutsu Kaisen should finish its parade of challengers against Sukuna and just have his former host, Yuji, step up and destroy the curse once and for all.

The Impact of Sukuna’s Death on Jujutsu Kaisen

Once both Sukuna and Kenjaku have been killed off, Jujutsu Kaisen can finally proceed to its intended conclusion and wrap up in a satisfying manner. Yuji should be the character to deliver the final blow as a way to bring the story full circle; Yuji being cursed by Sukuna is how Jujutsu Kaisen began, and it’s only fitting that he also be the character to take out Sukuna to finally cleanse himself of Sukuna’s legacy. It’s just taken far too long to get to that narrative point, more than satisfactorily underscoring how big a threat Sukuna was all along when readers already understood this point.

Sukuna stands in the finest tradition of manga/anime antagonists like Frieza and Yhwach who perhaps stick around in the story longer than they should. To be sure, there have been thrilling moments in the marathon of fights against Sukuna, presumably closing out Jujutsu Kaisen, but, at this point, it just feels like a way to prolong the manga’s run. With the final battle lines drawn and most of the major loose ends tied up, Sukuna needs to go down and go down for good.

Jujutsu Kaisen is available to read on VIZ and other platforms.