History Manga / JujutsuKaisen

** The Vs. Mahito arc begins with Junpei watching ''Human Earthworm 3'' in theatres, an obvious send-up to ''Film/TheHumanCentipede'' film series. In an interview, Gege Akutami stated that Junpei's opinion of the ''Human Earthworm'' movies are their actual opinions on ''The Human Centipede'' movies.

* GodzillaThreshold: Deconstructed. When faced with a Cursed Spirit they can't hope to beat, Yuji decides to release [[AncientEvil Sukuna]], tells Megumi to take Nobara and run as far as possible, staying behind to hold it off until Megumi gives him the signal release to switch. It ''almost'' backfires when Sukuna decides to cooperate with the Curse and lead it back to Megumi instead, only to be attacked the Curse anyway. Then it gets deconstructed again after Sukuna kills it when he finds out that Yuji ''can't'' switch back because he didn't have Sukuna's consent. As a result, he rips out Yuji's heart to ensure that he dies if he switches back and nearly kills Megumi.

* EquivalentExchange: Because Cursed Energy is formed from negative emotion, it increases in volume if exposed to feelings of stress and risk. Many sorcerers exploit this phenomenon by intentionally placing a flaws in their Jujutsu to enhance its overall effectiveness:

* AnyoneCanDie: Zigzagged all around. While it's clear some of the major characters seem to have PlotArmor, somehow that armor seems to have a time limit and, as the series progresses, more and more important characters [[spoiler: receive no special treatment regarding death and Yuji himself is fated to die horribly.]]

** The second opening for the second season, "SPECIALZ", has a significant change in episode 20, where [[spoiler:after Sukuna's massacre of Shibuya and Nanami and Nobara's deaths to Mahito, the overview shot of Shibuya represented by lights is replaced with the city slowly becoming a void, and the final crowd shot of the heroes in Shibuya instead has them removed and the city in ruins.]]

** A lot of foreshadowing in the series is focused around the idea of establishing that the body and the soul are the same thing. Mahito's FantasticalFightingStyle focuses on him "touching the soul" of a person and shaping it like clay, which can alter the body of his opponents. Later, [[spoiler: during the beginning of the Shibuya Incident, Gojo and Kenjaku come to blows. As he's being pulled into the Prison Realm, Gojo asks Geto how long he's going to be manipulated by other people, causing Kenjaku to laugh- only for Geto's hand to snap to life and begin strangling his own body, which Kenjaku remarks should be impossible.]] While the purpose of this has not been revealed yet, there is a lot of strong implications that this is [[spoiler: ultimately what gives Sukuna a lot of his power, and is the result of his monstrous appearance.]]

An anime adaptation by Creator/{{Mappa}} premiered in October 2020. In March 2021, it was announced that ''Jujutsu Kaisen 0'' would receive a movie adaptation that premiered in December 2021. In February 2022, it was announced that a second season will air in July 6, 2023 in 2 parts: the first part (containing Hidden Inventory Arc) in July 6 and the rest of the episodes (containing Shibuya Incident Arc) in August 31. On December 2023, a third season focusing on the Culling Games arc was confirmed to be in production.

An anime adaptation by Creator/{{Mappa}} premiered in October 2020. In March 2021, it was announced that ''Jujutsu Kaisen 0'' would receive a movie adaptation that premiered in December 2021. In February 2022, it was announced that a second season will air in July 6, 2023 in 2 parts: the first part (containing Hidden Inventory Arc) in July 6 and the rest of the episodes (containing Shibuya Incident Arc) in August 31.

* EvolvingCredits: The anime's first opening, "Kaikai Kitan", changes in different ways over the course of the first 13 episodes:
** At one point, a brief scene of Gojo lifting his black eye band appears. He never reveals his eyes though. After his domain has been revealed, however, he lifts it completely, revealing one of his eyes fully.
** The end has a picnic scene in which more characters are added to when they are introduced throughout the show, (barring villains and less noteworthy characters). The scene eventually comes to resemble Claude Monet's ''Luncheon on the Grass''.

* BodyMotifs: Hands. Sukuna's power is sealed into his fingers (and he manifests himself on Yuuji's palms), many cursed techniques used throughout the series are signaled through the use of hand signs or are activated by or through the hands (in particular [[DomainHolder Domains]]), [[Characters/JujutsuKaisenMahito Mahito]] has them as his personal motif, and most of the narrative's battles involve hand-to-hand combat, specifically punches.

** ''Shibuya Incident-Culling Game'': In order to enact the Culling Game, Kenjaku has Satoru sealed up after managing to trick him using the face of Suguru who he was possessing, which quickly proves to be the beginning of the series intensifying. The Shibuya Incident shows how much the Jujutsu students and faculty members relied on Satoru as they were pushed to their limits to even survive the massacre and ultimately lost a few key characters and didn't even manage to unseal Satoru. Throughout the Culling Game, unsealing Satoru becomes one of the key objectives of the heroes, as he is the only one who could settle everything for them, but circumstances always keep Satoru's unsealing out of the way until the DarkestHour has come, with Megumi possessed by Sukuna and Tengen captured by Kenjaku, at which point it gives the heroes time to properly prepare for the final battle and sets Satoru to fight Sukuna, the only person on the side of the villains who could challenge him.

** One can only learn empathy through weakness. The strongest characters in the series are ones who are obssessed with strength, but these characters tend to be total sociopaths with no understanding of people weaker than them. Gojo only learned to really care for other people after the ''Hidden Inventory'' arc, in which [[spoiler: Toji delivers him a brutal CurbStompBattle, brutally kills an innocent girl he had gotten attached to, and forced him to confront that killing curses isn't enough to be a good person]]. After this event, Gojo resolves to be a genuinely good person who protects those weaker than him not out of duty, but kindness. On the opposite end of the scale is Sukuna, who is insanely strong and has never had to struggle for anything, leading him to be unapproachable and lonely.

** Chapter 221. [[spoiler: After 130 chapters, Satoru Gojo is finally unsealed from the Prison Realm. He then makes a deal with Kenjaku to fight him on December 24.]]

** In Episode 6 of the anime adaptation, Gojo holds a DVD of ''Film/TheLure'' while he explains Yuji's task of watching movies with a curse corpse. The movie Gojo was spoiling, however, is ''Film/DeepBlueSea''.

* BeatStillMyHeart: [[spoiler: In Chapter 8, Sukuna kills Yuji by tearing his heart out while controlling his body, as payback for using him carelessly.]]

* CentralTheme: The "value" of individual lives, and the cruelty of trying to measure it in terms of quantifiable worth.

** [[spoiler:The duel between Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna. On one hand, Gojo was faced with a specific counter for his cursed technique. On the other, Sukuna was holding back his other cards now that he had Megumi's Ten Shadows to use instead. Each chapter was a brutal back and forth as both tried to outwit each others' techniques. Once left unable to iniate any more Domain expansions, Gojo constantly outdoes Sukuna in hand-to-hand before Mahoraga showed up at the last moment. Near the tail-end, Gojo ended up in a one versus three with Sukuna using the Ten Shadows. However, that last bout would prove to be Gojo's undoing, as letting Mahoraga unleash the slash that struck where Gojo was rather than Gojo specifically meant that Sukuna saw a technique he could use himself. Even after Hollow Purple destroyed Mahoraga, it left Gojo vulnerable to that attack, leaving Sukuna the victor.]]

** [[spoiler: The whole fight between Satoru Gojo and Ryomen Sukuna is this. On one side, Gojo was faced with the specific counter for his cursed technique, while on the other side, Sukuna was holding back his other cards now that he had Megumi's Ten Shadows to use instead. Ironically enough, when Gojo returns to the field, he actually delivers this to Sukuna at full power. The whole fight at first started out with Gojo edging out: Sukuna winning a Domain Battle against Gojo doesn't stop Gojo from still not only keeping up with Sukuna, but also managing to inflict a severe injury and then escape from him, and once Gojo figures out the trick to make sure he can keep his Domain securely against Sukuna, not only does he overwhelm Sukuna in a direct fight within 3 minutes, causing Sukuna's Domain to shatter, but he even manages to successfully cast Unlimited Void faster than Sukuna could and just the 0.01 second of difference proves enough for Gojo to literately curb-stomp Sukuna temporarily, destroy his shrine, and damage his brain to the point where it rivals the same amount of damage Gojo took despite the fact Gojo has been spending 5 times of burning the right profrental cortex of the brain and then regenerating it with Reverse Cursed Technique. When they go head-to-head, Gojo constantly outdoes him, even if he does have to think crazy and fight seriously, and even knocks him out for a few moments with a single Black Flash after catching him off-guard with an unorthodox use of Red, to where it would have finished the fight if it hadn't been for Mahoraga showing up at the last moment. It only gets more decisive to prove just how Gojo is truly worthy of being called the strongest after quite a few chapters of him being gone as he fights Sukuna, Mahoraga, and Chimera Beast Agito, and wins, first crushing Agito to pieces with a maximum-output of his Blue while he only had one hand and had just been attacked a few times before he then pretty much plays with Sukuna while unleashing his strongest Purple, casually overriding any attempt to stop it before having it explode, detonating Mahoraga to shreds and leaving Sukuna griveously injured while Satoru is mostly fine and able to heal himself afertwards... Except the one hit Mahoraga landed on him using Sukuna's technique proved to be a devastating one that eventually killed him, leaving Sukuna the victor. We are then shown through Gojo's conversation with Geto in the afterlife, that Ryomen Sukuna is indeed the Strongest between the two of them.]]

** [[spoiler: The whole fight between Satoru Gojo and Ryomen Sukuna is this. On one side, Gojo was faced with the specific counter for his cursed technique, while on the other side, Sukuna was holding back his other cards now that he had Megumi's Ten Shadows to use instead. Ironically enough, when Gojo returns to the field, he actually delivers this to Sukuna at full power. The whole fight at first started out with Gojo edging out: Sukuna winning a Domain Battle against Gojo doesn't stop Gojo from still not only keeping up with Sukuna, but also managing to inflict a severe injury and then escape from him, and once Gojo figures out the trick to make sure he can keep his Domain securely against Sukuna, not only does he overwhelm Sukuna in a direct fight within 3 minutes, causing Sukuna's Domain to shatter, but he even manages to successfully cast Unlimited Void faster than Sukuna could and just the 0.01 second of difference proves enough for Gojo to literately curb-stomp Sukuna temporarily, destroy his shrine, and damage his brain to the point where it rivals the same amount of damage Gojo took despite the fact Gojo has been spending 5 times of burning the right profrental cortex of the brain and then regenerating it with Reverse Cursed Technique. When they go head-to-head, Gojo constantly outdoes him, even if he does have to think crazy and fight seriously, and even knocks him out for a few moments with a single Black Flash after catching him off-guard with an unorthodox use of Red, to where it would have finished the fight if it hadn't been for Mahoraga showing up at the last moment. It only gets more decisive to prove just how Gojo is truly worthy of being called the strongest after quite a few chapters of him being gone as he fights Sukuna, Mahoraga, and Chimera Beast Agito, and wins, first crushing Agito to pieces with a maximum-output of his Blue while he only had one hand and had just been attacked a few times before he then pretty much plays with Sukuna while unleashing his strongest Purple, casually overriding any attempt to stop it before having it explode, detonating Mahoraga to shreds and leaving Sukuna griveously injured while Satoru is mostly fine and able to heal himself afertwards... Except the one hit Mahoraga landed on him using Sukuna's technique proved to be a devastating one that eventually killed him, leaving Sukuna the victor. We are then shown through Gojo's conversation with Geto in the afterlife, that Ryomen Sukuna is indeed the Strongest between the two of them.

** [[spoiler:During their fight at the tail end of the Culling Games, both Gojo and Sukuna suffer from this. Gojo is finally met with a sorcerer that can match him blow-for-blow and overcome his Unlimited Void domain. His technique of constantly healing his brain with Reverse Cursed Technique in order to mitigate the side-effects of the Limitless also hinders him in battle, and he eventually overtaxes himself spamming his Domain Expansion. On the other hand, Sukuna is handicapped by his use of Mahoraga and the Ten Shadows Shikigami in order to fish out an adaptation against Gojo's techniques and get him to play his hand. Gojo managing to land a hit of Unlimited Void on him also removed his Domain Expansion advantage. Additionally, spectators note that Sukuna is holding back a trump card to prevent Gojo's allies from using it against him. This results in the King of Curses [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness finally showing fear]] when Gojo pulls off a 200% Hollow Purple to wipe out Mahoraga and critically injure Sukuna.]]