Yuji Itadori

• 1. Introduction

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  Yuji Itadori is the hero of the manga Jujutsu Kaisen, created by Gege Akutami, and his story starts with a choice no sensible person would make. He swallows a Cursed Object, a finger that belonged to Ryomen Sukuna, a powerful sorcerer from Japan's Heian period. That one act makes him a living host for Sukuna. It also comes with a sentence. If Yuji ever eats all twenty of Sukuna's fingers, he will be executed. Yuji faces this with a strange steadiness. He wants to honor his grandfather's legacy by saving people without conditions. That way, when his own execution arrives, he will not die alone. How does a boy come to be built like this? Which earlier heroes did his author borrow from, and what did he change? And why did the critics who admired Yuji argue so hard over whether he is truly new?

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• 2. A Name Made of Medicine

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  The family name Itadori comes from Japanese knotweed, a plant known by the Latin name Fallopia japonica. Traditional medicine uses it to take away pain, and Akutami chose it to point at the caring interior beneath Yuji's loud exterior. His given name carries the same idea. It translates as "abundant, help, and brave", and its two syllables suggest a relaxed manner joined to care for others.

  The hoodie Yuji wears is also a deliberate signal. In Akutami's eyes it stands for hesitancy and indecisiveness. When asked about theme music, Akutami named "Heart ni Hi wo Tsukete" by 9mm Parabellum Bullet and "Itsuka Dokoka De" by Kuchiroro. Both songs mix heavy metal with chill jazz, which suits a character who is both violent and gentle.

  Early in the series, Yuji mentions that he has been playing pachinko, even though he is a teenager. Akutami worried about the line because the manga is aimed at a young shonen audience. He still left it uncensored. A smaller surprise arrived in the finale of the anime's second season, where Yuji performs an ippon-jime, a Japanese hand gesture that signals a series will go on. That scene does not appear in the manga at all.

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• 3. Borrowed Heroes

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  Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto gave Akutami a ready-made image to work from: Naruto Uzumaki, a boy who carries a nine-tailed demon fox inside his body. That idea first shaped Yuta Okkotsu, the hero of Jujutsu Kaisen 0, and the cursed spirit Rika who torments him. By the end of that story the two make peace and fight as allies. For his next work, Akutami wanted a harsher arrangement. Yuji would be constantly mocked and victimized by Sukuna. Another model was Ichigo Kurosaki, the lead of Tite Kubo's Bleach. Akutami also wrote Yuji to be an active character.

  Yuji almost never became the lead. Akutami did not expect his series to be serialized, so Yuta was originally meant to carry the whole franchise. The two share an entry into the world of jujutsu, a history of tragedy, a naive streak and a brush with death. Yet one description of them stuck: "they carry themselves very differently...Itadori is outgoing, where Yuta is more reserved." Another summed up Yuji as "being naïve, thoughtful, and adorable, all while being possessed by an ancient evil."

  In 2021, Akutami said that the end of Yuji's arc was already planned and would arrive within two years. Sukuna's finale was still undecided. He also shot down a popular fan theory that Yuji's mother was Yuki Tsukumo. The real answer would turn out to be far stranger.

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• 4. The Occult Club Boy

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  At fifteen, Yuji lives with his grandfather Wasuke and belongs to his high school's Occult Club. The club has illicitly obtained one of Sukuna's fingers. On the day Wasuke dies, a first-year sorcerer named Megumi Fushiguro turns up asking about it. Cursed Spirits, drawn by the finger, swarm the school, and Yuji comes to Megumi's rescue.

  Satoru Gojo, a master and teacher at the Tokyo school, then explains the arrangement. Yuji is meant for execution, but the sentence is postponed so the world can be rid of Sukuna in one stroke. Yuji moves into the school, and Gojo mentors him personally. Two fellow first-years, Megumi and Nobara Kugisaki, quickly become his friends.

  The first great test comes at a detention facility, where Yuji fights a Cursed Womb and dies. Sukuna had blackmailed him by holding his heart hostage. The one who brings Yuji back to life is Sukuna himself.

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• 5. Revenge and Black Flash

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  Presumed dead, Yuji keeps training as a sorcerer and discovers that his store of Cursed Energy is massive. He befriends a boy named Junpei, but the Cursed Spirit Mahito kills Junpei. Around the same time Yuji meets Kento Nanami, a sorcerer who works a nine-to-five schedule and used to be a salaryman. Mahito loses the fight that follows yet escapes, and Yuji swears revenge.

  At the exhibition between the Tokyo and Kyoto Jujutsu schools, Yuji shows the world that he survived. Some want him dead at once, while others side with Gojo to keep him alive for the time being. Kyoto's third-year student Aoi Todo takes to him like a brother. Together they help repel an invasion led by Mahito and Hanami, a Cursed Spirit with environmental concerns. During the battle Yuji lands several consecutive punches called Black Flash, a distortion in space that sharply boosts his Cursed Techniques. He and Todo hold Hanami off long enough for Gojo to destroy it.

  A later mission brings Yuji and Nobara face to face with two brothers known as Death Painting, hybrids of a Cursed Spirit and a human. They kill both. Then Yuji realizes the brothers had physical bodies and a close bond, and he regrets breaking it.

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• 6. Truth, Victory, and Aftermath

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  Shibuya is where Mahito and the Cursed Spirits mount one final siege against the Jujutsu Sorcerers of Japan. Death Painting Choso defeats Yuji there. Sukuna then takes over Yuji's body and wrecks the district. A horrified Yuji tries to fight Mahito until Todo arrives to help. Then comes a revelation that shocks both Yuji and Choso. The sorcerer Kenjaku is the creator of them both.

  Kenjaku releases thousands of Cursed Spirits and newly awakened sorcerers on the world, and Yuji tries to flee the academy. Yuta Okkotsu, assigned as his executioner, fakes the execution to shield him from their superiors. Megumi joins other sorcerers in Kenjaku's Culling Games. Gojo is eventually unsealed and reunites with his students, ready to face Sukuna, who has taken over Fushiguro. After Gojo's death, Yuji and the surviving sorcerers fight Sukuna together and suffer several wounds.

  Kenjaku is revealed to be Yuji's "mother" Kaori Itadori, whose body Kenjaku took over and used to conceive Yuji with Jin Itadori. This lineage explains his unusually high Cursed Energy. After he awakens his hidden potential, Yuji defeats Sukuna, and the epilogue shows him reuniting with his schoolmates.

  A light novel set during his time in hiding adds a smaller episode. In a park Yuji meets a boy named Minato, whose adoptive parents' home was visited at night by a Cursed Spirit he had unknowingly manifested. Yuji defeats it after a lesson from Gojo. The sequel Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo goes further and reveals that Yuji is immortal and cannot age. Decades after Sukuna's defeat, he has watched his peers die and gone into hiding. His powers have grown enormously, letting him use Blood Manipulation and Shrine techniques at levels beyond any earlier user.

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• 7. Two Voices

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  Junya Enoki, Yuji's Japanese voice actor, admits he had trouble understanding the character. He believes Yuji is more complex than the usual figures of his type, despite an apparently ordinary surface. Enoki links him to Megumi Fushiguro because of the mysteries they share. Choosing Yuji's pitch caused no trouble, and he settled it in discussion with the director. He sees Yuji as straightforward, yet also intelligent in the way he analyzes fights. Even while seeing a standard Shonen Jump protagonist, Enoki enjoyed the range of emotions he had to explore.

  In the second season, Enoki singled out Yuji's mental breakdown after seeing Sukuna's chaos. The scene required him to yell as the character cried and threw up. Enoki did not actually throw up, but he began crying during the recording without meaning to. The director praised the result for giving the anime a greater sense of realism.

  Adam McArthur, who voices Yuji in English, was making his first anime dub, something he had wanted to do since childhood. A friend told him about the series, and one of his agents helped him audition. The scene in the first episode where Yuji's grandfather speaks his last words showed him how to play the part. Because the grandfather wanted Yuji to help others, McArthur read him as a teenager who likes helping people in need. He drew on his voice acting classes for the most serious scenes, and he looks forward to his next work as Yuji.

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• 8. Praise and Doubt

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  As of June 2021, Yuji was the number one fan-favorite Jujutsu Kaisen character on MyAnimeList. A Viz Media popularity poll in March 2021 put him second in the franchise, behind Satoru Gojo. At the 6th Crunchyroll Anime Awards in 2022, he was nominated for Best Protagonist and won Best Fight Scene for the battle in which he and Aoi Todo face Hanami. He was nominated in that same category for his fight alongside Nobara Kugisaki against Eso and Kechizu. Adam McArthur was nominated for Best Voice Artist Performance (English). In May 2022, the manga author Kenta Shinohara drew a tribute to Yuji alongside Yuta and Megumi.

  Chingy Nea of Polygon first called Yuji a typical shonen hero, comparing his earnest, goofy nature to Naruto Uzumaki and his self-sacrificing streak to Izuku Midoriya of My Hero Academia. But Nea argued that Jujutsu Kaisen tries to reconcile shonen ideals with the harsh realities of modern life. That makes Yuji a figure who is horrified by his new world and afraid of death, yet is not corrupted by cynicism. Karen Lu of Yale University praised how he quickly accepts that he cannot save everyone. She found it both inspiring and sobering that the series ties his strength to genuine suffering. Eric Thomas of Discussing Film liked the anime's expanded opening scenes with Yuji's grandfather for the emotional depth they add.

  Other voices were less kind. Several critics saw Ichigo Kurosaki in Yuji, since both are young men who gain supernatural powers and an inner evil presence to protect people from monsters. After Jujutsu Kaisen 0 appeared, Otaquest looked back and called Yuji overly simplistic next to Yuta. For the second season, Anime News Network and IGN felt that Yuji's role shrank because supporting characters suffered severe injuries or died while he fought. Anime News Network also said the fates of Nanami and Nobara came close to the "women in refrigerators" trope, existing mainly to shock Yuji.

  The ending drew mixed notes too. Nijimen enjoyed the team-up of Yuji and Yuta against Sukuna, though it worried that Sukuna might kill them as he had killed fighters like Gojo. Screen Rant praised Sukuna's defeat for closing the long Shinjuku Showdown arc without piling on new transformations, but it was split on the mercy and violence Yuji showed him. Game Rant went furthest, arguing that Yuji never stood out as a lead because Gojo overshadowed him and Yuta had the better arc.

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