Jujutsu Kaisen (2018)

Rule #1: Do not eat food off the ground. You don’t know where it came from, and even if you dropped the food yourself, it could be contaminated. It might not even be food. For highschooler Yuji Itadori, finding and eating a thousand-year-old finger leads to the gift of supernatural ability from the King of Curses, to fight as a jujutsu sorcerer.

In Gege Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen, negative energy from emotions like fear, hatred, and resentment create monsters called curses. Jujutsu sorcerers are those possessing cursed energy who are specifically trained to hunt down and kill curses. Since it takes a curse to exorcize a curse, Yuji, a typical human without any cursed energy, cannot fight as a jujutsu sorcerer. However, upon eating one of the twenty fingers of Ryomen Sukuna, who reigned as King of Curses over a thousand years ago, Yuji can channel Sukuna’s power in his own right. With every additional finger he eats, Yuji becomes stronger, but so does Sukuna, who has combined with Yuji’s body. Thus, a serious danger is ever-present—if Sukuna manages to take control of Yuji’s body, he will wreak havoc in his quest to once again reign supreme. Yuji straddles a precarious divide between man and monster, but even so, he wants to fight curses and help as many people as he can. He can save the world, as long as he can keep his monstrosity under control! 

Rule #2: Try not to destroy the world.

Jujutsu Kaisen is an ongoing manga series with a one-season anime. Season 2 premieres in July 2023. With a likable hero accompanied by a monstrous alter ego, Jujutsu Kaisen is a story both backgrounding and foregrounding monstrosity. 3.5 out of 5 sacs of blood.

—Haley Nguyen