Who is the villain of Jujutsu Kaisen? A world made of resentment
Sukuna is the short answer; Kenjaku, the long one. But here the monsters are born from ordinary people’s anger and fear, and Agnew had already described that.
Spoiler warning: this article covers the whole manga. The short answer is Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses. He is the great villain of Jujutsu Kaisen and its last enemy, defeated by Yuji Itadori in the final battle of Shinjuku (chapter 268). The long answer has another name: Kenjaku, the thousand-year-old sorcerer who, inside Suguru Geto’s corpse, stages the Shibuya Incident and the Culling Game, and who falls before Sukuna does, killed by Yuta Okkotsu. Around them stand Mahito and the disaster curses (Jogo, Hanami and Dagon); the human villains, from Toji Fushiguro to Naoya Zenin; Uraume, Sukuna’s servant; and the players of the Culling Game. The manga ended with chapter 271, published on September 29, 2024 according to Anime Corner (in issue 44 of Weekly Shōnen Jump, which went on sale in Japan on the 30th).
One arc sums it up better than any ranking. Junpei Yoshino is a student bullied at his high school. Mahito, a curse with an almost human shape, befriends him and tells him what he wants to hear: “If you’re hungry, eat. If you hate, kill” (chapter 21). Then one of Sukuna’s fingers turns up on the table at his home, draws a curse, and his mother dies. Junpei bursts into a ceremony in the school gym to go after the boy who bullied him. Yuji arrives in time to stop him, and Mahito, who has been using him from the start, twists his body with his technique until it kills him (episodes 11 and 12 of the anime, December 2020). A humiliated boy, a brutal loss, an anger looking for someone to blame and, behind it all, a being made of human hatred, pushing. The whole series fits in there.
// The suspectsFifteen villains in five groups
Sukuna: the one who needs no motive
A sorcerer from the Heian era whose power survives in twenty fingers. He kills for fun and treats others as an audience, a toy or a meal. Once he takes Megumi Fushiguro’s body, he kills Yorozu, who was occupying the body of Megumi’s sister, just to finish breaking him. His case file reads him through Robert Hare’s psychopathy.
Kenjaku: the one who moves the pieces
He has spent more than a thousand years jumping from body to body. As Noritoshi Kamo he fathered the Death Paintings, with Choso as the eldest; he occupied the body of Yuji’s mother; and in Shibuya he wears the face of Geto, Gojo’s best friend, to freeze him for the minute the Prison Realm needs. His case file.
The curses: fear with a body
Mahito is born from the hatred humans feel for one another; Jogo, from the fear of burning earth; Hanami, from dread of a damaged nature; Dagon, from terror of the sea. None of them leaves Shibuya: Sukuna finishes Jogo, a revived Toji finishes Dagon, and Kenjaku absorbs Mahito as soon as he stops being useful.
The humans: the house that makes them
Toji Fushiguro was born without cursed energy into the Zenin clan, which treated him as worthless; he became the Sorcerer Killer and sold his son Megumi to that same clan. Naoya Zenin is the other end of the house: the heir who humiliates his cousin Maki for being strong as a woman. And Suguru Geto carried the contempt the jujutsu world already felt for non-sorcerers all the way to proposing their extermination.
The Culling Game: those who return and those who awaken
Uraume has served Sukuna for a thousand years, human flesh included. Kenjaku brings back Hajime Kashimo, who only wants to fight the strongest; Yorozu, obsessed with Sukuna; and Reggie Star, who turns receipts into weapons. In his game, which awards points for killing, Hiromi Higuruma awakens as well: a disillusioned lawyer whose domain is a courtroom. The guide to the villains of Jujutsu Kaisen and the series archive go through them one by one.
Ryomen Sukuna
Read Ryomen Sukuna’s full case file · Psychopathy →
// The theoryThe physics of this world is called strain
In 1992, criminologist Robert Agnew published his general strain theory in Criminology. He widened Merton’s strain, tied to economic goals, to the whole of life. Agnew identified three sources of strain: failing to achieve what you value, losing something valued, and suffering something harmful, such as bullying or abuse. All three produce negative emotions, above all anger, and anger demands an outlet. If the resources to cope with it some other way are missing (support, self-control, someone who listens), the outlet can be harm.
Strain, negative emotion, harm
In Jujutsu Kaisen that chain is not a hypothesis: it is the physics of the world. Cursed energy flows from the negative emotions of people without powers, who cannot control it and keep leaking it. It builds up in emotionally charged places, such as schools and hospitals, and condenses into curses, which grow stronger the more widely a fear is shared. Agnew took his theory to the community level in 1999: places under chronic strain accumulate more anger and more crime. The series draws that map literally.
// The caseJunpei has all three strains; Sukuna has none
Junpei is a textbook case because he gathers Agnew’s three sources at once: the respect he cannot get, the mother he loses and the bullying he suffers every day. His anger looks for a culprit, and Mahito serves him one, along with permission. Toji walks the same road as an adult, and his case file cites Agnew: the clan’s humiliation is strain in its purest form, and he turns it into a trade.
But look at who is left out. Naoya suffers no strain at all: he is born at the top and humiliates from privilege. Kenjaku has no wound, he has a curiosity. And nothing in Sukuna’s story points to a blow that would explain him. That is the series’ twist: strain produces curses and small executioners like Junpei, but the great villains do not come out of it. They harvest it. Mahito feeds on a bullied boy’s anger; Kenjaku designs a game in which killing earns points. Everyone’s resentment is the raw material; the plan has an owner.
// The flawYuji carries more strain than anyone and does not become a curse
The objection Agnew knew better than anyone is the simplest one: almost everyone who suffers strain does not offend. The series puts it at the center. Yuji loses his grandfather in the first chapter, watches Junpei and Nanami die, and wakes up in Shibuya amid the victims Sukuna killed with his body. When Higuruma puts him on trial for those deaths, he does not defend himself: he takes responsibility. Strain pushes; it does not decide.
That is why the metaphor has to be read with care. If the monsters are everyone’s anger, it is tempting to conclude that they belong to no one. That is false. Junpei’s anger had reasons, and even so, poisoning the boy who bullied him was a decision. Mahito’s pushing did not take the hand away from him. Explaining is not excusing: Agnew describes where anger comes from so that it can be drained in time, not to sign it a permit.
Jujutsu Kaisen
The curses belong to everyone; the crimes belong to whoever commits them.
Three key takeaways
- The great villain of Jujutsu Kaisen is Ryomen Sukuna, whom Yuji defeats in Shinjuku; the mastermind of the plot is Kenjaku, who uses Geto’s body to stage Shibuya and the Culling Game. Mahito, the disaster curses, the Zenin clan and the Culling Game players complete the list.
- General strain theory (Agnew, 1992) is the series’ physics: ordinary people’s negative emotions condense into curses. Junpei gathers the three strains Agnew described, and Mahito gives his anger a target.
- The great villains are not born from strain: they harvest it. And Yuji, who carries more than anyone, proves what Agnew knew: strain pushes, but every crime has an owner.
Sources · further reading
- Agnew, R. (1992). “Foundation for a General Strain Theory of Crime and Delinquency.” Criminology, 30(1), 47–88.
- Agnew, R. (1999). “A General Strain Theory of Community Differences in Crime Rates.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 36(2), 123–155.
- Akutami, G. (2018-2024). Jujutsu Kaisen, chapters 1-271. Shueisha.
- Anime Corner (September 29, 2024). “Jujutsu Kaisen Manga Ends With Chapter 271.” https://animecorner.me/jujutsu-kaisen-manga-ends-with-chapter-271/
- Dexerto (August 30, 2024). “Jujutsu Kaisen: How does Sukuna die in the manga?” https://www.dexerto.com/anime/jujutsu-kaisen-how-does-sukuna-die-in-the-manga-2882315
// Quick challengeWhich theory best explains Ryomen Sukuna?
Frequently asked questions
Who is the main villain of Jujutsu Kaisen?
Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses. He is the series’ final enemy: Yuji Itadori defeats him in the battle of Shinjuku, in chapter 268 of the manga. Kenjaku is the mastermind who drives the plot from inside Suguru Geto’s body, and Mahito, Jogo, Hanami and Dagon are the curses who stand with him until Shibuya.
Is Kenjaku more of a villain than Sukuna?
It depends on what you measure. Sukuna is the most powerful and the last to fall; Kenjaku is the one who makes it all possible: he fathered Choso and his brothers, occupied the body of Yuji’s mother, used Geto’s to seal Gojo in Shibuya and designed the Culling Game. He dies before Sukuna, killed by Yuta Okkotsu.
How does Sukuna die?
In the battle of Shinjuku, at the end of the manga. Megumi resists from within, Nobara reappears and strikes Sukuna’s last finger with her Resonance technique, and Megumi manages to break free of his body. Reduced to a lump of flesh, Sukuna is offered by Yuji the chance to live inside him again; he refuses and dissolves like a curse (chapters 266-268).
Why are curses born from emotions?
Because in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, cursed energy flows from the fear, hatred and resentment of those who cannot control it, and it builds up until it takes shape. It is a literal version of Robert Agnew’s general strain theory (1992): strain produces negative emotions, and those emotions, with no outlet, produce harm. In the series, they also produce monsters.