Choso, the Death Painting of Jujutsu Kaisen, is a cursed spirit manufactured in a laboratory: he was neither born nor raised like any ordinary child, and he barely spent time with the siblings he says he loves. And yet, everything he does he does for them. When he feels one of the Death Paintings die in the distance, something breaks inside him; when a memory —perhaps someone else's, perhaps imposed— tells him that Yuji Itadori is his younger brother, he switches sides without hesitation. For attachment theory, Choso is no mystery: he is the proof of just how far an emotional bond can become the only map by which someone reads the world. The tie to his siblings is not one more trait of his character —it is his entire character—.
// The theoryThe first bond as the mold of all behavior
The British psychiatrist John Bowlby argued that attachment —the bond between a small child and its caregiver— is not a sentimental luxury but a biological need, as vital as food. In that first bond the mold of all future relationships is forged, along with the basis of empathy and loyalty. His disciple Mary Ainsworth took it into the laboratory with the "Strange Situation" and described the attachment styles —secure, anxious, avoidant—: stable patterns with which a person approaches others for the rest of their life. Bowlby summed it up in his idea of the internal working model: an emotional template that answers two questions —"are others reliable?, do I deserve to be cared for?"— and that, once formed, guides behavior almost without the subject noticing. Here lies the key to understanding Choso. His bond with his siblings is the first thing, almost the only thing, that his existence gave him: manufactured with no childhood, no mother, no home, he clings to that tie the way a baby clings to its caregiver, because it is his template of the world. And that template says a single thing —"my family is what matters; everything else is secondary"—. When attachment is the entire foundation of an identity, it stops being an emotion and becomes the engine of everything: tenderness, loyalty and, if it comes to it, violence.
The bond that steers every act
Attachment theory teaches something uncomfortable: the bond does not only produce affection, it produces behavior. The child who knows itself loved learns to trust, to care, to read the other; the same mechanism that generates empathy can, when the tie is threatened, trigger the fiercest aggression —to protect is, evolutionarily, the other face of attaching—. Choso illustrates that continuity with almost textbook clarity. His attachment to his siblings is what gives him his best: the capacity to sacrifice himself, to forgive, to recognize a stranger as family and protect him with his life. But it is that same attachment that hurls him into battle, that blinds him with fury when he believes his own have been harmed, that turns him into a weapon. There is no tender Choso and a violent Choso: there is a single bond that, depending on where it is pushed, expresses itself as love or as a blow. Understanding his behavior demands seeing that loyalty and violence spring from the same root of affection —the tie is the engine, and the direction is given by context—.
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// The subjectThe eldest brother of a manufactured bond
What is revealing about Choso is that his attachment is almost entirely constructed, and yet it works with all the force of a real bond. He barely lived with his siblings; much of what he feels for them rests on memories —his own, and those imposed on him— rather than on a shared life. For attachment theory that does not invalidate it: the internal working model is precisely an emotional template that, once installed, guides behavior regardless of how much biography sustains it. Choso feels that he is the eldest brother, and that feeling is enough to organize his entire existence around one duty: to protect. Therein lies his greatness and his tragedy. The greatness is that this bond redeems him —when he recognizes Yuji as a brother, he chooses the side of protection and sacrifice, and becomes one of the noblest allies of the story—. The tragedy is that, while he believed his siblings had been murdered by the sorcerers, that same bond hurled him to kill without restraint, convinced that vengeance was his fraternal obligation. Attachment does not tell him what is right: it tells him for whom everything is worth it. And that distinction —so intimate, so powerful— is exactly the one another learned to exploit.
Choso
// The crackAttachment explains the loyalty, it does not excuse the blow
The crack with Choso is twofold, and both faces matter. The first is manipulation. Attachment theory warns that a deep bond is also a vulnerable point: whoever controls the tie controls the behavior. Kenjaku, the puppeteer who manufactured the Death Paintings, knows this better than anyone —he designed Choso with that attachment and then used it as a lever, steering his loyalty toward the war that suited him—. Choso kills, during a stretch of his story, because someone knew which cord to pull. But —and here is the second face— explaining that mechanism does not erase the hand that strikes. That his violence springs from a genuine bond, and even from a manipulated one, helps to understand why he acts as he acts; it does not turn his victims into inevitable collateral damage nor free him from what he did. Attachment theory describes the engine of a behavior; it does not sign a moral safe-conduct for it.
The honest reading holds both things at once. Choso is, at bottom, a being capable of a moving loyalty —and his arc proves it when he finally puts that attachment at the service of his own for real—. And Choso, driven by that same attachment and by the one who manipulated him, did real harm to real people within his world. The theory is not there to choose one of those two truths and discard the other, but to hold them together: the bond explains his loyalty, and that does not excuse every blow. The memory that matters is not that of the noble weapon they almost turned him into, but that of those whom his fury —his own and borrowed— reached along the way. To explain is not to excuse.
Tend the tie before others wield it
Choso matters because he teaches that attachment is a force with no moral sign of its own: the same tie that makes someone a faithful protector can make him an instrument in others' hands. Attachment theory puts it another way —the bond is the mold of behavior, but the direction it takes depends on what story feeds it and on who has access to it—. In real life this translates into a preventive lesson: the intense bonds of those who grew up without support, without a stable family, without a reliable caregiver, are at once their greatest strength and their greatest blind spot —the ground where the manipulation of cults, networks or leaders who offer the belonging that was missing takes hold best—. To protect someone is not only to give them a bond; it is to make sure that bond does not end up being the lever with which another controls them. Choso found, in the end, someone to be truly loyal to. The question he leaves open is how many people, with his same thirst for belonging, find their own Kenjaku first.
Three key takeaways
- Choso embodies attachment theory (Bowlby, Ainsworth): the first emotional bond is the mold of empathy, loyalty, and behavior. Manufactured with no childhood, he clings to the tie with his siblings as his only map of the world.
- Attachment is the engine of all his behavior: the same root of affection that gives him his tenderness and his capacity for sacrifice hurls him into battle and turns him into a weapon. Loyalty and violence spring from the same bond.
- To explain is not to excuse. Kenjaku manipulates that attachment to direct his violence, and understanding the mechanism helps to comprehend —not to justify—. The bond explains his loyalty; it does not erase the hand that strikes.
Sources · further reading
- Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss, Vol. 1: Attachment. Basic Books.
- Ainsworth, M. D. S. y cols. (1978). Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation. Lawrence Erlbaum.
- Bowlby, J. (1944). «Forty-Four Juvenile Thieves: Their Characters and Home-Life». International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 25.
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Choso?
Choso («La Pintura de la Muerte») es un villano de Jujutsu Kaisen, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. He never lived with them, but he killed for them.
¿Por qué Choso (La Pintura de la Muerte) se convierte en villano?
Choso, the Death Painting of Jujutsu Kaisen, and attachment theory (Bowlby): how the bond with siblings he barely knew defines every blow he lands. The tie as the only map of a being manufactured for war.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Choso?
El caso de Choso se analiza desde la Apego. Attachment theory (John Bowlby; Mary Ainsworth) holds that the first emotional bond is the mold on which empathy, loyalty, and behavior are built. Choso, the Death Painting of Jujutsu Kaisen, is a manufactured cursed spirit, the eldest brother of the Death Paintings, who barely lived with his siblings and yet defends them with absolute ferocity. His attachment —intense, almost the only thing he has— explains every one of his decisions: he protects, he avenges, and when Kenjaku manipulates that tie, he kills believing he is doing the right thing. The bond as the engine of all his behavior, violence included.
