Hajime Kashimo, the millennia-old sorcerer of Jujutsu Kaisen, is a strange kind of villain: he isn't chasing power, or a throne, or revenge for an old wound. What moves him is far simpler and, precisely for that reason, far more disturbing —the thrill of the fight. Four hundred years ago he already lived only to test his strength against the strongest; when the strongest never came, he wagered his very existence on a promise of reincarnation just to return and try again. He gave up his life, his name and his humanity for a single question: who is the most powerful being alive, and can he die fighting him? To read him with real criminology, it helps to set aside the temptation to call him a "madman" and pick up a precise tool: the theory of low self-control as Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi formulated it —not an insult, but a stable trait whose core is the pursuit of immediate sensation over any future.
// The theoryNot a plan: an inability to wait
In 1990, Gottfredson and Hirschi proposed something deceptively simple in A General Theory of Crime: most crime does not require sophisticated motives, ideologies or master plans. It requires the absence of self-control —the capacity to restrain an impulse in view of its later consequences—. People with low self-control, they argue, share a recognizable profile: they are impulsive, they prefer simple tasks over patient effort, they are self-centered, they have a volatile temper and, at the heart of it, they are drawn to risk and physical activity and live oriented toward the here and now. Crime, in this reading, is just one of the things such a person does: it offers quick, easy, exciting gratification, and it discounts the future almost to zero. You can explore the framework in depth in the theory of low self-control.
The crucial nuance is that low self-control is not the same as being "evil" or "sick." It's a trait, formed early and relatively stable across life, that raises the probability of impulsive, risk-seeking behavior when the opportunity appears. It explains the shoplifter and the reckless driver as much as the barroom brawler: what they share is not a plan but a way of relating to time —the near reward weighs everything, the distant cost weighs almost nothing—. That is why the theory is so useful for reading Kashimo: he is not confused about the price of his choices. He knows exactly what he is giving up. It simply does not weigh against the prospect of the fight.
The taste for risk
Of the components Gottfredson and Hirschi describe, one governs this file above the rest: the taste for risk and physical action. People with low self-control don't merely tolerate danger —they are drawn to it, they seek the rush of the edge, they feel most alive precisely where others feel fear. This dovetails with what Marvin Zuckerman called sensation seeking: a biologically rooted trait, the appetite for varied, novel and intense experiences even at the cost of physical risk. Kashimo is the extreme portrait: combat is not a means to an end but the end itself, the only experience that registers. He doesn't fight to win a kingdom or to avenge anyone; he fights because the fight is the sensation. Criminologically this matters because risk-oriented individuals respond poorly to the deterrents built for everyone else —the threat of a distant punishment barely moves someone for whom the danger is part of the appeal.
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// The subjectFour hundred years for one battle
Kashimo unfolds the profile with an almost pedagogical clarity. Immediate gratification: everything he does bends toward a single, present sensation —the clash— and he is willing to burn any future to reach it. Preference for the here and now: he does not build, does not cultivate bonds, does not plan a legacy; he wagered eternity itself on the mere chance of fighting again. Self-centeredness: the lives around him barely enter his calculus, not out of cold cruelty like Sukuna's, but because they are simply irrelevant to the only thing that interests him. And above all, the taste for risk taken to its limit: he did not seek a safe victory but the most dangerous opponent imaginable, because a fight without the real possibility of death would give him nothing. Where a curse like Jogo burns with resentment toward humanity and Toji kills for money and skill, Kashimo is moved by neither hatred nor gain: only the pure, addictive pull of the sensation. That is what makes him a manual case —the mechanism is visible in its cleanest form, stripped of every other motive.
Hajime Kashimo
// The flawExplaining the impulse is not signing an acquittal
Here lies the ethical flaw KRIMINIS insists on. To say "he has low self-control, he is a sensation seeker" can slide into two opposite errors. The first is biological determinism: "if he was born wired for risk, he chooses nothing, his temperament decides for him." The second is trivialization: "he just likes fighting, there is nothing to examine." Both close the conversation. The honest reading holds two truths at once: the theory explains the how —why the thrill of the battle outweighs, for Kashimo, his own life and everyone else's— but it does not touch the what —the destruction he leaves behind is still real, and still his—. A stable trait raises the probability of a choice; it does not make the choice for him. Even a person who craves risk retains the capacity to decide where, against whom and at what cost to others he pursues it. Gottfredson and Hirschi themselves were careful on this point: low self-control is a propensity, not a destiny, and it never abolishes responsibility.
Telling the trait apart from the choice
Kashimo matters because he isolates, in almost pure form, one of the most common engines of harm: the pursuit of immediate sensation over any future consequence. Recognizing this pattern has real practical value —it explains why the threat of distant punishment barely deters the risk-oriented, why appeals to prudence rarely land, why prevention that works targets the early formation of self-control rather than after-the-fact deterrence. But recognizing the trait is never the same as excusing the act. The theory tells us why the brake was weak; responsibility is still measured by what was done with that freedom. Explaining the adrenaline that drives Kashimo is precisely the opposite of absolving him: it is learning to see, behind the spectacle of the fight, the very ordinary mechanism —a future discounted to nothing— that also drives far less cinematic harm in the real world.
Three key takeaways
- Low self-control (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990) is not "being evil" but a stable trait: impulsivity, a preference for the here and now, self-centeredness and, centrally, a taste for risk and physical action. Crime is just one of the exciting, immediate gratifications it makes likely.
- Kashimo is the textbook case: he gave up his life, name and humanity for the single sensation of fighting the strongest. There is no plan, ideology or revenge —only a future discounted to zero against the thrill of the battle.
- To explain is not to excuse: the trait clarifies the HOW (why the thrill outweighs the future) but not the WHAT (the harm is still real and still his). A propensity raises the probability of a choice; it never makes the choice for him.
Sources · further reading
- Gottfredson, M. R. & Hirschi, T. (1990). A General Theory of Crime. Stanford University Press.
- Zuckerman, M. (1994). Behavioral Expressions and Biosocial Bases of Sensation Seeking. Cambridge University Press.
- Pratt, T. C. & Cullen, F. T. (2000). «The empirical status of Gottfredson and Hirschi's general theory of crime: A meta-analysis». Criminology, 38(3).
Case-file questionsFrequently asked questions
¿Quién es Hajime Kashimo?
Hajime Kashimo es un villano de Jujutsu Kaisen, analizado en KRIMINIS con la lente de la criminología. He wants no power, no revenge, no throne.
¿Por qué Hajime Kashimo se convierte en villano?
Hajime Kashimo and the theory of low self-control: not a plan, but an impulse. The pursuit of risk, the preference for the here and now, and a millennia-old sorcerer who reincarnates over and over just to fight again.
¿Qué teoría criminológica explica a Hajime Kashimo?
El caso de Hajime Kashimo se analiza desde la Bajo autocontrol. Gottfredson and Hirschi's theory of low self-control (1990) argues that much deviant behavior is born not of grand plans but of a stable trait: the inability to postpone gratification. Its central components are impulsivity, a preference for the here and now and —decisive in this file— a taste for risk and physical action. Hajime Kashimo, the millennia-old sorcerer of Jujutsu Kaisen, is the textbook case: an adrenaline junkie who gave up his life, his name and his humanity for the only thrill that matters to him, that of fighting the strongest. The theory explains the HOW —why risk outweighs everything else—; it excuses nothing.
