Jujutsu Kaisen: Did Yuki Leave Too Soon?

Highlights

Yuki Tsukumo's charismatic personality and hilarious approval of Todo's actions won the hearts of fans in Jujutsu Kaisen.
As one of the only 4 Special Grade Sorcerers and possessing a powerful Cursed Technique called Star Rage, Yuki was a formidable force in the series.
Yuki's selflessness and noble intentions to create a safer world brought depth and tragedy to her character arc, making her departure a poignant moment in the story.

Even in such a series that's filled to the brim with amazing and memorable characters, only a few from Jujutsu Kaisen have become instant hits since their first appearances like Yuki Tsukumo. Her first showing was in Todo's flashback and even though practically nothing was known about her, Yuki's personality won the hearts of fans due to her charisma and her hilarious approval of Todo beating up other school kids.

Since then, her involvement in Jujutsu Kaisen has become more frequent, showing her to be an even better character when fleshed out. Her amazing design, cool personality and insane abilities made her a much-beloved asset in all her showings, leading to her eventual face-off against Kenjaku. This is where she would meet her end, leading many fans to think of her as a wasted character who was gone too soon, so is this really the case?

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Why Was Yuki So Important To The Story?

Being one of the only 4 Special Grade Sorcerers recognized by Jujutsu HQ, Yuki was easily one of the most powerful characters in the entire series, as her Cursed Technique was strong enough to cause untold destruction. Very little of her backstory is known, only that she is a former Star Plasma Vessel who rejected a merger with Tengen, as well as the fact that she is the one who trained Todo.

Yuki's Cursed Technique is known as Star Rage and is very overpowered. This allows her to add mass to herself and her Shikigami, making their attacks deal an incredible amount of damage. Since the mass she can add is seemingly infinite, Yuki takes the crown as the hardest hitter in all of Jujutsu Kaisen, delivering stronger attacks than even Gojo or Sukuna! She can also continuously add an infinite amount of mass to herself, transforming into a destructive black hole that destroys everything in its path.

Yuki was powerful enough to save all of the students of Jujutsu High against Uraume and Kenjaku in the final part of the Shibuya Incident arc. There, Kenjaku realized that she was someone of great power and was a formidable force to face off against, even for him. These sentiments were confirmed by him in their eventual clash.

Yuki's main goal in life was to figure out how to prevent the formation of Cursed Spirits from humans for the world to be a safer place. Since these spirits are formed from the accumulation of Cursed Energy leaked out from humans, Yuki needed to find out how to prevent this from happening and came up with 2 ways to do this. The first was to get rid of Cursed Energy altogether and the other was to teach every human how to control it by becoming sorcerers and preventing the leakage. She brought up her plan to Geto, who said that the same can be done by killing all humans, starting him down his evil path.

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Did She Leave Too Soon?

Many fans feel that Yuki met her demise way too early in the series and that she did not live up to her Special Grade status like the others did. The only fight that Yuki was seen in was when she and Choso teamed up against Kenjaku during the Culling Game, in which they put up a great fight against the ancient Curse User. With all her ideals and goals being left unsolved, however, her death is commonly seen as having happened too early.

Special Grades are defined as walking calamities with enough Cursed Energy reserves to power entire countries by themselves. This common sentiment about Yuki not living up to her status as being in this grade is false, as her true power was shown against one of the most powerful Jujutsu users of all time and at the end of their fight, Kenjaku was shown as having sustained a lot of damage.

Yuki's defining trait was her selflessness, as she devoted her life to finding a way for there to be a peaceful world for everyone, especially the weak. To do this, she was willing to get rid of all Cursed Energy, even for herself, as she cared more for the greater good than just what made her special. Her methods and ideologies live on in the Jujutsu High students, who continue to fight against Kenjaku and Sukuna, enemies that are continually rewarded for being self-indulgent.

Yuki's end itself is also something that many fans disagree with but, is one that makes sense for the larger story. Her death at the hands of Kenjaku caused many people to say that Gege Akutami is unable to write female characters. However, the author has confirmed that, regardless of who the character is, they are killed off when they have filled their role within the story, and Yuki is no exception to this rule.

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Yuki's departure took place before she could see her dreams come to fruition. However, rather than bringing down her story, her death showed her as someone who had noble and pure intentions to benefit the greater good but was killed in her pursuit to achieve them, greatly adding an aura of tragedy to her arc. This makes Yuki someone that the fans can relate to and sympathize with even more, as she had so much more to give, adding depth and nuance to the overall story.

Moreover, the only battle that she takes part in is easily one of the most powerful characters in the history of Jujutsu Kaisen. Kenjaku is ancient and is one of the only 2 characters to have a Domain Expansion that spawns within the real world instead of creating a barrier, directly shooting him up to being one of the most powerful characters in history, who also has some of the greatest knowledge about the nature of Cursed Energy.

If Yuki had lost against someone who wasn't on such a level, then her death would be very contrived. However, her death makes perfect narrative sense due to Kenjaku's insane power and unmatched intelligence, as well as how the events of the battle unfolded. Yuki will remain as one of the greatest side characters in all of Jujutsu Kaisen and her time in the story perfectly served her character arc.

Jujutsu Kaisen can be streamed on Amazon Prime and Netflix.