Highlights
- Sukuna's mastery of Cursed Energy surpasses even the mastermind Kenjaku, allowing him to outmaneuver and defeat powerful opponents like Gojo.
- His Cursed Technique, Dismantle and Cleave, is a devastating offense that unleashes invisible Cursed Energy to cut down enemies.
- Sukuna's philosophy of strength and life sets him apart, as he values power and challenges from others, seeing love and validation in those who seek to defeat him.
Jujutsu Kaisen is currently in what may be its final arc, as the remainder of Jujutsu High takes on Sukuna to decide the fate of the world. However, unlike many other stories, the villain is constantly shown to have the upper hand against the heroes, as even the strongest among them have perished at the hands of the King of Curses, who has barely broken a sweat in all the fights he has taken part in.
The minimal little effort Sukuna puts in his fights to kill off some of the strongest characters in history has made things very dire for fans, as he seems to be showing no signs of slowing down and still has many powerful tricks up his sleeve. This has led to the rise of the sentiment that Gege Akutami, the writer of Jujutsu Kaisen, just unfairly favors the Cursed Spirit and gives him too much plot armor. However, the key to how Sukuna always seems to win may be much more than that, so let's see the reason for his success.
Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 248: Yuta Joins The Battle
Yuta and Rika join Yuji in his fight against Sukuna in JJK 248.
Sukuna Has A Masterful Understanding Of Cursed Energy
Unlike the other strongest characters in the series, Sukuna's overall strength doesn't only come from his Cursed Technique. In fact, Sukuna's mastery and knowledge of Cursed Energy is second to none, perhaps even surpassing that of Kenjaku, who is known to be the mastermind behind the biggest events in the series.
In his battle against Gojo, Sukuna's full might was on display. Many times in the fight, however, he was getting outclassed and severely beaten by the Limitless user, with the narrator even stating that Sukuna was nervous for the first time in 1000 years. However, the aftermath of the battle would show that Sukuna wasn't even utilizing his full strength and could unleash his far more powerful true form at any point in the clash.
The reason he didn't do this is because he needed a way to bypass and counteract Gojo's Infinity technique, otherwise, Gojo would continue to be a huge thorn in his side. Despite his innate technique, Cleave and Dismantle, being arguably the strongest offensive technique in the series, he knew that it alone did not have the answer to the problem he was facing. This is where his knowledge of Cursed Energy came into play.
Since he was inhabiting Megumi's body, he had access to Megumi's Ten Shadows technique, of which he knew Mahoraga was a part. Knowing Mahoraga's incredible ability to adapt to anything he was faced with, Sukuna used the Shikigami against Gojo and was able to use this adaptation to find a way for himself to counteract Limitless' impregnable defense. By simply observing Mahoraga, he learned that while he couldn't directly cut Gojo, he could cut the space that Gojo inhabited, making his Limitless worthless. To do this, he configured and fortified his Dismantle with enchantments, making it powerful enough to cut through space itself.
Jujutsu Kaisen: Higuruma's Cursed Technique, Explained
Higuruma Hiromi was a character introduced in the Culling Game and was called a sorcerer as talented as Gojo. What's his technique?
Sukuna's Cursed Technique Is The Perfect Offense
Sukuna's Cursed Technique is called Dismantle and Cleave. This is arguably the most powerful of all techniques whose entire focus is on dealing damage as it unleashes invisible Cursed Energy to cut down his opponents. The Dismantle is a simple slash that Sukuna uses more often on Cursed Spirits and inanimate objects to simply cut them down, while Cleave is a series of many slashes that dices his target to pieces and is infused with more energy, making it stronger than the typical Dismantle.
However, Sukuna has more tricks up his sleeve, like his hidden Flame Arrow technique that has unparalleled firepower. This attack was used on Mahoraga and Jogo and was powerful enough to turn entire city blocks to dust, leaving a giant crater in the middle of Shibuya in Sukuna's fight against the former. In the manga, Sukuna can also use his 'Space Dismantle', which is a far stronger version of his traditional slash and the one he used to kill Gojo and Kashimo. This attack has some sort of recharge before it can be used again.
Sukuna's Philosophy Is His Most Important Asset
With everything that has been said about the King of Curses on why he is on a completely different level from even the strongest sorcerers, his true means of power comes from his philosophy of strength and life. Being as powerful as he is, Sukuna in turn also respects the strength of others and knows that, despite being on another level from them entirely, those who have power and can challenge him are closer to him than they think.
Quite often in the story, Sukuna has been called a walking calamity. He has always said that his sole driving force is to live exactly how he wants, without caring about what others have to say and that reaching his level of strength is the only way to ensure that he can do this. While he acknowledges the strength of Gojo and Kashimo, he says that they always had an ideal to strive for and never sought out strength for their own sake.
After killing Kashimo, Sukuna appears to him in a vision and opens up about what it means to be the strongest, since finding out the answer to this was what Kashimo always desired. Sukuna tells him that the loneliness imposed on him by being the strongest is self-imposed and that he does not need anyone else to rely on. Sukuna believes that having the love of others is more than just having someone equal to oneself, as he claims that all those who challenged them despite knowing their reputations loved them too, in a way.
He says that their challengers held them to a very specific standard and sought to validate their strength by challenging them and that the strongest butchered them as a result. This is the only way for them to answer the love of the challengers. Where he differentiates from Gojo and Kashimo is that they let their strength define their solitude by isolating themselves due to their power.
Jujutsu Kaisen: Will Kenjaku Return?
Kenjaku is the evil mastermind of the Jujutsu Kaisen Universe and despite having his head chopped off, he may still come back!
Sukuna only ever relied on and cared about himself, so the feeling of isolation from his strength never came to him. He lives for himself with the goal of getting stronger, making it so that he only needs himself in life, chastising Gojo and Kashimo for not unlocking the true limits of their strength. The only reason that he cannot be beaten, at least right now, is because no one can match his mindset in any other way, something which keeps him as the strongest character in all of Jujutsu Kaisen.
Jujutsu Kaisen can be streamed on Amazon Prime and Netflix.
