Jujutsu Kaisen: What are Vengeful Spirits?

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Jujutsu Kaisen (2020)

Highlights

Vengeful Spirits in Jujutsu Kaisen are powerful spirits formed after a person dies, their souls corrupted by Cursed Energy.
These spirits are different from regular curses and can only be formed through specific means, such as being cursed by someone else or dying outside of Jujutsu.
The power of Vengeful Spirits comes from the immense amount of Cursed Energy used in their formation, as well as any pre-existing abilities or connections they had in life.

Jujutsu Kaisen is a series that is quite famous among the fandom for being quite confusing when it comes to certain aspects of the story. These aspects are often either a character who has perplexing motivations, a really intricate and complex ability that is very hard to get a proper grasp on, or even central themes of the story being mistaken for something else despite being completely different.

Vengeful Spirits are an example of the latter category. In a series full of magical powers, Cursed Spirits and Shikigami that all coexist in a fantastical world, it is quite easy to confuse some concepts with others. In this article, let's break down what a Vengeful Spirit even is and how it is different from the other spirits that exist in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen.

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What is a Vengeful Spirit?

A Vengeful Spirit can be most easily defined as a spirit formed after a person dies. Once they die, their soul is then corrupted by heaps of Cursed Energy, giving birth to a ghostly Spirit that is far more powerful than just another regular curse. Much like Cursed Spirits and Jujutsu Sorcerers, Vengeful Spirits can also be categorized into a grading system, with Special Grade Vengeful Spirits being the strongest of them all.

However, this doesn't mean that the souls of everyone turns into one of these spirits after death. The process of this happening is quite specific as there are only 2 known ways that a Vengeful Spirit is formed. The first of these happens when one's death has been cursed by someone else, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and when they're cursed, the soul of the person is then corrupted with Cursed Energy and turns into a massively powerful spirit.

Another way one can turn into such a spirit is when a practitioner of Jujutsu, whether an official sorcerer or a Curse User, dies by any means other than Jujutsu. An example of this is when Naoya Zenin turns into a Vengeful Spirit after Maki's rampage across the Zenin Clan headquarters. When she kills all the members of the Zenin family and leaves Naoya critically injured, the Clan Head is then stabbed by Maki's mother with a knife.

Since this knife was just an ordinary one that wasn't infused with any Cursed Energy, Naoya's own Cursed Energy leaked out upon his death and corrupted his soul, transforming him into an extremely powerful Cursed Spirit that was able to move at Mach 3 speeds and was only defeated by Maki after she realized the full potential of her Heavenly Restriction.

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Why Are Vengeful Spirits So Powerful?

The few Vengeful Spirits that have been shown in Jujutsu Kaisen have been extremely powerful. The main reason for this is that the very act of becoming a Vengeful Spirit makes the resulting spirit very strong due to the sheer amount of Cursed Energy used. In the case of Naoya, he was already a Grade 1 sorcerer with an extremely powerful Inherited Cursed Technique that made him one of the fastest characters in the entire series.

Rika, on the other hand, most likely had Jujutsu abilities when she died, as is hinted by her mysterious past. However, not only was she cursed after her death, the one who cursed her was Yuta Okkotsu. Yuta is one of the most powerful characters in the entire setting of Jujutsu Kaisen, one of the few 4 recognized Special Grade Sorcerers with a near-bottomless pool of Cursed Energy that is greater than even Gojo's.

Due to Yuta's insane natural abilities and strength, his inadvertent cursing of Rika to keep her alive after her accident transformed her into a Special Grade Vengeful Spirit. In this state, Rika was so powerful that she was largely known as the 'Queen of Curses', giving Yuta the ability to store many Cursed Tools as well as copy the techniques of other people.

There were 3 Great Vengeful Spirits of Japan, namely Sugawara no Michizane, Taira no Masakado and Emperor Sutoku. Sugawara is the only one who has received a bit more information in that he is the ancestor of both Yuta and Gojo, making it clear why they both have such incredible reserves of Cursed Energy. Yuta's connection to Rika is one of the main reasons why she is so powerful, but also because the nature of a Vengeful Spirit makes them very strong as it is.

Jujutsu Kaisen can be streamed on Amazon Prime and Netflix.