Jujutsu Kaisen is about Yuji Itadori, a high school student who swallows a cursed finger belonging to Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses. The higher-ups let him live on one condition: he has to eat all twenty fingers and then be executed with Sukuna inside him (Wikipedia, Season 1). Gege Akutami's manga ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from March 2018 to September 2024, and MAPPA's anime has aired three seasons and a film (Wikipedia).
Spoilers ahead: all of Season 1 (chapters 1 to 63, episodes 1 to 24). Later arcs are named only, and anything past Season 1 sits inside a marked reveal.
Pick your path: Season 1 told as a story, the watch order, every arc after Season 1, or what Season 3 covers.
YourCrush.AI has Mei Mei, one of the sorcerers in this story, as a chat character you can talk to once you have read it.
What is Jujutsu Kaisen about?
What is Jujutsu Kaisen about? Basically, it follows Yuji Itadori, a high schooler who swallows one of Sukuna's twenty severed fingers to save his friends. That single act turns him into the curse's host, though he somehow keeps control of his own body. Satoru Gojo offers him a deal: consume all twenty fingers, then die with Sukuna inside him. In return, Yuji gets to enroll at Tokyo Jujutsu High (Wikipedia, Season 1).
Jujutsu Kaisen is a manga by Gege Akutami, serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2018 to 2024 and adapted into an anime by MAPPA, about sorcerers who exorcise curses and the teenager who becomes host to the strongest curse of all (Wikipedia). The manga ran from March 5, 2018 to September 30, 2024 and fills 30 volumes (Wikipedia). Its last chapter, chapter 271, went on sale in Weekly Shonen Jump on Monday, September 30, 2024 (tokyohive).
Before any of that, Akutami wrote a four-chapter prequel for Jump GIGA in 2017. It was first titled Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical School, and it's now known as Jujutsu Kaisen 0 (Wikipedia, Jujutsu Kaisen 0). By December 2025 the manga had "over 150 million copies in circulation" (Wikipedia).
What does Jujutsu Kaisen mean?
Jujutsu Kaisen means roughly "sorcery battle". Jujutsu translates as "sorcery", and kaisen is a word Akutami coined from kai, written with a character meaning "to rotate", and sen, "battle" (Wikipedia).
CBR gives the plain English rendering "Sorcery Fight" and reads the coined word as a battle with curses that goes round and round without ending (CBR). That reading fits the story, which keeps trading one curse for the next.
Who are the main characters in Jujutsu Kaisen?
The main characters are Yuji Itadori, his first-year classmates Megumi Fushiguro and Nobara Kugisaki, their teacher Satoru Gojo, and Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses who lives inside Yuji. Yuji and Megumi are 15 and Nobara is 16 in the main story, Gojo is 28, and Sukuna is over a thousand years old (CBR, character ages; Wikipedia, Sukuna).
Yuji is the protagonist and Sukuna's vessel. Megumi is the student sent to retrieve the finger Yuji swallows, and Nobara gets recruited to Tokyo Jujutsu High at the same time as Yuji (Wikipedia, Season 1). All three are teenagers, so this page tells their story and nothing more.
Gojo is the strongest sorcerer alive, at least as the series frames him. He is the first person in about 400 years born with both the Gojo clan's Six Eyes and its Limitless technique, and he covers his eyes with a blindfold to cut the strain of seeing that much (Game Rant; Wikipedia, Satoru Gojo). Limitless lets him manipulate space, and its default form, Infinity, means a blow aimed at him never arrives (Screen Rant).
Sukuna was the most powerful curse user of Japan's Heian era, over a thousand years ago, and his power is sealed in 20 mummified fingers (Wikipedia, Sukuna). His technique is Shrine and his Domain Expansion is Malevolent Shrine. The adult cast around the students includes Grade 1 sorcerer Kento Nanami, who is in his late twenties (Game Rant).
What is the storyline of Jujutsu Kaisen season 1?
Season 1 runs 24 episodes, aired from October 3, 2020 to March 27, 2021, and covers four arcs: Fearsome Womb, Vs. Mahito, the Kyoto Goodwill Event and Death Painting (Wikipedia; ComingSoon arc guide). It takes Yuji from the night he eats the first finger to the fight in which he and Nobara exorcise the Death Painting brothers.
The finger
It is night, and a curse has come for the object Megumi Fushiguro was sent to collect. Yuji's friends are in the building with it. Yuji has no training and no cursed energy he knows how to use, and he can see that the curse is going to kill them. He picks up the thing everyone is fighting over.
Spoiler: what Yuji swallows, and why he is still himself
Yuji swallows one of Ryomen Sukuna's severed fingers to save his friends. He becomes Sukuna's host, but he keeps control of his own body, which surprises Megumi, who expected the King of Curses to take over at once (chapter 1, episode 1 "Ryomen Sukuna"; Wikipedia, Season 1).
Why he does it is the whole character in one choice. He does not weigh it; he eats it because his friends are about to die and it is the only move on the table.
The deal
Satoru Gojo arrives, looks at a boy who should be possessed and is not, and sees an opportunity the higher-ups will hate. A host who can hold Sukuna down is a way to destroy every finger at once.
Spoiler: the condition Gojo puts on Yuji's life
Gojo explains that Yuji must eat all twenty of Sukuna's fingers, so the curse can be destroyed along with him. Yuji accepts and enrolls at Tokyo Jujutsu High, and Nobara Kugisaki is recruited at the same time (chapters 2 to 3, episode 2 "For Myself"; Wikipedia, Season 1).
Here is how we imagine Gojo putting it to a new student, cheerful about something grim. These are our lines, not the show's: "Twenty fingers, then lights out for both of you. Grim? Sure. But it beats being executed tonight, and you get to see Tokyo first."
The detention center
The first real mission goes wrong fast. At a detention center, a powerful curse corners them, and Yuji decides the way out is to let Sukuna have the body for a moment.
Spoiler: the vow Sukuna forces on Yuji, and what it costs him
Sukuna takes over and forces a binding vow, "Enchain", that lets him seize control of Yuji's body briefly. Then he tears out Yuji's heart. Yuji dies and comes back, but his memory of the vow's terms is erased (episodes 4 to 5; Wikipedia, Season 1; chapters 6 to 10 per Anime Filler Guide). Gojo hides Yuji's revival from the higher-ups, and then shows what he is: he defeats the curse Jogo with Infinity and his Domain Expansion (episodes 6 to 7, "After Rain" and "Assault"; Wikipedia, Season 1).
Sukuna's move tells you what he wants: not freedom tonight, but a contract he can cash in later. Our imagining of the moment the vow takes hold, in his voice: "Forget the terms, brat. I will remember them for both of us."
Junpei
Yuji meets Junpei Yoshino, a bullied high schooler who has fallen under the influence of a curse called Mahito. Mahito treats people like clay, and Junpei has started to believe him.
Spoiler: what Mahito does to Junpei
Mahito turns on Junpei and transfigures him into a mutated creature, and Junpei dies (episode 12, "To You, Someday"). Yuji then fights Mahito alongside Grade 1 sorcerer Kento Nanami (chapters 19 to 31, episodes 9 to 13; Wikipedia, Season 1; ComingSoon arc guide).
This is the arc where Yuji learns that saving people is not the same as being able to. Nanami is the first adult who treats that as a working problem rather than a tragedy.
The Goodwill Event
Yuji walks back into the school, where his classmates think he is dead. Then Tokyo and Kyoto meet for the exchange, and the Kyoto side has a plan of its own.
Spoiler: who wants Yuji dead at the exchange event
Yuji reveals to his classmates that he is alive. The Kyoto students secretly plan to kill him during the event. Kyoto's Aoi Todo teaches Yuji the Black Flash instead, the special-grade curse Hanami crashes the event, and Gojo arrives to break the barrier. The event ends, of all things, with a baseball game (chapters 32 to 54, episodes 14 to 21; Wikipedia, Season 1; Wikipedia, chapter list).
Death Painting
The last arc of the season starts small. Deaths at Megumi's old school trace back to a curse, and the curse is linked to his comatose stepsister, Tsumiki.
Spoiler: how Season 1 ends
The Death Painting brothers Eso and Kechizu are incarnated and fight the three first-years. Yuji and Nobara exorcise them in the finale, "Accomplices" (chapters 55 to 63, episodes 22 to 24; Wikipedia, Season 1).
Why Season 1 runs the way it does
Season 1 runs on a death sentence that keeps getting postponed. The higher-ups want Yuji dead, and Gojo keeps him alive, first with the twenty-finger deal and then by hiding that Yuji came back from the dead (Wikipedia, Season 1). Yuji's own motive is simpler: he ate the finger to save his friends.
So what is Jujutsu Kaisen about, underneath the fights? Our reading: it is built around a teenager who accepted his own execution on day one, which is why every later arc keeps asking what his life is worth, and who gets to decide.
Season 2 does not continue the fight. It goes back to 2006, to two students named Gojo and Geto and a 14-year-old girl they were told to keep alive (Wikipedia, Season 2).
How do you watch Jujutsu Kaisen in order?
Watch in release order: Season 1, then the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 film, then Season 2, then Season 3. In story order JJK 0 comes before Season 1, and the Hidden Inventory episodes that open Season 2 are set earlier still, in 2006 and 2007 (CBR).
The anime has no filler episodes, so the order above is the whole list (Anime Filler Guide).
| Release order | What it is | Aired | Set in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Season 1 | 24 episodes | Oct 2020 to Mar 2021 | 2018 |
| Jujutsu Kaisen 0 | MAPPA film, dir. Sunghoo Park | Dec 24, 2021 (Japan) | 2016 to 2017 |
| Season 2 | Hidden Inventory / Premature Death, then Shibuya Incident | Jul to Dec 2023 | 2006 to 2007, then 2018 |
| Season 3 | The Culling Game: Part 1, 12 episodes | Jan 9 to Mar 27, 2026 | 2018 |
Sources for the table: Wikipedia, Wikipedia, the JJK 0 film, Wikipedia, Season 3. Release order matters because Season 2 assumes you know who Geto is from the film, and story order matters because the film assumes you know nothing yet. When we say "order" on this site, we mean release order unless we say otherwise.
What order does the Jujutsu Kaisen story go in after Season 1?
After Season 1 the story goes back to 2006 for Hidden Inventory, then returns to the present for Shibuya, the Culling Game and the Shinjuku Showdown, while JJK 0 fills in 2016 and 2017. The manga finished with chapter 271 in September 2024, and the anime has reached the first half of the Culling Game (Wikipedia; Wikipedia, Season 3).
Each sentence below opens one story, and each links to the post that tells it in full. Season 2 jumps back to 2006, when Gojo and Geto are students guarding 14-year-old Riko Amanai (Wikipedia, Season 2). A year later, Geto walks away from jujutsu society. In late 2016 Gojo recruits Yuta Okkotsu, a 16-year-old haunted by a cursed spirit, and Geto comes for him on December 24, 2017 (Wikipedia, the JJK 0 film; Game Rant).
Spoiler: how each later arc begins
On Halloween night 2018, curses and curse users trap Gojo in Shibuya (CBR timeline). The same night, Sukuna takes over Yuji's body (Wikipedia).
Kenjaku's Culling Game turns Japan into a battle royale of barrier colonies (Screen Rant), and it brings in the new players: a disillusioned lawyer, a failing comedian, a fighter reincarnated from 400 years ago, an angel (Wikipedia, character list).
Gojo and Sukuna agree to fight on December 24, 2018 (Wikipedia, Satoru Gojo). The manga ends with chapter 271, "From Now On" (Wikipedia, chapter list).
Wikipedia's chapter list titles chapters 65 to 75 "Hidden Inventory" and chapters 76 to 78 "Premature Death", which is why the first stop after Season 1 is split into two posts (Wikipedia, chapter list).
What happens in Jujutsu Kaisen season 3?
Season 3, The Culling Game: Part 1, ran 12 episodes from January 9 to March 27, 2026, and adapts the first half of the manga's Culling Game arc. It ends with Yuta Okkotsu in the Sendai colony. Season 4, The Culling Game: Part 2, is confirmed, but there's no release date yet (Wikipedia, Season 3; CBR).
Spoiler: what happens in Season 3
Yuta Okkotsu is ordered to execute Yuji. Gojo had asked Yuta in advance to look after Yuji if anything happened to him, so Yuta stops Yuji's heart for a moment to satisfy his vow with the elders and then revives him (episode 1, "Execution"; Dexerto; Wikipedia, Season 3).
Maki Zen'in loses her twin sister Mai and gains a body that no longer depends on cursed energy, then turns on the Zen'in clan that abused them both (episode 4, "Perfect Preparation"; Wikipedia, Maki Zen'in).
In Tokyo Colony No. 1, Hiromi Higuruma, a disillusioned defense lawyer, holds a trial against Yuji inside his Domain Expansion. He ends it once he sees Yuji's innocence, then adds a rule that lets players transfer points (Wikipedia, character list; Screen Rant).
The finale, "Sendai Colony", is an extended episode in which Yuta defeats the reincarnated sorcerers Uro and Ishigori and takes their points. Screen Rant puts the stopping point at about chapter 181 (Wikipedia, Season 3; Screen Rant).
Everything after that point is manga-only for now. As of October 2026, Season 4 has a teaser and a new director, Takeru Sato, but no premiere date or window (Anime News Network). Any 2027 date you see is unconfirmed.
Is Jujutsu Kaisen worth watching?
Plenty of viewers say yes. The manga had over 150 million copies in circulation by December 2025, and the JJK 0 film grossed $191.1 million worldwide (Wikipedia; Wikipedia, the JJK 0 film). There's no filler, and the manga is finished, so the story you start actually has an ending.
My own take, and I'll label it as mine: the first eight episodes are the worst way to judge the show. It only reveals what it is once Junpei's arc lands. If episode 12 doesn't hook you, nothing later will. If it does, the 2006 flashback that opens Season 2 is the best stretch of anime MAPPA has produced.
How YourCrush.AI lets you talk to a Jujutsu Kaisen sorcerer yourself
You can talk to one of the adult sorcerers from the series directly: chat with Mei Mei, an adult sorcerer who, in Shibuya, leads a small team and gets civilians out (CBR timeline). She is 31 in the main story (DualShockers).
YourCrush.AI keeps the conversation consistent with pinned memories, so the job you agreed on and the price she named are still in play forty messages later. YourCrush.AI lets you branch a story, which means you can accept her offer in one branch and refuse it in another. YourCrush.AI also has voice messages and in-chat image generation, and its Anime library holds other characters members have built. If you want a sorcerer of your own, the character creator drafts the description, backstory and greeting from a name and an image. It is free to join, signed-in members chat without a message cap, and the site is for adults 18 and over.
Frequently asked questions
Is Jujutsu Kaisen finished?
The manga is. It wrapped with chapter 271 on September 30, 2024 (tokyohive). The anime is still working through that material, and Season 4 is confirmed.
How many seasons of Jujutsu Kaisen are there?
Three seasons have aired, plus the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 film. Season 4, The Culling Game: Part 2, is confirmed but has no release date yet (Wikipedia, Season 3).
Why is Jujutsu Kaisen so hard to understand?
Mostly because release order and story order don't line up. The prequel film and the 2006 flashback both came out after Season 1, but both take place before it (CBR).
Does Jujutsu Kaisen have filler?
No. The anime has no filler episodes at all (Anime Filler Guide). Every episode adapts the manga.
Is Jujutsu Kaisen rated 18+?
No. VIZ rates the English manga Teen Plus, most US services list the anime as TV-MA (Funimation listed it TV-14), and the JJK 0 film is rated PG-13 (VIZ; The Mary Sue; Los Angeles Times review).
Where can I stream Jujutsu Kaisen?
Crunchyroll licenses the series outside Asia (Wikipedia, Season 3). Its English dub of Season 3 began on January 22, 2026.
Every guide in Jujutsu Kaisen
Culling Game
- Chat with Gojo Satoru: Gojo Satoru on YourCrush.AI
- Chat with Sukuna: Sukuna on YourCrush.AI
- Chat with Mei Mei: Mei Mei on YourCrush.AI
- Also on YourCrush: Anime AI chat: twelve canon adults sorted by how they talk, and how to build your own
- Also on YourCrush: Male anime characters: 20 adult icons, grouped by archetype
- Also on YourCrush: Anime villains who work: what each one wants, and how to build your own