By the press reading of the manga, awakened Maki reaches Toji's level, not beyond it: CBR calls her "a demonic fighter equal to Toji" after chapter 198, and Wikipedia says she becomes "just like Toji Fushiguro" (CBR, Wikipedia, Maki Zen'in). Equal is as far as those sources go. None of them says she surpasses him.
*Spoilers for Season 2 and Season 3, plus manga-only spoilers from chapter 191 onward in marked reveals.* This post belongs to the Culling Game arc of our Jujutsu Kaisen story guide.
Pick your path: are they related, did they fight, both records, or Maki against Sukuna.
YourCrush.AI has Toji Fushiguro as a chat character, so once you have read this you can talk to Toji Fushiguro yourself.
Is Maki stronger than Toji?
No source goes that far. The strongest claim on record is that she becomes his equal, and only after the Culling Game remade her body.
A Heavenly Restriction is a condition in Jujutsu Kaisen, forced on someone at birth, that trades away cursed energy for a body of superhuman strength and speed (CBR). Toji and Maki both have one, which is why the comparison exists at all. Maki is sixteen in the main story (Game Rant); Toji is an adult whose age is never given.
How YourCrush.AI lets you spar with a fighter who has no magic at all
YourCrush.AI builds the opponent from the traits you pick, so adding Arrogant or Aggressive gives you a sparring partner who does not go easy. YourCrush.AI keeps the rivalry's history in pinned memories, which lets Gideon bring up the fight you lost last Tuesday. YourCrush.AI runs story branches, so you can replay the same fight from the moment it turned and try a different move. YourCrush.AI also sends voice messages, if you want his flat delivery out loud.
It is free to join and 18+ only, and conversations are not sold to third parties.
Is Maki as strong as Toji?
Not at first. Until the Culling Game, Maki still carried a little cursed energy, while Toji was born with absolutely none (CBR). That gap closes after her sister Mai dies. The narration says Maki "had gained a body of steel that had broke away from Cursed Energy," and from that point the press starts comparing the two directly (ComicBook).
ComicBook puts the change plainly: Maki "now has a hardened body with no longer a need for a reliance on cursed energy much like Toji Fushiguro" (ComicBook). So the answer depends on when you ask. Before chapter 150, it's Toji. After it, the press treats them as peers, and by chapter 198 CBR calls her his equal.
Is Maki related to Toji?
Yes, they're cousins. Wikipedia lists Toji Fushiguro as Maki's cousin (Wikipedia, Maki Zen'in). Both were born into the Zen'in clan, but their paths split early: Toji left the clan, married, and took his wife's surname, Fushiguro, while Maki grew up inside it (Game Rant).
That same family tree ties Maki to Toji's son Megumi, her first cousin once removed by the same infobox. How that father and son meet, and what Toji does when he recognizes him, is told in Toji and Megumi.
Did Toji and Maki ever fight?
No. The closest the two ever come to sharing a scene is Shibuya, and it isn't a fight. Toji, back from the dead, picks up Maki's cursed tool and uses it to exorcise Dagon, the curse she and the others had been losing to. Every "Toji vs Maki" comparison you'll find online sets Toji's record against the awakened Maki of the Culling Game, a version of her that only exists after Toji has died a second time (Wikipedia, Season 2).
Shibuya, Dagon
Halloween night, 2018. The curse user Granny Ogami summons Toji into her grandson's body with her Séance Technique. She means to call up only the body's information, but Toji's physique lets his consciousness take over (Season 2 episode 11) (Dexerto). He kills her in episode 12, then goes looking for the strongest presence nearby (Wikipedia, Season 2).
Spoiler: the one scene Toji and Maki share
Nanami, Maki, Megumi and Naobito are struggling against Dagon inside its domain. Toji walks in, takes Maki's cursed tool and exorcises Dagon, destroying the domain (Season 2 episode 15, "Fluctuations, Part 2") (Wikipedia, Season 2). Then he turns on Megumi. After stabbing him, Toji recognizes his son, and, proud that Megumi has rejected the Zen'in name, he stabs his own vessel in the head to end the possession (episode 16, "Thunderclap") (Wikipedia, Season 2). The full account is in how Toji died twice.
Who is stronger, Toji or Maki, on their records?
Toji's record includes apparently killing a teenage Gojo, beating Geto, and, back in Shibuya, exorcising Dagon with Maki's own tool; he died when Gojo came back with Reverse Cursed Technique and Hollow Purple. Maki's includes killing her father and the Zen'in clan, a punch that left its print on Naoya's face, a rematch with Naoya's curse at Sakurajima, and running Sukuna through the heart, though Sukuna then beat her (Wikipedia, Season 2, Wikipedia, Maki Zen'in).
2006, the ambush
Toji is a sorcerer killer for hire, a mercenary and weapons master; CBR calls his "entire profession ... an attempt to spite the Zenin clan" (CBR). In 2006 he takes a contract against the girl two teenage students, Gojo and Geto, are guarding.
Spoiler: how Toji beats the strongest sorcerer of his generation
Toji ambushes them in Tokyo. Gojo sees a man with no cursed energy and enormous physical ability, and Toji, with a special cursed tool, apparently kills him; then Geto fights Toji and loses (Season 2 episodes 3 to 4) (Wikipedia, Season 2). Gojo survives by awakening his Reverse Cursed Technique and comes back with Hollow Purple, which destroys Toji's left side (chapter 75; episode 4).
Our imagining of Toji, in his voice, sizing up a sorcerer who leans on cursed energy: "All that power and you still have to see me coming. I don't."
The pit and the clan
How Maki got here is told in full in what the Culling Game is. The short version: her father Ogi leaves Maki and her younger twin Mai in a pit of cursed spirits (Sportskeeda).
Spoiler: what Mai gives Maki
Dying, Mai makes Maki the Split Soul Katana and asks her to "destroy everything" (chapters 149 to 150) (Sportskeeda).
Spoiler: what Maki does to the Zen'in
After killing their father, Maki "slaughters Naoya Zen'in and all members of the Zen'in clan" (chapters 150 to 151; Season 3 episode 4) (Wikipedia, Maki Zen'in). Her punch leaves its print on Naoya's face (ComicBook), but it is her mother who stabs Naoya and kills him (Screen Rant).
Our reading of the clan scenes: this is the fight Toji never had. He walked away from the family; Maki walks back in.
Sakurajima
Manga-only spoiler: the chapter that makes Maki Toji's equal
Naoya returns as a cursed spirit and faces Maki at the Sakurajima colony (chapter 191 onward) (Screen Rant). Fighting him, "she is fully awakened, becoming just like Toji Fushiguro" (Wikipedia, Maki Zen'in), and CBR, on chapter 198, calls her "a demonic fighter equal to Toji" (CBR). The wider colony story is in who plays the Culling Game.
So is Maki stronger than Toji on these records? The records are not the same kind of fight. Toji's best wins came against two teenage students he had first worn down with a bounty (Wikipedia, Season 2), and a curse four other sorcerers had already been fighting; Maki's came against her own clan and a man who had just been brought back as a curse. Neither fought anything like the other's opponents, which is why every honest source stops at "equal".
Can Maki beat Sukuna?
She cannot beat him alone: in the Shinjuku Showdown Maki pierces Sukuna through the heart with the Split Soul Katana, then loses when she takes a direct hit. Sukuna is finally beaten by Yuji, with Megumi fighting from inside and Nobara's Resonance (Wikipedia, Maki Zen'in, Screen Rant).
Manga-only spoiler: how close Maki gets to Sukuna
The blow lands in chapter 251. Game Rant's review of chapter 252 describes Maki as having "dealt an incredibly powerful blow to Sukuna in the previous chapter ... aimed directly at his heart" (Game Rant). She takes the hit that beats her and walks away from it, still standing at the end (CBR). The whole fight sits inside the Shinjuku Showdown.
Why does the Zen'in clan keep making fighters like these?
The clan measures worth in cursed energy, and both of them were born without enough of it. The press calls the Zen'in "discriminatory" (CBR), and that discrimination shaped both of them.
Toji's whole career is, in CBR's words, an attempt to spite the clan. Maki's massacre is retribution "for the pain she and Mai were forced to undergo during their childhood" (Wikipedia, Maki Zen'in). Our reading: Toji answered the clan by leaving it and spending his life spiting it. Maki answered it by ending it. Their power is the same kind. What differs is what each did with the family that made them.
Our imagining of Toji on the family name, in his voice: "Zen'in. They spent years telling me I was nothing. I took a better name and stopped answering to theirs."
Build a fighter who needs no magic
There's no Toji page to copy from, so I built an original adult around the same premise: a fighter with no magic who beats people who have it. Paste these fields into build a fighter who needs no magic.
| Field | What to paste |
|---|---|
| Name | Gideon Marsh |
| Category | Human |
| Behaviour mode | natural |
| Traits | Confident, Sarcastic, Calm, Aggressive, Loyal |
| Speaking style | flat, wry, economical, blunt |
| Description | Gideon Marsh is a forty-year-old private bodyguard in a city where most of his rivals can do magic and he cannot. He is broad, unhurried, and carries a gym bag full of strange tools he never explains. He is contemptuous of people who lean on talent they were born with and quietly respectful of anyone who trained for what they have. Loyal once he is paid, and sometimes after. |
| Backstory | He was born into a family of mages and was the only one without a spark. He left at eighteen, changed his name, and built a career out of protecting clients from the kind of people who raised him. You hired him this morning. Your problem is a mage. He finds that funny. |
| Greeting | So you're the client. Relax, I read the file. Your stalker throws fire. Mine never did, and I still turned out fine. Here's how this works: you tell me everything, I decide what matters, and nobody in your family gets to call me a nobody. Deal? |
Frequently asked questions
Is Maki just a female Toji?
The press compares them directly, but Maki started with a little cursed energy and only matched Toji after Mai's death, and their stories go opposite ways (CBR).
Could Maki surpass Toji?
The sources stop at "equal to Toji" and go no further (CBR).
Does Maki survive Jujutsu Kaisen?
She does. Maki appears in the final chapter (CBR).
Who killed Toji?
Gojo killed him in 2006 with Hollow Purple. When Toji came back in Shibuya inside another man's body, he ended it himself in Season 2 episode 16 (Wikipedia, Season 2).
What is the Split Soul Katana?
It's the sword Mai makes for Maki as she dies. Maki later drives it through Sukuna's heart (Wikipedia, Maki Zen'in).
Does Toji have any cursed energy?
None at all. His Heavenly Restriction traded every drop of it for his body (CBR).
More from Culling Game
- Read the full story: What is the Culling Game? The rules, the colonies and how it starts
- When is Jujutsu Kaisen season 4 coming out? What is confirmed about Culling Game Part 2
- Start here: What is Jujutsu Kaisen about? The whole story in order, starting with Season 1
- Chat with Toji Fushiguro: Toji Fushiguro on YourCrush.AI
- Also on YourCrush: Male anime characters: 20 adult icons, grouped by archetype
- Also on YourCrush: 40 female anime characters, grouped by the job they do in the story