It is a reality, today, Sunday September 29, 2024, the acclaimed manga by Gege Akutami, Jujutsu Kaisen has come to an end leaving a surprising last panel as a reflection. Many have read this amazing work since its first volume, six years have passed since then and the series has taken an immeasurable fame through its anime adaptation and many good decisions, but was this as expected? WARNING! this note will contain spoilers for the Jujutsu Kaisen manga.
Jujutsu Kaisen has come to an end, did the play have a good ending?
In this chapter 271, the one that ends everything, we could see how Jujutsu Kaisen leaves us after such a long time since its first publication. Not many people agreed with the development of the final events of the series, they even hated it on social networks, also many piled on Gege Akutami’s work calling it “another failure of the current shonen”. Are these words true? We just need to analyze well the key points.
Starting out as one of the current shonen offerings with an interesting premise surrounding Yuji Itadori, Jujutsu Kaisen caught everyone in a hurricane that we will call the “Script”. This script, which has the structure of shonens with the essence of its mangaka, makes this a good manga to read. If it has been so good, why are the fans not satisfied? Looking at the beginning of the work we have our main objective, Yuji’s, is to collect the fingers of the curse king to seal him again, since he ate one of the fingers of this powerful being and is obliged to get them back or else he will be executed.
That goal, now returning to the present, in chapter 271 of the manga, which ends the development of events, shows us a Sukuna who has already been defeated in previous chapters with a firm pose after talking to Mahito about that “he has decided to look for another way”, not dying to repeat the cycle he had for hundreds of years. Also, we can see the Jujutsu wizards smiling again together and in one last panel, Sukuna’s last finger with a seal on it. Is this a lukewarm ending, or can it be taken as an ending without much emotion, although I would like to add a couple of things.
The beginning of Jujutsu Kaisen is with Yuji eating a sealed finger, the ending is a smiling Yuji after being victorious in his battle with the most powerful sorcerer (curse in terms). The cycle that was started was closed after thousands of hitches along the way, using the script we all know from shonens. Our character aimed to get rid of his aids, which were this villain that caused so much damage. Many suffered, as is normal in the pursuit of these goals, we saw others die. Isn’t this smiling group of friends/companions enough of an explanation?
The endings vary according to the genre of the work, some more mythical and enigmatic, those using the classic script tend to be of this style. There is a problem, the problem is solved, working as a long road full of ups and downs to take empathy in each character and their struggle to end the problem, thus Jujutsu Kaisen has provided us with expectation in this road of ups and downs. When we reach the end we feel empty, calm, as we have been in tension, therefore, that we expect something higher than that, but is this the goal? An ending is just that, an ending, which lets us see how the problem is solved.
We can see this also in the recent ending of My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia), which was rated in the same way as Jujutsu Kaisen. If we see, they work in the same way, with the problem being solved after a battle on the edge of hopelessness, everyone feels empty “Why isn’t there more?”, this being the ending, aiming to give us to understand “this is the end”. Kimetsu no Yaiba and Attack On Titan have gone through this, let alone Bleach or Naruto in their time at the end of their manga. Apparently we don’t like endings, or rather, we don’t like that the works, characters that we love so much, go away.
After all, Jujutsu Kaisen is a work with so many good characters that we got caught up in it and it is hard to let it go, unfortunately it has already ended with the last panel mentioned, showing us the long road we have traveled over the years. What do you think of this ending, of how the pieces have moved on this board? Let’s just hope that Gege Akutami will offer us some good words at the end of the year in the official publication of the corresponding volume.