Jujutsu Kaisen: Itadori’s Hidden Power Theory Explained

Warning: Contains spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen episode 15 and chapter 134.

Jujutsu Kaisen’s Yuji Itadori might come across as lacking in the superpower department compared to other sorcerers, but it’s very possible that he actually has a hidden power. The anime hasn’t gone into explicit detail on Itadori’s abilities, but there’s a possibility that it’s laid out some hints of varying sizes for what he might be capable of.

Sorcerers, curses, and curse users – the three categories of superpowered beings in Jujutsu Kaisen – all fight by harnessing curse energy and manipulating it to power curse techniques, all of which come with their own unique abilities and mechanics. Itadori, however, is an exception to this by having no curse technique to fight with; while he has gone into fights with his Divergent Fist and Black Flash techniques, those are just extensions of the basic applications of curse energy manipulation that any sorcerer can do. Gojo has implied that Itadori will develop his own technique over time, however, and the show may have already hinted at what that could be.

In episode fifteen, Itadori is facing off against Aoi Todo of Kyoto Tech in the Kyoto Sister School Exchange Event, and it becomes very clear very quickly that Itadori is outmatched; something like that would always be bad, but is made worse by the fact that Todo and the rest of the Kyoto students are planning to kill Itadori in order to eliminate Ryomen Sukuna, the evil spirit inside of him. At one point, Todo puts the fight on pause to ask Itadori about the type of girl he likes, and Todo is moved when Itadori responds with, “a tall woman with a big ass, like Jennifer Lawrence”. So moved, in fact, that he’s brought to tears as he spontaneously concocts a delusion of the two of them being best friends and spends the rest of the event training Itadori to be a stronger sorcerer.

On the surface, it’s just a silly scene that emphasizes how weird of a character Todo is, but it could very easily be something else, entirely. Curse techniques are incredibly varied anime powers in terms of ability and application, and since Itadori was losing a fight against someone who was ready to kill him, his own curse technique may be some sort of brainwashing power that turned Todo into his best friend. If that’s the case, then the condition for activating it would either be Itadori being in a life-or-death situation, Itadori resonating with his opponent in some way, or some combination of the two. Indeed, this also has happened once more in the manga, with antagonist Choso being on the verge of murdering Itadori in Chapter 134, only to suddenly believe the pair are siblings and begin to ardently defend him as a result. With the anime adaptation using the manga faithfully thus far, it seems a sure sign that this will also happen in the show, suggesting that in both some power – either Yuji’s or some other invested party like Sukuna – is ensuring those about the kill Itadori instead become his unlikely allies.

While recent revelations have left it far more likely this is a case of other individuals at work – as manga creator Gege Akutami has stated in an interview that Todo and Choso had these change of hearts for differing reasons – it’s still an undeniably fascinating theory, that may still help viewers theorize about what is really going on behind the scenes. Whatever the case is, seeing how this strange phenomenon is potentially explained in future installments of Jujutsu Kaisen will certainly be interesting to see.

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