Yuji Itadori: Character Spotlight

Yuji Itadori Is the Kind of Protagonist You Worry About

Spoilers: Jujutsu Kaisen (Season 1- Season 2)

Yuji Itadori starts Jujutsu Kaisen as a kid who genuinely believes being kind will be enough.

Not because he’s naïve, but because nothing has convinced him otherwise yet. He’s strong, but what actually defines him early on is how easily he cares.

He helps strangers.

He listens.

He takes his grandfather’s last words seriously in a way that quietly ruins his life.

“Help people.”

That’s it. That’s all he gets.

Yuji builds his entire sense of right and wrong around it, like his grandfather handed him a loaded curse and said “good luck” on the way out.

Then Sukuna shows up and turns it into a curse.

He swallowed a finger.

Yuji doesn’t become a sorcerer because he wants power or answers or some higher purpose.

He becomes one because he swallowed a finger and people start dying, and in his head the conclusion hits immediately:

Oh. This is my fault.

That’s it. No spiraling debate. No heroic refusal. Just responsibility snapping into place like it was always waiting for him.

He accepts the deal the same way he accepts everything else in his life: too fast, without checking the fine print, already halfway convinced that suffering is what he’s supposed to do.

Execution after Sukuna? Sure. Makes sense. If that’s the price, he’ll pay it.

There’s no big speech about sacrifice. Just a quiet understanding that if people are going to die either way, it might as well be him carrying it.

That instinct never leaves him.

What makes Yuji compelling isn’t bravery.It’s that he keeps choosing responsibility, even when it’s eating him alive in real time.

He doesn’t fight curses because he hates them.

He fights because someone has to, and if he can help even a little, then he should.

That mindset works.

For a while.

Until Mahito teaches him what it actually costs.

Junpei is the moment Yuji’s worldview finally cracks.

Yuji gets what he’s been reaching for since episode one.

A normal connection. Someone outside the system. Someone he can just sit next to and talk to.

And Mahito takes that away on purpose.

Not just by killing Junpei

But by making Yuji hope first.

By letting him believe kindness might actually work.

Yuji’s rage in that moment isn’t flashy.

It’s hollow.

Like there’s nothing left to burn except himself.

He doesn’t scream because he wants revenge.

He screams because he understands, all at once, that trying to save people means you will fail.

Often.

Loudly.

In front of everyone.

And there’s nothing you can do about it.

And then Shibuya happens.

Shibuya doesn’t just traumatize Yuji. It rewrites him.

Up until then, he believes deaths happen around him.

In Shibuya, he’s forced to confront the idea that deaths happen because of him.

Sukuna wearing his body.

City blocks erased.

People murdered who Yuji will never even get to apologize to.

And the worst part is that Yuji survives it. He wakes up afterward. He keeps breathing. That’s the punishment.

He has to wake up afterward. He has to keep walking with the weight of bodies he didn’t choose, didn’t consent to, but still feels responsible for.

That’s where his fear really comes from. Not guilt for what he did, but terror over what his existence makes possible.

Yuji doesn’t spiral into villainy.

He folds inward.

He starts measuring his worth by how much pain he can absorb without breaking.

He stops asking if something is fair and starts asking if it’s necessary. His fights shift.

Less about winning. More about ending things quickly, before anyone else gets hurt.

Even when he’s exhausted.

Even when he’s scared.

Even when he clearly doesn’t think he deserves to keep going.

And yet, he does.

By the time Yuji faces Mahito again, he finally understands what Mahito’s been circling since Junpei.

They aren’t opposites.

They’re parallels.

Same instincts

Different directions.

Yuji kills what threatens people. Mahito kills people because he can. The violence isn’t the line.

Yuji hates himself for it.

He feels it. He carries it. And he still shows up.

Mahito can’t stand that. Because it means Yuji can live with what he is without becoming what Mahito wants him to be.

The story never pretends this is healthy. Yuji’s compassion isn’t rewarded with clarity. His self-sacrifice doesn’t fix anything.

If anything, Jujutsu Kaisen keeps punishing him for caring, over and over, like it’s waiting to see when he’ll stop.

He doesn’t.

Yuji keeps choosing people. Keeps fighting. Keeps believing that lives have value, even when everything around him suggests otherwise.

That stubborn humanity is what makes him dangerous to curses like Mahito. Not his strength. Not his technique.

The fact that he refuses to let go of the idea that people matter.

Even when he doesn’t think he does.

Yuji Itadori isn’t a hero because he saves everyone. He’s a hero because he keeps moving after learning he can’t. He carries guilt, grief, and fear like they’re part of his bones and still shows up anyway.

In a series obsessed with power, Yuji’s real threat is that he never stops being human.

And honestly, that might be the cruelest thing Jujutsu Kaisen ever did to him.

Went arc by arc in my Jujutsu Kaisen arc list, because Yuji’s optimism doesn’t shatter. It gets chipped. Over. And over. And over.