A hugely popular anime series called Jujutsu Kaisen centres on the life of Itadori Yuji (Junya Enoki), a young boy who accidentally enters the world of curses and jujutsu sorcerers. The show centres on his struggles to put the pieces of the immensely potent curse known as Sukuna back together so that it can be completely and totally destroyed. While doing so, Itadori and his classmates battle excommunicated sorcerers with bad intentions and increasingly potent curses. Jujutsu Kaisen 0, a recent movie, has nothing to do with Itadori. The movie actually starts a year before Itadori ever starts to get entangled with the paranormal. Instead, we follow sixteen-year-old Yuta Okkotsu (Megumi Ogata), who is under a severe curse. We subsequently find that the reason the curse lashes out at everyone who attempts to hurt Yuta is because it was created using the remains of his childhood sweetheart and best friend, Rika Orimoto, who was viciously slain in a car accident. So, during the first season of the anime series, where was Yuta? They do briefly mention the character, in case you missed it. But first, let’s get to know our new lead character better.
The movie begins with a well-known character, Gojo Satoru, offering Yuta entrance to Jujutsu High (Yuiji Nakamura). From there, Yuta trains to become strong enough to handle his own curses, along with his fellow first-year students Maki Zenin (Mikako Komatsu), Toge Inumaki (Ki Uchiyama), and Panda (Tomokazu Seki), who are all old faces from season 1. Yuta aspires to grow strong enough to break the link that has bound him and Rika together for so long. Yuta hopes to lift the curse not merely for their own benefit but also to safeguard others because she has always possessed a great deal of power and has harmed individuals against his will.
While all of this is going on, Suguru Geto, a character who appeared regularly but was hardly discussed in Season 1 of the anime, has additional backstory revealed to us (Takahiro Sakurai). He has the capacity to control evil spirits. He can control their strength to his own will and use the curses however he pleases by defeating and consuming them. He would love nothing more than to claim Rika’s tremendous curse as his own and utilise it to accomplish his own goals. Through the use of jujustsu sorcery, he seeks to bring forth a new evolution of humanity. Suguru sees curses and sorcerers as a kind of human progression, much like Magneto did with mutants. And he wants to bring about that evolution by bringing about a trial by fire. He has decided that either humanity will advance or perish, and he plans to utilise Yuta to harness Rika’s might for his arsenal.
Yuta is able to exorcise Rika and grant them both serenity, at least in this one area, despite the many difficulties he has faced and the several attempts made on his life. Although Suguru Geto’s most devastating attack targeted his school, the majority of the students and staff are still there. But because it’s a prologue story, we are all well aware that this is just the beginning and that Yuta and the other characters, like Itadori, who we know will soon be thrown into this universe, will face even worse fights. Despite being the focus of this prequel, Yuta Okkotsu is conspicuously absent from the first season of the anime, as fans of the series are well aware. What gives, though?
When the second years introduce themselves in Season 1, there is a blink and you’ll miss it interaction in which Megumi says, “There’s one more, Okkotsu-senpai, who’s the only one I can openly appreciate, but he’s overseas right now,” and that’s all. He receives a few passing comments, but not enough to explain why he is abroad or how significant he is. However, none of these stood out at the initial viewing because few of us were even aware of Yuta’s true significance. For example, Gojo Satoru compares Itadori’s potential to Yuta in an exchange, but because we didn’t know who he was, it barely made an impression.
Although Yuta’s motivation for travelling isn’t made clear, we may infer it from his curse methods and other context cues that it’s something similar to studying abroad in Jujutsu High. Yuta’s method entails him imitating other people’s tactics and having a lot of cursed energy left over from Rika that he can manipulate. We can therefore infer that he was developing these abilities and learning new ways (which is corroborated by his display of power when he returns in the manga).
Even while we don’t have all the information about his journey, one thing is certain: Yuta will return immensely strong. He’s coming back, and it’ll probably happen in the upcoming anime season. He will probably bring with him a lot more of Suguru Geto, the major antagonist from Jujutsu Kaisen 0. The reappearance of Yuta Okkotsu in the second season of the programme will undoubtedly usher in some significant changes for Itadori and the other characters going ahead.
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