Jujutsu Kaisen: Is Sukuna a Cursed Spirit or a Human Sorcerer?

Sukuna is, alongside Gojo, one of the most famous characters from Jujutsu Kaisen. The “King of Curses” is considered to be the series’ most powerful villain. While he has a lot of fans, the recent manga chapters also showed that Akutami seemingly lost his focus and that Sukuna’s overall story will be rushed and not explained well enough. But regardless of that, fans demand to know more about Sukuna, and we will provide you with more information in this article. In it, we will discuss whether Sukuna is a human sorcerer or a cursed spirit.

Sukuna’s past is still a mystery, but we do know that he was a human sorcerer

The answer to the question we posed here lies in Sukuna’s past. And while we do know that Sukuna’s past is still an enigma, as Akutami has only given us hints and clues about his time as a human, we actually do know enough details to actually provide you with an answer to this specific question, although do not expect a detailed story, as details are quite scarce. Now, let us see what we know about Sukuna’s past.

According to legend, Sukuna was once a powerful human jujutsu sorcerer who was recognized as the strongest in his generation. He was a strong sorcerer, but he was also a ruthless villain who slaughtered other jujutsu masters, and because of his power, no one could stand a chance against him. In reality, this makes sense since he was actually the cursed spirit of a sorcerer who lived during the Golden Age of Jujutsu, a time when humans regarded him as a natural calamity. He was revered or feared as a divinity by sorcerers.

His death’s circumstances are unknown, but it is known that he did, indeed, die at one point in the past. After passing away, he turned into a cursed spirit with two faces and four arms that resembled a person. His soul was divided into 20 fingers and sealed in the form of cursed objects since the sorcerers of this era could not exorcise him. The information we have is limited, and there is nothing else we can say about this event from the past, as Akutami never bothered to reveal anything about it.

Seeing the current tempo of the manga, he won’t do it in the future, either. For decades, sorcerers have collected and stored these cursed items, his fingers, which could not be destroyed, hoping that one day they will be destroyed alongside a suitable vessel.

And, as we all know, this is where Yuji Itadori comes into play in the present timeline. Yuji Itadori ate most of his fingers in the present and assumed the role of his “vessel,” even though it later became clear that he was actually a “cage.” This means that Sukuna, in particular, could not fully control Yuji’s body due to the boy’s willpower; as a result, he later possessed Megumi’s body to carry out his evil deeds once more. He confronted Gojo in this state and apparently killed him. And the rest is history… in the making.

Today, Sukuna is more of a cursed spirit than anything else, but he is technically – an Incarnation

We have now explained all these important details, which means that we can provide you with a proper answer about Sukuna’s nature in the current timeline of the Jujutsu Kaisen series. Namely, his past explained everything, but the situation in the present is not that clear, which is why it demands some additional notes on the issues.

So, as we have said above, Sukuna was born as a human. During his lifetime, before his death, he was a human jujutsu sorcerer, thus confirming that he definitely is (or was, whichever way you look at it) a human. But, since the human Sukuna lived and died a long time ago, the current iteration of Sukuna is definitely not human (okay, he could be if you consider the fact that he is using Megumi’s human body, but that’s just milking things). So, is it a cursed spirit? Sukuna definitely looks like a cursed spirit right now, but he isn’t one… not really.

Officially, Sukuna is now what you would consider an incarnation. This means that his nature as a cursed object is relevant here, as he is currently an incarnation of a cursed object (or 19 of them, to be precise, as he is currently under the control of 19 of his 20 fingers). This means that he is not a cursed spirit per se, but rather just a reincarnated version of his former self, which is different from a cursed spirit. The issue is that Sukuna’s incarnation is much like a cursed spirit, so we can understand why fans are actually confused about this.

So, what is the difference? Well, cursed spirits are born out of negative emotions that come from humans, and incarnations are just materializations of entities trapped inside cursed objects. And Sukuna is the latter, although, by all means, he acts and looks like the former, but he is not a cursed spirit; that much we can confirm.

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