How Many Brothers Does Yuji Itadori Have in Jujutsu Kaisen?
Yuji Itadori’s family history has been a mystery from the very beginning of Jujutsu Kaisen. In the very first episode, we see Yuji’s grandfather trying to say something about Yuji’s parents but he was shut off by Yuji. The topic remained moot and almost forgotten as the story started to move forward very dynamically. But after the Death Painting arc, and the true identity reveal of the pseudo-Geto, a question has arisen among the fans. Does Yuji Itadori have any siblings? If so, how many?
Yuji Itadori has brothers, but not in a literal sense where siblings share the same biological parents. Yuji Itadori and the death painting brothers may share blood from Kenjaku. Kenjaku gave birth to Yuji by claiming the body of a woman. The death paintings on the other hand share the blood of Noritoshi Kamo, in whose body Kenjaku was residing at that time.
The Death Painting Bothers will play a big part in this article. Since we saw only two brothers in action in the anime, let’s know about the other brothers who are yet to be animated.
Cursed Womb: Death Painting
Noritoshi Kamo was a notorious Jujutsu sorcerer who was a victim of Kenjaku. Whether he could have been a decent person without Kenjaku’s influence is unknown. But it is proven that the unforgivable deeds he had done that brought great shame to the great Kamo family were indeed Kenjaku’s doing.
A few hundred years back, there was a woman who got pregnant with a cursed spirit’s child. Kicked out by her family and society, the woman ran off and took shelter in a temple that was looked after by Noritoshi Kamo. Noritoshi imprisoned the woman, held her captive, impregnated her with cursed spirit babies repeatedly, and aborted the babies. He did this 9 times and each time he mixed his blood with the fetuses. Since the special technique of the Kamo family is blood manipulation, it created the Cursed Womb: Death Painting technique.
Kechizu
Kechizu is one of the three brothers we see in the Jujutsu Kaisen anime. He is a very ugly-looking hybrid individual, who was defeated by the dual effort of Yuji Itadori and Nobara Kugisaki. He is the weakest among the three brothers. Kechizu uses rot and decay techniques by spitting blood at his opponents.
Eso
Eso’s back looks more horrifying than his front. He uses a blood manipulation technique that infects his opponents with a rotting curse. This became extremely handy for Nobara to defeat him. Though he almost ran away successfully, he could not survive Nobara’s final blow.
Choso
Choso is the only brother among the three who we yet have to see in action. He was the one who mentioned to Yuji about them being brothers.
Among the three brothers, Choso is the most human looking, with a horizontal mark on his nose extending to both cheeks. He is voiced by Namikawa Daisuke who also voiced Hisoka Morow from Hunter X Hunter, Ulquiorra Cifer from Bleach, Jellal Fernandes from Fairy Tail, and Hotaru Haganezuka from Demon Slayer.
Truth be told, you will find Choso quite likable and honorable as he lacks bloodthirst and avoids unnecessary violence. His only concern is his young brothers. He even loved his mother. The only person he holds abhorrence against is Noritoshi Kamo. When he found out who was the real culprit behind their sufferings, Choso even refused to fight for pseudo-Geto.
Choso was adamant to kill Yuji, but when he realized he and Yuji share a bond, he accepted Yuji as his younger brother and decided to protect him. He is a master cursed technique user and fully well knows how to use most of the blood manipulation techniques including Blood Connection, Blood Poisoning, Blood Conversion, Slicing Exorcism, Flowing Red Scale, etc.
Origin of the concept of Cursed Womb
Death Painting brothers are special curse objects whose original form looks like a fetus. They are hybrid individuals (human and spirit) visible to non-sorcerers. There are 9 death paintings in total. But we only saw three of them, thanks to Mahito stealing the fetuses from the hold of Tokyo Jujutsu High during the Kyoto Sister-School Goodwill Event.
The main concept of the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings came from a Buddhist painting called Kusozu. Kusozu portrays the 9 stages of human corpse decay from its death to ultimate decomposition (when not even bones remain). These 9 stages are:
- Choso: Swelling of the dead body due to the gas formation on the inside of the body.
- Eso: Decaying of the skin.
- Kechizu: at this stage, the inside of the body starts to rot, including fat and blood. Body fluids start to come out.
- Noranso: the whole body starts to rot at this stage.
- Shouoso: the dead body looks bluish-black due to the rotten flesh.
- Tanso: Maggots infest the body.
- Sanso: the structure of the body falls apart.
- Kotsuso: at this stage nothing but the bone remains.
- Shoso: even bones get decomposed in the last stage.
So, if you were wondering why they are called death paintings, now you know.
How is Yuji related to the Death Painting brothers?
It may sound gross, but Kenjaku is Yuji’s mother. Jin Itadori, Yuji’s father, birthed a child with a woman whose body was a vessel of Kenjaku at that time. Kenjaku was also involved in the cursed womb technique, so he can be considered their father. Thus in a very complex way, Yuji is related to the death paintings and if we count them, he has 9 brothers. God knows how many children Kenjaku has given birth to this way that we have yet to get to know of.