Jujutsu Kaisen: Here’s Why Gege “Hates” Yuji Itadori!

Jujutsu Kaisen is a series where the supporting character Satoru Gojō is so beloved that most people think the whole series is about him. But it is not. Namely, Jujutsu Kaisen tells the story of Yūji Itadori, the unlikely protagonist and a vessel for the extremely powerful Ryōmen Sukuna. We can attest and confirm here that Itadori is not as popular as Gojō, but he is nevertheless the protagonist of the story, and he deserves to be credited in that aspect. But, just like it is with Gojō, we had the pleasure of finding out that Akutami isn’t particularly fond of Itadori. Why? Well, keep reading to find out.

Akutami confirmed that he is “not particularly fond of Itadori”

Before we start, we’d like you to take a look at this scan:

This is a scan from the printed edition of the manga, which includes some authorial comments by Gege Akutami. As you can see here while referring to the “infamous” “PA” scene, Akutami explained that he was aware that he wrote a relatively inappropriate scene (although his going to a “PA” is far less troublesome than some of the scenes in the manga), but he decided to leave it despite his editor’s insistence simply because he did not care too much for Yuji.

Akutami thus confirmed that he is not fond of Yuji, which seems to be quite strange, seeing how he created these characters himself and he could’ve actually crafted them however he wanted. We can somewhat understand why Gojō turned out to be a despised character, seeing how he is truly overpowered, but why Itadori? We are going to explore this in the next section of this article.

The real reason why Akutami “dislikes” Itadori is not known, but that’s just Akutami being Akutami

As we’ve said, Akutami has confirmed that he is “not particularly fond of Itadori”, but he also added that they share a “lowbrow quality”, which is one of Itadori’s major treats, as fans will know. He is special in that way, and while he is not a typical shonen protagonist, he is still the main character of Jujutsu Kaisen and in that aspect, he definitely deserves respect, so it does not make a lot of sense that Akutami doesn’t like him, but we have it on paper so we cannot deny it. But why?

Well, as is the case with Gojō, we don’t actually know. Okay, we know that Gojō turned out to be overpowered and that a lot of fans hyped over him, which annoyed Akutami, but he disliked Gojō even before that, so we never really got the real reason behind Akutami’s “hatred” for the character. But okay, Gojō is a secondary character, so it’s not that relevant in this aspect, i.e., Akutami is allowed to hate him. But Itadori is the protagonist, so it doesn’t make sense! It really doesn’t!

We mean, it’s obvious that Akutami doesn’t care too much for Itadori as he never really gave off the vibe of a protagonist, and save for his arc with Mahito, Itadori never really received a proper moment in the story. He is always there, but it is obvious that Akutami never put as much effort into crafting Itadori as he should have, seeing how Itadori is the protagonist.

This is a major issue with Akutami and his characters, as it sometimes seems that he hates every character in the series, save for a couple, but even they were not spared (e.g., he liked Nanami, but Nanami was killed off fairly early, without ever getting a proper arc). Why Yuji is disliked is unknown, but we assume that Akutami has his reasons; the only issue is that characters shouldn’t really suffer because the author hates them, especially since he is the one who controls them and can craft them however he wants.

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