Jujutsu Kaisen: Mei Mei’s Bird Technique Explained!

With the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen finally underway, we’ve had the chance to see the beginning of Gojo’s Past Arc, which took us back to 2006, when Gojo and Geto were still students. But, while the arc will focus on Gojo, Geto, Toji, and Riko, we’ve also seen some other characters when they were younger and found some interesting new information about them. Mei Mei is one of those characters, and while we’ve only seen her in the first episode so far (and with a significantly different hairdo), her ability – as per Geto’s comment – proved to be quite interesting, which is why we are going to tell you all you need to know about it here in this article.

Mei Mei’s Innate Technique is called Black Bird Manipulation, allowing her to imbue crows with her own jujutsu and control them. The crows become absolutely obedient, and Mei Mei can use them to attack her opponents, defend herself, or even do surveillance work, as she can communicate with them. She can also make a Binding Vow with each crow to temporarily give them a lot of power, but they have to sacrifice themselves by using the power to attack Mei Mei’s opponent, called Bird Strike.

The rest of this article will expand on the above-given answer and explain Mei Mei and her abilities in more detail. We are going to tell you what her abilities are and how powerful she is, but we will also explain why her abilities are different from Geto’s, as per Geto’s own comment from the second episode of the new season. The article will contain some spoilers, so we wanted to warn you upfront.

Mei Mei is a powerful jujutsu sorceress, and she has a pretty interesting ability

Mei Mei is a secondary character from the series, but nevertheless a very interesting and powerful member of the jujutsu society. She is a Grade 1 sorceress, an opportunistic and intelligent woman with a great love of money, so much so that she openly states that she does not understand non-money connections and only cares about which side has the most money.

Still, she does have some ideals and wouldn’t really join the enemies even for money, which is why she was able to maintain a relatively stable friendship with the protagonists.

Now, Mei Mei’s story in the manga is definitely interesting, but it won’t be the focus of this article, as we are going to talk primarily about her powers and abilities in the series. We’ll start off by giving you a general overview of what she is capable of, and we are then going to focus on her special Black Bird Manipulation technique.

Mei is well known for being a skilled fighter; Gojo once referred to Mei as “strong” when they were still classmates, which is not a compliment he frequently bestows. Mei managed to easily overcome foes like Niji Ebina, a curse master rated as strong as a Semi-Grade 1, after rigorous training and developing her jujutsu abilities. She confronted and overcame the Smallpox Deity, an S-class curse.

She also stated that prior to her struggle with the S-class curse, she couldn’t remember the last time she was in danger, implying that she had not been defeated or hurt since beginning her career as an exorcist. Thanks to her cunning and combat expertise, she could outsmart the curse and cast it out. This accomplishment amazed even Pseudo-Geto, who acknowledged that Mei was unusual for an exorcist in the present day.

Mei generally prefers close-range combat, as she likes to fight her opponents using her huge battle axe. Compared to the size of the axe, she executes fierce attacks with astonishing speed and accuracy to split her opponents in half.

Mei managed to escape from a coffin that was buried underground and held by a huge tombstone multiple times during her clash against the Smallpox Deity, crushing them both together in one blow. Each time, she completed it in less than three seconds, becoming quicker as she went.

Being a Grade 1 Exorcist, Mei Mei has a lot of experience in fighting against various curses and is quite skilled at handling them. Mei managed to come up with a scheme to help Utahime escape while she was imprisoned inside a barrier that could change time and space. During the Shibuya Incident, she was given the responsibility of a squad commander and given the mission of looking into one of the station’s entrances.

Mei was astute enough to utilize her magic to her advantage and send her crows to observe the area before entering. This allowed her to create a plan that her team successfully carried out.

Despite being faced with an opponent’s Domain Expansion, Mei maintained her composure and devised a solution. After going through the Domain’s special conditions a few times, she not only came to understand them, but she also discovered its weakness.

Mei created a response because she realized that the Smallpox Deity could focus on only one individual at a time. Her intelligence and martial prowess allowed her to carry out his plan flawlessly and triumph over a higher-class foe.

Now that we have given you a general overview of Mei Mei’s powers and abilities, we can actually explain everything that needs explanation. Namely, Mei Mei’s powerful Innate Technique is called Black Bird Manipulation and is an exceptionally powerful technique, despite seemingly looking like nothing special.

Black Bird Manipulation allows Mei Mei to imbue crows (black birds) with cursed energy, control them as she pleases, and use them for offensive, defensive, and surveillance purposes. Initially, when she was younger, Mei Mei thought that her technique was weak because she could only control weak birds, but over time, she learned how to use them properly and even make them more powerful.

In that aspect, Black Bird Manipulation is a very useful technique. Mei Mei can use her crows – which are, by the way, absolutely obedient – to attack her opponents, defend herself, and for surveillance purposes.

Geto commented how Mei is closely related to her crows, so much, in fact, that she can communicate with them and see what they see, hear what they hear, etc. He commented further that he cannot do that with his curses, which is probably because Mei Mei simply imbues living beings with parts of her own jujutsu, whereas Geto collects curses and submits them to himself, but they still maintain their individuality.

Mei Mei gives a part of herself to the birds, whereas Geto simply uses the curses like tools or weapons. This is probably the main difference between their techniques.

But, on top of that, Mei Mei is also able to create a Binding Vow with each of her crows – and she can control multiple crows simultaneously – to make them incredibly powerful for a short time, but in return, they have to sacrifice themselves for her and attack her enemies with that power, similarly to how kamikaze sacrificed themselves to defeat the enemies. This ability is called Bird Strike and is so powerful that Gojo is the only known character to have survived it.