Jujutsu Kaisen: What Is the Smallpox Deity & How Powerful Is It?
The characters we’ve seen in Jujutsu Kaisen are diverse and come in all shapes and sizes. Some are more important, and some are less, but it is common knowledge that these characters are very intriguing, regardless of their role. While we usually talk about human characters in such instances, in this article, we will talk about a special Cursed Spirit called the Smallpox Deity, which appeared in the Shibuya Incident.
The Smallpox Deity is the name of a special-grade cursed spirit that was ingested by either Suguru Geto or Kenjaku in Geto’s corpse (as Pseudo-Geto) and then used during the Shibuya Incident. The Smallpox Deity is a disease-cursed spirit and one of the most powerful and dangerous ones, as it spreads smallpox, which is a lethal disease. The Smallpox Deity clashed with Mei Mei in Shibuya, and it was an epic fight in which Mei Mei demonstrated both her strength and her skills with her Innate Technique, which enabled her to ultimately exorcise the Smallpox Deity. It wasn’t actually a deity; it was actually the Smallpox Hag, but Kenjaku changed the name intentionally to scare its opponents.
The rest of this article will be about the Smallpox Deity, a powerful Special Grade cursed spirit that got its name because it spreads smallpox, a lethal disease that has, luckily, been eradicated. We will explain the Smallpox Deity, its powers and abilities, as well as what happened to it in the story of Jujutsu Kaisen. Of course, as always, we have to warn you that this article will be filled with spoilers from the upcoming episodes, so be careful how you approach it if you don’t want to know all the details.
The Smallpox Deity is one of the most powerful cursed spirits introduced in the Jujutsu Kaisen manga and anime
Before we begin, allow us to refresh your memory about Suguru Geto’s Innate Technique, which is called Cursed Spirit Manipulation. As the name suggests, this method enables Suguru Geto to domesticate curses that he traps and consumes. Using this Innate Technique, the user can tame curses to be used by swallowing them after compressing them into the form of a little ball or sphere.
When using this technique, a jujutsu sorcerer can easily tame a cursed spirit as long as the latter is two classes below him. The user can only control a curse that already had a servitude relationship with another person when that person dies; they cannot gain possession of a curse that already had a servitude relationship with another person.
The tamed curses are absolutely obedient and, in that aspect, can be used for a variety of purposes, including, but not limited to, fighting, defense, travel, and others. Of course, when Kenjaku gained control of Geto’s corpse, he “inherited” the technique himself and is now, as Pseudo-Geto, able to use it as well. He can also consume new Cursed Spirits and add them to his collection.
So, now that we have covered this let us go back to the Shibuya Incident. At one point, Mei Mei, while traveling with her brother Ui Ui, met with Pseudo-Geto, and the latter, aware of who Mei Mei was, decided to release the Smallpox Deity and let it fight against Mei Mei, hoping that the Special Grade cursed spirit would be powerful enough to kill her.
It has to be said, though, that the Smallpox Deity, with its hideous, monster-like appearance, wasn’t actually a deity, but rather a hag, and that its real name was the Smallpox Hag. Pseudo-Geto changed its name willingly because he wanted to use it to scare his opponents, who would be more afraid of a god than a had. Unfortunately for him, Mei Mei was knowledgeable in the field of disease-cursed spirits – and the Smallpox Deity was just that – so she wasn’t afraid as she actually saw through the trick immediately.
So, what happened? Well, when the fight began, the Smallpox Deity quickly activated its domain, which has been dubbed the Graveyard Domain. Yes, powerful cursed spirits, despite not being as conscious as Sukuna or Mahito, for example, could also activate Domains, which made them exceptionally difficult opponents. So, the Graveyard Domain was, as the name suggests, just that; this is an unofficial, descriptive name, as Akutami has not provided us with an official name for the domain, so it has been named after what it looks like or… well… creates.
The graveyard motif actually makes sense, seeing how smallpox was a highly lethal disease that sent a lot of people to their early graves. The Domain is organized so that it amplifies the Smallpox Deity’s innate powers, with the sure-hit rule guaranteeing certain death once all the conditions have been met in the Domain.
So, almost immediately after the fight, Mei Mei and Ui Ui were trapped in the Deity’s graveyard, and it immediately activated its most powerful technique, which has been dubbed the Gravestone Technique (which is also a descriptive name, as Akutami hasn’t really provided us with an official one). So, what does this do? Or, rather, what did it do? It trapped Mei Mei in a coffin, and then, the Smallpox Deity placed its left hand into its right hand, after which a large gravestone fell on the coffin, dealing heavy damage to the trapped victim and also burying them underground.
Once the gravestone is in place, the deity can begin spreading its disease,, and the victim will die quite soon. But Mei Mei did not die.
Namely, Mei Mei actually managed to escape the coffin a total of three times during the fight, demonstrating her skills, although she admitted that had Ui Ui not been there, she wouldn’t have been able to defeat the Smallpox Deity alone. How did Ui Ui help?
Well, the Smallpox Deity does not use reason; it is a monster, and based on that fact, we can conclude that it relies mostly on raw power and nothing more. That raw power would have been enough to defeat Mei Mei, but since the Smallpox Deity was somewhat handicapped due to being a “servant” of Geto’s Innate Technique, it lost almost all tactical intelligence, and it acted only on instinct, which allowed Mei Mei to defeat it using her intelligence.
Since Ui Ui was present, a small distraction from him was enough to confuse the Smallpox Deity and make it lose its focus, which is exactly what happened. Mei Mei then used the opening to launch a powerful attack with her own technique, which was finally enough to defeat the Smallpox Deity and exorcise it completely. And that is its story and the story of how it ended up being exorcised.
Before we wrap this up, here is a piece of trivia: Akutami wanted to respect those readers who might have suffered from a disease themselves, so he picked smallpox because this disease has been eradicated; this is the origin of the name of this interesting cursed spirit.
