Jujutsu Kaisen: Where Did Inumaki Come From? What Was His Team?

The Shibuya Incident is very much the center of the action in the anime adaptation of Jujutsu Kaisen, and the real battles, which took place after Gojo was sealed, finally started. While there will be many interesting battles and characters in this arc, the focus of this article will be sudden and – unless the anime changes something – the bittersweet appearance of Toge Inumaki, who suddenly, completely out of nowhere, appeared to help Yuji Itadori in Shibuya. Where did he come from? Was he part of one of the response teams? To find out more details about this, keep reading our article.

Toge Inumaki appeared out of nowhere… and that’s about the best explanation we have

So, we know about Toge’s story, right? Well, Toge Inumaki is a popular secondary character from Jujutsu Kaisen who is a year older than Yuji Itadori and is undoubtedly a major persona in the series as a whole, despite not having such a big role in the story. He was present in the initial stages and during the Goodwill Event. Still, since the focus of Jujutsu Kaisen was on Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara, Toge never got a chance to shine. However, he became exceptionally popular due to his overall portrayal in the series.

He did play a bigger role in the prequel series, Jujutsu Kaisen 0, as he was – alongside Maki and Panda – part of the same class as the protagonist, Yuta Okkotsu, and he had some important moments in that series, but sadly, the influence never passed over to the primary series, so Toge was left an underused character with a lot of potential, which is a shame, as basically, every Jujutsu Kaisen fan loves him, but Akutami decided not to use him in that aspect.

So, in light of all of these facts, we are now coming back to the Shibuya Incident, which was the first major Jujutsu Kaisen incident that involved all the characters and in that aspect, you’d probably assume that Toge also played a relatively important part in it, but you would actually be wrong. Namely, save for the characters who aren’t present in the storyline or those who are dead. Toge Inumaki is actually the only character in the series who did not get a major moment in this arc.

In fact, it seems like he wasn’t even supposed to appear in the arc, but then Akutami remembered him in the last moment and included him in the story without any apparent sense. So, what happened?

Well, we know that the jujutsu sorcerers organized a total of four response teams in case something happened to Gojo, and the teams were:

So, as you can see, everyone from Tokyo was there; the only ones missing were those with other roles to fill (like Yaga and Shoko) and the Kyoto students, so, seeing this, there is no real reason why Toge wouldn’t be there. But he isn’t. And it seems like Akutami simply forgot about him, as there is no reason why he wouldn’t be with one of the teams, especially since there was space (particularly in Kusakabe’s team).

And while this would imply that Toge was not there, he actually appeared. After saving Ino and leaving him with Megumi, Yuji made his way to the station, where Gojo was. On his way, he located a group of Mahito’s transfigured humans who were killing civilians. Unsure what to do, he was helped by the sudden appearance of Toge Inumaki, who took over the situation for him.

Where did he come from? We have no idea, as he simply appeared in the series out of nowhere and helped Itadori, which was a great moment, but knowing that Toge won’t be appearing much later in the arc, this wasn’t really a scene that did justice to him. And this is all we have to tell you here, as there is absolutely no reason why Toge appeared in such a way, and neither the manga nor the anime reveal where he had been until that moment. He simply appeared as if Akutami had just remembered that he had to put him somewhere and did that ultimately.

Inumaki will survive Shibuya, but he won’t be around much in the future

Now, continuing from the final sentence of the previous section, we have to confirm that Akutami is reckless when caring for his characters, and Toge is a prime example of that. How do we know that?

Remember this scene well, as this is the longest you’ll see of him until… well, as it seems from the manga, until the very end. He has one more scene to do in this arc, where he will be seen overseeing a group of people that will later be caught up in Sukuna’s Domain Expansion and will, thus, die. He will, according to what we found out later, lose an arm after being caught by Sukuna’s Domain, and that’s it. That is how Toge’s story in Jujutsu Kaisen ends, as it seems, and it is horrible.

He is alive, he survived, but we won’t be seeing any more of him in any of the future arcs and unless something drastically changes (and that doesn’t seem likely as of Chapter 239) until the very end of the Jujutsu Kaisen manga, which is a horrible thing to do to such a great character, and will ultimately mean that Akutami did a lousy job with the story. But we hope we’re wrong with this one.

Have something to add? Let us know in the comments below!