As communicated through a number of different ways throughout the narrative, Jujutsu Kaisen’s
setting is corrupt, stagnant and broken. And there are quite a few angles to tackle this topic from,
and no shortage of character perspectives to help substantiate it. But from the start,
one of the chief bits of evidence and one of the bluntest communications of
the sheer depths of this rot is the culture surrounding the meritocratic yet oppressively
tunnel-visioned Zenin clan, one of the three strongest sorcerer families in the series.
Maki Zenin was a child born into the Zenin family along with her twin sister,
Mai. Unluckily for them, both were born with an ineptitude in sorcery which lead to neglect,
as their family viewed them as worthless for not possessing the necessary aptitude. But while Mai
was satisfied being subservient and acquiescing to the inhumane treatment, Maki instead chose to
rise up against this horrible custom. She decided to expel herself from the clan and forge her own
path to become strong - claiming that she would one day return to become head of the family. She
established herself as a fearsome fighter with a formidable will to improve, but in response, her
family did all they could to buffer her progress. Despite this however, and due in large part to her
relentless force of will borne from this pain, she still pushes on - with the ultimate goal of
becoming an esteemed Jujutsu sorcerer in mind. And she does this not just for her own peace of mind,
but primarily to spite her family through proving that she can be great even having
been born the way she was. She wants to prove them wrong, she wants them to eat their words,
and she wants to shove her success in the face of those she despises. And while these goals don’t
necessarily line up with direct retribution as much as a spiteful self-affirmation,
that would eventually change, with her vengeful streak almost feeling fated and karmic,
pushed on by the pain brought upon her by those who she ultimately comes to haunt.
After being severely burnt in the Shibuya Incident, and after being attacked by her father,
Maki was granted all the tools to fulfill her full potential as her sister ultimately came
around and sacrificed herself to impart upon her one wish - destroy everything. Make them
pay for what they did to us. And from here she set off on this streak of vengeance,
becoming an agent of destruction, killing a number of the family including her mother and father,
fulfilling both her and Mai’s ultimate wishes to enact retribution on those who tried to shun,
stifle and silence the sisters. Maki was reborn as a monster here,
and the implication is very much that she isn’t nearly finished blazing this path for herself.
Now, Toji Zenin is a character who experienced much of what Maki did several years earlier.
Viewed as inferior due to his lack of Cursed Energy and compensatory use of tools and weapons
in combat, yet simultaneously deeply feared by many in the family, Toji left the Zenins
as well and began carrying out horrific actions in a sort of reaction to the inhumane treatment
he experienced throughout his life, hating the Zenin clan and the Jujutsu world at large for
what they perpetuated. So immense was the fear he evoked in the minds of the Zenin’s that the
consensus is that they were only still allowed to exist as a result of his whims. But regardless,
he has been a specter in their minds since he left, with many seeing him wherever they go. He
has immense strength and ability, and in fact it has been stated that Maki only came to resemble
him in terms of power after she became whole through Mai’s sacrifice. And to fully break off
from the family he hates, he married a woman and took her name of Fushiguro, he had a son and named
him Megumi after the word blessings, ultimately entrusting him to Gojo just prior to his death
and hoping for better for him. He was reborn as a puppet of carnage by Ogami, and ran rampant,
with his destructive instinct being reflective of the life he learned to lead as a result of
his treatment, enacting the hate and spite he felt against the world in both life.. and death.
Toji is a horrible person, but he is a horrible person who became as such
in large part due to this Zenin culture, and he regains his sense of self and dies
somewhat satisfied after learning that his son was able to live as a Fushiguro,
and not a Zenin. But his impact and phantom would live on far after his death, his visage
burned into the eyes of those who caused him such misery, living on as a chilling memory.
Both Maki and Toji acted in the way they did, to differing end results of course,
as an almost direct reaction of the way they were treated. And while there is a
great degree of malice there, there is also some form of a thirst for acknowledgement,
at least from Maki. Despite a self-assured confidence to an extent, there is a desire
to prove that she is worth something and that her hate is justified. Of course,
both of their forms of hate are justified, but these acts from both are necessary for
them to somehow express themselves in a world that tried to stifle them.
Ultimately both turn into personifications of pure strength, spite and hate as a direct
consequence of neglect and abuse. And as such, both are agents of terror to the Zenin’s, in
differing ways. Maki shows this in a very literal fashion through the slaughter of her family,
whereas Toji’s impact is a bit contrasting - protecting Megumi in his own twisted way
and breaking the cycle to some extent in this one instance. But in terms of haunting them,
the seed of frantic fear he planted has never left. His ghost terrorizes these family members,
and that ghost and that fear became material through Maki quite literally, as her father Ogi
Zenin saw the image of Toji in his monstrous daughter right before she struck him down.
With both of these characters living their life as a direct consequence of the profoundly horrible
treatment they endured, they work in tandem as the vengeful spirits of Jujutsu Kaisen. Toji
establishes this panic, this terrifying image that never leaves the panicked minds of the Zenin’s,
and Maki carries out and executes, showing them that this fear was very much justified.
The Zenins have, through their horrific culture, created two monsters that will
deliver unto them exactly what they deserve. They are who they are because of what they’ve
gone through. And that is why this seems karmic - this fear, this Zenin massacre,
would not have occurred if they didn’t treat the two, and Mai of course, as they did.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy for which the poetic irony doesn’t stop there, and that is
due to the nature of Heavenly Restriction, enhancing bindings that both Maki and Toji
possessed that exchange an ineptitude in one facet for an extreme aptitude in another area.
It is a characteristic that is inversely most powerful when the user’s cursed energy is at zero,
heightening their physical attributes and abilities to inconceivable levels in this
specific case. So having inherited this, Maki and Toji are fully equipped to be
formidable as a result of not fitting into the narrow boxes that the Zenin’s
deem as worthy. Not only was their treatment cruel, but because of this, it was actually
incorrect. The Zenin clan only measures worth by the amount of cursed energy a person has,
without evaluating through any other method. And so through their narrow view and perspective,
they not only pushed away individuals who would no doubt be strong enough to bear their name, but
they actively made enemies of absolute monsters. Monsters who come back at them with a vengeance,
with their literal main strength being dependent mechanically, thematically and emotionally on the
reason they were cast out in the first place. The Zenin’s dug their own grave, and it’s beautiful.
Toji being this apparition to the Zenin’s to reflect their cruelty back at them is pretty
cut and dry, but it applies well to Maki as well. She is alive but she is visualized as
this ghost of destruction and spite. She is a curse, borne of negative emotions,
and she has come back to wreak havoc on the people who cursed her. They are both results
and reactions of this corruption and cruelty, but Maki is the one carrying the torch in the
present and enacting this most literally. On one hand it’s desperately sad for her,
as there is no way she would have been bathed in blood this way had she been simply treated
with respect and affection. But that’s just how things turned out. And her dark rebirth may just
be beginning. While Toji’s deeds are not justified in any way, and while I’m sure Maki’s won’t either
if she goes off the deep end, both of their pain is acknowledged and shown to be an example of why
this world must be changed. Through this, and much more besides, Jujutsu Kaisen establishes itself as
a wholly empathetic story, as it almost seems to yearn in totality for a world in which these
vengeful spirits feel no need to let their wrath speak for their pain. Many thanks for watching.