Summary
Jujutsu Kaisenis at a very crucial point in its story. After being on an absolute tear for the past few chapters, Sukuna defeats many sorcerers in succession, not getting a moment of reprieve between his many battles. However, he more than justifies his title as the King of Curses by defeating all of Jujutsu High’s forces one after the other, regardless of their strength, with his most recent victory being against Yuta, Yuji, and Rika.
Despite sustaining an overwhelming amount of damage in this fight that was enough to kill just about anyone else, Sukuna regained the upper hand andsent the heroes flying with his Dimensional Slash. However, his guaranteed victory was unexpectedly cut short as Maki made her long-awaited entrance into the fight against him. Even though she is someone who doesn’t have a drop of Cursed Energy, let’s see why she can be the hidden trump card against the King of Curses.
Family
The Zenin Clan
During the initial stages of her story arc inJujutsu Kaisen, Maki was one of the weakest characters in all of Jujutsu High. Since she was born with a twin sister and a Heavenly Restriction, her Cursed Energy levels were almost non-existent, due to which she had no Cursed Technique but, was instead gifted with better physical prowess than the rest of her peers at Jujutsu High.
Due to her ‘lack of talent’, the Zenin Clan effectively disowned her, causing her to go down her own path. When the Culling Game started, Maki went back to her ancestral home but was left for dead there along with her sister. After Mai’s sacrifice,Maki’s Heavenly Restriction was fully realized, unlocking the latent powers within her which allowed her to destroy the entire clan by herself. From there, she would only get stronger, rivaling Toji as the manifestation of the full strength that can be achieved with a Heavenly Restriction.
If I had stayed there at the bottom, I would’ve hated myself.
What Makes Maki so Powerful
When a Heavenly Restriction is fully realized to the maximum potential that it possesses, the character with it becomes strong enough to defeat Special Grade Sorcerers and Curses by themselves. This is most easily seen with Toji, as he was able to singlehandedly take down both Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto with ease, both of whom were considered to be the strongest characters in the entire Jujutsu world at that point.
Maki and Toji both possess the ability to move at hypersonic speeds, which makes them appear like a blur to most people. On top of this, their general agility and strength far exceed those of other sorcerers, due to which they arethe most physically dominant characters in the series, barring Gojo and Sukuna. This high level of skill and strength is so formidable that Toji is only defeated by Gojo after his awakening, which is a feat in itself due to Gojo being the strongest sorcerer in the world.
Moreover, Heavenly Restrictions also allow the characters to perceive the world and objects in ways that no one else can. For example, Toji could see the ‘souls of inanimate objects’, which let him use the Soul Split Katana to cut through anything like butter. After Maki fully realized her powers, she could feel and see the movements of the air currents, which allowed her to react to Naoya’s attacks at Mach 5 speeds.
How Maki Is The Key To Defeating Sukuna
Perhaps the biggest advantage to having a Heavenly Restriction is the fact that it lets a character escape fate. Since theworld works through Cursed Energyand since every power is derived from it, only those who can somehow cast it aside are the only ones who can separate themselves from whatever fate is ordained to them by the unseen laws of Jujutsu society.
Since Maki is completely free of any Cursed Energy, many of the rules that apply to others don’t apply to her. For one, she is essentially a ghost, completely invisible from any sort of detection of Cursed Energy, which is the main reason she was able to sneak up on Sukuna and stab him through the back, much like what Toji did to Gojo in the Hidden Inventory arc. The greatest outcome of this power, however, is the fact that no barriers or Domains can work on her.
I don’t know what happened, but my body is special.
This was shown in her battle with Naoya, where she was able to simply walk into his Domain from behind him and stab him, negating the sure-hit effect of the Domain in the process.Sukuna’s Malevolent Shrinewould typically pose a problem here due to its manifestation in the actual world and the many slashes firing everywhere constantly, but currently in the fight, he is still in no shape to pull it off.
Moreover, due to Sukuna’s currently weakened state after his many battles, Maki greatly holds the physical advantage over him. She and Toji are peerless in their physical prowess, so Maki can repeatedly damage Sukuna’s body further to keep him in a weakened state until the rest of the sorcerers recuperate to get back into the fight. However, her real utility will shine with her use of the Soul Split Katana.
Quite early on, it was revealed thatthe plan to fight Sukunarequired the splitting of his soul and Megumi’s. Maki’s entrance seems to continue this plan despite Yuji’s failure to retrieve Megumi’s soul in Chapter 251, as the Soul Split Katana is a weapon that ignores the physical toughness of any object or person and targets the souls directly, and it is a weapon whose full potential can only be realized by the hand of someone with a Heavenly Restriction.
Maki remains the key to defeating Sukuna and fulfilling Jujutsu High’s goals because she plans to keep him engaged and weak, not letting him heal. By using the Special Grade Cursed Tool on him, she can free Megumi from his damaged state and, in doing so, weaken Sukuna even more and get Megumi back into the fight. Due to Sukuna not being able to detect or keep up with her during the fight, Maki holds the key to defeating the King of Curses once and for all.
Jujutsu Kaisencan be streamed onCrunchyrollandAmazon Prime.
Jujutsu Kaisen
Based on Gege Akutami’s Jujutsu Kaisen manga, Mappa’s battle shonen anime envisions a world where Jujutsu Sorcerers battle against entities born out of Cursed Energy. One day, a teenager named Yuji Itadori is dragged into this conflict when he eats a possessed finger.
