Spoiler Warning: This post includes heavy spoilers for the Jujustu Kaisen manga.
Jujutsu Kaisen began with a straightforward story that introduced us to sorcerers and curses. Well, the story had no similarity to the legendary Attack on Titan lore until the Shibuya Arc commenced.
We witnessed fan-favorite characters, such as Nanami, Nobara, and others, meet their end. Things got even worse in the Culling Game Arc and Shinjuku Showdown arc. Fans couldn’t relax as there were back-to-back deaths among the good guys. If you remember, Attack on Titan was a series that taught us never to fall in love with any character, as you never know what the mangaka has planned for them.
Well, I do not mean this is a bad thing; even though it’s heart-wrenching, let’s not forget that events like these provoke the audience to invest their time in the series. Well, the concluding events of JJK made fans believe that it shares a major similarity with the ending of Hajime Isayama’s Attack on Titan, but it doesn’t, and here I talk about the same.
Both Jujutsu Kaisen and Attack on Titan Feature Bittersweet Endings
The world of Attack on Titan was denser than we could ever think. We always believed that the story was all about the conflict between the Titans and humanity on an island. However, it was never that simple. I repeat, NEVER. That’s because the story had a philosophical aspect that we never paid attention to. The power of titans in AOT was passed on from generation to generation without them even realizing that they had the Titan ability.
Don’t you think the same thing happens with almost everyone? If our predecessors expect us to be evil, they will raise us that way. To be precise, the violent or evil nature doesn’t occur overnight, but it takes proper programming. At the end of AOT, when humanity, or more precisely Eren, gets rid of the Titan’s ability, the war still continues. With the development of the world, the war started taking a different shape, and the cycle continued nonetheless.
The Evil Continues to Rise in Both AoT and JJK
For centuries, humanity believed that the Eldians were evil and were and would always be the cause of humanity’s extinction in Attack on Titan. Well, humanity didn’t lead a peaceful time even after the Titan ability was removed from the face of the planet. So, in the end, evil doesn’t leave with the Titan ability; it stays within the heart of every human, which leads to countless wars.
Similarly, Yuji kills Sukuna and frees humanity from his terror, but curses still continue to show up. That means that even though the battle with the strongest curse is over, the war against the curses will continue. Just like in AoT, evil continues to prosper in Jujutsu Kaisen.
Well, in that case, it does seem like Jujutsu Kiasen and Attack on Titan’s endings are pretty similar. However, fans are taking it a step further, arguing that they share one more similarity.
The Return of Titans is Possible in AoT, But Can Sukuna Make a Come Back?
Apparently, fans believe that Sukuna can return in Jujutsu Kaisen. They think so because, in the end, we see the curse’s rotten finger, more specifically, his midden finger. Fans believe that with this, Gege is hinting that Sukuna can return to life one way or another.
For that to happen, one simply needs to consume that finger of Sukuna. Similarly, in AoT, we see a young boy encountering Ymir’s tree, the source of the Titan power. So, Sukuna can return in Jujutsu Kaisen, and the Titan power can come back in AoT, right? Well, not necessarily.
The truth is that by the end of JJK’s story, Sukuna’s remaining finger is not a threat. If we go back to the manga’s first panel, we see Sukuna’s finger wrapped in a cloth (contained with some powerful sigils). On top of that, it was held in a closed wooden box. That’s because it was a special-grade cursed object. However, in the final panel of JJK, Sukuna’s finger was stowed in an open box without any sigil or cloth covering. What does that mean exactly?
Well, it hints at the possibility that his finger is not a threat anymore. It’s no longer a special-grade cursed object, and Sukuna won’t return even if someone eats it. At the same time, in AoT, it’s quite evident that the tree that the young boy encountered was the source of the Titan’s power.
So, no matter how disappointing it must be for some fans, it’s quite out there that AoT and JJK do not share this similarity. The curses will keep existing in the JJK universe, just like hatred and evil will continue to claim countless lives in AoT; however, the war against Sukuna is over, but the fight against Titans probably isn’t.
