Jujutsu Kaisen: The anime needs to give Gege's worst villain a proper backstory

When it comes to mainstream shonen series that have dominated the entire animanga community for the last few years, Gege Akutami's Jujutsu Kaisen is the cream of the crop.

Whether it's the beautifully animated action sequences or emotionally compelling story arcs that don't hold back on the hauntingly realistic depictions of pain and death, the series certainly has a lot of selling points.

But for all the narrative highs the show reaches, there's one glaring problem that continues to stick out like a sore thumb - Kenjaku.

Despite being one of Jujutsu Kaisen's primary antagonists, the ancient sorcerer was arguably one of the worst-written main villains in the series. It also didn't help that his past was barely explored by the mangaka - which is something that the anime desperately needs to rectify.

How MAPPA can rectify one of Gege Akutami's biggest mistakes in Jujutsu Kaisen season 3

Kenjaku's introduction as Jujutsu Kaisen's primary antagonist was handled pretty well by Gege Akutami. He was built up as this ancient, mysterious, and cunning puppet master who has been playing 4D chess across centuries.

And sure, that worked wonders for the character at first, as many began to revere him as one of the best villains in modern shonen anime. However, if we look beyond all the surface-level stuff, one thing becomes painfully clear - we know next to nothing about who Kenjaku is, or why he wants what he wants.

Kenjaku has been body-hopping through multiple generations, manipulating events that shaped the entire world of Jujutsu Kaisen - all for the sake of his ultimate master plan.

From setting up the Culling Game to conducting inhumane experiments on people, and even giving birth to the series' protagonist, Yuji Itadori, he's quite literally been everywhere. His fingerprints are on every tragedy, and honestly, it's safe to assume that he's the main reason for the world being as messed up as it is.

But if we take a look at his main motivation behind doing all this, it's painfully dull. Sure, his goal of forcing the evolution of humanity in Japan is certainly different from the stereotypical villainous goal of taking over the world. However, it's hard to buy into centuries of horrific cruelty, mass manipulation, and hijacking bodies being all for the sake of some vague, sci-fi-sounding ambition.

We could compare this to villains like Pain or Obito from Naruto, or even Light Yagami from Death Note. Even if you didn't agree with them, you could certainly understand where their motivations were coming from.

And that is because most of these villains received proper backstories that deeply explored all the tragedies they had to go through that ultimately shaped their worldviews and set them on their path.

Kenjaku, on the other hand, is just an enigma with an evil smirk and a god complex - which is all he really is, unfortunately. And that's because Akutami never really bothered to explore Kenjaku's character in the way he deserved.

It also doesn't help that a supposed evil mastermind like Kenjaku, who flawlessly executed his plans like a puppet master with no strings attached, died to a surprise attack by Yuta Okkotsu.

You could argue that there are some villains whose backstories are better left unexplored. Sukuna, according to most fans, is one such villain, who's evil just for the sake of being evil. And villains like that are a rarity in the anime world today, since everyone's trying to make people sympathize with villains these days.

Then again, adding more depth to Kenjaku's character by exploring his backstory will definitely help make him more interesting as a villain. And MAPPA Studios have the opportunity to do so in Jujutsu Kaisen season 3, where they could flesh out Kenjaku's character a bit by adding some anime-original content.

Furthermore, by giving Kenjaku a proper backstory in the Jujutsu Kaisen anime, MAPPA would have the opportunity to showcase just how chaotic and terrifying the Heian Era actually was. It wouldn't just help us understand Kenjaku's motivations a bit better - it would flesh out the entire world of Jujutsu Kaisen by adding some much-needed historical depth.

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Final Thoughts

To this day, many fans feel like Kenjaku's character arc as the series' main antagonist was a major letdown. However, it's certainly not too late to rectify that. MAPPA Studios still has time to step in and give fans what the manga didn't - a reason to care about Kenjaku's motivations.

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