Mahito (
Quick Answers
What is the ultimate goal of Mahito's group in the Jujutsu Kaisen series?
What is Mahito's appearance described as by jujutsu sorcerers?
What is the significance of Mahito's domain expansion?
Who is responsible for Mahito's death in the Jujutsu Kaisen series?
Appearance
As described by jujutsu sorcerers, Mahito is a human-looking cursed spirit with a patchwork face and gray eyes. (In the anime, Mahito possesses heterochromia, as his left eye is dark blue and his right eye is gray.) He has long grayish-blue hair that reaches past his neck and is sectioned off into three large strands with ties at the ends. Along with his face, Mahito has stitches all across his body that give him the appearance that he was sewn together.
Mahito normally sports a black shawl that is separated into three pieces on the left sleeve. He also wears matching pants with and sometimes without white shoes.
Personality
"Thanks to the hate spewed between people... I was born."
Mahito is an immature and sadistic cursed spirit who enjoys toying with human emotions. He believes he was born from human transgressions and considers himself the manifestation of humans' hatred of each other. As such, Mahito supports human extermination and deems cursed spirits to be the true rulers of the world. Unlike his ally Jogo, who is short-tempered and arrogant, Mahito can remain relatively calm and playful upon confrontation with an enemy. Even so, they agree on the same goals for the future of their kind. He has a genuine friendship with the other curses, as he scolds Pseudo-Geto for putting Jogo in danger, protects Hanami from Haruta, and wants to avoid fighting with Jogo in Shibuya.
Mahito is also very philosophical when it comes to the concept of souls. He believes the human soul existed before the body and is intrigued by its nature. His cursed technique is derived from this obsession, and he uses it to experiment on human victims to gain further knowledge.
Mahito has no sympathy for humans and appears to place little value even on his own life. He is devoted to the cause, believing that reviving Sukuna is more important than his own well-being. As long as cursed spirits eventually reign supreme, Mahito doesn't care if he's there to see it.
Possibly due to the nature of his birth, Mahito is adept at psychological manipulation. He preys on human hatred, sorrow, and insecurities to direct people to accommodate his goals to the point where his victims go against any common sense. After indirectly causing the death of Junpei's mother by placing Sukuna's finger in her house, he convinces her son that the one who did it was Shota Ito, which, in turn, drives Junpei to become a curse user to avenge his mom. Mahito manipulates Junpei so thoroughly that the boy never considers Mahito evil, even after seeing his experiments in the sewer. Junpei only realizes Mahito's twisted nature when it's too late, moments before Mahito disfigures his body.
Mahito feeding the darkness in Junpei's heart.
Nanami describes Mahito as extraordinarily childish and similar to Satoru Gojo. He enjoys messing with humans, even in battle when his life is on the line. Mahito befriends Junpei because he sees him as a toy that can be fun to play with. He coerces Junpei into becoming a curse user by feeding on his hatred. When Junpei runs out of use, Mahito uses him as leverage against Yuji and even kills him without a second thought.
Mahito experiences a shift in his mindset after his first fight with Yuji. Whereas before, he had mindlessly killed whoever he chose without any objective or strategy, his defeat and humiliation against Yuji strengthens his resolve. With this heightened resolve also comes a greater level of apathy towards others, even his fellow disaster curses. Whereas both Dagon and Jogo mourned Hanami's passing, Mahito only expressed mild surprise before returning to his care-free demeanor. He became more determined to break Yuji's spirit and affirm his identity as a curse. In his second fight against Yuji, he delivers a speech to his opponent declaring their fight is a battle of truths to see who will be left standing in the next century.
Usually composed, Mahito is shaken when his safety is threatened, as seen when Yuji's attacks seriously damage Mahito. Furthermore, when Nobara Kugisaki uses her cursed technique on him, he is surprised that her cursed technique can bypass physical resistance and attack his soul. He emphasizes getting rid of her, showing a strong desire to neutralize anyone or anything capable of hurting him. At the end of his second battle with Yuji, critically injured by Black Flash and exhausted, Mahito is terrified of Yuji when the latter shows him the resolve to hunt him down. At this moment, Mahito sees in Yuji the same callous disdain that he showed humanity. Mahito desperately tries to escape Yuji, making it clear that despite all his bravado and pontificating, he is little more than a cruel, cowardly, and hypocritical child at heart who enjoyed hurting others when there was no danger to him but was fearful when the consequences of his actions finally caught up with him.
Abilities and Powers
Overview
Mahito single-handedly holding off both Yuji and Nanami.
Overall Skill Level: Mahito is an unregistered special grade cursed spirit that eclipses the power of at least three of Sukuna's fingers at the time of his first encounter with Yuji Itadori, and only continues to grow stronger.[2] He is younger than Jogo and as a result, is less experienced and not as powerful at first. Despite this, Mahito is far above what a special grade cursed spirit would normally be and demonstrates rapid growth over the course of only two months. He has very high intelligence and an extremely dangerous cursed technique. Mahito has incredible development potential, as on multiple instances he has developed in the middle of battle.
In a one on one fight, he was able to overwhelm the grade 1 sorcerer, Kento Nanami, by rendering his cursed technique useless. Following that fight, Nanami believed that Mahito had to be exorcised immediately or else he would grow into something too fearsome for Jujutsu High to handle.
In Mahito's two on one battle with Nanami and Yuji, Mahito would have likely defeated both jujutsu sorcerers if it were not for Sukuna's intervention. During this fight, Mahito was able to grow stronger while his life was in danger, allowing him to conjure his own Domain Expansion.
Later, during the Shibuya Incident, Mahito went further beyond his boundaries, being able to create clones of himself that were indistinguishable from the original, while also developing his soul-manipulating abilities. Even after splitting his cursed energy in order to create a double, the divided Mahito still demonstrated relativity to Yuji in combat. During his fight with Yuji and later, Aoi Todo, he managed to land a Black Flash on the two of them, allowing him to gain sufficient understanding of cursed energy and his own soul to activate Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing, further increasing his power.
Physical Prowess
Mahito easily destroying multiple Mechamaru.
Enhanced Strength: Mahito has great physical strength. He mercilessly beat Yuji in their second fight, enough to make the latter cough up blood. Despite having divided strength after splitting his body to create a double, he delivered a blow to Yuji that was so powerful it made him bleed from the forehead. Mahito claimed that if he had put his back into it more, he could have split Yuji's skull. He could easily destroy numerous Mechamarus and was strong enough to pin down Nanami. When enhanced with Black Flash, Mahito's hits can be so powerful they made Aoi Todo cough up blood despite the latter focusing his cursed energy to protect the impacted area.
Mahito blitzing past Nanami's guard.
Enhanced Speed: Mahito has immense speed. He was able to blitz past Nanami's guard in their fight by morphing his legs. He was able to outrun Yuji and attack Todo so fast the only thing he could do was to focus his cursed energy to protect himself.
Enhanced Reflexes: Mahito has superb reflexes. When fighting with Yuji and Todo, he was able to react to their attacks and counter. Mahito even kept up with Todo's Boogie Woogie to an extent. He even single-handedly fought both Yuji and Nanami, all while dodging their attacks and countering extremely fast.
Enhanced Durability: Mahito is exceptionally difficult to kill. Not only does his cursed technique render physical attacks meaningless, but even Mahito's soul is extremely resistant to damage. Nanami attempted to crush Mahito's body, but he went through their entire battle without expressing that he felt any pain even when attacks did land. When Yuji was able to hit Mahito's soul and both jujutsu sorcerers overwhelmed Mahito, he was able to weather the storm and unlocked a new power instead of allowing his body to crumble under the pressure. While using Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing in a weakened state, Mahito suffered zero damage from Yuji's reinforced punches. This prompted Yuji to believe that only a Black Flash imbued with his maximum cursed energy could take Mahito down.
Intelligence
Mahito tricks Yuji and gets behind him.
High Intellect: Mahito possesses very high intellectual prowess, especially for a cursed spirit. He was accurately able to deduce that jujutsu sorcerers were investigating him and was able to set a trap for his pursuers. Mahito can also surmise his opponent's skill level and even their cursed technique after just a few exchanges. He was able to accurately do so against Nanami and he was able to realize that Yuji had the ability to see souls thanks to his relationship with Sukuna. He developed countermeasures to Todo's Boogie Woogie far quicker than Hanami did. He is also very adept at using a variety of tricks to fool his opponents. Along with Pseudo-Geto, Mahito often acts as the brains of his faction's operation.
Cursed Energy
Mahito and his cursed energy.
Cursed Energy Capacity: Mahito has a vast amount of cursed energy at his disposal. Nanami himself said that fighting Mahito until his cursed energy ran out was unrealistic. Mahito is able to use his cursed technique repeatedly without depleting his cursed energy. Only his Domain Expansion has used up significant enough amounts of cursed energy to exhaust Mahito's reserves.
Cursed Energy Manipulation: As the events progressed, Mahito evolved his control over cursed energy. The first major results of that were shown in his fight with Yuji during the Shibuya Incident, when he used a variety of manipulations with his cursed energy to trick his opponent. Mahito's control ended up becoming well-refined from using Black Flash, enough that he could shorten the process of using Domain Expansion into one step instead of two.
Mahito using Black Flash for the first time.
Black Flash (
Cursed Technique
.png){kind=link}
.png){kind=link}
.png){kind=link}
.png){kind=link}
.png){kind=link}
.gif){kind=link}
Battles & Events
Trivia
- Mahito's rankings in the Popularity Polls are as follows;
- Mahito ranked 25th in the first Popularity Poll with 946 votes.
- Mahito ranked 19th in the second Popularity Poll with 449 votes.
- Mahito ranked 22nd in the third Popularity Poll with 279 votes.
- Mahito ranked 12th in the fourth Popularity Poll with 1,675 votes.
- Mahito's name rather ironically translates to "true person" (
真 人 masato?), tying into his group's ideology of curses being the "true humans". Junpei Yoshino even catches himself mid-sentence when Mahito attacks Yuji Itadori, saying "Mahito's not a bad person", only then realizing the truth about his evil mentor. - Mahito is the favorite Jujutsu Kaisen character of Kohei Horikoshi, the author of My Hero Academia, which coincidentally features two antagonists that are similar to Mahito (Tomura Shigaraki and Dabi).
- Mahito is one of the three characters who appeared individually on two separate manga volume covers, his being Volume 6 and Volume 15. The other characters are Sukuna, who is on the cover of Volume 14 and Volume 25; and Satoru Gojo, who is on the cover of Volume 4 and Volume 26.
- Mahito was born from humanity's collective hatred and fear of other humans. This makes him the only member of the group to not be born from a fear of natural disasters.
Quotes
- (To Junpei Yoshino) "Life has no weight or particular value. Just like how water flows through the earth, life simply flows. For you, me and everyone else–it's the same. Without meaning. Without value. That’s why you can do whatever you want. Live the way you want. Don’t limit yourself to just being indifferent. There's no reason to live by such a restricting philosophy. If you're hungry, eat. If you hate, kill. I support everything you represent, Junpei."[4]
- (To Yuji Itadori) "I bet you thought you were gonna do some pest control! Or ghost exterminations like in some make-believe story! You came to Shibuya with half-assed determination didn't ya?! How naive, you stupid brat! This is war! Not a battle to fix what's wrong! But a clash of truths! You and your fragile justice! You are me, Yuji Itadori! I kill without a second thought just like how you save people without a second thought! The instincts of a curse against the so-called dignity obtained by human reason! It's a battle to determine who will be left standing in a hundred years! How the hell did you think you were gonna beat me when you don't even realize that? Tell me, Yuji Itadori… have you ever stopped to count how many curses you've killed? No, right? Me neither, me neither. ♡ Like I care about how many people I've killed. I'm sure I'll eventually forget about you too!"[5]
References
- ↑ Jujutsu Kaisen Official Fanbook: (p. 112-113).
- ↑ Jujutsu Kaisen Manga and Anime: Chapter 116 (p. 16) and Episode 40.
- ↑ Jujutsu Kaisen Manga: Chapter 29 (p. 18-19).
- ↑ Jujutsu Kaisen Manga: Chapter 21 (p. 8-9).
- ↑ Jujutsu Kaisen Manga: Chapter 126 (p. 11-15).