Jujutsu Kaisen Creator Retracts One of His Recommendations Amid Scandal

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is tearing up the charts at the box office in Japan, telling the story of the young man who was the hero of the story before Yuji Itadori hit the scene. With the movie set to arrive in North America this March, it seems that creator Gege Akutami has hit the news for a very different reason recently, which has nothing to do with the supernatural story that they created in 2018 and has gained wild popularity in a relatively short amount of time.

The Canadian R&B Band known as Rhye released their first album in 2013, performing on tours and subsequently gaining a name for itself by releasing new music over the years. The frontman of the band, Mike Milosh, had unfortunately made the news for very different reasons than the band’s music last year, being accused by his ex-wife of grooming and sexual abuse. In a recent issue of Weekly Shonen Jump, the creator of Jujutsu Kaisen had recommended the band without “checking the news first,” causing Akutami to issue a retraction for the recommendation as well as offering his apologies for doing so in the first place.

Twitter User KaiKaiKitan captured both the initial recommendation in Weekly Shonen Jump, as well as Gege Akutami’s subsequent apology as an author’s note that was released alongside one of the latest chapters of Jujutsu Kaisen in the long-running manga publication:

For those who doesn’t know what this is about, we have an artist recommendation section by mangaka one month ago and Akutami-sensei recommended rhye without knowing the news about one of the member. pic.twitter.com/PL1J8xbhqO

— shiro (@kaikaikitan) February 6, 2022

Jujutsu Kaisen’s manga has seen some major challenges and changes shot at Yuji Itadori and his fellow students at Jujutsu Tech, with their teacher Gojo Satoru, who also moonlights as the most popular character of the series, being locked away as the young heroes struggle as a part of the Culling Game. While season two of the anime has yet to be announced, as mentioned earlier, there is plenty of story material for the anime adaptation to cover which might give fans far more than an additional season. 

Jujutsu Kaisen was first released in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump in 2018, gaining popularity in a relatively short amount of time since its inception. The newest prequel movie might not be able to overtake Demon Slayer as the top anime movie of all time, but it’s making surprising strides in theaters in Japan and might just dethrone Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away for the number two spot when all is said and done.