Jujutsu Kaisen Creator Reveals Their Approach to Crafting New Villains
Jujutsu Kaisen's series creator opened up about how they approached crafting villains for the manga series! Gege Akutami's original manga series has ballooned over the last two years into an incredibly popularity for both the manga and anime adaptations. Fans were quickly drawn to how the series has shaken up some of the most common action franchise formulas, but at the same time adhered to some of these characteristics in order to showcase a new kind of story. This has been especially true for how the series approaches its central antagonists thus far, and there's apparently a core trick as to how they happen.
In a special interview in the latest issue of Jump GIGA magazine (as spotted and translated by @soukatsu_ on Twitter) Jujutsu Kaisen series creator Gege Akutami was asked about how the series has antagonists that are very compelling to fans despite their more evil intentions, and opened up about his approach to crafting these villains. As it turns out, Akutami's trick to crafting his villains is to not necessarily make them appeal with sympathy, but to give them clear goals that make them clash with the heroes in certain ways.
"There's no real need to make them sympathetic [characters]," Akutami began, "[So] I think it's vital to clearly show why the antagonist clashes against the main character's convictions, and cement that as the axis on which they act. It's easy to give reasons behind irrational acts, but it's very difficult to translate them into principles the characters act upon." As an example given of this idea, there's Choso, who initially starts out as out for Yuji Itadori's blood after he takes down his brothers, but soon ends up becoming Yuji's ally thanks to their surprise connection found during their initial confrontation.
The series has been introducing a lot more antagonists especially with the current Culling Game arc, and while Kenjaku certainly is the standout overall as the main planner, there have been many more smaller enemies with their own compelling characteristics. At the same time, each of them have been following their own goals with an intense zeal and that's brought everyone to blows so far. Then there are bigger threats like Sukuna, who have yet to really make their move either.
But what do you think? How do you like the way Jujutsu Kaisen approaches its villains? Who have been some of your favorite foes over the course of the series so far? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!
