“Mankind knew that they could not change society. So instead of reflecting on themselves, they blamed the beasts.” – Naoki Hashimoto

Tomura Shigaraki, My Hero Academia’s Symbol of Fear.

Mahito, Jujutsu Kaisen‘s Special-Grade Curse born of the fear of humans.

Humanity. While we are truly some magnificent beings, we are also the most dangerous. Whether it be through the various forms of harm we inflict on one another, a corrupt society we allowed to be made, or just flat out war and negativity we have towards each other. And from this, it’s almost ironic that sometimes, dangerous forces are born of what humanity has done as if to act out as vengeance for what we have done.

And in one of our fighters’ cases, they were literally born of humanity’s fear of one another, while the other was corrupted by a broken society humanity had created, leading to two beings who desire for nothing more than the absolute destruction of what had been built. But what happens when two beings of fear face off with each other?

While we have gone over this cursed clash (NO ASSOCIATION) nearly two years ago, a good amount has changed, in particular the grand stories of My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen have come to a conclusion since then. And with the final developments of the tale of heroes and villains and the tale of sorcerers and curses, we shall once again see whether Mahito’s chances of victory will be decayed away to absolute nothing, or if Shigaraki’s odds of winning are nothing more than a canvas to be molded to a gravestone along with his soul. So for the second time, we’re putting all hands on deck to find out who of these two would win a DEATH BATTLE!

Before We Start…

Spoilers for ALL of My Hero Academia and Jujutsu Kaisen will be in effect for this, so anime-onlys beware. As for media used, we’ll be looking at each series’ respective anime, manga, guidebooks, movies, and any extra relevant sources like volume extras.

We will be using all canon material for Shigaraki (the MHA manga, anime, Vigilantes prequel manga, and films) and Mahito (JJK and JJK 0 manga, anime, JJK 0 film and light novels). The official JJK databook and the Jump GIGA Summer 2021 JJK “Deep Learning Mathematics Lecture” will be the guides used for Jujutsu Kaisen. Ultra Archive and Ultra Analysis guide books will be used for My Hero Academia. All the video games will be taken in as supplementary material as well.

However we’ll be taking particular note to the Jujutsu Kaisen gacha mobile game, Phantom Parade. This is relevant as Phantom Parade has its own original story meant to tie into the JJK anime. While it would be easy to brush off as non-canon, Phantom Parade’s original storylines thus far, surprisingly does not contradict anything in the main story of Jujutsu Kaisen, mostly being set between the Goodwill arc and Shibuya Incident and the Shibuya Incident and even goes out of its way to set up and align its exclusive events with the main continuity such as who ends up with certain numbers of Sukuna’s Fingers and elements of Kenjaku’s plan. Events as well are also set either before the main series or during days we don’t see on-panel/screen like Megumi’s event being set between the events of the Detention Center and Shibuya Incident or teen Gojo & Geto’s event being set well before Hidden Inventory. As such any feats showcased in its main story and all events will be taken as supplementary secondary canon for the time being. The in-game Memories items are somewhat dubious in canon though, depicting certain events that aren’t mentioned in both the manga & anime nor Phantom Parade’s main story itself, so take what’s depicted in certain Memories with a grain of salt.

And yes, we also checked Cursed Clash. Unfortunately.

This blog also will have more graphics then your average blog – our artists wanted to go all out. Shoutouts to Flip, Toxin, Cabbage, ishi_yuki, and Blue Igneous for their work.

Sources

While this blog had lots of work put into it, some of the scans and calculations came from outside sources, which we’ll link here.

• VS Battles Wiki
• New Horizon’s All For One vs Toichiro Suzuki (special shoutout to this one in particular for lots of information on Shigaraki’s side. Many who helped on his end also help with this blog, so give it a read if you got the time!)
• The 2023 Shigaraki vs Mahito blog
• Tru’s Sukuna vs Muzan blog
• The Black Shulk’s Kenjaku vs Medusa
• LandonBlogsALot’s Greed vs Choso

Background

Images by ishi_yuki.

Shigaraki

“Everything I witness in this world of ours led to the existence of that house. As Tomura Shigaraki and Tenko Shimura, I’ve got just one hope: The destruction of everything stemming from that house. That’s the only thing that’s gonna save me, hero.”

A kind mother. Spoiling grandparents. An energetic sister. A smiling dog. Despite his troubled father, you would never assume that little Tenko Shimura was at the worst place he could be in the world. Within a world filled to the brim with heroes, millions aspired to be as triumphant as the strong people they saw, with Tenko being no different. His father’s awkward past however conflicted with Tenko’s aspirations, as he hated the world of heroes, leading to conflict between the two that no one else in Tenko’s family had the will to stop. With no one to save him from a troubled spot, no heroes in sight, the only thing that could come triumphant was a villain. His Quirk awakened: the destructive Decay. In a horrific series of events, Tenko brutally and accidentally murdered the entire family he loved, leaving his father horrified. Tenko would leave his obliterated house with a smile on his face, with his father’s bloody remains being the source of his newfound joy.

But where would he go? Surely, in the open world, someone would help a dirty but small child? No one. They all assumed a hero would save him. A hero that never came to be. There was no one to save him, but yet again, a villain. A man approached Tenko, and cleaned him, cared for him, and made him his own son… before reintroducing him to his family’s remains. This man was All For One. And he raised what was left of the now mentally fractured Tenko Shimura to be Tomura Shigaraki. Years of tutelage under AFO prepared him to destroy what he hated most, a world where people would leave it all to the heroes they assumed were there.

But Tomura’s villainous antics could only go so far. Even with his appointed caretaker Kurogiri to help him, alongside a slew of dangerous beasts called Nomus, he could not leave an impact on society. This fact was made all the worse by the popularity of Stain, an idealist that Shigaraki could not understand. It was through a chance conversation with his opposite, Izuku Midoriya, that Tomura realized what he needed to do; ruin the Symbol of Peace, the pillar of the world he hated, the world that stemmed from that house that ruined everything: All Might. He became more organized, more thoughtful, organizing his loosely created League of Villains into a powerful and versatile psychopath run terrorist group.

Even after All For One and Kurogiri were lost to him, Shigaraki was not led astray. But his new allies only amounted to so much when the League did not have what it needed to make a stand. When offered the power needed to do what he wanted, Shigaraki jumped at the opportunity. Coming into battle with Gigantomachia, he persisted for weeks. Coming into contact with the Paranormal Liberation Front, he persisted through the pain. Coming into contact with his repressed memories, taking off the literal reminder of his past that were the corpse-originated hands that coated him, he persisted and awakened. Tomura Shigaraki was finally free. He had acquired key allies, an army, and the key to ultimate power. Everything was in place for him to rip apart this stupid society. Both for himself, and his friends.

Through months of torturous scientific advancement, Tomura was transformed. Not only did he gain the All For One quirk, but he was also genetically modified, ever evolving; a monster. But who cares? He had all the power needed to take on every top hero at once, as long as he let his former master’s spirit copy hold him on a leash. For the next few months, society would suffer because of Shigaraki’s actions. But past the countless dead and the grasp of Shigaraki’s master, Izuku Midoriya could still see the crying child Tomura used to be, who was raised in that house from so long ago. After various conflicts, the battle between the greatest villain and Deku began in the flying coffin. Within it however, All For One’s spirit was subdued, and the battle between Tenko and Izuku continued as the two blazed through Japan.

Eventually, even after sacrificing One For All, Midoriya could not “save” Shigaraki. The society he had known had damaged him too thoroughly, the allies he had met were too much to stop fighting for… and All For One’s leash was reattached. Its true length having been revealed. Ever since he was born, Tenko’s life was sabotaged by All For One so he could become the strongest hatred humanity had ever known: a reflection of hero society’s mistakes. He was cast aside, no longer even having freedom within his own body. But he would not let his story end like this, without him ending the source of his suffering. 

With a final clash, Shigaraki and Deku annihilated the vestige of All For One. And as the spirit of Shigaraki died, Midoriya reassured him that he had succeeded. The current state of society was destroyed, which in turn opened the path for a better one to be made. Tomura Shigaraki passed on to death, but did so knowing that he had accomplished what he had set out to do, even if the result was unorthodox. Tenko Shimura may have gone on to become one of the worst villains of all time, but in a twisted and ironic way, becoming Tomura Shigaraki let him do some of the good Tenko wanted to do all along. Weird, but something he considered worth smiling about in the end.

Mahito

“Tell me, Itadori, do you remember every curse you’ve exorcised up until now? I don’t remember my victims either. And I’ll surely forget you in time too.”

Curses. Spiritual beings created from the negative emotions and energy that leak from human beings. In particular, born from the hatred and fears humans harbor for one another, the cynical Mahito would be created. The personification of human resentment, Mahito likewise despises humanity and believes them to be inferior beings. He believes that curses are the natural successors of the world, that they are the dominant force and that humans should be eradicated. Armed with his unique Cursed Technique Idle Transfiguration, the ability to reshape the soul of anyone he touches, Mahito’s goal becomes clear. Destroy all of humanity and replace all of them with the true humans of the world, curses.

Quite the task though, how would Mahito ever get around to accomplishing this? The world is filled with Sorcerers, individuals trained in the art of jujutsu, who specialize in defending humanity from curses like Mahito. They can even come with their own Cursed Techniques, such as the limitless manipulation of the space around them, or the use of ten deadly shadows. As lethal as Mahito can be with his cursed technique, even he could use some help—who else would be a better ally than another curse? 

Along the way Mahito would form a group of special grade curses who all share the same sentiment of curses and humans as him. Jogo, a hothead with a short temper born from humanity’s fear of fire based disasters. Hanami, a calm and stoic curse born from humanity’s fear of land based disasters. Dagon, an arrogant and confident curse born from humanity’s fear of water based disasters. They would act as the main opposing force to the Jujutsu Sorcerers. Their goals would align with Kenjaku, a sorcerer that pilots the corpse of Suguru Geto, who wanted to reshape the world with cursed energy.

Mahito would soon meet his antithesis, the one to oppose all that the curse stands for, Yuji Itadori. Mahito had been manipulating a bullied high school student named Junpei Yoshino, while pushing him towards hatred and revenge. This bottles up into a confrontation between Junpei and Yuji, where Mahito intervenes. He cruelly transfigures Junpei and turns him into a grotesque creature right before Yuji’s eyes, right before Yuji was able to talk Junpei down and lead him into a better and brighter path. This kickstarts Yuji’s initial belief that he is just a cog in a machine, made to kill curses in Jujutsu society. Mahito figures out he could not use Idle Transfiguration effectively on Yuji. As Sukuna’s vessel, Yuji could punch directly into Mahito’s soul while Sukuna protects his own, albeit indirectly. Supplementing Yuji and Mahito to be enemies. Mahito further damages Jujutsu society through the killing of Mechamaru (Kokichi Muta), a mole gaining and passing information between both curses and Jujutsu High.s.

Kenjaku calls a meeting for Mahito’s group, revealing the plan to defeat the sorcerers. The first part of the plan is to somehow defeat the strongest sorcerer of the modern day, Satoru Gojo. The second aspect would be to gain the allegiance of Ryomen Sukuna, the strongest sorcerer in history and the King of Curses. October 31st at 7:00 PM, a large curtain was cast around Shibuya, all communications and exits were blocked. The Shibuya Incident has begun, and will change jujutsu society forever.

Dozens of sorcerers are called onto the site, chaos soon erupts. Curses and transfigured humans created by Mahito begin to attack all humans in Shibuya. The divided army of deformed humans stall the sorcerers, while Satoru Gojo arrives on the site. Little do the sorcerer’s know, the Shibuya Incident was all a lure to seal Gojo into the prison realm. The curses know they cannot take him on in a fight, but force a brutal decision to either use a domain expansion to kill the curses and the hordes of innocent humans with them, or lose to the curses to try and save them. In his ingenuity, Satoru Gojo unleashes a 0.2 Domain Expansion, paralyzing all individuals caught in the domain without causing lethal effects to the humans. The day seems saved, but Gojo was caught in a moment of hesitation. Kenjaku unleashes the prison realm, sealing the strongest sorcerer of today and rendering him incapable of fighting, all with the distractions and assistance provided by the Disaster Curses. 

An all out war begins to save Satoru Gojo and to stop the incident, and here do the natural born enemies meet once again. Mahito and Yuji Itadori fight one last time, a brutal confrontation of the prodigies of the curses and the sorcerers. Yuji is enraged with Mahito having just killed Nanami in front of his eyes. Mahito wishes to envelop Yuji in despair, to break and ruin him in every way possible. In all his anger Yuji rushes at Mahito with unmatched hatred and seemingly has the curse on the backfoot, only for Mahito to run past another clone, who Yuji realizes was fighting with Nobara. Before he could warn her, Mahito grabs Nobara’s face and seemingly kills her with Idle Transfiguration, another life Yuji couldn’t save while in arm’s reach. Sukuna earlier awoke and demolished the entire city, unable to stop him from taking over. Yuji is broken, his resolve shattered, spirit battered. All seems lost, Mahito has won.

They switch places with a clap. Aoi Todo arrives and reinstills vigor back into his brother. Yuji wakes up, for their battle has only begun. Sacrifices had to be made, Black Flashes landed by all 3 combatants. They were at 120% of their maximum potential and one side must be left behind. Through a brutal and bloody fight, Aoi Todo is rendered incapable of fighting as his technique, Boogie Woogie, has been left disabled from replication of Satoru Gojo’s 0.2 Domain Expansion from Mahito. He could not break Yuji anymore, as Yuji finishes Mahito off with a Black Flash, leaving Mahito as a whimpering cowardly mess on the ground, attempting to crawl away from Yuji. Yuji slowly approaches Mahito and admits that he is him, and that they really are one in the same. He’ll kill Mahito again and again if that’s what it takes. Mahito is seemingly saved by Kenjaku, who actually betrays Mahito instead, absorbing Mahito into his Uzumaki and finishing the curse off for good.

At the end of it all, Mahito meets with the King of Curses one last time after Yuji Itadori has defeated and killed Ryomen Sukuna. Mahito questions Sukuna in the afterlife, was he lying? Mahito insisted that Sukuna truly wanted revenge. Sukuna was not living according to his own stature, but wanted revenge against those who persecuted him. The King of Curses is not phased though. Maybe he did want revenge, but what’s the difference? Sukuna lived in the only manner that he knew how, but recognized that he had different paths he could traverse. But maybe, just maybe, if a next life truly exists, he could walk down a different path while admitting his defeat. Sukuna moves on in the afterlife alongside Uraume, leaving Mahito behind. Mahito is enraged and calls him soft, angered that Sukuna left him as the only one “sulking like a child”. In the pathway of souls, he truly was a curse who refused to move onto the end.

Experience & Skill

Shigaraki

While Shigaraki has not received any “formal” training, he still has a lot of combat experience. He fought against Gigantomachia for a month and half; for forty eight hours and forty four minute sessions, only getting three hour breaks in between; vastly improving his reactions and reflexes. Re-Destro described him as someone who only could be as capable as he was due to extended life or death level training, and Tomura’s tenacity only enforces this analysis. Notably, these cases were before he had any sort of super strength with All For One (the quirk), as he only had Decay at the time.

He additionally makes up for his lack of hand to hand expertise with surprisingly crafty analysis and decision making, being able to point out counters to enemy maneuvers, like when he used Decay to cancel out Re-Destro’s stronger attacks before they could ever hit him. He is just as surprising when it comes to in advance plans, like when he formed a protective shield around his soul. This both let him get a jump on All For One (the character), as well as shield himself from a majority of Deku’s vestige based attacks. Shigaraki is not a super complex fighter mentality wise, but overall he is good at making precise calls and exploiting flaws in strategies. 

Mahito

While only being born for a short time, Mahito’s development has surpassed almost any curse the world has seen. As he learned more about the world, Mahito read numerous books (including Tolkein!) to deepen his understanding of humans and the soul from different perspectives. Mahito’s own knowledge also extends to Jujutsu Sorcery, already knowing how to use Cursed Energy to where he can teach Junpei knowledge that would take sorcerers years to learn.

Mahito’s knowledge on sorcery also extends to his growth as a Curse. He’s been noted by Nanami and Jogo to always grow stronger in both strength and further understanding of his abilities. Mahito noted the flaws in his moves he applies to combat while adjusting his strategy, to where in Shibuya he’s grown so proficient in Idle Transfiguration that he’s invented entirely new applications for it (see abilities for more details). Mahito even learned moves that only the best of Jujutsu Society could perform, like hitting a Black Flash on his first try after seeing Yuji use the move. But by far his most impressive showing was achieving his own Domain Expansion after being pushed to the brink of death, which is a move that even many powerful sorcerers can only dream of attaining. If that wasn’t enough, Mahito even learned a 0.2 second variant of this after seeing Gojo perform it once.

Mahito has proven himself to be an incredibly competent fighter in several ways than just his abilities. His first fight has him keep up with Kento Nanami, who’s been a sorcerer for many years, and battled him and Yuji, another capable martial artist, at the same time. Mahito devised numerous strategies for the situation, such as recognizing to keep Yuji at a distance with Transfigured Humans while protecting his soul, or devising a plan with his 0.2 Domain Expansion to counter Todo’s Boogie Woogie while not affecting Sukuna within Yuji. Mahito’s deductions also are shown with his knowledge of the soul, picking up on Nanami subconsciously shielding his or Yuji’s newfound ability to hit the soul from being a vessel.

Equipment

Shigaraki

Hands

The severed hands from Shiaraki’s deceased family.. creepy. AFO instructed him to keep them as a memento, until Shigaraki destroyed all but one of them when he recovered his memories. The last remaining hand was kept by Spinner, and was used to awaken both Shigaraki and Kurogiri.

Quirk Destroying Bullets

Bullets stolen from Overhaul that remove the victim’s Quirk. Shigaraki took a few of these, one of which was used by AFO to restore his body. The other was used by Shigaraki to remove Aizawa’s quirk (though he amputated his leg to prevent its effects).

Mahito

None notable.

Abilities

Overview images by ishi_yuki.

Other special images by Cabbage.

Shigaraki

Quirk Overview

Meta-abilities, more recently referred to as “Quirks”, are advanced genetic mutations. At the start of My Hero Academia, roughly 80% of the human population had quirks (though notably animals like rats can also have quirks). It is stated in series however that that 80% is slowly increasing, and will eventually rise to a full 100%. Quirks typically manifest around kindergarten, and do seem to have a tendency to reflect or impact a person’s personality to a degree. Shigaraki is an obvious case with Decay correlating with his desire for destruction, but there are other standout examples like Bakugo’s explosion quirk aligning with his temper, or Himiko Toga having a lust for blood alongside her blood drinking based quirk.

There are three types of quirks: Emitter, Transformation, and Mutant. Emitter is the most common type, allowing the user to produce something, be it an object or a surge of strength, or manipulate their environment. This type would include quirks like super strength, telekinesis, or Shigaraki’s own Decay (more on that in a bit). Transformation quirks involve the user temporarily transforming their body into an alternate form, like stretching out your arm like Luffy, or turning into a kaiju. Mutant quirks automatically change the user and are passively activated, changing the person from an ordinary human. People who grow scales, are naturally giant or have animal-like properties would fall into this category.

Notably, quirks are not magic; they are basically an extra muscle. Using them does take up stamina, even if their other shortcomings can be overcome. For example, Shoto Todoroki can manipulate both fire and ice, with the weakness of each being overexposure to one of the two temperatures. He can counter this by balancing usage however, maintaining a perfect balance of hot and cold. Regardless of this weakness coverage however, he still has a limit to his stamina and can only push his quirk so far for so long. This stamina limit applies to a majority of quirks, though some passive ones like Life Force (a quirk that cuts the user’s age in half) do not seem to have a stamina limit. Thus a quirk’s limits in terms of stamina and usage seems to be a case by case basis that needs to be individually examined.

Decay

Shigaraki’s signature Quirk, Decay has constantly evolved over the years of the Symbol of Fear’s villainy. Originally requiring direct contact with the target for a slow breakdown, Decay has evolved overtime to be nigh instant death upon contact with someone. Would it be with his hands or feet, Tomura can start its spread, and keep it going until he decides to stop it, or the object conditioned with Decay is reduced to nothing. He does not require continuous contact with someone or something for Decay to keep affecting it. Once in contact with the terrain, it can move fast enough to destroy a forest or city in seconds.

Additionally, after its evolution, Decay can pass through different objects contagiously rather than being needed to be administered directly by Shigaraki. This means that if you are standing on ground affected by Decay, it will pass on to you. Even something as simple as a falling piece of debris currently affected by Decay will pass it on to someone. This allows Shigaraki to make Decay a hazardous omnidirectional tidal wave of an attack. Additionally, Shigaraki has precise control of Decay’s path, and what is or is not hit by Decay. Letting him avoid allies or key items and make sure that what is hit is what he wants to hit. 

As some additional notes, Decay seems to be able to bypass shockwaves and destroy energy attacks, letting Shigaraki use it defensively to interrupt enemy attacks before they ever hit him. At its peak, Decay’s speed and precision also enhanced greatly, to the point where Shigaraki could send it vertically through the ground below to cause entire cities to sink into the sea, with this plan being meant for all of Japan. It can also decay an object like glass instantly, which takes over a million years to decompose. Meaning it likely is not some sort of super sped up erosion that would not work on an unaging enemy, but rather just what it is described to be: absolute destruction.

All For One (Quirk)

(Art from and details listed by CarlosE24339152)

Directly implanted into him by Doctor Garaki, All For One is potentially the first ever quirk to exist. With it, Shigaraki is able to steal the quirks of others, adding the victim’s abilities to his personal list of powers. This applies traditionally for emitter and transformation quirks, though he can also morph his body for mutation quirks whenever, essentially making them act more like transformation quirks really. Additionally, Shigaraki can give quirks to other people, whether the target wants them or not.

Given the quirk’s extensive multi-generation history, All For One (the character) stockpiled several quirks over the years. All of them going to Shigaraki, as the version of All For One (the quirk) bestowed upon Shigaraki was the original version of the quirk, rather than the weaker replica version All For One (the character) was running around with during the main story. Thus, Shigaraki has access to All For One’s (the character) entire stockpile, and thus quirks used by both him and the villain are in his arsenal of potential options. He can combine Decay with this Quirk to immediately kill the victim he drains the quirks of.

As something else to bring up, notably, the version Tomura got was confirmed to have kept being updated even when All For One (character) didn’t have it, as seen with Shigaraki obtaining Search. A quirk stolen by All For One (character) while he wielded the artificial version of All For One (quirk). It should also be noted that he does have some preferences (the quirks he’s used himself are listed in the image above), though he is open to new options whenever the situation calls for it. Should Shigaraki’s body be too damaged, the Quirk can be used to forcibly keep whatever remains of his body together and can even be used by the AFO vestige to move to another body to possess.

Air Cannon

A prominent and frequently-used Quirk of All For One. With the quirk Air Cannon, Tomura can release from the palm of his hands, strong pressurized blast of air. As shown above this quirk can also be used as an omni-directional shockwave to push others away. Just like what his master usually does, Shigaraki can enhance the strength of this quirk by stacking it with others, such as the quirk; Springlike Limbs or all the other stat amplification and/or instantaneous impact quirks. Besides amping it up with strength, Shigaraki also mixes other quirks to add on other effects with it. Such as Heavy Payload or using Radio waves so that he could also disrupt electronics while causing massive damage to the area.

Air Walk

The user can walk on air… of course. It can also be used for floating mid-air, skipping across the air and/or flying across big distances in seconds.

Antigen Swap and Bloodlet

Antigen Swap is a unique quirk, allowing Tomura Shigaraki to swap his blood type, and is useful for staying hidden from the government. Bloodlet is a brutal quirk that allows the user to expel all of their blood from their body instantly, before putting it back in. All For One used both of these quirks to stop the effects of Stain’s Bloodcurdle quirk. Probably way too convenient that two guys with these quirks existed for All For One to steal them and use in this very moment, honestly.

Black Lightning

This one’s quite the shocking quirk, eh eh? No? Oh whatever, This quirk allows Shigaraki to shoot out black lightning from either his fingertips, his palms, arms or just generate it out from his entire body, shooting it out as an omnidirectional blast. 

Danger Sense

A knock-off Spider-Sense. Literally. This Quirk detects incoming threats like a sixth sense and also pinpoints their direction, basically acting like a sort of precognition. It manifests as a sharp, stabbing sensation in the head whenever a danger is near. The only difference from Marvel’s Spider-Man is that it’s visualized as a yellow lighting striking down rather than random wavy lines coming from the user’s head. Originally belonging to the fourth One for All user, Hikage Shinomori, it was passed down through the successors until it reached Deku… only to be stolen by Shigaraki in the final battle. This is the only one of the OFA quirks that wasn’t heavily damaged upon transfer, so that’s why its inclusion makes sense.

Dark Ball

An unnamed quirk All For One himself uses a lot in the mix of quite a few other quirks. This technique is essentially your average Touhou experience, where the user shoots out a huge amount of danmaku all over the place in patterns. He mixes these dark energy balls usually with The Impure Beam and many other amplification quirks.

Detonation

Because we can’t have enough brutality, Shigaraki has within his stockpile of quirks, one that’s very sneaky and deadly. Once Shigaraki implants a quirk inside the unknowing victim, he can then remotely detonate it right inside their body. All for One did this to Lady Nagant suspecting that she would turn a new leaf. Shigaraki himself used this quirk onto his flying Nomu as a distraction.

Explosive Quirk

In the past, All For One had used some sort of explosive Quirk to kill the Seventh Wielder of One For All, Nana Shimura, with the ensuing explosion taking up a small island.

Force Field Quirk

An unnamed yet very helpful quirk. With this Shigaraki is capable of putting up force fields that are strong enough to block and reflect attacks off of heavy hitters. He’s able to create them up from the fly, without needing to use his hands, he can create a small one and can even create several layers of them at once.

Forced Quirk Activation

By making physical contact with someone, whether it be through his own body or a body morphing quirk that enhances his range, Shigaraki can forcefully activate someone’s quirk. Manipulating the quirk in a way that Shigaraki can exploit, like when All For One (character) forcefully activated Magne’s powers to magnetically pull the League of Villains away from his fight with All Might.

Heavy Payload

A rather simple Emitter type Quirk that shoots out a massive and destructive wave of sheer force. Shigaraki has used this to boost the power of some of his quirks, using it in tandem with Quirks like Radio Waves and Air Cannon for a massive destructive attack.

Hardflame Fan

A specific type of barrier that can be used to defend from and divert heat based attacks. Though it does seem to have a limit when dealing with heat as hot as the fire from people like Endeavor.

Hyper Regeneration

Originally engineered by Dr. Kyudai Garaki for the Nomu army, Hyper Regeneration is a formidable Quirk that grants its user the ability to rapidly heal from most forms of damage, including the complete restoration of lost limbs, making its wielder incredibly difficult to defeat. It allowed Shigaraki to survive an explosion from several missiles, healing severe burns and internal damage almost immediately, including damage to the inside of his skull. Hyper-Regeneration has allowed Nomu to regrow their limbs instantly, and even reform their entire body from a severed head. Considering Shigaraki is Dr. Garaki’s ultimate work, he should be able to do the same. This is supported by Nana’s vestige mentioning that Izuku has to reduce Shigaraki to nothing to beat him.

However, the quirk is not without its drawbacks. For one, it cannot repair wounds that have already been cauterized before the Quirk takes effect. Also, if an opponent overwhelms the user with rapid and continuous attacks, the regeneration will likely fail to keep up due to too much strain. In cases where the user’s body is not adequately conditioned, the healing process may also be significantly slower, although it’s not the case for Shigaraki. 

Hypertrophy

I guess we know which one is his favourite hand. This quirk allows Shigaraki to enlarge his own arm at his own whim. Hypertrophy gives the user a massive power boost and allows Shiggy to overpower more physically powerful enemies.This ability is also used for the Ultimate quirk combination.

Impact Recoil

By using Impact Recoil, dealt damage can be countered and redirected to the damage dealer, even if Shigaraki isn’t the one to take the attack in the first place. Notably, the damage is still dealt to whoever is hit despite the counter effect, and it cannot redirect non-traditional attacks like heat.

Impure Beam

(Fried chicken, anyone? :<)

This Quirk lets the user unleash a devastatingly powerful beam of light that can pierce through just about anything, with it most notably being able to take down Tsukuyomi. The Jet-Black Hero duo are really important to bring up in particular, as with Dark Shadow’s Light of Baldur form, Tokoyami was constantly damaging Prime All For One as well as tanking all of his attacks. Only this Quirk, thanks to its light attribute and absurd power, was able to break through and put the bird brothers out of commission. This Quirk does have its drawback as the sheer power it emits causes intense recoil damage to the user, with All For One being severely injured as he fires it. That being said, Shigaraki’s far superior physical stats should remove this weakness.

Infrared Ray & Vibration Sensing

Shigaraki has access to several sensory quirks, allowing him to detect things like vibrations in the air or infrared radiation without using his eyesight. This gives him superb battlefield awareness and makes sneak attacks nigh impossible.

Kinetic Booster

A quirk that enhances the kinetic energy Shigaraki exerts with his blows.

Lie Detector

A peculiar Quirk that All For One stole from an ancestor of the Tsukauchis, which allows for the user to detect if a target has any ill will or deception behind their words.

Life Force

A unique Quirk that allows for a user to double their life span via slowing their aging, with All For One using this Quirk to maintain his rule for far longer than any normal human should have, and Kyudai Garaki having lived for 120 years despite looking much longer. 

It does have the downside of sacrificing physical mobility for the Quirk Bearer, though this issue does not seem to apply to Shigaraki at all. Likely due to further optimization of the quirk being done by All For One (the character).

Mouth

To further add to his disgusting repertoire of abilities, Shigaraki can grow gigantic mouths through his arms. These can be used to slice someone with a fierce bite, or serve as a charging point for an extra powerful projectile attack.

Multiplier

It appears to grant the user the ability to sprout multiple arms from their body at will, which means that “multipliers” in this case refer to growing extra limbs, not the kind that suddenly boosts your power level by 50 times like in Dragon Ball.

Radio Waves

Shigaraki is able to shoot out radio waves from his hands. Moving at light speed, they can serve as a means of communication with other people with radio wave manipulation, short circuit electronics, or be combined with other offensive quirks like Air Cannon or Heavy Payload to create light speed projectile waves to hit enemies with.

Razor Blades

A simple offensive quirk that shoots simple energy like cutting attacks at the enemy.

Reflect

By taking a projectile attack, Shigaraki can mimic it and redirect it at his enemies. It is unclear whether this reflection is limited to light based attacks or general projectiles though.

Rivet Stab

Tomura can shoot out an onslaught of black and red spikes from his entire body, shooting out as an almost undodgeable omnidirectional swarm. He preferably shoots them out of his fingers or back however. They are able to bend in all directions and extend to medium range, working as a keepaway option, picking several items or people up, a mode of transportation by dragging Shigaraki around like tendrils, or a perfect stabbing weapon fit for making all of your desired Endeavor and Bakugou flavored kabobs. Rivet Stab can also be used internally to reduce pain and keep Shigaraki standing if he has taken too much damage.

Scatter

A quirk that allows the user to shoot out a projectile in multiple directions at once.

Search

Stolen from former hero of the Wild, Wild Pussycats Ragdoll, Search is a very useful Quirk that allows for Shigaraki to observe up to one-hundred targets at a time, granting information on their location, which can have a range of miles away, as well as their weak points. It does this by specifically targeting the Quirk Factor and DNA of a target, which in turn allows for Search to keep track of multiple individual Quirk Factors in a user. It also keeps data from previously analyzed enemies for an extra bonus, including weaknesses. According to Ragdoll (Volume 9, Chapter 72) and a profile from the Ultra Archive, the Search Quirk allows the owner to know about the person the user is looking at in general.

Shockwaves

As the name implies, this quirk allows the user to fire out destructive shockwaves at enemies to pulverize them and push them back.

Spearlike Bones

The very first Quirk that All For One stole, from his mother no less, Shigaraki is able to extend, well, spearlike bones out of his body. Giving him a lethal surprise attack option to skewer enemies with.

Springlike Limbs

Shigaraki can make his limbs well, springlike. This works for both dealing strong hits to enemies as well as propelling himself through an area at high speeds.

Strength Enhancer

(“I’M ALL FOR ONEING IT!”)

A simple Quirk that boosts the user’s physical strength. By like, a lot, I guess.

Telekinesis

Shigaraki is able to grab objects from afar with telekinesis, pointing his hand in a direction before grabbing something without needing direct contact. Letting him crush or twist the target in any way he wants.

Warping

By spewing black liquid from someone’s mouth, Shigaraki can warp someone to his general location by having them be coated by this liquid. This ability requires knowing where the target is, but the target does not have to be super close to the target or in their line of sight; a mile or two is typically the maximum distance. Notably though, this ability can be resisted by someone strong enough, as shown by Shigaraki himself.

Wings

A quirk Shigaraki had stolen from a Near High-End Nomu to quickly get away from the battlefield. This Quirk allows Shigaraki two sprout two gigantic black wings that gives him the ability for fast flight or gliding through the air.

Energy Explosions

By fusing a ton of quirks, one of them being black lightning, Shigaraki would be able to cause a massive energy explosion.

Mouth Blast

Shigaraki can combine his creepy mouth quirk with a bunch of others, to create this massive grotesque beam cannon. The massive blast from this quirk weapon was so powerful it injured and ripped off a chunk of Jirou’s ear from just partial exposure of the blast.

Fear Aura

This is no simple aura farming, as Shigaraki’s mere presence has been shown to be capable of generating immense amounts of fear in people. For example, it has already caused both Deku and Bakugou to hallucinate from getting decayed. It also happened with All for One (the person), given simply being near and hearing him inflicted paralysis, nausea and hallucination on Deku and his friends when they were plotting to save Bakugou. In fact, on one occasion, it managed to completely cancel out the effect of a motivation booster Quirk. Rendering those caught in his gaze motionless.

Resonance

During the Final War, AFO (possessing Shigaraki at the time) is able to see and hear the Vestiges of all the prior OFA users within Izuku, when both AFO and OFA resonate. In turn, Yoichi is able to see AFO through Shigaraki, and wounds Shig receives reflect upon the Vestige of his former master. Later on, Shigaraki can see and hear the Vestiges, calling them Phantoms, and notes Izuku can see into his own spirit.

Body Modifications

Due to extensive experiments by Doctor Garaki, Shigaraki’s body was absurdly enhanced overtime so that he could handle the full potential of the All For One quirk. Granting him enhanced durability, strength, and stamina, to the point where he can temporarily survive being in Endeavor’s flames, or propel himself mid-air by simply pushing himself in his preferred direction. He is even stated to be as physically strong as All Might’s prime, without even activating any quirks. Should Shigaraki be pushed into a corner, he’s capable of pushing his body beyond its limit through pure will, which he did to increase his movement speed to be even faster than Deku’s. It should be noted his modifications have improved as the series has gone on, as he was incomplete in the First War arc.

Evolution & Adaptation

Due to enhancements, Shigaraki’s body is constantly experiencing evolution in order to adapt to any and all scenarios. Akin to how you and I naturally grow our hair (sorry bald people) or our nails, Shigaraki’s body naturally grows in order to surpass all. He can extend his flesh like a giant tsunami of hands in multiple directions to catch or crush foes, or coat himself in defensive flesh-made armor to power through all enemy attacks and nail them down with a single nasty hit. We have only seen two specific applications of this adaptive growth, however it is likely Shigaraki could amplify other stats or aspects of himself if the situation were to call for it.

Shigaraki’s adaptation allows him to generate hundreds, possibly thousands, of large arms and fingers from his body in true Tetsuo fashion. These can be used to grab opponents, for swarming attacks, and can even transfer Decay from each hand for a much larger area of effect. These arms can also manifest mouths to hold down opponents or bite their limbs off, or to remove things such as toxins from Shigaraki’s body. However, the arms are slower than Shigaraki himself and not nearly as durable as him. Should they all be destroyed, Shigaraki can simply create a new wave of them on a whim. Tomura can “surf” on these “arm waves” and localize several to either of his actual arms to increase their striking power.

Shigaraki’s body evolution will overtime increase his speed, as shown when fighting Izuku. Previously Izuku when using Gearshift blitzed Shigaraki to a degree the man was like a statue. Later when fighting Izuku again, the hero activated Gearshift and Shigaraki’s body adapted to his speed, becoming faster himself. He was able to move fast enough to steal Danger Sense from Izuku, and dodge his Gearshift amped Blackwhip. Izuku even noted he had to cope with Shigaraki’s enhanced speed. Evolution will also automatically move to defend Shigaraki from attacks that are fatal to him, even when he does not know the capabilities of said attack. When Izuku used his Overlay Punch (an attack on Shigaraki’s inner being with pieces of One For All), evolution passively produced several arms to protect Tomura. Izuku was forced to battle hundreds to thousands of these arms to continue his assault.

Shedding

Rather brutally, Shigaraki is capable of healing himself without even using any quirks through his evolution by quite literally shedding off his previous body. When utilized, he emerged from a donut hole made in his former body (thanks Deku), healing off this injury while completely recreating the entire top half of his body. It is worth noting this maneuver took a good amount of time to set up before being put into motion, but it does go to show just how far Shigaraki’s evolution can go.

Vestiges

While quirks themselves are stated to be physical and scientific in nature, they do however carry a supernatural property with them called a Vestige. Vestiges are imprints of a person’s consciousness onto a quirk, basically serving as a second version of them that contains a sort of spiritual presence within their body. Due to the All For One quirk, Shigaraki has an abundance of vestiges within his body from every stolen quirk in his possession. There is additionally the vestige of All For One (character AND quirk), but his uniqueness warrants an individual section later in Support.

Vestiges are capable of some degree of agency, though it varies depending on the quantity, individual strength, and relevance of the vestige. For example, the All For One vestige in Tomura is by far the most dominant vestige we have seen in the series, though as you can see in the image above, other vestiges are reduced to basic silhouettes. While they will not be aiding Shigaraki directly in battle, they can seemingly defend him from invading spiritual presences or other vestiges. As for just how spiritual vestiges are however, and whether or not they can be considered to be souls, that will be discussed in Before The Verdicts.

Mental World

Revealed by his near death experience at Jaku Hospital, Shigaraki contains a sort of Mental World within himself. This location resembles Shigaraki’s psyche to an extent, showing off images of his memory. In this mental world, Shigaraki can converse with vestiges like All For One (the character) without his interactions being visible to the outside world. Shigaraki additionally seems capable of manipulating this mental world to an extent, given his pushing away of the memory of his family, and his ability to create a shield for his soul whilst trapped in this world.

Notably, Tomura’s Mental World and mental state are seemingly hazardous to opposing mental worlds. All For One’s (character) plan long ago was to cultivate Tomura’s hatred to give him the necessary willpower to potentially overpower One For All’s own Mental World like power, and he succeeded. Alongside the fact this hatred is enough to restart his heart (how the fuck)(He’s just him), his Mental World and hatred are so strong that they are inherently toxic and corrosive to other Mental Worlds and vestiges, like One For All’s mental world and the vestige of All For One. It was even stated that his hatred was stronger than all the willpower of the OFA vestiges combined (actual layered hating). His hatred is so potent it solidified as a large mass covering his inner spirit. It took several “transfers” of the Vestiges of One For All (only possible due to a small scar on the mass due to Star & Stripe) to overcome the “shield of hatred”, destroying them all in the process. Alongside the “shield”, Shigaraki can use the landscape of his mental world to further defend his spirit, reflecting back all but one Vestige during one of these transfer attempts.

Even deeper is Shigaraki’s “Origin”. It is where he is at his most fragile. Despite this, Shigaraki can conjure “phantoms” from his memories that will attack any invading presence in his Origin, and they can cause physical damage to intruders. Shigaraki is also protected by a barrier of sorts here. Nana Shimura’s Vestige had to sacrifice itself to allow Izuku to bypass this barrier.

It should be noted however that these factors are only relevant were Shigaraki to come in contact with an opposing vestige, or invade another mental world himself. An exception, however, was when Izuku Midoriya reached into Shigaraki’s mental realm after using several Overlay Punches. Shigaraki decayed Izuku’s Vestige, which in turn reflected the damage to Izuku’s physical body. This also occurred with Shigaraki, as any damage his Vestige or inner self took from Overlay Punches reflected upon his body, described by AFO as “spiritual damage”.

Resistances

Extreme Temperatures: Shigaraki has been able to survive intense fire attacks from Endeavor and limited exposure to nuclear missiles, even if both methods were pretty damaging to him without his regeneration being applied.

Mental and Soul Manipulation, and Possession (Debatable): Shigaraki was able to form a barrier of sorts around his soul to prevent All For One (character) from controlling him. This process also showed his immunity to All For One’s mental and spiritual control, and allowed Shigaraki to prevent All For One’s control of his body. Additionally, Vestiges as well as Tomura and AFO themselves do seem to be capable of combating invading vestiges. However it is notable that Shigaraki has still shown the capacity to have his soul be attacked, would it be All For One (character) initially taking control (as Shigaraki planned to counter), Star & Stripe’s attack on him at the end of their fight, or All For One’s final gambit to kill Tomura’s soul permanently (which barely failed). More discussion about all of this will be saved for Verdicts.

Spiritual Invisibility: Shigaraki can see the Vestiges of One For All, despite their spiritual nature. More on said nature in Before The Verdicts.

Limited Transmutation: Tomura is immune to his own Decay, though this resistance seems to be limited to Decay itself rather than general transmutation due to lack of proof.

Poison: Shigaraki can form mouths on his body to manually spit injected poison out of himself.

Limited Aging: The Life Force quirk doubles Tomura’s lifespan, and it is likely All For One (character) had other copies of this quirk stocked up for greater effect.

Extreme Pain: Shigaraki has plenty of feats of good pain tolerance, but perhaps his most notable pain tolerance feat is surviving his body being ripped apart and modified over and over for a span of multiple months, with him straight up laughing at points. Sick bastard.

Mahito

Cursed Energy Overview

Cursed Energy acts as the universal energy system of the whole franchise. It is specifically a form of negative spiritual energy that most humans possess, associated with and stemming from negative emotions like anger, fear, envy, jealousy, etc. And in at least one statement, Cursed Energy is associated with the concept of “The Ego”, i.e. the experienced “self” or “I” in contact with the external world through perception, responding and acting to the surrounding physical and social world. Tying into greater narrative themes of Jujutsu Kaisen, Cursed Energy is fundamentally related to the human form and condition, acting as a bridge between the psyche and reality.

Controlling this flow or rotation of negative energy, otherwise known as Cursed Energy Refinement, is divided into three core aspects: Output, the amount of Cursed Energy you can unleash at a given moment, Quantity, the Cursed Energy reserves you inherently possess, and Manipulation, how effective you are at using your Cursed Energy and controlling its usage. The flow of Cursed Energy flows from the gut to the rest of the body, and it’s in reinforcing one’s body parts with Cursed Energy that its users practice the fundamental art of Taijutsu (i.e. blanket term for unarmed martial arts), which can be improved through viewing the body holistically as one whole. Through Cursed Energy usage, Sorcerers and Curses alike can reduce damage to their body by controlling and focusing their energy to block attacks and in some cases defend against attacks to the soul itself.

Cursed Energy being an inherently negative form of energy also means it causes negative, harmful effects to non-Sorcerers. It can also have detrimental effects on the mind, and even powerful Sorcerers and Cursed Spirits can find themselves paralyzed in fear of an overwhelmingly large amount of Cursed Energy. Even Sorcerers aren’t immune to the negative effects of Cursed Energy, as a buildup of too much negativity can disturb proper Cursed Energy Refinement. But on the flip side, Cursed Energy allows its users to perceive and interact with Cursed Spirits, which are normally invisible and intangible. There also appears to be some inherent mathematical quality to Cursed Energy as just like in algebra, negative Cursed Energy can be multiplied by itself to generate positive energy, called Reverse Cursed Technique. However we’re beginning to leave the confines of what relates to Mahito so we’ll leave things here as we move on to…

Cursed Spirit Physiology

Most Cursed Spirits are manifestations of specific ideas, emotions, and information given taking shape from the collective leaking of Cursed Energy, which is inherently negative. Thus Cursed Spirits can range from small pests that are minor aggregations of negative energy or rumours to the embodied perceptions of the natural environment like forests and oceans and even to urban legends and mythological beings. The specific idea Mahito was born from is that of people’s fear and hatred for other people, an emotion so strong that despite being only a few months old he would be classified as a Special Grade Curse with extremely high intelligence to boot.

Cursed Spirits are naturally invisible to the naked eye, unless in special locations or when near death. They also don’t appear on video recordings nor can they be heard naturally, however depending on their power and the sensitivity of an individual it’s possible for a non-Sorcerer to detect their presence, naturally making humans feel uneasy and even downright fearful. Most notably however when it comes to their visibility is insight from Kenjaku, where he clarifies that curses are invisible due to existing within different wavelengths of light. 

The aura of a Cursed Spirit can even diminish the spirit of low-level Sorcerers due to the sheer terror of their presence. And very little else boosts a Cursed Spirit’s power quite like fear or even reverement. And normally most Cursed Spirits are intangible and cannot be interacted with without Cursed Energy, however especially powerful Curses lose this intangibility and can even be interacted with by those without any CE.

Cursed Spirits are also incredibly tough to kill. For one, physical attacks without Cursed Energy behind them don’t usually do much damage at all to a Cursed Spirit often showcasing an incredibly high resistance to non-CE infused physical attacks. Higher grade Curses are also noted to possess incredible healing factors, being able to regenerate limbs in just a few moments to a matter of seconds. The Special Grade Curse Jogo even managed to heal from decapitation, though this process took anywhere from several weeks to about a month. Mahito’s Curse Technique in particular exacerbates the already impressive durability and endurance of a Cursed Spirit to a whole other level, but that will be covered in its own section.

The minds of Cursed Spirits are also noted to be fundamentally different from normal humans. When a group of Special Grade Curses were exposed to Gojo Satoru’s Unlimited Void, it was heavily implied that an information overload capable of putting people into two month long comas was something the Cursed Spirits could recover from given a brief amount of time. And in fact… they all do! While this instance did involve Special Grades, it is stated by the series’ author that effects like Unlimited Void are naturally less effective against Cursed Spirits than they are to humans.

The Body & The Soul

In Jujutsu Kaisen, body and soul have a more complex definition of what you’d normally expect. They’re defined as being “illusory boundaries of a person’s being that are both fundamentally information”, essentially existing as one. Gege Akutami — series’ creator — elaborated more upon answering a question on an interview that asks about manifesting Cursed Energy inside the body. In their words: “It’s impossible. The inside of the body is like a domain, so you’d have to rip it open to enter it like what happened with Fushiguro”.

Mahito believes that the Soul always exists before the body. The shape of the body is determined by the shape of the individual’s soul, which Mahito can control to his liking thanks to Idle Transfiguration’s ability to manipulate the shape of the soul.

However Kenjaku has his own theory on the link between the Soul and Body, thanks to his possession of Suguru Geto’s body. Unlike Mahito, he believes that the body is the soul and the soul is the body, or in other words both are the same. He claims if Mahito’s theory is true, then him possessing the memories of Geto’s body can’t be explained. Mahito wonders if the rules of the body and soul have to be the same for everyone, thanks to their differing Curse Techniques, as Kenjaku’s comes from possessing bodies via transplanting his brain as opposed to Mahito manipulating the soul directly. While no concrete answer has been given, Mahito mentions if their techniques make them almost ‘live in different worlds’ and said techniques dictate them, which Kenjaku thinks has merit and claims to be poetic in a way.

Due to the body and soul systems of Jujutsu Kaisen being mostly vague and interpretation heavy, we recommend you read Before the Verdicts for more information.

Idle Transfiguration

Mahito’s signature Cursed Technique allows him to manipulate the shape of the soul of whoever he touches. As the form of one’s physical body is dependent on the shape of the soul, their physical body will match any changes made to the soul with Idle Transfiguration. Mahito can use this on himself to morph his own physical body for near endless possibilities in combat. 

He’s used this to make large fists or feet to attack from a distance, or extend arms to grab or strike opponents. He can even create extras for traversal, throwing objects or touching people at a distance, and his fight against Mechamaru shows this can be in the dozens. Mahito’s flexibility also lets him twist his head around, stretching his body for extra range, shrinking down to the size of a toddler or growing an extra head and arms from behind. Or if he really wanted to mess with Yuji, Mahito can slip inside a human for a skinsuit disguise and sneak attack. Mahito’s also taken advantage of this versatility by molding his body to replicate animal parts, such as deer legs for speed, bird wings for flight, or having a slug body to climb around. He can even take forms of animals outright, such as becoming a fish, bird, rat, rabbit, monkey and mouse, and can shift between these rapidly.

But while adjusting your body is nice, Mahito’s taken things further by creating countless weapons to tear people apart. He’s created your standard weapons such as blades, claws, whips, clubs, maces, pitchforks and shields. But that’s only the start, as he’s made weapons like a spike cocoon, a drill, a barbed wire net, a huge blade to penetrate multiple foes, a gun for firing Transfigured Humans, and even a blade kiss if he felt like it.

Furthermore, Mahito can use Idle Transfiguration on others, creating lethal and grotesque effects to instantly end a fight. He can make your entire top half explode, blow out a hole in your head, or just disfigure your head for instant death. Additionally, Mahito can transform whoever he touches into a transfigured human, a mindless monster unconditionally loyal to Mahito (more on these later). Once in this state, it is almost impossible to go back, with even healing techniques such as reversed cursed technique having fruitless effects. Through further modifications of the brain, Mahito can give transfigured humans Cursed Energy, strengthening his growing army.

Surely one of the most lethal and resilient techniques in the entire series, but comes with a few catches. Those who can reinforce their souls with Cursed Energy can significantly hamper the effect of Idle Transfiguration, requiring several more touches from Mahito to cause a fatal distortion. Mahito is also unable to handle attacks that strike the soul very well, causing damage that is significantly harder to reform from.

Binding Vows

Within the world of Jujutsu, Cursed Energy users can perform something known as “Binding Vows”, contracts of sorts that can grant benefits to and act as a powerful pact with others and even oneself in exchange for something else or suffer some sort of penalty or detriment for breaking the vow. For example, a self-Binding Vow such as restricting Cursed Energy usage up until a certain condition is met such as a specific time of day or under the order of someone else can allow for a large boost in Cursed Energy or Technique when that condition has been met. And perhaps the simplest, most common form of Binding Vow is known as “Revealing One’s Hand” wherein simply revealing your technique to an opponent raises its effectiveness and gives you an advantage in combat, with such a vow even applying to characters with no CE like Toji Fushiguro. 

However the consequences of breaking a Binding Vow is something to be weary of. Breaking a Binding Vow made with oneself seemingly isn’t that bad and, at its worst, will cease the effect or boon sustained by the Vow. Meanwhile the consequences of breaking a Binding Vow with another person involved is unknown and possibly random and more likely to lead into disastrous consequences.

Besides Revealing One’s Hand, Mahito has performed two other Binding Vows in the series: One involving a vow with Mechamaru to heal his body if he acted as the Disaster Curses & Kenjaku’s spy and another to increase the durability of his Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing. More on the latter later.

Regeneration

A special-grade curse such as Mahito can be a pain to deal with if you lack the means to halt his crazy regeneration ability. Every cursed spirit has the capability to regenerate from a great deal of damage, due in part to them being made of pure cursed energy. Weaker spirits such as Finger Bearer can regenerate entire lost limbs, Hanami can regenerate their broken arm, and Jogo can come back from decapitation given enough time. In the case of Mahito however, the way he regenerates is unlike any other curse seen prior. 

Rather than use the standard curse method of healing or even the RCT (Reverse Cursed Technique) that JJK sorcerers have developed, Mahito used the unique properties of his own curse technique to manipulate and reinforce the very shape of his soul. This greater control over his soul lets him consciously maintain the form of his body as a result, automatically healing any and all damage done to it. This method of regeneration is potent enough to where Mahito can come back from being smashed to little pieces or even from being blown to pieces, such the case when he self-destructed and still managed to come back a few seconds later. This method of healing does use Cursed Energy, but Mahito can decide how much of it is used to reshape his soul via his will.

Mahito does have some notable weaknesses with how he regenerates however, mainly due to how it all ties back to his soul. Should an attack be capable of bypassing his physical body and be targeted directly towards his soul, it’ll bypass his healing abilities altogether as the soul is the origin of said abilities. Mahito could only fight long enough against Yuji as his attacks were directly targeting the soul, and there’s a general limit of how much Mahito could change the shape of a soul, whether it’d be his own or other humans as he found out with his own experiments. It’s also implied that Mahito will truly die once his soul is fully destroyed.

Cloning

With Idle Transfiguration, Mahito can create duplicates of himself that are indistinguishable from the original. These clones share their consciousness and can use Idle Transfiguration on themselves, but not others. Mahito used this to scour multiple areas at once, set up an Idle Transfiguration on Nobara and send several to attack Yuji and Todo at once. Notably, he’s also used it for escape purposes, such as splitting into several smaller pieces to hide the one containing part of his soul, or spinning his head off his original body to have that fight for him. The clones also have power divided among them that Mahito controls, such as him doing a 80-20% split for a stronger clone to keep Yuji and Todo away while he recovers.

Soul Multiplicity

Mahito’s growth as a curse has let him devise new applications for Idle Transfiguration, such as a signature one he dubs Soul Multiplicity that utilizes stored Transfigured Humans. The technique involves the merging of two or more souls together, useful for attacks such as…

Body Repel

Mahito’s main use for Soul Multiplicity. Rejection of the souls fused causes an attack called Body Repel, which launches all souls in a worm-like shape outwards. With just one Mahito’s used for a sneak attack, made hands from it to press it inwards, grew sawblades for attack as well as hands to elevate himself along with catching and pummelling foes. But if he launches multiple, it becomes a dangerous move that hits from all sides to tear apart foes. It’s even able to counter techniques like Todo’s Boogie Woogie from dodging thanks to its area of effect.

Curtain

Curtains are special barrier techniques used for many purposes through Jujutsu Kaisen. Following an incantation, a spherical dome barrier is formed at the place of their choosing. Activity inside these barriers can’t be viewed from the outside, while the sky blocked from above gives the illusion of it being night time. These barriers can be broken normally, but conditions can be added to change their effectiveness in relation to those with Cursed Energy. Their users can also position themselves outside of their barrier to make them more effective.

As an example, Mahito’s created one that only lets humans with weak Cursed Energy leave but deny them entry. Barriers can also be altered to deny people, even strong individuals like Satoru Gojo from going in. These barriers also can block electromagnetic signals, such as those from phones, to prevent those caught from communicating with the outside world.

Black Flash

Should a Jujutsu sorcerer apply Cursed Energy to a physical attack of theirs within one-millionth of a second, the space around it will be distorted as the cursed energy turns into a black flash of light. If a Black Flash successfully lands, it will deal the same amount as the regular attack but it will be increased by the power of 2.5. 

While the move was thought to be almost luck with its small activation window, Gojo provides a more in depth explanation. Hitting within a microsecond time frame doesn’t guarantee the move being a Black Flash, otherwise he would’ve hit them easily using Six Eyes. Gojo believes that it could have something to do with temperature or humidity, but still thinks that there’s no correct answer for how to unleash the technique. However, given showings of Black Flash across the series, it’s likely to do with being in the right mindset to land one.

On two separate occasions, Mahito has managed to land a Black Flash once he was in the right mindset to lock in. He lands his first Black Flash on Yuji after mentally breaking him and he later lands a second Black Flash on Todo following his gamble with a 0.2 second Domain Expansion. The moment Mahito hit this move was when he became a true curse, and his next was what let him understand the true essence of his soul. When successfully using Black Flash, Jujutsu Sorcerers and Curses are in a zone similar to what athletes experience. The typical thought process of manipulating cursed energy becomes like breathing. This leads to a greatly increased performance in combat, allowing the user to operate at 120% of their maximum potential. Mahito has used the rush from a Black Flash to restore his Cursed Technique after it was burned out by using his Domain.

Innate Domain

The mental landscape that exists within all living things, an Innate Domain is a space that embodies the very heart and mind of our being. As we see with Sukuna, it’s a spiritual/mental realm within the body where the Cursed Technique is likely stored, or at least a fundamental part of it exists here. Additionally, the Innate Domain within the body prevents anything external from materializing within it without the body being ripped open first, acting as an inherent line of defense against attacks that materialize in points in space.

Mahito’s Innate Domain appears as a large black environment that presents with giant hands clasped together to form a flower-like shape. Connected to these hands are multiple arms that grab one another to form a net pattern.

Domain Expansion: Self-Embodiment of Perfection

The ultimate technique most sorcerers can only dream of accomplishing, Domain Expansions are the greatest form of expression any sorcerer can show in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen. By (usually) performing a unique hand sign, a sorcerer will expand their Innate Domain into the real world by creating a space for it to inhabit via the usage of advanced barrier techniques. Once this space is created, traditionally seen as a large black sphere on the outside and the person’s Innate Domain on the inside, the caster imbues their Cursed Technique into the barrier, allowing them to cast their technique from anywhere inside the Domain. Mahito however, thanks to his awakened state during his final fight with Yuji, was capable of merging the two traditionally separate processes of forming a barrier and imbuing it with the technique into one, allowing him to cast his Domain Expansion far faster than most sorcerers can. 

Once a Domain is successfully cast, the creator of the Domain gets an increase to all their stats, and most importantly, all Cursed Techniques used within the Domain by its caster are guaranteed to hit the opponent, thanks to the technique being imbued within the barrier itself. While there are ways to circumvent the guaranteed-hit effects of Domain Expansions, outside of expanding one’s own Domain, all of them are usually just temporary measures that will eventually be overcome by the Domain itself.

Mahito’s Domain Expansion is Self-Embodiment of Perfection, and has the simple yet incredibly powerful ability to allow Mahito to manipulate the souls of anyone inside his Domain, forgoing the restriction on his Cursed Technique that requires him to make physical contact with whoever he plans to use it on. While this effect is obviously powerful, it should be noted that using a Domain Expansion comes with two distinct drawbacks. First and most immediately notable, the user’s Cursed Technique is essentially burned out, and unable to be used for a short period of time. Secondly, and more important in the long run, is that Domain Expansions cost an incredible amount of Cursed Energy, to the point where only absolute top tiers of the verse like Gojo are capable of casting their Domains multiple times in one day.

0.2 Second Domain Expansion

An extremely advanced form of Domain Expansion that Mahito learned by watching Gojo perform it during the Shibuya Incident. During his fight with Yuji and Todo, in a desperate move to take Todo out of the fight and bypass Yuji’s connection with Sukuna that would usually make his Domain Expansion useless, Mahito casted a Domain Expansion lasting 1/10th of a second. While a Domain Expansion of this caliber doesn’t come with the benefit of increasing one’s stats due to how short it is, it can be an extremely deadly trump card allowing the user to gain a single surprise sure-hit of their Cursed Technique due to the sheer speed this technique possesses.

However, while extremely potent, this specific version of Domain Expansion is even more of a potential risk to cast, as exchanging a proper arena to trap the opponent in as well as the stat boost from traditional Domain Expansions for a single surprise attack can backfire heavily on its caster thanks to the previously mentioned after effects of Domain Expansions in combination with this only being a single hit of one’s technique.

Despite the risks, this life or death gamble made it so Mahito was capable of casting his Domain fast enough to not get caught by Sukuna, and land a clean sure-hit of Idle Transfiguration on Todo’s arm. While the attack wasn’t lethal, it was still effective at removing Todo from the fight, and is perhaps the single greatest showing of Mahito’s sheer potential throughout his time in Jujutsu Kaisen. Exact agreement on whether or not this method could bypass Sukuna in the first place will be elaborated on in the verdicts.

Resistances

Physical Damage (Debatable): Even though curses do physically exist in the world and can be touched by those without cursed energy, no damage will be dealt to the spirit. It’s established that only those who used cursed energy are able to fully exorcise other curses. However, this conflicts with cases of curses being stated to be susceptible to weapons like bats, guns and explosives. See Before the Verdicts for more discussion on this topic.

Limited Soul Damage: Mahito has been able to endure attacks that were directly aimed towards his soul. He isn’t fully immune however as he can be damaged by said soul attacks, and affecting the shape of Mahito’s soul enough can outright kill him. 

Foreign Intrusions: It’s practically impossible to manifest anything inside a sorcerer’s body due to it functioning as a living domain. For example, Hanami’s ability to materialize plants out of thin air wouldn’t work if they attempted to manifest, say, tree branches or other plants inside their enemies’ bodies. In order to affect a sorcerer’s insides, the body must be broken into from the outside, so things such as breathable toxins and skin piercing can still enter. This is also why Maki’s Bang can’t just kill Gojo from the inside out

Limited Information Overload: Special Grade curses could recover from 0.2 seconds of Unlimited Void (with 6 months of information worth in their heads) after five minutes, while this amount of information would normally render someone unconscious and require two months of rehabilitation. This is thanks to their brain structure being different from normal people.

Forms

Shigaraki

Evolutionary Form: Optimal Defense

The main adaptive form we see Shigaraki take during his battle in the Flying Coffin, this form forgoes flashy and over the top size growth for a more dense and defended body. Shigaraki’s physical strength is notably enhanced, as is his defense thanks to his self constructed hand-like armor. As an additional note, the fingers on his now giant left hand are meant to resemble the faces of his murdered family. Uh, fun.

Full Factor Release

Once Shigaraki’s willpower had weakened significantly, mainly due to Deku reaching into his soul full of hatred and shaking up what ideals had taken reign of his core, All For One’s vestige would use the opportunity to fully take control of Shigaraki’s body, mind, and soul. As a matter of fact, All For One would consume Shigaraki’s vestige while also forcing Deku’s vestige out of Shigaraki’s body, awakening in the real world as a full-on merger of him and Shigaraki. 

In this state, All For One goes full on monster mode as emotions are left behind to combine multiple stolen quirks into attacks that absolutely decimate the battlefield. With full control over Shigaraki’s body, All For One can mold it however he pleases, creating the hand that goes over his mouth and also turning his entire body into an unrecognizable mess of tentacles and spikes. He can send those tentacles far distances to slash away at the ground and his enemies, create giant shockwaves to push others back, shoot giant lasers from what is presumably his mouth, and tank attacks with his extremely durable exterior. 

It should be noted that this is not a vulnerable and weak form, as those issues only appeared when the form was used due to continuous mental and physical damage having been dealt to Shigaraki’s body. This alongside more damage is the only reason All For One (character) had to use multiple quirks to sustain the body whilst in this form. If the form were to be utilized by All For One (or Shigaraki if he had the wheel at the moment for whatever reason)  in a different context, then these weaknesses would not be present and the form would be as strong as Tomura normally is.

Mahito

Worm

Would you still love him if he was a worm?

Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing

Mahito’s birthday suit, otherwise known as the Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing, is the advanced form Mahito took upon understanding his own soul and using Idle Transfiguration on himself completely. In this form, Mahito is stated to be 200% stronger than his normal state, completely overhauling his appearance and obtaining two blades attached to his shoulder. To make this transformation as potent as possible, while Mahito can still use Idle Transfiguration on others, he created a self-imposed Binding Vow that prevents him from using it on himself in exchange for greatly increasing the power of his transformation.

In this state, Mahito’s power is truly incredible, with attacks from Yuji originally capable of sending him flying now merely bouncing off of him, and merely waving his arm causing shockwaves. It’s even stated in the Volume 15 Extras that if Yuji hadn’t landed Black Flash, he would’ve been killed by Mahito in this state. Mahito is even capable of slightly bypassing his own self-imposed Binding Vow by deactivating parts of the form if necessary to allow himself to transmute specific sections of his own body. Despite the massive power boost however, the transformation isn’t without its drawbacks. First of all, any damage Mahito has taken from before entering the transformation still applies, and due to the large amount of Cursed Energy seemingly required to enter it, this can cause Mahito’s hold over the form to be fairly short lived if things are already going badly for him and if anything, could hurt him in the long run. Second of all, while his strength is impressive, the self-imposed Binding Vow can restrict much of the versatility Mahito has access to traditionally with Idle Transfiguration, especially if Mahito gets overconfident in his capabilities in this form. Despite that however, this transformation is still undeniably deadly, and shows above all that Mahito truly is a cursed spirit.

Support

Shigaraki

All For One (Vestige)

The most notable vestige contained within Shigaraki’s clusterfuck of a modified body, and the former strongest villain of all time, All For One is an undying presence that will always claw for a spot on the throne. Literally. All For One (the character) implanted Shigaraki with All For One (the vestige) in order to claim control of the boy and his absurd hatred, which has led to several, several quarrels between the two. Do not make any mistakes about this pairing though. While they may despise each other by the end of the series, they will not actively put Shigaraki’s main body in harm’s way just for the sake of taking control from each other. Threat in front of them first, each other only when it’s safe. 

As for what All For One can actually do, he is a power application genius when it comes to quirk usage, though he is not prone to feeding Tomura advice. Rather, he can take control of Tomura’s body were he to fall unconscious, leading to his own talents taking center stage. Additionally, he can interact with other vestiges, as well as fight back any invading vestiges that try making a mess of things. His counterpart in the form of the original All For One’s (character) unique vestige was shown to be capable of beating down the vestiges rebelling inside of himself, and his Shigaraki-located vestige variant could work with Shigaraki to have a spiritual fight with the vestiges within All For One, as well as combat an invading Star & Stripe vestige copy. 

In the final arc, the All For One vestige additionally showed the ability to expel enemy vestiges as well as nearly destroy Shigaraki in his entirety, though that is a last resort move that also heavily damages his own body, and is not necessary for dealing with opposing spiritual presences. AFO’s Vestige managed to survive his deletion of Shigaraki, which should have also erased himself. In the end it took Izuku restoring all the ONe For All Vestiges and Shigaraki’s own spirit (saved by Nana Shimura’s remnants) to end AFO once and for all.

Mahito

Transfigured Humans

Former people caught up in the wrong place, Mahito has manipulated the souls of countless people to turn them into his own monsters, Transfigured Humans. They follow Mahito’s command and while they’re otherwise mindless, they make it up in sheer numbers to overwhelm their foes.

But aside from just roaming around, Mahito’s mastery of Idle Transfiguration has let him shrink victims down to the size of his fingers. Stored in his stomach, Mahito uses these for many tricks when battling opponents like making walls, massive centipedes, leaving one behind a foe for a sneak attack, or an entire train because why not.

By Shibuya Mahito has a thousand Transfigured Humans at his command just to interfere with Satoru Gojo alone. However he’s scattered many more across Shibuya, and has a near endless supply he used to battle Yuji and Todo, only running out after he was defeated.

Polymorphic Soul Isomer

Another creation from Soul Multiplicity, Polymorphic Soul Isomers are formed from souls with weak rejection which are combined to form a body. They boast powerful attack potency thanks to expending several souls at once, but at the cost of being fragile to where a single blow can kill them. Mahito uses them to distract Todo and later buy time for him to transform into Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing by having one attack Yuji.

Feats

Shigaraki

Overall

• Defeated ReDestro, Deku, Endeavor, Bakugo, Gran Torino, Aizawa, UA’s Big Three, Mirko, Best Jeanist, and more
• Killed Star and Stripe, Bakugo (Temporarily), and thousands of Heroes and innocents, alongside mentally breaking Overhaul
• Led the League of Villains, who would proceed to be the main cause of chaos and havoc throughout Japan which soon spread to a worldwide scale
• Alongside the rest of the League of Villains, managed to upend hero society as everyone knew it for months
• Temporarily took control of his body back from All For One (the character), with him needing the death of One For All to gain the strength to combat Shigaraki
• Helped Deku in finally defeating All For One for good
• Increased chapstick sales worldwide

Power

• Although it’s not directly applicable to physical power, Shigaraki’s Decay quirk can disintegrate entire cities in a very short time-frame
• Blocked a strike from Re-Destro (10.08 Kilotons of TNT)
• His shedding creates an explosion that engulfs the flying U.A Fortress
• Simply by pushing himself off the U.A. Fortress, he could move it off balance (335.97 Kilotons of TNT)
• Unleashes an attack against Star and Stripe that disperses the clouds below him (236.22 Megatons of TNT)
• Comparable to All Might in power
• His final clash with Deku wrecked a whole city
• A full strike from his defense form could have snapped Deku’s spine
• Easily broke out of Deku’s Fa-Jin amped blackwhip
• Sent Deku flying from Shizuoka Prefecture to Mt. Fuji, a distance of 30 miles, which left a massive ravine in the ground
• At his full power, sent Deku flying and broke his bones

Speed

• Decayed dozens of people before they could react
• Jumps so fast that he can create sonic booms
  • Outsped the sonic boom he created in the process (Mach 4.3)
• Weaves through Endeavor’s Hell Spider attack
• Comparable to All Might in speed
• Kept up with Mirko’s dashes
• Matches, if not surpasses Deku in speed on multiple occasions
• Reacted to Bakugo’s cluster-boosted Howitzer Impact
• Dodged Endeavor and Todoroki’s flashfire attacks
• Launched Midoriya 30 miles to Mt. Fuji and reached him nigh instantly

Durability

• Withstood Star and Stripe’s Fist Bump to the Earth (4.4 Gigatons of TNT)
• Survived United Hyper-Max Output Laser: Keraunos
• Survived Tamaki’s Vast Hybrid: Plasma Cannon
• Despite being knocked out, his weakened body could withstand a combo attack from Neijre and Todoroki
• Came back from being burnt alive by Endeavor’s Prominence Burn
• Only had half his face burnt when Bakugo’s Howitzer Impact: Cluster landed
• Unharmed by UA’s electric barrier, but his muscles do temporarily lock up; this barrier is powered by Kaminari and three other electric quirk users, and Kaminari alone can output 2 million volts
• Shown to take multiple 100% attacks from Deku
• Took multiple hits from Final War Deku
• While weakened, resisted the pull of Thirteen’s Black Hole (15.31 Megatons of TNT; See Before the Verdicts)

Mahito

Overall

• Responsible for the terrors within Satozakura High School
• Retrieved and awakened Death Paintings from Tokyo Jujutsu High
• Thwarted Koichi’s plans of killing him with accumulated Cursed Energy
• Assisted Kenjaku in sealing Satoru Gojo, removing Jujutsu Society’s strongest sorcerer
• Helped kick off the Shibuya Incident
• Killed Junpei, Mechamaru, Nanami, Nobara (lol), along with hundreds of citizens caught in the Shibuya Incident
• Demonstrated exponential growth, unlocking his Domain Expansion and eventually reaching the true essence of his soul
• Rendered Todo’s Boogie Woogie useless
• Managed to mentally break Yuji
• Maxed out CJ DaChamp’s Asylum Insanity Meter with eight additional stars

Power

• Casually broke through walls with transfigured humans
• Destroyed several of Koichi’s robots in one swing
• Threw Yuji hard enough to break a wall (and his spirit)
• Utilizing a Black Flash, sent Todo flying with blood pouring out of his mouth 
• Staggered Ultimate Mechamaru with a huge fistand could tear its limbs off after activating his Domain Expansion
  • Ultimate Mechamaru busted through a dam with ease
• Shattered concrete with a shockwave
• His Body Repel caused tremors across part of Shibuya
• With Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing, craters a hole from slamming Yuji into the ground (58.4 Tons of TNT)

Speed

• Has a very speedy head
• Is able to activate his Domain Expansion within 0.2 seconds
• Was able to blitz Nanami by making his legs deer-like
• Maneuvered around Mechamaru’s Pigeon Viola while swiftly changing forms
• Can utilize Black Flash, which requires activation in microsecond intervals (Mach 284.4 – 932.9)
• Weaved between Nobara’s nails
• Ran away!
• Kept up with Yuji and Todo simultaneously
• With Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing, leapt around a hole at high speeds
• Dodged a blow from Gojo (Debatable, see Before the Verdicts)

Durability

• Guns and tanks are viewed as ineffective against Special Grades
• Survived being crushed by several chunks of falling concrete
• Withstood a simultaneous beatdown from both Yuji and Nanami at the same time
• Came back from having his arm blown off and blowing up his entire body despite both hitting his soul (See Before the Verdicts)
• Survived being struck with Resonance by Nobara followed by a beating from Yuji
• Shrugged off being kicked hard enough to crater a subway floor
• Took Black Flashes on numerous occasions and survived
• Has taken a punch from Gojo
• Survived as just a head
• With Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing, tanked several punches from Yuji (as seen above)

Scaling

Shigaraki images by Blue Igneous. Mahito images by Cabbage. Overview images by Flip.

Shigaraki

Given his status as the most powerful villain of all time, Shigaraki is solidly top two in his verse next to Deku. He’s taken on multiple top heroes at once on more than one occasion, and is comparable to the likes of All For One, who can fight off an entire army of high tier pro heroes. Considering his ability to match and surpass Midoriya’s standard 100% One For All power alongside these factors, Shigaraki should naturally scale to every relevant feat in the series. Zero in depth explanation needed. Some specific feats that may cause confusion will be addressed in Before The Verdicts.

One For All Wielders

The Ninth and Final Wielder, Izuku Midoriya – Deku:

• Alongside an One For All-empowered Bakugo, the two unleashed a dual Detroit Smash that split apart the clouds that Nine had covering Nabu Island (2.8 Teratons each)
• Casually outpaced Jirou’s sound waves while he was severely weakened
• Kept up with Lady Nagant’s bullets at 45% (Mach 5941.17 – 1.9c)
• During his battle with Dark Might, he single handedly decimated his city-sized fortress (25.14 Gigatons)
• While running on mere fumes of One For All, he managed to unleash a punch so powerful, it physically killed All For One in Shigaraki’s body and split the clouds over Japan (11.74 Teratons; See Before the Verdicts)
• Narrowly survived being punched in the balls by a 5-year-old Kota

The Eighth Wielder, Toshinori Yagi – All Might:

• One of his Detroit Smash attacks created a storm over a part of Musutafu, Japan (764.93 Megatons)
• His United States of Smash created a massive crater as well as a powerful tornado
• Dodged a laser from his custom-made motorcycle after it had already been fired, needing to manually turn on his thrusters to do so (0.63c)
• Both Deku and All Might unleashed a combined punch that destroys a huge steel cube (87.1 Megatons each)

Pro Heroes & Students

Katsuki Bakugo – Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight:

• Capable of blasting through Shoto’s ice walls
• With One For All, performed the dual Detroit Smash alongside Deku (See above)
• His Howitzer Impact: Cluster Bomb managed to scar Shigaraki while also creating an explosion that dwarfs the U.A. Fortress

Shoto Todoroki – Shoto:

• As early as the UA Sports Festival, he was capable of using the Heaven-Piercing Ice Wall, creating a massive glacier of ice that took up nearly half of the Sports Festival Stadium 

Ochako Uraraka – Uravity:

• Early on, she managed to throw a baseball an infinite distance thanks to her Zero Gravity Quirk. And according to My Hero Academia SMASH!!, the baseball was rendered a superdimensional object that created a new universe with its own space and time
• With a newly evolved Zero Gravity Quirk and while bleeding out, lifted up all of Toga’s Twice clones into the air (6.2 Megatons)

Kyoka Jiro – Earphone Jack:

• Managed to intercept All For One’s radio wave attack with her soundwave to save Hawks (60.42 C; See Before the Verdicts)

Fumikage Tokoyami & Dark Shadow – Tsukuyomi:

• Managed to intercept Kaminari’s lightning several times in the Sports Festival 
• With the power of Dark Shadow’s Light of Baldur form, the two tanked several of Prime All For One’s attacks while also constantly dealing severe damage to him, with All For One later outright admitting the two gave him the most trouble after overcoming everyone at Gunga.

Enji Todoroki – Endeavor:

• Helped create enough heat to produce dark clouds that covered the skies of Japan alongside Shouto and Dabi (595.5 Megatons – 2.39 Teratons)

Cathleen Bate – Star and Stripe:

• Jumped out of the way of Shigaraki’s radio waves
• Reacted to her own laser which Shigaraki had reflected back at her (0.613c)
• Split a big portion of clouds with “Fist Bump to the Earth”
• Unleashed her “Intercontinental Punch” (7.912 Teratons)

Miscellaneous:

• Jube Namimaru was able to block a laser from Ichimoku Samazu (25.98% – 85.26% C)
  • The Skycrawler upscales these characters, meaning it’s valid to use given there’s a scaling chain to most of the Pro-Heroes and Villains

League of Villains & Other Enemies

All For One:

• While weakened, sent All Might flying through multiple buildings by using his Air Cannon combo
• Annihilated a giant portion of Kamino with a single attack
• In his prime, he completely decimated an island in order to kill Nana Shimura
• In his prime, he could take attacks from Gigantomachia and later one-shot him

Himiko Toga:

• Was able to restrain base Deku, although she couldn’t restrain him once he used One For All to free himself

Dabi: 

• During his final battle with Endeavor, he attempted to unleash an explosion that would have cremated every person within five kilometers

Gigantomachia: 

• Casual attacks caused major damage to the surrounding landscape
• Made a hole through multiple mountains (18.9 Megatons)

Nomus:

• Managed to dodge lasers from the hero X-Less (0.73c)
• Despite being majorly damaged, they can survive being in the center of an explosion that was using the power of ten intercontinental missiles at once 

Mahito

As one of the most impressive Curse beings, we can say Mahito is powerful enough to be considered one of the most dangerous opponents in the series. His battles against sorcerers like Nanami and Yuji showcase how lethal he is against most opponents, especially with the usage of Idle Transfiguration. Despite all this, he was ultimately outpaced by Yuji’s rapid growth and remained a step behind the true powerhouses of the series. As such, Mahito should only scale to feats within his own tier, and any specific feats and scaling that may cause confusion will be addressed in Before The Verdicts.

Jujutsu Sorcerers

Despite his limited time as a curse, Mahito’s more than left his mark from the many sorcerers he’s defeated while alive. He fought Yuji multiple times, pushing him to his limit even with assistance from Todo; he battled and killed both Mechamaru and Nanami, defeating the former in a drawn out fight; and could hold Nobara off with just a duplicate. Thus, comparing him to feats performed by sorcerers around the time of his activity should be reasonable.

• Yuji Itadori:
  • Has six thoughts in 0.1 seconds
  • Dodged Choso’s Piercing Blood, which moves at the speed of sound
• Kento Nanami:
  •  Performed a strike comparable to a Magnitude 2.0 Earthquake
• Maki Zenin:
  • Has caught Mai’s bullets in the air, well after they’ve been fired (Mach 16.3 – 21.3)
• Aoi Todo:
  • Can crash through buildings and survive being pinballed through one
  • Exorcised 5 Grade 1 curses (without his technique) and a Special Grade all by himself
  • Deduced Hanami’s Cursed Buds and deactivated his Cursed Energy in 0.01 seconds
• Panda:
  • Survived Mechamaru’s Ultimate Cannon, which left a large hole in a forest (12.2 Tons of TNT)
  • Showed us that pandas can cry (Fuck)
• Toge Inumaki:
  • Cratered the ground with Plummet (100.4 Tons of TNT)
• Pre-Awakened Gojo (Debatable, see Before the Verdicts):
  • Could destroy a mountain (6 to 20 Megatons of TNT, or 8 to 25 Megatons of TNT)

Curses

With all being born from the negative feelings of humans, it’s only natural for Mahito to be compared to his fellow Disaster Curses, and by extension other curses within the series. Mahito’s also taken several Black Flashes from Yuji, the same attack putting Hanami on the backfoot and five of which would kill Jogo (and is comparable to characters that fought Dagon too but who cares he’s a bum). Additionally in supplementary material such as Cursed Clash, Mahito is capable of keeping up with Jogo and Hanami in training, and both at the same time when the duo were angry with him once. As such Mahito should safely scale to the many impressive feats the curses of Jujutsu Society have done.

• Regular Curses:
  • The Umibozu Curse could hold up and sink an island, then generate a whirlpool and a storm
• Hanami:
  • Grew several trees from the ground (3 Kilotons of TNT)
• Jogo:
  • Cratered the ground from landing
  • Created massive waves of lava throughout Shibuya (44.9 Kilotons of TNT)
  • Crushed two skyscrapers into each other with hands made from lava
  • Formed a huge meteor from melted buildings (240 Kilotons of TNT)
    • Said Meteor is stated to turn a town to ash (79.5 Megatons of TNT) (Debatable)
• Mahito and Jogo are said by Gege to give Kenjkau a difficult time, and if the Disaster Curses fought together. (Debatable, see Before the Verdicts) Kenjaku:
  • Reacted to arrows and sniper rounds
  • Dodged Choso’s piercing blood many times, including ones centimetres away from his head (Mach 7)
  • Made a large crater with Maximum Uzamaki (276.8 Tons (Manga) – 3.9 Kilotons of TNT (Anime))
  • Survived the initial pull of Yuki’s Black Hole (676.2 Megatons of TNT)
• Rozetsu (See Before the Verdicts):
  • Created a massive crater to hold a gigantic tree-like Cursed Spirit and was actively sustaining it (48.45 Kilotons to 357.55 Megatons of TNT)
  • Created and absorbed a Special Grade Cursed Spirit that possessed 2 of Sukuna’s fingers

Shinjuku Showdown Fighters (Debatable)

The final arc of Jujutsu Kaisen, the Shinjuku Showdown, featured several key characters going beyond their previous limits to prepare for the final battle against Sukuna. Considering there was an entire arc (Culling Games) between Shinjuku Showdown and the last arc in which Mahito was actually alive, it would obviously seem questionable for him to scale to the end of series characters. Specific cases like Yuta or a healthy Sukuna are obviously a no go considering their Special Grade status, but less remarkable characters like Life Support Sukuna (or if you’re not funny, Sukuna when he is heavily weakened) or Todo seem far more in reach. Especially if scaling to a powerful character like Kenjaku is considered, though that is its own topic. More debate on whether or not Mahito can scale to Shinjuku’s cast will be brought up in Before The Verdicts, but for now we will list the relevant feats he could scale to.

• Choso with all his blood shielded Yuji from Sukuna’s Furnace… at the cost of his life
• Todo intercepted and took Sukuna’s Black Flash
• Ryomen Sukuna (heavily weakened) launched up debris at an incoming Jacob’s Ladder (0.332c)
  • Ignore the kinetic energy calculation attached to the link above. While using the feat for speed is acceptable, using the calculation’s multi-teraton level AP value heavily goes against the context of the scene. Sukuna obviously is not applying country destroying levels of force to just knock some debris into the air, or to cause a small crater in the ground. Using this scene as a big AP feat makes very little sense with what actually happens.

Weaknesses

Shigaraki

(Sub bullet level… Shigaraki bros what is this?)

While Shigaraki may be mighty, this final boss does have some weak spots. As versatile as his Quirk selection is, he is not prone to selecting some of his more unorthodox options. He likes using powerful and destructive abilities and combos sure, but Tomura is not going to pull off some perfect string with a combo like Warping with Impact Recoil anytime soon. He would much rather stick to typical force fields and whatever the strongest projectile he can throw is, with Decay being his signature. On the topic of versatility usage, while that issue is fixed were All For One to take control, the two do not exactly have the best working relationship, with them spending the final arc constantly fighting for dominance over Tomura’s body. Considering he is the focus here, Shigaraki would obviously have control for this fight, but the point is do not go expecting All For One to help him with things unless it directly benefits him.

Mahito

(He kickstarted Jump-jutsu Kaisen)

Devious, cunning, and undeniably grotesque, Mahito is not without his weaknesses. Mahito needs to make direct contact for effective use of Idle Transfiguration, leaving him more vulnerable to long ranged fighters. Idle Transfiguration can be delayed or resisted through spiritual reinforcement of the soul, such as with Cursed Energy. Plus, Mahito is significantly more susceptible to direct attacks targeting his soul as Idle Transfiguration struggles to heal and reform against such attacks. Additionally, in the scenario that one body houses multiple souls, Mahito would be unable to select a specific soul out of the bunch and would be forced to affect all other souls in the body. While it may sound like a benefit, it could backfire on Mahito in the scenario he attempts to indirectly transfigure a significantly more powerful enraged soul. 

Furthermore, Mahito unleashing Domain Expansion will significantly drain him of his cursed energy. As a result Mahito will typically leave it as a last resort finishing move for most scenarios. The same can be applied to his transformation into the Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing.

Before The Verdict

Images, Sprites and GIFs by Flip

Shigaraki

My Hero Academia Speed

The last time My Hero Academia got an episode on Death Battle, the best feat mentioned was Star & Stripe catching a laser fired by Shigaraki. A result which previously has gotten roughly a percent or two of the speed of light. Thus, it may be surprising to see multiple calculations listed that get far higher than that result, ranging from better relativistic feats to an outright FTL+ one. Because of this, we felt it was appropriate to cover My Hero Academia’s series of speed upgrades in depth.

To start off, there is the series’ believed to be best speed feat in Star & Stripe catching a redirected laser, getting about 2% the speed of light. For a while, this was believed to be the series’ best speed feat, but there are some other feats that have come to light that get higher into relativistic, to even a bit faster than light speed. In My Hero Academia: Vigilantes for example, Jube Namimaru dodged a straight shaped, non bending laser attack from Ichimoku Samazu, who’s laser shooting power is very clearly meant to parody Cyclops from Marvel (result getting 25.98% – 85.26% C), which are also stated to be light by Jube himself.

Remember though, we said there are some other feats plural. Later in the main series, an unnamed high end Nomu dodged a laser attack from a hero named X-Less (result getting 73% C). His laser beam moves straight, does not have force, and the way it is shot through a monocle all support it being a legitimate laser. Same deal as the last feat, not much supporting evidence, but nothing contradictory. Another relativistic feat would be All Might dodging his own laser attack when fighting All For One (character) in the final war (getting 63% C). It is called a laser (directly compared to the lasers used by Star & Stripe’s flight crew, which are blatantly lasers), moves straight, burns, and has no force, while also having zero contradictory properties. Speaking of Star & Stripe, in her fight against Shigaraki, she dodged a radio wave attack (getting 0.613% C). Radio waves are light speed, and Shigaraki’s attack only had force because he combined the radio wave with a different projectile quirk, so nothing to discuss here really.

By now you should be noticing a trend. There are a good amount of relativistic feats across the My Hero Academia series, performed by both fodder and high tier alike. Thus there is a notable trend of consistency with these higher speeds, and thus Shigaraki should solidly massively upscale relativistic speeds (given he is massively above everyone in the verse not wielding One For All or All For One (quirk), obviously). Due to the consistency with these feats, it’s safe to say that some of the arguments like claiming MHA is only supersonic due to Iida’s feat from transporting Shoto Todoroki from Kamino Ward to the Gunga Mountains taking ten minutes doesn’t hold any merit (besides this being a movement speed feat and not a reaction one). There are other arguments for relativistic and higher MHA, like All For One’s (character) big light attack against Tokoyami, or the mess that is Aoyama, but those are not too important to discuss when there is a batch of other safer relativistic feats to use. That does leave one final feat to discuss though, which is a bit above standard.

In the Final War arc, Jiro is confirmed by the anime adaptation to have intercepted a radio wave attack from All For One (character) to save Hawks. A feat that has calculations getting around 60.42 C. Notably above the other relativistic feats in the series. The calculation can vary based on exact pixel measurements, but it will always get FTL considering Jiro had to outspeed the attack in the first place to save Hawks. But is the feat legit?

Breaking character for a moment, a lot of people on this project already wrote a lengthy segment discussing why this feat is valid a month ago for Event Horizon’s All For One VS Toichiro blog (the one linked at the start of this blog). Considering no opinions have really changed about this feat, we felt it would be appropriate to simply link that blog again so that you can view the explanation for the Jiro feat’s validity there. The explanation is under the segment titled “Jiro blitzing Radio Waves (oh dear god)” in the Before The Verdicts segment. As a TL;DR, there are other logic breaking moments in My Hero Academia apart from sound outspeeding light anyways, and the feat being in the final arc of the series alongside scaling to Jiro’s soundwaves specifically being restricted for high tiers speed wise (who Shigaraki would upscale for the record) means it is not some outlier.

Deku’s Final Smash

A feat of much discussion across what has nearly been a year since chapters 423 and 424 of My Hero Academia showed it off, Midoriya’s final 100% smash attack is obviously impressive. It created enough force to blast apart clouds in the area above him, as well as alter the weather worldwide. The question is, how impressive is the attack exactly? To determine this, we need to know the size of the large storm it affected, as well as the timeframe for how long it took Midoriya’s smash to push the storm in different parts of the world. Finding the answer to these factors is key for determining the speed at which the storm’s mass was pushed, and thus figuring out the feat’s kinetic energy.

For starters, size. We are shown earlier in the Final War arc that there is a storm extending all the way from Japan to America partially due to the influence of the Todoroki family’s heat. The news shows the storm approaching America, so that means that the storm at least extends from Japan to the American west coast, crossing over a large portion of the Pacific ocean. However the more notable interpretation is that the storm actually traveled east from Japan, passing Europe and traveling over the Atlantic ocean. This idea comes from the fact that when we see a frame of London, England during the final war, we can see it covered in a large storm similar to the one present in both Japan and America. With the storm additionally being directly called a cumulonimbus storm system, we can assume cumulonimbus cloud size for the storm, and put that together with the storm length from Japan to America’s west coast across the Atlantic ocean to get a mass of over 313.5 quadrillion kilograms.

As for speed, we can look at the specific times of the U.S Weather news. We see that when the storm is addressed initially, it is covered by the midnight news (refer to the second image in the first link above). However, a week after it has been dispersed, the information is being covered by the morning news. Most likely taking place at 6 or 8 AM. It is clarified that a week of stormy skies were predicted for America because of the storm, but that prediction was deemed false at the morning news exactly a week after the initial storm was discussed at midnight. With this in mind, it makes more sense to say Midoriya’s final smash dispersed the storm to the point it was not present for a full week, rather than that it was gone a week after he dispersed it. Thus, a six or eight hour time frame is appropriate, given the gap between midnight and the morning news.

With all these factors in mind, using the higher end six hour time frame alongside the 313.5 quadrillion kilogram weight, we can get a high end of about 11.74 Teratons. It is worth acknowledging that there could be plenty of other ends for this feat. Accounting for different possible cloud sizes given the clouds we see in panels or the storm’s location, varying time frame based on other possible morning news times, the cloud splitting speed at ground zero of the feat based on miscellaneous factors, etc. 

The result provided here is simply a specific result we got by putting specific options together. Considering other notes about the power gap between Shigaraki and Mahito however, delving deeper and deeper into Midoriya’s final One For All attack and its context is unnecessary for this particular matchup. Maybe the anime will help with clearing it up in 2026. To clear up a final potential worry, yes, Shigaraki should scale to this feat despite the fact the punch in question killed him. His body was already absurdly damaged when Deku hit it, and the feat was done by an absurdly exhausted and damaged Midoriya with just a slightly weakened 100% One For All. This is notable considering Shigaraki can keep up with Midoriya power wise when he is both at his best and using other power boosting quirks like Fajin and Gear Shift.

Thirteen’s Black Hole

In Chapter 421, Shigaraki (while possessed by AFO) resists the pull from Thirteen’s Black Hole. Thirteen’s Black Hole Quirk is legitimate. In Chapter 13 and 67 it is explained to be a miniature singularity created from her fingertips which pulls in matter, including light, and breaks it down atomically. The output of her Black Holes is controlled by her fingers. The more fingers she opens, the stronger the effects of her Quirk she can utilize. This allows her to keep the extremely high destructive potential of her Quirk in check. On the final page of the second link above, she closes her gloves to stop her Black Hole from potentially killing Uraraka.

Thirteen’s Black Hole is stated in both of the MHA guidebooks to also suck in all matter and break them down atomically. It is also still referred to Black Holes in the novels as well. Thirteen herself does not physically scale to her own Black Hole, as direct contact with it will also kill her. The calculation used for this blog uses the Kenjaku method from this Kenjaku vs Medusa blog (full credit to the blog). Heights used in the calc are from in series character bios. Thirteen stands at 180 cm and Shigaraki stands at 175 cm. Shigaraki (who was weakened at the time) resists the pull of Thirteen’s singularity at less than a meter away, which puts Shigaraki’s durability for this feat at 15 Megatons of TNT.

Mahito

Jujutsu Kaisen Speed

Jujutsu Kaisen’s speed scaling has been in shambles ever since a certain sexist Zenin decided to wreak havoc upon powerscaling. In chapter 193, Naoya Zenin as a fully formed Curse uses his ability to propel himself at a stated Mach 3 and speedblitzes Maki Zenin (who at this point has awakened). Maki undergoes a “training arc” mid combat and learns to perceive the environment in a way only Toji could. She proceeds to evade Naoya with ease and defeats him. Still, the Mach 3 statement would imply it’s meant to be a narrative hard cap for speed, no?

Instead of attacking Naoya’s statement with calcs first, let’s address it from a narrative stance first. Gege Akutami will occasionally make comments in the weekly releases of the Manga. Akutami made this comment in regards to comments about chapter 193:

That blasted cat! Akutami went for the rule of cool for Naoya’s moment. That isn’t to say lower mach speeds aren’t present in JJK, they are. In Shibuya, Yuji struggled to react to and dodge Piercing Blood from Choso. Piercing Blood is argued to move at the speed of sound, but it actually exceeds it. Yuji also has a feat of visually dodging the Piercing Blood up close to his face. Other characters like Kenjaku have dodged Piercing Blood rather casually, on multiple occasions. Maki (before awakening) was fast enough to catch a bullet centimeters from her face with her hand. Likewise Yuji, Geto, and Kenjaku have reacted to and dodged Gunfire relatively without much effort. Even much weaker Sorcerers like Juzo have reacted to sound waves. In chapter 207, Kenjaku activates his gravity technique and Yuki also believes she is fast enough to escape it. We’ll only share a calculation for this one (mach 5-8), since it’s a little more complicated than most feats in the manga.

Let’s kick it up a notch. Jujutsu Kaisen has the iconic Black Flash, a special punch sorcerers will rarely manifest that buffs them after usage. In chapter 256, Gojo explains that Black Flash is born when Sorcerers apply Cursed Energy 0.000001 seconds from a physical blow. He also explains there are several other factors involved for the blow to manifest, not just timing. He explains that if it was just due to timing, he (and others) would be able to do it at will. This insinuates that Sorcerers can perceive the timing needed for a Black Flash, they just are not usually able to meet the other factors to use it. 

Mahito has used Black Flash, which involves applying Cursed Energy within a microsecond of striking your opponent. As mentioned above, no Jujutsu Sorcerer can do so at will, but many of them are capable of activating their ability within this time-frame (Todo can use his teleportation while Yuji is using Black Flash). In the time of their final clash, Mahito has time to perform Idle Transfiguration and turn back to attack what he thought was Todo interfering all while Yuji is moving with a Black Flash (all of chapter 132). 

On the topic of characters being unable to do it “at will,” Nanami says that even performing Black Flash multiple times in a row “isn’t amazing”. Nanami and Itadori can do so four/five times in a row, so it definitely can’t just be attributed to luck or anything like that. It’s kind of like how people IRL can be slightly faster or slower depending on the situation, or sometimes perform better at physical tasks based on things like mindset and physical condition and such. However, activating Black Flash is notably only possible with a certain mindset in which the individual is “in the zone” so to speak, and not reacting consciously (hence the statement of them being unable to do it at will). This actually has basis in how human reaction time and such works in real life.

“The fastest possible conscious human reactions are around 0.15 s, but most are around 0.2 s. Unconscious, or reflex, actions are much faster, around 0.08 s because the signal doesn’t have to go via the brain. Reflex actions occur in response to danger, for example moving your hand away from something hot or blinking when something moves quickly towards your eyes.”

Reflexive reaction occurs more quickly than conscious reaction because you don’t need time to process thoughts or signals before doing it. This is in line with the description in the series, and would explain why they can’t throw around Black Flashes whenever they want. It should be reasonable to use the ratio between reflexive reaction and conscious reaction (which is about 3x), to gauge their normal reactions in relation to their reflexive activation. It really wouldn’t make sense to argue that their reactions would vary enough for Black Flash to be consistently possible without them being somewhere in its ballpark

It’s kind of similar to the ratio between perception and reaction time. This comes to around mach 284, calc linked in Mahito’s speed section.

Later on Yuji uses Black Flash so consistently that it’s essentially as though he can do it at will (he gives the impression he can), which would support the notion of BF users’ reactions being at least somewhat relative to the activation time. By the time of Shinjuku, Yuji basically does it at will, reaching the world record of 9 Black Flashes in 1 fight.

Lastly there is light timing in JJK. In chapter 264, Sukuna (who is weakened) reacts to an ability called Jabob’s Ladder and punches the ground, sending a wave of debris into the air before the beam reaches him. The reason this is relevant is that Jacob’s Ladder is a beam of pure light. Jacob’s Ladder is a beam of light shot down from the sky that has intense illumination and burns anyone who touches it. It is consistently referred to as light and is intense enough to burn Sukuna and Yuji. Jacob’s Ladder is likely a reference to crepuscular rays, an atmospheric phenomenon whereby twilight sunbeams, shining through breaks within cloud covers, illuminate dust and/or haze in the air. When Sukuna Punches debris up, you can see the shadow/edge of Jacob’s Ladder about to reach him. Sukuna reacting in time just before the light hits him is a relativistic feat, labeled in his scaling section. Scaling for Mahito is discussed in a section further down in the BTV. 

For consistency for this tier of Speed in JJK, a weakened Megkuna dodged Electromagnetic Waves from Kashimo, which move at light speed. Sukuna does NOT aim dodge these, as we can visibly see the EM wave is already coming out of Kashimo’s palm on the top of the page, and we can see Sukuna moving away as the wave is being fired (indicated by the dashing lines next to him). He later managed to fire a World Dismantle AFTER Kashimo fired his EM Waves and blitzed them with his slash. Mahito scales to neither of these feats, we are just mentioning them for the sake of consistency.

Even without calculations, Jujutsu Kaisen has several feats that are objectively above mach 3 that scale to multiple characters. 

Do you need Cursed Energy to hurt Mahito?

A common question in Jujutsu Kaisen debates with Curses involved is whether you need Cursed Energy to deal damage to them. Is this sentiment true? Well yes… to an extent. Let’s break it down.

To start off, the series makes it clear from even the beginning that regular attacks won’t cut it for harming curses from their inherent biology. Cursed Spirits are formed from the inherent leaking of Cursed Energy from humans, and the series makes it clear that without one’s own Cursed Energy, you can’t hurt them by punching good. Yuji couldn’t deal any lasting damage against a curse at the start of the series and again later on against a Finger Bearer. Cursed Spirit Naoya backs this up later on by saying he can take any of Maki’s blows thanks to her not having Cursed Energy. So seems open and shut right? Not exactly. A notable part of curses in Jujutsu Kaisen has to do with the grade they’re assigned based on how strong they are. The metric they use mentions traditional weapons such as explosives, firearms and even just bats taking care of lower grade Curses. 

While these various statements seem at odds with one another, it’s likely this inconsistency can moreso be attributed to Cursed having a limited resistance to physical attacks instead of outright immunity that vary depending on their strength. Bats only work on the lowest level of curses, while firearms are only effective and even begin to cut close with medium level ones, and outright being ineffective on higher ones. With this, it should be reasonable to say that an attack that possesses a far higher level of power than the Curse’s durability should still damage them without Cursed Energy. Even disregarding the grading system, this should still be reasonable overall, as to assert Curses can negate any physical blows regardless of strength would cross the line into no limits fallacy territory.

Does Mahito have Low Godly Regeneration?

As in, can Mahito regenerate his body from just his soul? This topic has been brought up a lot in regard to how far Mahito can push his regeneration. So, does it have any merit? 

Most likely not. The idea for Mahito having this level of regeneration comes from an interaction shortly after Mahito’s first fight with Yuji, where when talking to Kenjaku and Jogo while swimming, Mahito states “not having a body is a pain.” This can give the implication that Mahito is capable of regenerating from just his soul, as this statement would pair well with the idea that Mahito is capable of regenerating his entire being even without a proper body for his soul to actually inhabit.

There are a pretty sizable amount of issues with the idea of Mahito regenerating from his soul however, so let’s get into them. To start with a more minor one, Mahito could easily be referring to/making fun of Jogo in this instance, as Jogo was notoriously reduced to just a head for a time thanks to his fight with Gojo. For the more glaring issues that come from this, we’ll try and break it down as best we can. For starters, Mahito being able to regenerate from just his soul would mean that Mahito should be more than capable of coming back into existence after Kenjaku used Mahito for Uzumaki. For those unaware, Uzumaki is the Maximum Cursed Technique of Cursed Spirit Manipulation, and if used on a Curse of Semi-Grade 1 or higher, will extract their Cursed Technique from the Cursed Spirit and kill them. Kenjaku used this ability on Mahito to obtain Idle Transfiguration, with this fully putting an end to Mahito’s existence and allowing Kenjaku to create the Culling Games.

Uzumaki has no statements or implications that it tampers with or destroys the soul, meaning that if Mahito truly could regenerate from just his soul, he would’ve done-so likely immediately after this chain of events occurred. To add a much larger nail to this regenerative coffin, in the final chapter of Jujutsu Kaisen, Sukuna is seen interacting with and holding conversation with Mahito after Sukuna’s death at the hands of Yuji. It is established by Mahito himself that this is some sort of purgatory that awaits characters in Jujutsu Kaisen before being reborn, with Sukuna deciding to reincarnate after accepting his defeat at the hands of our cast. It should be obvious why this presents a major issue for Mahito being able to regenerate from just his soul, as if he could do so, it’d make absolutely 0 sense for him to not have done so already before Sukuna arrived almost 2 months after Mahito’s own death.

One potential counter argument to the ideas presented is that Mahito had ran out of Cursed Energy upon being absorbed and used by Kenjaku, but this is directly contradicted in the very scene prior to Kenjaku’s absorption of Mahito, as Mahito had more than enough Cursed Energy to try and hit Kenjaku with Idle Transfiguration. This would show that Mahito, even with Cursed Energy, was unable to use Idle Transfiguration to regenerate from just his soul after Kenjaku’s Uzumaki, and further affirms the idea that Mahito must have at least some semblance of his physical self remaining to tamper with and manipulate his own soul to regenerate his body.

Finally, considering the interpolation of the body and soul in Jujutsu Kaisen itself, and the fact that Idle Transfiguration is based around the idea of tampering with the soul to effect your own or your enemy’s body, it stands to reason that Mahito would require a physical presence of some sort to utilize and tamper with his own soul to regenerate his being. Think of it like mixing cake batter with a whisk, with the batter being the body, the whisk being the soul, and the person holding the whisk being Mahito. It does not matter in what way Mahito moves his whisk (soul) if there is no batter (body) to push around.

Hopefully the arguments presented here showcase why Mahito likely has no way of regenerating his entire body from just his soul, and that if Mahito’s entire body was completely destroyed without any trace left, he would likely just be dead.

Can Mahito Scale to pre-Awakening Teen Gojo?

To get the obvious out of the way, Mahito scaling to the likes of Gojo as an adult or even his Awakening as a teenager is laughable. An Awakened Teenage Gojo was capable of casually obliterating Toji with almost no effort, and Toji would later go on to effortlessly annihilate a fellow Disaster Curse, Dagon, with practically the same amount of effort. But, could Mahito scale to the likes of a Pre-Awakened Teen Gojo? This will obviously be a contentious topic, so we’ll be going into arguments for and against this idea.

Before we begin these arguments, the main reason why this topic is being discussed is due to a feat from the Jujutsu Kaisen mobile game, Phantom Parade. While Phantom Parade’s canonicity is debatable, it should fall under the category of supplementary canon, as nothing in it contradicts the source material unless stated otherwise, and the game even contains things never seen in-canon but hinted at such as Hanami’s Domain. While there is an original story, it takes place between the events of the Death Painting Wombs and Shibuya Incident arcs, meaning there is no worry over characters appearing when they’re dead or MIA in canon. Despite the aforementioned points in favor of its canonicity, Phantom Parade’s Japanese version is starting to adapt the Shibuya Incident, and if original characters shown in Phantom Parade such as Rozetsu, Saki, and Kaito are included, it can easily muddy any arguments for Phantom Parade’s canonicity. At this point in time however, we believe it to be valid.

As for the feat itself, it comes from an event featuring Gojo, Geto, and Shoko in their teens before the events of Hidden Inventory. In this event, a Cursed Object has completely taken over a mountain near a local town, and is draining the cursed energy of the local population to give birth to the Cursed Spirit inside the object. Upon realizing that there is no way to uproot the Cursed Object, Gojo states the idea that he’ll simply destroy the entire mountain. While at first glance this can be argued to just be Gojo hyping himself up, it is treated as a complete possibility and in fact almost the plan gone with by the cast, with even the supervisor overseeing things giving Gojo the go ahead to destroy the entire mountain. While Gojo doesn’t actually destroy the entire mountain, with him and Geto deciding to fight the Cursed Spirit born from it head on, the event generally supports the idea of Gojo being capable of this level of power pre-Awakening.

While the size of the mountain is unknown, judging by a statement from Geto about it connecting to the national highway, its size can be inferred to a degree. The calculations for this mountain destruction get anywhere from 6 – 25 Megatons of TNT. This would obviously be a major upgrade for characters relative in strength to parts of the series such as the Shibuya Incident if Mahito does scale, so let’s finally get into the arguments on why Mahito does or does not scale.

Arguments For

Pre-Awakening Teen Gojo, while still immensely strong for a sorcerer of his age, notably is extremely inexperienced overall compared to the likes of many sorcerers seen later on in the series. Gojo at this point in time completely lacks the ability to perform Reverse Cursed Technique as well as seemingly lacks the ability to perform Domain Expansion and countless other incredible intricacies that later sorcerers have shown in the series. While these obviously don’t have to translate 1 to 1 with the actual stats of a character, they do paint a clear picture already that this version of Gojo is extremely inexperienced, especially in comparison to the Disaster Curses who are all capable of Domain Expansions and even Domain Amplification.

To further get into this scaling chain, while one might bring up the fact that Gojo still holds the title of “The Strongest” at this point in time, this is a shared title between him and Geto during most of Hidden Inventory, with most of the final act of Hidden Inventory focusing on Geto struggling to grasp with this growing rift between them. The title of “The Strongest” here can also easily be argued to be considered more about their potential or the idea of them being the strongest of their generation, as we know from Chapter 147 and Gakuganji’s talk with Yaga that the classification of Special Grade can be based entirely around the potential of a Cursed Technique rather than exclusively the sorcerer themselves. Considering that Yuki was still alive at this time, and would later fight and keep up with a much stronger version of “Geto”, it also stands to reason that this idea of Gojo and Geto being “The Strongest” isn’t meant to portray them as above the rest of Jujutsu Society.

As for why Geto was talked about so much in proximity with a section about Gojo, the reasoning for this is that Geto was dispatched of by Toji just as easily as Gojo was, and the two are narratively meant to be considered “The Strongest Duo” rather than the title later serving as something embodying Gojo only. To try and tie this fully back around to Mahito, Toji upon being revived in Shibuya would effortlessly destroy Dagon, who is a Disaster Curse just as Mahito is. While Dagon can be argued to have been defeated with even less effort than Gojo and Geto, Dagon is likely the weakest of the Disaster Curses, with Nanami and Naobito both believing Jogo to be on a completely different level to him. Considering Mahito’s Awakened state during his fight with Yuji and Todo, it isn’t too outlandish to believe he surpassed Jogo, and therefore be considered in a similar ballpark of far above Dagon’s level by Nanami and Naobito.

To clarify, we are not trying to say that any of the Disaster Curses besides Dagon would genuinely provide much of a fight against Toji, but considering the likes of Pre-Awakening Teen Gojo was defeated just as thoroughly and that Toji received no boost to his strength whatsoever in between Hidden Inventory and Shibuya, you can argue a potential scaling chain via Gojo, Geto, and Dagon getting their asses beat and Jogo (who Mahito has potentially equaled or surpassed) being stated to be far stronger than Dagon.

Arguments Against

Despite his inexperience with sorcery overall, a pre-Awakening Teen Gojo was still considered enough of a threat by Toji that he deliberately weakened him over the course of multiple days to ensure the job would go smoothly. This can lend credence to the idea that if Gojo was at full strength when fighting Toji, he likely would’ve done much better against the Sorcerer Killer, even if he most likely still would have lost. Considering how cleanly and effortlessly Toji defeated Dagon, if one gives even a semblance of credit to the idea that a full strength Gojo was enough to worry Toji, then it can be insinuated that this scaling chain can sort of fall apart. On top of this, while Geto and Gojo at the time shared the title of “The Strongest”, Gojo is likely still above Geto by a noticeable margin. While not to the level that it would eventually become, Gojo’s much better performance against Toji in spite of the constant activation of his technique for multiple days to keep Riko safe means that a full power pre-Awakening Gojo should be well above the likes of Geto just by comparing their performances against Toji respectively.

To move away from Gojo and Geto and onto Dagon, while Dagon is the weakest of the Disaster Curses, the Disaster Curses are likely meant to all be generally equal to each other in spite of Naobito and Nanami’s thoughts. For starters, Jogo was said to have died from the 5 Black Flashes that Yuji and Todo performed on Hanami, and more importantly, is stated within the volume extras to only be “technically” stronger than Hanami thanks to an elemental advantage. This is worth noting as Dagon would go on to fight Nanami, Naobito, and Maki, with Nanami and Naobito being noticeably stronger than Yuji or Todo likely were during the events of the School Exchange Event. Dagon during this fight would have genuinely won if not for Megumi’s intervention, as once inside his Domain he was completely overpowering all three of them. Considering Hanami was almost going to lose to two sorcerers who are beneath Nanami and Naobito, while Dagon was able to handle both and Maki, it stands to reason the difference in strength can’t be that absurd.

With the information presented, while Jogo and Mahito are stronger than Dagon and likely Hanami as well, it wouldn’t be to a large enough degree to try and make this scaling chain feasible, especially combined with the fact that Toji purposefully weakened Gojo to ensure things went smoothly.

Who The Heck is Rozetsu? (& other PhanPara stuff)

Speaking of Phantom Parade, meet Rozetsu, the main villain of Phantom Parade’s first major, original arc! We’d be very remiss not to talk about him given his very recent inclusion to the Jujutsu Kaisen franchise… even if it’s a gacha game.

Taking place sometime between the Death Womb Painting and Shibuya Incident arcs, this Phantom Parade story arc focuses on the Fukuoka branch of Jujutsu High that’s being terrorized by a Special Grade Curse going around and creating numerous other Curses to terrorize the city. With his CT of “Curse Technique Snatch” and a very complicated 26-year long scheme with Fukuoka’s principal, Rozetsu steals a Curse Technique that allows him to erect a barrier capable of manipulating the Cursed Energy of others to weaken and drain them of it. He then manages to copy Yuji’s physical properties as a Vessel for Sukuna to implant two of the King of Curse’s fingers given to him by Kenjaku into a Cursed Spirit he created. All of this to erect a massive barrier imbued with and amplified by Sukuna’s Cursed Energy that would eventually grow to cover all of Kyushu island and turn all humans, sorcerer and non-sorcerer alike, into livestock.

For anyone interested in reading up on all this, here’s a playlist that covers the whole Fukuoka branch arc to where it presently is on Global Servers, as well as TLs on Chapter 15, Chapter 16, and the Fukuoka Branch arc Epilogue.

At the center of this barrier is a gigantic, tree-shaped Cursed Spirit Rozetsu had whipped up beforehand to contain the Sorcerer with the specific barrier Cursed Technique he needed. This is his most relevant feat when it pertains to scaling to Mahito as earlier in the story, prior to creating the tree, Rozetsu fought Todo and at the time was stated to be outright inferior to Hanami in the Goodwill arc. As Rozetsu removes parts of himself to create Cursed Spirits and the creation of this tree came after his fight with Todo, practically all the Disaster Curses should scale to and above this feat as a result. Additionally we know he maintains the tree as it disintegrates immediately upon his defeat to Yuji despite the fact that Rozetsu is still alive after this, just having lost a lot of Cursed Energy, until Mahito kills him for good. All-in-all, the mere destruction of the mountain meant to hold the tree leads to a whopping 48.45 Kilotons of TNT, but sustaining the tree itself? That comes out to a whopping 357.55 Megatons of TNT! One of the highest feats in the verse Pre-Culling Games.

For further evidence of scaling, Yuji, while weakened from having his Cursed Energy constantly drained by Rozetsu’s Technique on top of his barrier, managed to fight a full power Rozetsu amped by the barrier and having re-absorbed all his Cursed Spirits, including the 2-Finger Sukuna Vessel, for an extended period before being briefly knocked out. While he gets an amp to beat Rozetsu, it was only after he survives an extended beat down from the Special Grade all while weakened at that, thus it should be fine to scale Yuji’s base durability to full-power Rozetsu. Additionally by this point in JJK’s timeline, a 4 Finger Sukuna was explicitly disinterested in Rozetsu’s plot and found him irritating and boring, as compared to the likes of Jogo, Higuruma, and Todo who he’s vastly stronger than yet is willing to acknowledge them for their strength or capabilities. Kenjaku as well totally dismissed Rozetsu’s power, and Rozetsu only being vaguely above a 2-Finger Sukuna still places him well below Jogo’s level.

There are other Phantom Parade feats we’d have liked to cover such as Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara fighting a Cursed Spirit capable of sinking an entire island (TL here), but presently many events and story chapters haven’t hit NA at the time of writing this blog and Phantom Parade players seem allergic to archiving story cutscenes or event maps before they hit Global (F/GO players could never), so for now these feats will remain un-calc’ed.

We would like to thank the members of the unofficial Phantom Parade Discord!

Yuki & Kenjaku’s Black Hole Insanity

In chapter 208, Yuki overloads her density threshold with her mass increase ability, creating a legitimate blackhole in the process:

While Yuki is unaffected by Star Rage’s alterations in mass, this only holds true up until a certain density. The caster can increase their virtual mass past this threshold to titanic amounts, transforming their body into a black hole. To use this skill means suicide for the caster, however, as their body’s mass is condensed into a tiny volume. The black hole is stated to be able to destroy the planet (in all versions of the chapter, including the raw), and the only reason it did not do so is because Tengen’s barrier and Yuki’s willpower restricted it. Kenjaku survived using an anti-gravity Domain Expansion. Even the small blackhole that remained after being restricted can still be calced to being Planet Level.

Kenjaku admitted he would’ve died alongside the planet had he not used his antigravity technique. That said, before he activates the ability, he takes the force and pull of the initial Black Hole. He gets visually contorted but isn’t sucked in, which is extremely impressive for his durability. Calculating his durability from surviving the black hole’s initial gravitational effects, which comes out to around 676 Megatons of TNT. As for Mahito scaling, refer to the next section.

Shinjuku Chicanery

So, as mentioned in the scaling section there is somewhat of an opening to scale the Disaster Curses to the latter half of JJK and all the feats that happen throughout it: Kenjaku.

As per a guide statement, while he would be able to beat all the Disaster Curses individually he’d ultimately struggle if he had to challenge them all together, Gege also specifically singling out Jogo and Mahito as the two he’d have a hard time beating. Now Kenjaku (and technically Geto) has his own major feats that would bump up the Disaster Curses quite a bit if they scaled to him: namely his durability feat of briefly surviving within Yuki Tsukumo’s black hole which comes out to 676 Megatons. This also lines up nicely with Choso during the Culling Games holding his ground against and harming Kenjaku, and keeping pace with him and Yuki while they were guarding Tengen. These arguments would also allow Mahito to scale to a heavily injured Sukuna, who could move in tandem with the blast of light that is Jacob’s Ladder in order to set up debris, a feat that gets 0.332 C.

Now if that was just it, then there wouldn’t be a big problem scaling the Disaster Curses to him. Kenjaku’s black hole surviving feat reaches the triple-digit Megatons, higher than any of the Disaster Curses’ own feats thus far but not overwhelmingly so, while keeping in mind that this was a high-diff feat Kenjaku performed while attacks like Jogo’s Maximum Meteor or even Teen Gojo’s mountain busting aren’t shown or even remotely implied to drain or weaken either character to the degree Kenjaku was hurt surviving Yuki’s black hole. Rozetsu’s high-end of actively sustaining his barrier Tree Curse actually gets close to Kenny’s feat, and he himself is far below any of the Disaster Curses at the time of performing the feat. The real issue comes from how Kenjaku is static when it comes to their power. 

Unlike Sukuna gaining fingers or the main cast training up until the Shinjuku Showdown, it’s never even implied in the story that Kenjaku had similarly trained for Shinjuku. Thus it inadvertently creates a scaling chain between the Disaster Curses to the Shinjuku Showdown main cast via Kenjaku, given his performance against Yuki and how Yuta is so weary to face him in a head-on fight and instead resorts to trickery.

So for this section, we’ll be presenting arguments both for and against the Disaster Curses scaling to Kenjaku.

Arguments For

So simply put, we just take the statement as is: The Disaster Curses, namely Mahito and Jogo, would in fact be a difficult fight for Kenjaku. As mentioned earlier, this is supported by Choso just over two weeks after the Shibuya Incident, managing to force Kenjaku to reveal his Anti-Gravity technique to block damage from Supernova, kept up with both Yuki and Kenjaku in close quarters combat, even drawing blood from the latter, and physically tired Kenjaku out. While one could argue Kenjaku was easily superior to Choso and merely toying around with him, something he says as much during their fight, it’s still relevant as Kenjaku had figured out Choso was sent out to try and force Kenjaku use his second technique so that Yuki could have a better grasp on what Kenjaku was capable of. Not to mention he was mocking Choso for being a total failure, ergo Choso forcing Kenjaku into a position where he had to use his second technique inherently implies that:

1. Kenjaku felt the damage he’d take from Supernova outweighed his desire to play around with and mock Choso, as up until this point he’d intentionally been using crappy Cursed Spirits enhanced with his energy to prove a point against him.
2. Narratively, Choso one-upped his creator and proved he is more capable than Kenjaku ever gave him credit for. Him later backing up Yuki in CQC and actually drawing blood from Kenjaku should support this.

Thus since Shibuya Choso was relative to, if not weaker than the two stronger Disaster Curses, Jogo and Mahito, then scaling to Kenjaku should be fine. There’s also taking into account that Yuta felt he couldn’t brute force and win against Kenjaku in time to get to Sukuna, which speaks a lot to Kenjaku’s power given Yuta was confident he could take on both Mahoraga and Agito as he was watching the battle between Gojo and Sukuna. Again not to say the Disaster Curses are 1:1 with Kenjaku in stats, but are in the realm that 1 on 1 fights would be difficult and a group fight would seem to be in their favor.

We can also look at Todo, who had intentionally been kept separate from the training the rest of the cast received, being able to react to and combat against Sukuna at a point where he still had CE levels comparable to Yuta and could take on Yuta in Gojo’s body. At one point, he even outright catches up to and intercepts Sukuna as he tries to attack Angel and survives not one, but two Black Flashes from him, and earlier in the fight Sukuna expressed how ideally he didn’t want to face Todo due to how pesky his ability was. While Todo almost certainly developed and grew in power alongside the main cast, he never underwent certain things like soul-swap training or simply being able to train and improve alongside some of the strongest in the verse like Yuta and Gojo. This would scale Todo’s speed to Sukuna’s, who right before landing his Black Flash on Todo could launch debris into the air at relativistic speeds before Jacob’s Ladder can reach him. This feat is clearly far and beyond any of the Supersonic and Hypersonic feats in previous arcs, thus it’s hard to say if he would have really grown on the level of the Shinjuku cast all by himself if the gap wasn’t big in the first place.

There’s also an argument to be made for Mahito’s speed scaling to Gojo, of all people. When Mahito confronts Gojo in Shibuya, he dodges a blow from the Strongest Sorcerer. Now normally this feat could be shrugged off as Gojo holding back as to not kill surrounding civilians, but shortly after Mahito’s attack Jogo also goes in for a melee attack with Domain Amplification active but Gojo reacts to him and rips his arm off. Earlier he also had no issue stomping both Hanami and Jogo in melee with civilians surrounding them, even launching them around in the fight. 

And in another instance, Gojo, just freed from the Prison Realm and still somewhat fatigued and exhausted, blitzed and 1-shot Uraume. Thus, we can scale Mahito to or over Uraume in speed, and in turn the rest of the Shinjuku cast given his prolonged fight with Hakari. Now this isn’t to say Mahito scales 1:1 with Gojo speed-wise, but much of the main cast keep up with the fully incarnated Sukuna, who should be as fast, if not faster, than his very injured “Megkuna” self that could still dodge attacks from Kashimo, as well as his later weakened state that performed the relativistic feat. Both Yuta and Maki were also confident that they could take on and at least stall Shinjuku arc Mahoraga, who Gojo states outright as keeping up with him and Sukuna as opposed to Agito.

And lastly we have Sukuna’s statement that while the main cast that fought him had all improved their CE refinement greatly since he last saw them, they are all still below Ryu Ishigori in that aspect. This is relevant as Yuta, arguably the strongest of the non-Gojo combatants, was relative to Ryu and managed to beat both him and Uro while somewhat holding back. As a result, his growth couldn’t have been that substantial and thus there is precedent for downscaling the Disaster Curses to the much higher scaling of the Shinjuku arc.

Oh and just so we’re all clear, no one is trying to scale Mahito to Yorozu’s Perfect Sphere, which can get some pretty crazy results with mass-energy, nor Yuki’s black hole for obvious reasons. With this scaling, Mahito would only get scaling to Kenjaku’s 676 Megaton durability feat and injured Sukuna’s 0.332c feat.

Arguments Against

So on the complete opposite end of the spectrum, a great argument against scaling the Curses to the Shinjuku cast is the sheer power gap and growth demonstrated by other members of the main cast. Most evident of course is Maki, who goes from being relative to Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara at the time of the Goodwill and Shibuya arcs, the main trio scaling to Hanami, the Finger Bearers, and even Mahito himself, to stomping Cursed Naoya once her Heavenly Restriction had fully awakened. Naoya even before becoming a Cursed Spirit had already shown to be relative to Post-Shibuya Yuji and Choso, and Maki matched him even while she was injured, and his transformation into a CS increased his level of power even further.

There’s also keeping in mind a fully awakened Maki scales to Toji at his peak, who was stated able to take out the entirety of the Zenin clan if he ever wanted to, which would not only include Naoya but also Naobito and the Hei group. Heck, Sukuna himself found Maki to be genuinely interesting and someone he was excited to fight over the likes of Higuruma, Kashimo, and Yuta, as compared to Jogo who was toyed around with and only acknowledged at the very end. Using secondary canon such as Phantom Parade, there’s a Memory depicting Maki & Mai Pre-Shibuya fighting Hanami within their Domain Expansion, lending more credence to the idea that Pre-Shibuya arc characters were already on par with the Disaster Curses so there’s no reason to scale them to the Shinjuku arc cast.

Other examples are more clear as well such as Post-Shibuya Yuji being outright physically weaker than base Hakari but is treated as relative to Domain Expansion amped Yuta by the time of the Shinjuku Showdown. Kusakabe goes from being paralyzed in fear against Sukuna to briefly holding his ground against him by Shinjuku. Even Ino, a relatively minor sorcerer in the story, manages to stagger Sukuna and survive attacks from him. In a more extreme example, an injured Choso managed to put his all into creating a dome that protected Yuji from Sukuna’s Furnace attack, something that 1-shot Jogo when he used it in its lesser projectile form and outright vaporized Mahoraga. And unlike “Yujo’s” weakened Hollow Purple, Sukuna’s Furnace is emphasized to be the same one that bested Mahoraga. Granted this act kills Choso, but the shell still stood shortly after the explosion and Domain were over, which is more that can be said of even Big Raga.

Simply put, the growth of the main cast is frankly absurd to where they’re they compare much closer to Sukuna than any of the Disaster Curses ever could.

Additionally, it can simply be that Choso’s performance against Kenjaku can be explained as having experienced a sort of “awakening” in the scene where he calls in his brothers for strength. Throughout JJK, we’ve seen a number of characters achieve “awakenings” that act as large power boosts as well as an improvement in technique or mindset. Major examples include Teen Gojo, Maki, and Yuji, so it’s possible Choso underwent something similar here given he starts performing Eso’s technique. That or Supernova as a technique simply scales much higher than Choso’s physicals similar to Mei Mei’s crows. Take your pick. Todo as well may have just gotten that much stronger off-panel by himself. With the new application of his technique via the vibraslap and considering that neither Higuruma nor Ino, while part of the main party attacking Sukuna, weren’t shown either to have participated in the soul-swap training yet had their technique and refinement greatly improved, it’s not so hard to just assume Todo’s off-screen preparations lifted him up to the rest of the main cast’s level.

And on the flipside of scaling Gojo speedwise, Mahito scaling to Gojo just off of him dodging a single blow is a fair bit… well dodgy to say the least. For one, Gojo is stated to be the fastest Sorcerer in modern Jujutsu society. So much so that at least up until the Shinjuku Showdown, Gojo is the only modern sorcerer who could consciously time the microsecond time frame of a Black Flash. And once again we’d have to bring up Maki, whose scaling to Toji means that we can look at the latter’s fight with a recently awakened teen Gojo, who kept up with and dodged attacks from the Sorcerer Killer.

If a weaker, younger Gojo is about as fast as a fully awakened Heavenly Restriction user, someone that should vastly outspeed Mahito as outlined in Maki’s section, then Mahito probably shouldn’t scale to any serious measurement of Gojo or Sukuna’s speed. While one could argue that an uninjured Gojo should upscale his weakened self, it’s still fairly hard to quantify and it is very arbitrary to say that his suppressed self in one scene would be above a somewhat weakened yet casual showing of power. We simply don’t know how much weaker or stronger Gojo is in one scene.

And for the statement that Kenjaku would have a tough time with Jogo or Mahito? Well… honestly it’s likely the Curses plainly don’t scale to Kenjaku, at least physically. He’s clearly above Choso and compares to Yuki Tsukumo in h2h, someone stated on par with Yuta, likely placing her in the same league as other Culling Games Special Grades like Uro, Ryu, or Yorozu. By Shinjuku, Yuta figured it he needed Todo’s aid in sneaking up on Kenjaku, implying that he couldn’t simply blitz him despite already scaling to Sukuna’s relativistic feat by that point. Not to mention Jogo is a Special Grade AoE spammer and Mahito isn’t easy to kill physically. It’s entirely possible the Disaster Curses would be a bad match up in the sense that they’d wipe out large swathes of Kenjaku’s Cursed Spirits and tire him out, given we see in his fight with Yuki and Choso that in the span of several minutes at most Yuki notes his CE levels were dropping and he’d exhausted his technique from using his two CTs, landing a Domain Expansion, and use of RCT. 

All this and well… Gege probably didn’t intend to draw relativistic feats for the strongest sorcerers in the verse, lol.

Both

How do MHA & JJK’s idea of the “Soul” compare?

Safe to say, neither series is super clear when it comes to talking about spiritual mechanics. This makes sense considering the idea is not a major focus of either series, nor is the idea the foundation of each power system (mostly, for MHA’s case). Thus, prior to entering Verdicts, we feel it would be good to go a more indepth run down of the spiritual systems of each series and compare the two. 

My Hero Academia

For starters, the soul is confirmed to exist in My Hero Academia. Shigaraki and Yoichi directly refer to All For One (the character’s) attempted control of Shigaraki as an attempt of hijacking his body and soul, All For One states he is going to delete Shigaraki’s spirit in the climax of the story, the character Rody Soul from World Heroes Mission’s quirk is called soul and directly reflects the emotions of his soul through a bird creature named Pino, and You’re Next directly shows the spirits of Class 1A as they are trapped in a dream world (while also specifying that the versions of them we see in the dream world are in fact their spirits). Where things get more complicated is when the topic of Vestiges is brought into the mix.

First thing to clarify is that Vestiges are not the same soul as a person’s main soul, despite seeming to be identical. The most obvious example of this that needs minimal explanation is the main All For One (character) and the All For One inside Shigaraki (Vestige) being two different characters, despite belonging to entirely different bodies. We also see cases supporting this like when the Vestige of Hawks inside of All For One (the character) dies alongside AFO himself, but the normal Hawks is still alive at the end of the series without issue. What Vestiges really are is an extra consciousness imprinted by someone onto their quirk factor.

But onto the main point: are Vestiges in My Hero Academia souls? Short answer, yes. Long answer? While they are never directly confirmed to be souls, there is a large amount of evidence that points to this without direct confirmation being needed at all. While Vestiges seemed to have been introduced as a scientific idea, overtime they have been adapted to be more spiritual in nature. There are the obvious remarks where Tomura calls a spotted Vestige a ghost outright, but notably the three previously posted cases of souls existing in My Hero Academia also point towards Vestiges being spiritual in nature.

All For One’s Vestige was able to reach for and tamper with Shigaraki’s soul, Rody’s quirk connects to his soul and Vestiges are connected to quirks, and the Vestiges directly show up in the spirit filled world Midoriya was trapped in during You’re Next. There are other notable cases of Vestiges having spiritual presence as well, with the main case to bring up being in My Hero Academia: Vigilantes. In the climax of the story, Koichi is backed up and supported by what are seemingly the spirits of Knuckle Duster and Pop after the two are on the brink of death. With KD directly interacting with All For One’s interfering Vestige  spirit and getting him off the battlefield. Also yeah I guess All For One can astral project, cool.

Granted this case is weird considering KD being quirkless and thus not having a Vestige in the first place. This is consistent with Midoriya and Shigaraki not having distinct Vestiges (Midoriya was born quirkless and does not have some extra Vestige in the One For All mental world, and Shigaraki’s Decay is an artificial quirk. Artificial quirks not having a Vestige is consistent with All For One (the character) not having his own Vestige version after receiving an artificial version of his former quirk). Thus it is a bit weird, however the spiritual focus on KD’s presence is still relevant considering his interaction with All For One’s (the character) Vestige that was present at the battlefield. Further supporting the spiritual nature of Vestiges themselves, regardless of the awkwardness of KD’s presence. So even if we do not have a proper explanation for KD’s situation, that does not change the point in favor the scene creates for the idea of Vestiges being spiritual.

So to conclude, My Hero Academia does have souls, with Vestiges themselves logically being “extra souls” essentially that are able to interact with other souls. There is not really much more to elaborate on here, as My Hero Academia does not try to make souls into some complicated and layered topic.

Jujutsu Kaisen

While the soul plays an integral part of Jujutsu Kaisen’s world and how it functions is important to several characters’ abilities and even their plotlines, we don’t get hard specifics on how souls function. Which is seemingly intentional as even millennia old characters don’t appear to have a full grasp on the structure of the soul.

Key things that we do know however are that there is some intrinsic link between body and soul, that upon death all things including Cursed Spirits undergo a cycle of reincarnation, Cursed Energy is linked or stems from the soul, and that entering/touching the soul is where one can find one’s Innate Domain and Cursed Technique, something all humans inherently possess at birth (something backed up by PhanPara) and are focused around a specific concept. There’s also a stated purgatory or form of afterlife within the series, not only upon the deaths of Gojo and Sukuna on their way to reincarnation, as well as a phenomenon that occurs at the moment of death or as one transitions into the afterlife where individuals connect in some mindscape via Cursed Energy’s roots in human emotions. Additionally in the light novels, Mahito shares his insights on how the soul interacts with the external world, bringing up that the soul “reacts” to external stimuli and experiences are processed akin to a metabolism.

Now we’ve already covered the connection between body and soul in JJK, but arguably the most important aspect of that body-soul link as well as in regards to the soul itself is JJK’s concept of “Information.” Both body and soul share a concept of “information” which acts as some fundamental part of body and soul that can be transferred or manipulated, as well as carries consciousness at times depending on the example. The two clearest instances of “Information” are Ogami’s Cursed Technique and Yaga’s method for Cursed Corpse Creation. With the former, Ogami has the ability to summon the information of either the body or soul, which she uses at one point to resurrect Toji’s body but it backfires as the information of Toji’s body hijacks her grandson’s soul. This Toji clearly isn’t just a copy either as he distinctly remembers his past life. And for the other example, Yaga makes use of physical information to construct souls after inputting that information into Cursed Cores, creating Panda as a result.

Other examples of “Information” or a very similar phenomenon can be seen with Kenjaku’s Cursed Technique, which not only allows him to possess a body but retain its memories, make use of its Cursed Technique and, as confirmed with Yuta Okkotsu, perform the deceased’s Domain Expansion. Given that Cursed Technique is stated to either be stored in one’s Innate Domain or within the brain, where one’s Technique is also stated to be stored, both of which we know to be impossible as Geto’s soul is seen in the afterlife and we’re shown that removing the host’s brain is needed to take over a body, it would be utterly impossible and unexplainable for Kenjaku to make use of his host body’s CT unless the information left behind the body didn’t allow for Kenjaku to inherit all these things.

Kenjaku’s technique also somehow allows him to retain and store more Cursed Techniques like Kaori’s, somehow containing it within Barriers set up in his brain, which again demonstrates how Information or a similar phenomena exists independent to the body and soul, all of which are connected to memories and Cursed Technique. A similar thing can be seen with Nanami’s Cursed Technique being imbued into a Cursed Object, which again should normally be impossible as Nanami’s soul should have passed on and the entire top half of his body is destroyed.

Phantom Parade also introduces the very interesting case of Rozetsu, whose Cursed Technique Snatch requires several components to steal a Cursed Technique: A target’s Cursed Energy, a few drops of their blood, and gathered “information” or an understanding of the Technique. The last part of gathering information also possesses a caveat, as if he does not gain a full understanding of his target’s technique then he cannot make full use of it (ex: Rozetsu steals Ten Shadows’ Shikigami up until Nue, however Megumi is still capable of summoning Max Elephant) despite having both the blood and siphoning Cursed Energy off a victim, and the death of a target outright stops the stolen CT from working.

And when Rozets imbues the Cursed Technique into a Cursed Spirit he’s created, the Cursed Spirit gains a higher level of intelligence and, in the case of the Sukuna Vessel, gains some of the King of Curses’ qualities and even use of his Shrine technique immediately after obtaining two Sukuna Fingers, something the Finger Bearers never accomplished despite possessing their fingers for much longer. In other words, it’s an ability very much defined by information (or some very similar concept) and backs up its portrayal in the main series. In fact Yuta’s Copy shares a similar limitation in that even after Rika has devoured a body part and copied the Cursed Technique, he is no longer able to use it if his target fully heals the part that’s been devoured.

To sum this all up, souls in JJK are the metaphysical, spiritual essences of a living being that each possess a fundamental concept to their being known as an Innate Domain, from which Cursed Techniques stem from. Souls possess a unique relationship with the Body, as the body either conforms to the shape of the soul, are one and the same, or the relationship and perception change from person to person. A shared aspect of the body and soul is “Information”, which carries memory, consciousness, and Cursed Technique of an individual that, while fundamental to one’s being, can seemingly exist separately from and be extracted even from small quantities of the body and soul. Information has been used across the series to replicate or make use of Cursed Techniques and access Innate Domains without the original soul or the brain, develop or transfer the consciousnesses of others, and even create whole new souls when provided sufficient Cursed Energy.

Comparison

While both series vary in their power systems a lot, it does seem like the idea of the soul works similarly in both worlds on a basic level. It is the basic foundation of a person and exists in both series. While Jujutsu Kaisen dives more into the complexities of the soul with factors like its relationship with the body, it does have notable similarities with My Hero Academia in a couple ways. We know souls in each series carry information (the imprint of someone’s consciousness onto their quirk factor, and the existence of Innate Domains alongside the function of Ogami’s cursed technique. Additionally the entire function of Sukuna’s fingers), as well as have correlation to specific character abilities (Vestiges being the key of someone’s quirk factor that carry said quirk factor, and cursed techniques and cursed objects having information about someone akin to their bodies or souls).

On the note of My Hero Academia’s vestiges, they should have enough supporting context to be considered souls. They are not a person’s main soul, but do carry the same spiritual properties as souls, and can interact with them. Thus it is fair to argue they would be considered to be souls by Jujutsu Kaisen’s standards. Now, as for how specific soul related abilities like Shigaraki’s mental world or Mahito’s Idle Transfiguration would interact with souls from the other series, that is a topic reserved for verdicts.

Fanart

Fear Aura be like

(By Flip)

(By Flip)

(By CadenDaMonkey)

(By Adam天)

(By PitTheSwordMaster)

(By Tyrannii)

Verdicts

Verdicts gif by Toxin. Team images by Flip. Category images by Ishi and Flip.

Shigaraki

Stats

Starting with Mahito’s strength, his weird scaling position in Jujutsu Kaisen makes determining his exact limits difficult. He should safely scale to several kiloton level feats, but he also has multiple arguments for scaling to an extent to potent characters like teenage Gojo or Kenjaku, who have feats that could get Mahito from a couple to hundreds of megatons in terms of power output. But to be blunt, there is nothing you can realistically scale Mahito to to get him anywhere near Shigaraki’s level of raw power. There are a multitude of gigaton to teraton level feats spread out across the My Hero Academia series. Deku splitting islands, teaming up with Bakugo to disperse giant storms at hypersonic speeds, Star & Stripe hitting Shigaraki with the combined power of multiple nuclear missiles, etc. 

To put it into perspective, Kenjaku had a close call with and was actively damaged noticeably by the 676.2 megaton level force of Yuki’s black hole pull. In contrast, an incomplete and debilitated Shigaraki from the First War Arc was able to keep going after taking a constant barrage of several 100% power punches from Midoriya AFTER he and Bakugo split clouds against Nine to get a result of 2.8 teratons of power for each hero. Essentially? A version of Shigaraki that is far from his best was able to take a barrage of blows that were each over four thousand times stronger than the absolute max amount of power Mahito could possibly exert. Even other arguments like upscaling high end megaton tree calculations or the 200% power boost from Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing would not even do so much as make a dent in this gap. There is no solid argument, would it be fair or a highball, for Mahito to get anywhere near Shigaraki’s level of strength and durability.

And again, this is Shigaraki far from his best. In the Final War Arc, he would go on to enhance his body even further while also having far better stamina compared to that First War Arc fight. But power is only one side of things, how do the two compare in speed? Just like with strength, Mahito’s exact best is hard to put down due to the variance in where he could scale. Sticking to speeds between Mach 284.4 and 932.9 based on Black Flash speed being converted from perception to reactions is his safe end, while scaling him to 0.332 C Shinjuku Showdown fighters is the best possible end you are going to get with him. Unfortunately, Mahito still falls short here.

As mentioned in Before The Verdict, Shigaraki has a large amount of relativistic feats to scale to. Namimaru’s 25.98 to 85.26% C laser block, a near high-end Nomu having a 0.73% C laser dodge, All Might dodging his own laser at 63% C, etc. What is additionally notable about all these feats is that they are done by characters that Shigaraki would massively upscale multiple times over. Namimaru has no proper hero training, the near high-end Nomu is multiple tiers below Shigaraki on the artificial creation tier list, and All Might’s Iron Might suit that performed the laser dodge was mostly getting beat around by a younger All For One (the character) (AKA the guy who Shigaraki was basically engineered to be superior to). 

If Mahito’s speed is treated more safely, then even the Mach 932 end for Black Flash speed scaling is over two hundred times slower than the lowest relativistic My Hero Academia feat mentioned above. If you use Sukuna’s 0.332c in tandem movement with Jacob’s Ladder, Mahito is still flatly scaling to a level of speed that Shigaraki is able to blitz multiple times over. This is without getting into the high end speed argument of Jiro intercepting radio waves and all the extra upscaling chains that come with that feat, which would make Shigaraki upscale a 60.42c feat. Far surpassing even the highest possible argument for Mahito by several tens of times. To conclude, Mahito is getting stat-stomped in this fight by a significant degree. Shigaraki is thousands of times stronger and is tens of times faster than Mahito’s best possible argument. This thus makes it very easy for Shigaraki to apply pressure to Mahito and position his winning moves. 

Arsenal & Abilities

Let’s get the elephant out of the room: Shigaraki can see Mahito. He has shown the ability to spot the spirit-like vestiges of One For All on multiple occasions, so a cursed spirit should not be something invisible to him. This is additionally validated by Shigaraki having the ability to see different spectrums of light like infrared radiation, which stands out considering Kenjaku pointing out how part of cursed spirit invisibility has to do with them being on a different spectrum of light that normal humans cannot see. As a final note, curses have also been noted to be visible to people in life or death scenarios (like, you know, a Death Battle) or special locations, widening the ways in which Shigaraki could spot Mahito further. 

But onto what actually matters. Both Shigaraki and Mahito are very versatile characters housing multiple abilities and tricks up their sleeves, but most of those abilities are not really going to matter in the end. For example, Mahito getting deer legs for speed or enlarging his arms is not really going to mean anything when Shigaraki is tens to hundreds of times faster, and over a thousand times stronger. Conversely, Shigaraki stabbing Mahito with a spear like bone or slicing him to pieces with razor blades is not going to do much when he can instantly regenerate from damage like that.

So what does matter in the end? With so many moves in their arsenals, only a few of the options each has can be argued to get a win. When comparing those possibilities however, Shigaraki takes a clear lead. Due to the potency of Mahito’s regeneration and its speed, it would be difficult for him to be killed by traditional damage. Even Decay would struggle to put Mahito down even with constant application, as Mahito being able to restructure his body would allow him to remove Decay like it was some bad status effect. Additionally, while Shigaraki’s gigantic power advantage would allow him to turn Mahito to paste in spite of cursed spirits having good damage resistance against non cursed energy attacks, that is yet another thing Mahito could just regenerate from.

However, Mahito’s regeneration is not perfect. It inherently requires cursed energy to function, of which he does not have an infinite supply. While Mahito’s regeneration is self-sustaining when it comes to cursed energy usage, it stands to reason that too much constant damage and pressure could tip the scales against him. Granted this would take a while, so Shigaraki winning through brute force and Decay is ironically an unlikely outcome in the long run. But what could cut the fight short is just… nuking Mahito with a giant energy attack quirk. Would it be the explosive quirk All For One (character) used to kill Nana Shimura or Impure Beam, Shigaraki has more than one quirk that could completely vaporize Mahito with one big shot.

Mahito would not be left with a body to regenerate from if Shigaraki used an attack like this, nor would he be able to regenerate fast enough when being coated with an attack that would instantly burn him to nothing. He does not have a way to defend or hide from attacks as destructive and big as these either. Thus, Shigaraki has a very clear cut way to simply annihilate Mahito. Additionally, a scenario in which Shigaraki does not even have to deal with Mahito’s regeneration is fairly possible. Techniques like Domain Expansion or ISBODK negate Mahito’s ability to use Idle Transfiguration on himself, therefore removing his regenerative ability. Thus if Mahito were to resort to these options, either for the former’s sure hit possibility or the latter’s stat boost, he would leave himself immensely vulnerable either by failing to kill Shigaraki with the domain or simply just, being in the ISBODK form at all.

Essentially, Shigaraki can win either by instantly vaporizing Mahito, destroying him with Decay whenever his regeneration is disabled, or playing the long game until his cursed energy runs out. First is the easiest option, second is a fairly possible one, and third is unlikely but not impossible. On the other hand, Mahito’s winning argument is Idle Transfiguration being applied to Shigaraki lethally. Either through contact or a Domain Expansion. The issue with both of these options, regardless of if they would even work, is that they are far more limited than Tomura’s trump cards. 

Whereas Shigaraki can spread Decay either through direct contact or making a tidal wave of it go omnidirectionally through the ground, Mahito’s normal IT requires direct contact to be activated. While Domain Expansion is a guaranteed hit, it is a once per battle technique that has drawbacks if it does not finish the fight in the form of technique burnout and massive cursed energy loss. In contrast, Shigaraki can just spam his giant destructive energy attacks. Simply put, Mahito’s win conditions are both far harder to pull off and riskier compared to Shigaraki.

But what if Mahito did hit Shigaraki with his ability? Mahito is pretty crafty compared to Shigaraki (more on that in Tertiary Factors), so it stands to reason that he could find the winning opportunity to finish Shigaraki off with IT or his Domain right? Unfortunately for everyone’s (least) favorite cursed spirit, IT would not even work if Mahito did land it. How come though? In the climax of the series, Shigaraki took noticeable significant damage when his soul was targeted and hit by Midoriya, which could imply that Shigaraki is especially vulnerable to soul based attacks. IT also directly touches someone’s soul, which means it would bypass any argument about Shigaraki being able to make a shield of hatred around his soul. However, there is one notable case in Jujutsu Kaisen of IT failing that reveals how Shigaraki has a perfect counter.

Let’s go over every aspect of Sukuna being able to counter Idle Transfiguration while inside Yuji’s body to get the full picture. First off, we know that because of Sukuna’s presence, two souls exist within Yuji’s body. Additionally, Sukuna’s soul is present inside his innate domain, which Yuji sees first hand while the two are in limbo. Notably this is the same world we see Sukuna and Mahito interact with when the former counters IT. We are also shown that Sukuna is capable of intercepting IT on more than one occasion (scene linked just now and video linked above), yet it is never specifically explained how this is done… in the main series. Jujutsu Kaisen features volume extras after every chapter in each volume, with them either providing a comedic sketch or serving as a tiny info dump. In the volume extras for Chapter 29 and 30 respectively, a visual representation of Mahito reaching for Sukuna to touch him only to be swatted away is displayed. Implying that he is capable of directly intercepting Idle Transfiguration. That raises the question, is this something only Sukuna can do?

It is explained when Mahito first fights Nanami that sorcerers are able to subconsciously protect their souls with cursed energy, but they cannot do so consciously due to not acknowledging their souls. Basically, their souls have no conscious protection. This alongside other evidence however actually makes it pretty clear as to why Sukuna is able to counter Idle Transfiguration: since he is a sentient soul when trapped inside Yuji, he is able to directly counter Mahito’s touch himself when Mahito tries using IT. This makes sense, as it explains how Sukuna exclusively can counter IT when other sorcerers cannot; for he is under different circumstances. This explanation works perfectly with the idea of the volume extras as well, as they show off Sukuna (who is currently a sentient soul in Yuji’s body) swatting away Mahito’s touch (which is IT, as the technique involves Mahito directly touching his soul).

With this logic in mind, Shigaraki should absolutely be able to counter Idle Transfiguration. Given how IT targets every soul in a body, and the fact that vestiges operate as souls themselves, there is a major resistance against Mahito in this situation. Of course, most random vestiges definitely would not be capable of much, but the one that stands out is the vestige of All For One. A vestige that has shown the ability to affect the souls of enemies like Shigaraki’s own, as well as the trump card capability to destroy souls altogether. Of course it is unlikely he would pull something like that out on a whim against Mahito, but it along with other evidence does solidify the notion that All For One (the vestige) should be capable of at the very least swatting Mahito’s IT away like Sukuna did.

With this in mind, both normal Idle Transfiguration and Mahito’s Domain Expansion would be rendered moot. There is the argument that his 0.2 Domain could bypass All For One and directly target Shigaraki given it avoided Sukuna’s touch during the Shibuya Incident. But that argument ignores the fundamental issue that touching Yuji’s soul means also having to touch Sukuna’s by default, and it is not like Mahito proved he could actually bypass Sukuna. 0.2 has other issues as well, such as Mahito’s very minimal window to actually land IT leading to a major possibility of him making a mistake with how lethally it’s aimed, and the limited extent to which he can as we saw with him not being able to just instantly make Todo explode. 

There is also the argument that Sukuna countering IT required him pulling Mahito into his Innate Domain which is something All For One could not do, but the entire Sukuna VS Mahito interaction only ever happened because Mahito touched Sukuna’s soul. It is not like Sukuna pulled him into his Innate Domain for the sake of saving Yuji, nor is there any evidence at all to say that is just something Sukuna can do. If Mahito couldn’t go into Sukuna’s Innate Domain himself, he and Sukuna never would have had beef to begin with.

To summarize, Mahito lacks solid arguments for being able to kill Shigaraki with Idle Transfiguration. Even if All For One (the vestige) would be fine with Shigaraki being harmed, he would be against Mahito targeting him and thus would definitely retaliate. Even if Idle Transfiguration did work however, hitting it would already be a nightmare for Mahito due to Shigaraki’s massive speed advantage and sensory abilities like detecting air vibrations. Including a quirk like Danger Sense would basically be overkill, and especially be helpful for alerting Shigaraki to Mahito’s Domain Expansion. Even if he could not escape it once it is activated due to Mahito melding the formation-activation process, a quirk like Danger Sense would tell him to get out of range before Mahito could start manifesting his domain. 

Domain Expansion being Mahito’s only good chance to hit Shigaraki is also very problematic as it has issues as mentioned before, with those issues being the massive cursed energy drain it causes alongside the technique burn out. Sure, for Mahito, said burnout would only last a few seconds. But even top heroes shit their pants when having to survive against a quirkless Shigaraki for two, which says enough. Plus, this burnout would remove Mahito’s regeneration temporarily, giving Shigaraki an opening to smite him. In general, Mahito’s regeneration is the only thing keeping him in the game longterm, which is bad when technique burnout or using the ISBODK form at all basically turns it off. Meaning taking risks with those techniques means giving Shigaraki openings. Oh and also, Mahito is just generally doomed if Shigaraki decides to vaporize him.

Shigaraki is able to counter Mahito’s winning argument, while Mahito ranges from being able to shrug off Shigaraki’s but being very susceptible to them if he takes risk (that are unable to pay off due to other disadvantages), to having no solid counter to Shigarkai’s strongest options. Shigaraki takes the edge in abilities, very handedly. 

Tertiary Factors

Both are excellent abusers of their abilities, being brutally creative in multiple ways when it comes to battle applications. Notably though, Mahito is more prone to new ideas when it comes to using Idle Transfiguration, whereas Shigaraki mostly sticks to a dozen or so specific quirks despite having an absurdly large catalogue. A barrier there, radio wave projectile here, and throw in Decay spammed by super strength for dessert. Mahito on the other hand constantly imploys showings like new animal forms, turning people into swords, hiding in bodies, trying to stab people by kissing them what the fuck? You get the idea, Mahito is a notably more creative fighter.

This is not to say that Shigaraki cannot be clever in his own right though. He has analyzed weaknesses like Re-Destro’s one dimensional offense before, so it stands to reason he could figure out issues like Mahito’s lack of ranged firepower and spam his gigantic ranged attacks in response. Though on the flipside, Mahito is definitely better in hand to hand combat. Neither has proper martial arts training or anything, but Mahito has clearly better cases of hand to hand combat given his multiple scraps with Yuji. Though on the topic of scraps, it should be noted that Shigaraki fights like a feral animal, as seen with his movements against Re-Destro and Deku. This ties back to his training against Gigantomachia, where he fought him for a month and a half straight while only getting 3 hour breaks every 44 hours.

Considering that, alongside him having several fights and schemes throughout the entirety of My Hero Academia, Shigaraki should definitely be the more experienced of the two, especially considering how Mahito has only been alive for some months by the time Jujutsu Kaisen actually starts. The final topic to go over would be each’s range, in which Shigaraki definitely has the advantage. Mahito can expand his transfigured humans to take up train tunnels and small city blocks, but he is not exactly impressive when it comes to destructive capability. In contrast, that is Tomura’s speciality, as he has leveled multiple cities with Decay on separate occasions, and launched Midoriya miles across Japan with single attacks. 

This is without mentioning his evolution allowing him to expand his mass across entire structures like the Coffin in the Sky, allowing him to spread Decay at an unfathomable rate. Being able to do things like evolve new body parts also gives him great perspective of the battlefield, alongside sensory quirks like vibration sensing and Search letting him keep track of everything happening around him. So not only does Shigaraki have an absurdly better area of effect, but he will also always be able to track Mahito amongst the rubble. This will make it harder for Mahito to formulate strategies or gambits despite his seemingly better intelligence, as Shigaraki will always be able to force him into losing positions.

To summarize, Mahito is the more skilled of the two up close, while being far more creative. On the other hand (ha), Shigaraki has far more experience and absurdly better range. Comparing these advantages, Shigaraki’s are absolutely going to matter far more. Whereas Mahito’s better skill and shapeshifting trickery can only do so much against someone that is incomprehensibly stronger and faster, Shigaraki’s experience, tracking, and range basically make it impossible for Mahito to ever dodge a hit or get Shigaraki off of his trail. Even a tactic like splitting himself up into multiple little bodies would mean next to nothing considering Shigaraki could easily just destroy all of those pieces in one fell swoop. Overall, Shigaraki has the advantage in both quantity and quality when it comes to tertiary factors.

Conclusion

“Oh yeah? That depends… On what you people decide to do tomorrow. Make sure… You do your damn best.“

Advantages:

• Far stronger and faster by a major degree
• Far more experienced
• Has multiple means of fully destroying Mahito and thus countering his regeneration
• Various AoE attacks allow him to eviscerate Mahito’s numbers advantage
• Sensory abilities alongside his AoE and growth give him superb battlefield control
• Resists Mahito’s key winning ability and its distinct applications
• Dominated the twitter agenda war the past few weeks

Disadvantages:

• Less skillful in hand to hand
• Less creative with his powers
• Vastly inferior regeneration 
• Made us have to specify between the Quirk and character All For One again, now including the Vestige, god this gets annoying
• A lot of our comments about “main villain” status last blog aged pretty poorly
  • Thank god he murdered that bum in the end

As versatile and tenacious as Mahito is, he simply lacks the options to stand up to Shigaraki. Stats is hardly a discussion given the variety of country and relativistic feats Shigaraki would massively upscale in his prime, let alone possibly higher arguments. When it comes to abilities Mahito is not doing so well either, as even landing his moves is risky and unlikely in the first place even ignoring the idea of Shigaraki resisting Idle Transfiguration. From there, Mahito is going to slowly fall in a losing battle, using up his cursed energy or leaving himself vulnerable when trying to keep up in stats or hit Shigaraki with moves like Domain Expansion or Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing.

Conversely, constant Decay pressure is never going to be a good thing for Mahito, and nothing is stopping Shigaraki from vaporizing Mahito with Impure Beam or other attacks capable of vaporization. We have seen Impure Beam fully cover and heavily damage characters like Tokoyami and his giant building sized Dark Shadow, and All For One (the character, yay final time we have to specify this) has shown the ability to outright blow up entire small islands before. While you can try arguing Shigaraki would not immediately bust out these big options, it is not like he is in a race against time. He is not some creative genius, but he is still respectably clever, and would absolutely dig through his options if he felt the need.

To put it simply, the two are starting the fight on a perfectly balanced seesaw. But as time goes on, Mahito is going to sink further and further by using up options and opening vulnerabilities, whereas Shigaraki’s only development will be benefiting from said vulnerabilities. Give Shigaraki a gun to just shoot the opponent whenever he feels the urge, and it is clear how Mahito’s traits can only do so much to Shigaraki’s absurd power, nigh impenetrable defense, and versatile finishers. Ok here we go, you simply have to hand to Tomura how handy his powers are when it comes to handing Mahito the loss. Your honor, League of Legends. The winner is Tomura Shigaraki.

Mahito

Stats

In terms of stats, Mahito and Shigaraki have a variety of ends that give a lot of discussion – however, there’s always going to be one winner in terms of stats.

For Mahito, he should be upscaling Rozetsu to a significant degree, considering how he was beaten by an exhausted pre Shibuya Yuji and was only 2F Sukuna level, while Jogo, who Mahito was comparable to prior to Shibuya, and far exceeded in Shibuya, was around the level of 8F or 9F Sukuna, as stated by Kenjaku. Rozetsu is also inferior to Todo in the Goodwill Arc, who is weaker than he was in Shibuya, when he fought Mahito. This means Mahito should be heavily upscaling 357 Megatons of TNT, putting him in the Mountain range. While you could argue for higher ends, we don’t really believe that arguments like Kenjaku check out, and we wouldn’t lean on them; Rozetsu is the safest high-end AP argument, so it’s the one we’ll stick with.

This level of power isn’t inconsistent, either. Teen Gojo, someone Mahito should be at least on the same level as, has a 25 Megaton feat, and Jogo’s Maximum Meteor has higher ends that also get into this range. Lower tiers such as Hanami have kiloton feats, making it that a character like Mahito, who is narratively a fair bit stronger, even more reasonable. As a result, Mahito should be safely in the Megatons, and upscaling to a heavy degree considering his superiority to Rozetsu.

As for speed, Mahito safely scales over Goodwill arc Maki’s bullet catching feat due to matching the faster Yuji, putting him below Mach 3 above Mach 16 – 21 on that alone. Also his achieving a Black Flash with its requirement of a microsecond timeframe bumps his speed up a good bit into Mach 284 – 932, with him reacting to the likes of Todo, who can block Black Flash, further solidifying this speed tier. We also believe that he should scale to “Life Support” Sukuna. Todo did not participate in any of the training that significantly buffs the other main characters during Shinjuku Showdown, and should not be much faster then he was during the Mahito fight. As a result, he should scale to Sukuna’s 0.33c relativistic feat, albeit you could argue against it if you wanted to. Not like it matters, as you’ll see.

So, Mahito’s no slouch in stats… but Shigaraki clearly exceeds him in all categories.

Izuku’s final punch is the easiest feat to argue for Shigaraki within the Country or higher areas, and it gets 11 Teratons of TNT. For context for how much stronger this would be compared to Mahito, even if we assumed Mahito could get up to 1 gigaton via his sheer upscaling (not the most unreasonable assumption, given the clear power gap between him and Rozetsu), Shigaraki would still be 11 thousand times stronger than him. And similarly to Mahoto and Rozetsu, considering the condition Izuku was in when he did this feat, Shigaraki should upscale it to a significant degree. So, Mahito’s clearly not besting Shigaraki in raw power.

As for speed, MHA low tiers regularly do relativistic feats, as shown in Vigilantes, with Shigaraki heavily upscaling due to them being massive low tiers in comparison. The Jirou feat would only further escalate this issue, making Shigaraki blitz Mahito utterly with most of his attacks…

…except for one crucial detail. Decay.

As established throughout the series, Decay itself has a travel speed. Using Shigaraki’s own estimation of taking a week to destroy Japan (admittedly, he does have shortcuts, so it’s likely slower than this), Decay would have a speed of 625,000 m^2 per second. Impressive. Mahito’s own body, however, would have a square area (assuming he has an average BMI for his height of 5’11”) of about 1.89 m^2. As a result, it’d take approximately 3.02400 microseconds for Decay to cover Mahito’s whole body…

…except, sorcerers can react within singular microseconds, over 3x faster then Decay. As a result, Mahito is faster than Shigaraki’s greatest tool, and can consistently react to it, whether it be used on him or on the ground. Even lower end interpretations of Black Flash would get above Decay in terms of speed, meaning no matter what, Mahito can consistently react to Decay. 

To conclude; Shigaraki should take large advantages in strength and speed over Mahito, however Mahito should be much faster then Decay’s travel speed, meaning he can react to it. Regardless of this, we will grant that Shigaraki will always hold the advantage in stats going into this battle.

Arsenal & Abilities

While Mahito may be out in the stats game, this isn’t over for him by any stretch of the imagination – in a matchup like this, what truly matters are their arsenal and abilities more than anything else. A majority of their abilities should be rendered basically entirely moot, however, by their stats and Mahito’s regeneration.

Shigaraki can’t win via stabbing Mahito, or Radio Waves, or the like, and Mahito can’t win besides using Idle Transfiguration on him directly. As a result, most stuff cancels out entirely, and leading us into the most important questions that matter: which win conditions do both have?

A big question in this matchup is whether or not Shigaraki can outlast Mahito, and the answer is pretty firm. No, he can’t. Mahito’s cursed energy for his regeneration automatically regenerates, similarly to how Gojo’s does for his brain refreshes. As a result, Shigaraki isn’t going to be able to reasonably outlast him in that regard – while it is limited, he’d need a lot of expenditure to do so, to the point it wouldn’t be a viable win condition.

Question: Can’t Shigaraki just kill Mahito after he uses his Domain Expansion? He’d not have his cursed technique, right?

By all accounts, this should be true. Mahito’s regeneration is based on his Cursed Technique and that should be unable for him to use post a Domain Expansion. Unfortunately, this is contradicted by the series itself. In the Mechamaru fight, after Mahito uses his domain and Mechamaru counters it with Simple Domain, he’s then immediately blasted by a big energy beam from Ultimate Mechamaru. Mahito counters this by exploding his body and then regenerating it… things that he can only do if his cursed technique is active, meaning that Mahito’s cursed technique he can use so quickly after a Domain Expansion that it’s not really a viable win condition for Shigaraki if Mahito misses a DE on him. Of course, this is assuming Mahito would miss his DE to begin with, which is already an assumption. 

In conclusion, Shigaraki is not going to win a war of attrition – or at least, it’d have to be played over several days, making it an unviable win condition.

Next, is Shigaraki using an AoE blast to nuke Mahito. Technically he could do this with some quirks – however, the problem comes when you realize characterization for Shigaraki.

Shigaraki generally only tends to use a few quirks in a fight, and resorts to brute force a majority of the time instead of using some more of his varied powers. For reference, here are the combat applicable quirks Shigaraki uses for the entirety of the Final War, and what categories they fit into:

• Decay (we’ll get to it later)
• Air Cannon (sort of fits into this category, but he generally uses it for aerial combat, which Mahito isn’t going to be doing a lot of the time anyways)
• Rivet Stab (useless)
• Radio Waves (not big enough to destroy Mahito)
• Impure Beam (A fair argument, to be sure, but while it can fully engulf people, it would require precise aim and Mahito not doing anything to split himself apart while it’s being used; as a result, this is unreliable at best)
• Black Lightning (not big enough to destroy Mahito, also electricity isn’t disintegrating him)

Generally speaking, of the combat applicable quirks Shigaraki generally uses, the only one that you could argue could fully destroy Mahito would be Air Cannon. And while he does use this a fair bit, arguing that it’d fully disintegrate Mahito is a bit odd, as it’s mostly concussive force to begin with, which arguing that it would fully disintegrate a body is not really in keeping with much of its showings in universe, even someone so much weaker like Mahito – and without Air Cannon, Shigaraki does not really have any AoE blasts he’d actually use in character to nuke Mahito with, besides the aforementioned Impure Beam, which would require really good aim and Mahito to essentially stand still for it to fully engulf him. In addition, he generally uses Air Cannon for aerial combat, something Mahito can’t really do here, making it less likely for him to use – and it’s only one of his options of the ones here.

On top of this, Mahito’s not exactly a stranger to this type of strategy being used on him, as shown in the Mechamaru fight. And he could use similar methods to that fight to dodge attacks of this nature – exploding himself, or using the likes of his various transfigured humans to take the blast for him, or otherwise using other methods to dodge entirely. Shigaraki may have Search, but he’s not going to be using it 24/7 the entire fight, and Mahito has various methods to dodge this sort of thing Overall, while this is probably the easiest win condition on paper for Shigaraki to use, most of the quirks he uses in actuality wouldn’t really be able to pull this off, and arguing he would use other quirks doesn’t make a lot of sense with how Shigaraki generally fights. 

So, finally, Shigaraki’s last win-condition; Decay itself. On paper, this sounds really easy for him to pull off on Mahito, right? On paper, yes, but there’s a problem with it – and that’s Decay’s own travel speed. As discussed in the Stats section, Decay is MUCH slower then Mahito’s reaction speed – even the lowball of said reaction speed is faster then Decay. Against most opponents, this wouldn’t really matter for Shigaraki, as they’d be unable to do much. Against Mahito, however? This is a death sentence, as Mahito can just… split up his body, avoiding it entirely. Same applies for Shigaraki using it from range. Effectively, Shigaraki would have to back Mahito into a corner and exhaust him to be able to pull off a full body Decay, the only reliable and in character way for him to win here.

As for Mahito’s own win conditions, they’re a lot more straightforward, relatively speaking – use Idle Transfiguration on Shigaraki. The main issue for him here is the speed gap – however, this is the exact type of situation Domain Expansion, either variant of, would be useful for. Due to the fact it’s an AoE with a type of move Shigaraki has never seen – and, considering how much weaker and slower Mahito is compared to him, likely wouldn’t see as a threat to begin with, even with Danger Sense – he could very well pull either normal or Idle Transfiguration off on Shigaraki, and if he does so? Well, good game. 

Overall, both Shigaraki and Mahito have very limited ways to win the fight, but Mahito ultimately has the more reliable option, as Shigaraki getting caught in a Domain Expansion is far more likely than Shigaraki using a quirk he’s never used in a combat situation or pulling off a full body decay on the curse. As a result, Mahito should take the edge in win-conditions.

However, all this is assuming one thing – that Shigaraki doesn’t resist Idle Transfiguration. And in that regard, Team Mahito disagrees with the idea that he does – for the simple fact that he does not have the mechanisms that Sukuna did to resist Idle Transfiguration. 

First of all, it’s stated that sorcerers can protect their souls in Jujutsu Kaisen, but don’t have the knowledge of it in the original raws. As a result, it’s definitely plausible that this is something all sorcerers have the capability of doing – but, the context changes things a bit, as this would be what Nanami did. Comparing the two scenes, there’s a notable difference – namely, Mahito does not enter Nanami’s Innate Domain once within that scene, which changes things completely.

The argument for All For One being able to intercept Idle Transfiguration rests entirely on the idea that this is something anyone can do, and that Mahito enters someone’s Innate Domain every single time he uses Idle Transfiguration – except for the fact that it isn’t. We can even prove it via the fact he’s shocked at all by Sukuna interrupting it and bring it to his Innate Domain, considering the fact that when he kills Nanami, Junpei, or attacks Rozetsu, or kills people in his light novel chapters, blows Nobara’s eye out, he’s not shown entering the Innate Domain in any of these instances. This is also not alluded to in any of the light novels, and it’s also consistent with the Gojo fight, where Sukuna could redirect information from Unlimited Void to Megumi – considering this, it’s likely an ability Sukuna in particular has when incarnating into other sorcerers to be able to intercept attacks on other souls or redirect them to other souls.

To argue that this is something anyone could do, and that Mahito always enters the Innate Domain of whoever he’s touching, is completely unsupported by the actual series, and Occam’s Razor would indicate this is something special about Sukuna in particular, not something that anyone could do in a similar situation. All For One simply wouldn’t have the means of intercepting the attack at all, as he’s never shown this sort of ability to do this – the vestige combat instances in My Hero, whether or not you interpret them as souls, have always been from people interacting with the Vestige World itself, as shown with both Stars and Stripes and Deku. Mahito’s soul manipulation, outside of one interaction which is clearly an abnormal situation, does not have this sort of requirement, and as a result, All For One being able to block it is extremely unlikely. At most, you could argue Mahito would have trouble killing the vestiges all at once, but this is technically unsupported by the manga. Regardless, Mahito can still target Shigaraki’s soul regardless of if you buy All For One being able to intercept. Why? Simple! 0.2 Domain Expansion.

Mahito’s 0.2 Domain Expansion is specifically designed to not trigger Sukuna’s soul so that he can cripple Todo as a fighter – and it works, as Sukuna is unable to hit him in time, despite even bringing Mahito to his Innate Domain. This indicates that in a similar instance with All For One, he likely couldn’t stop Mahito either, considering how unless you argue greater “soul reaction time” (considering the mechanics of souls in both verses, this feels odd to argue), he couldn’t intercept it in time, and stop Mahito from destroying Shigaraki’s soul directly. As for whether or not Mahito would go for a fatal hit immediately, he has no reason not to – and 0.2 being what he uses over normal DE would make sense, considering as how his problem here is hitting Shigaraki due to his superior speed. Logically, using the faster version of a move would be the more reasonable approach to take rather than just doing nothing.

In contrast, Mahito resists a majority of Shigaraki’s argued win-conditions, save for AoE blasts he doesn’t  really use in fights (the type that would give Mahito the Buu treatment are ones All For One uses, less so Shigaraki) and him getting a full body Decay, something Mahito can counter a majority of the time. As a result, Mahito’s resistances should be superior overall going into this fight. 

In conclusion, while Shigaraki may have more powers, it’s quality that perseveres over quantity, as Mahito should take the overall edge in arsenal and abilities. Shigaraki’s best win conditions are things that he’s never really used in a fight, or a move that he has no real way of pulling off reliably – meanwhile, Mahito’s Domain Expansion is a win condition he can pull off, even if it would take a long, arduous battle, and he has the methods to last long enough to pull it off, making him the winner in this category.

Tertiary Factors

Tertiary factors are certainly a lot less complex than arsenal and abilities, but they play a key factor in Mahito’s victory. Let’s start by addressing the obvious: yeah, Shigaraki possesses a notable experience advantage. He’s been going off against the toughest of heroes (and villains) for hours, days, months straight; not to mention his very presence being something so powerful and worrying that heroes are unsure if they stay even two seconds keeping him distracted. There’s also the fact that he has fought many more people in comparison. The fact he has been shown to analyze weaknesses before could also land him a hand to detect when Mahito is showing some sort of limitation, and his superior range would also factor into this.

That – however – has one, big problem: Shigaraki’s experience does not come close to compensating for how absurdly more skilled and creative Mahito is in a fight. 

Why (or how)? Let’s start with how adaptable Mahito is. His adaptation overwhelms Shigaraki in lots of ways. Take for example how Shigaraki has learned and experienced hours and months of fights with a lot of talented heroes and villains; that’s cute, Mahito has learned entire years of sorcerer knowledge and combat abilities in just a few fights (against incredibly skilled sorcerers like Nanami, Todo and, heck, even Gojo to an extent, for example). Techniques so complex – that jujutsu sorcerers dream of being capable of achieving – like the Black Flash and Domain Expansion (including the 0.2 variation) are things Mahito has learned how to perform just from a mere, single observation. 

Shigaraki may have been able to detect weaknesses in a few battles, but noticing flaws of an opponent is something constantly done by Mahito in a fight – like how he did to Yuji before. Not even that, but he can also notice what he himself is doing wrong and adjust to have a better strategy; something he did before as well. The cherry on top would be that his deduction is also useful for some quick predictions, and thus give him an idea of what to do – like how he picked on Nanami subconsciously shielding his soul, and how he deduced Yuji’s ability to hit the soul.

The last thing to address is that Shigaraki possesses a greater variety of quirks, but only chooses to use a few of them in an average fight. He has his favorites, you can say. Meanwhile, in contrast, Mahito is a much more creative fighter, extending his knowledge of his versatility off the limits, and testing numerous types of different things his powers can do to play off with the opponent. Create blades, duplicate himself, separate his body to fool, launch off projectiles from distance, and even try to kill your opponent with a KISS. Tomura might have more quantity, but the sheer quality of Idle Transfiguration (and Mahito’s other powers) combined with creative mindset would be a big problem compared to Shigaraki, who prefers to use a small quantity of the quirks he has at his disposal.

In short, Shigaraki is experienced, skilled and intelligent, but not nearly as adaptable as Mahito, who could overcome him in many more ways. The intellect, sheer skill, adaptation, deduction and creativity of this disaster curse nets him the advantage in the field of tertiaries.

Conclusion

“This is war! Not a battle to fix what’s wrong! But a clash of truths!”

Advantages:

• Regeneration makes him nigh impossible for Shigaraki to put him down, rendering most of Shigaraki’s abilities moot
• Cannot be out-lasted from his regeneration not working due to his cursed energy for regeneration auto-regenerating
• Shigaraki’s AoE attacks are too easily dodgeable or wouldn’t disintegrate him for the ones he uses in character, making them unreliable as a win condition
• Idle Transfiguration would likely work on Shigaraki, due to not having the mechanisms to disrupt it that Sukuna did
• 0.2 Domain Expansion would allow him to directly target Shigaraki’s soul, ignoring the All for One vestige entirely if you argue he can be disrupted by All For One
• More skilled in hand-to-hand combat, and his adaptability would help him keep up with Shigaraki’s variety of powers
• Can react to Decay itself, making fully decaying him extremely tricky for Shigaraki
• Has a huge numbers advantage…
• Far superior showings of combat intelligence
• Far more creative with his abilities
• Is Horikoshi’s favorite JJK character
• Reads J. R. R. Tolkien books
  • Read this chapter by the way it’s super good

Disadvantages:

• Much weaker 
• Even with high ends, likely far slower
• A full body Decay could kill him, if Shigaraki can pull it off
• Potentially could fall to some AoE attacks… if Shigaraki used them
• Far less experienced
• …but Decay and Shigaraki’s various methods of AoE counter it pretty heavily
• If he uses ISBDOK he basically ruins his own chances of winning
• I rolled for him on PhanPara when his banner was out and didn’t freaking get him! – Cardinal
• “Where you go, I go”
• Fumbled the easiest kill on Nobara

This matchup has a lot of moving parts to it, and is much more complicated then it would initially appear. While Shigaraki may take a large edge in stats, abilities are the true debate of this matchup, and Mahito has the trump cards that make all the difference in this regard. While Shigaraki may have a variety of quirks at his disposal, he doesn’t use a majority of them, nor would a majority of them actually aid him in this situation to begin with, as he’d need very specific options to put Mahito down for good. As well, he doesn’t have any actual way to wear down Mahito’s cursed energy that wouldn’t take a long time to do, far longer than would be required for Mahito to get off the single Domain Expansion he would need to pull off to destroy Shigaraki with Idle Transfiguration.

His edges in tertiary factors only make this worse, as his edges are far more relevant to this fight then Shigaraki’s. Sure, Shigaraki’s battlefield control would definitely give Mahito pause, and his experience is nothing to slouch at, but Mahito’s superior skill and battlefield intelligence are crucial in this regard. Shigaraki’s tendency within fights is always to brute force it with the specific quirks he uses – he’s not the type to change up his strategy, especially against someone he could regularly paste with ease, while Mahito regularly adapts to his opponents and unlocks new ways of keeping up with them as fights go on, improvising techniques such as 0.2 Domain Expansion off of a glance of Gojo doing it. 

Overall, this may be a shocking result – but while Shigaraki’s overwhelming stats, seemingly endless toolkit, and experience may have proved deadly for most opponents, Mahito’s battlefield intelligence, insane regeneration, and soul manipulation ended up handing the Symbol of Fear the fear of this Curse, leaving his chances of victory decayed to nothing.

The winner is Mahito, the Curse of Humanity.

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Results

(Winner gif by Cabbage)

Before We Go…

As I’m sure everyone has noticed, this blog has been posted on WordPress in lieu of our normal platform on Blogspot, as a series of copyright strikes have led to our Blogger being taken down. This is frankly ridiculous given that our blogs are not in any way monetized, and Blogger as a platform provided absolutely no communication on what websites specifically are acceptable and which ones aren’t. This is to the point where multiple attempts to communicate with them on the matter, ask for elaboration on what is and isn’t acceptable, and get in contact with an actual representative rather than automation went entirely ignored. It is a shame that they are so unreceptive to communication with users that have been utilizing their platform for nearly 10 years, but that is simply how things are.

As a result, we will not be returning to Blogger as a platform. The vast majority of our blogs are still saved in Google Drive and we will be working in the coming months to repost them here. In the meantime, the blogspot posts should still largely be accessible via Wayback Machine.