Ryomen Sukuna is the reason Jujutsu Kaisen starts. A thousand years ago he was a sorcerer so dangerous that the best of his era couldn't kill him outright. All they could do was split what was left of him into twenty fingers, each one an indestructible cursed object. When a high schooler named Yuji Itadori swallows one to save his friends, Sukuna wakes up inside him, and the rest of the series is about what that costs.
He is not a villain with a grand plan. Sukuna has no cause, no grudge against the world, no dream of a better one. He does what he likes, and what he likes is often horrible. That emptiness is what makes him frightening, and it's also what the ending turns on. This profile explains his powers, his part in each arc and the people around him. For everyone else in the cast, see the full JJK character guide.
Who is Ryomen Sukuna?
Sukuna is called the King of Curses, and the jujutsu world counts him as the strongest sorcerer who ever lived. In the Heian era, the golden age of jujutsu, he was a human sorcerer with four arms and two faces. Sorcerers of that time banded together against him and lost. After his death, his fingers survived as cursed objects that could not be destroyed, only sealed, and they've been scattered across Japan ever since.
When the story opens, Yuji eats one finger at his school in Sendai, and Sukuna takes over his body for a few minutes. Normally anyone who swallowed a finger would die or be consumed. Yuji not only survives but keeps control most of the time. The jujutsu higher-ups decide to use that: Yuji will eat all twenty fingers, and then he and Sukuna will be executed together.
- Lives inside Yuji for most of the story, speaking through a mouth that opens on Yuji's cheek or hand.
- Gains power with every finger Yuji eats.
- Has a long-standing deal with Kenjaku, the body-stealing sorcerer behind most of the plot.
- Is served by Uraume, a follower who has waited a thousand years for his return.
- Is the only character the series treats as an equal to Satoru Gojo.
Personality
Sukuna is arrogant, sadistic and easily bored. He kills when it amuses him and ignores people when it doesn't. He talks down to almost everyone, Yuji most of all, and he treats the world as a place that exists for his convenience. When he gets control of a body, his first instinct is usually to do something cruel just to watch the reaction.
But he isn't a mindless monster. He's patient, sharp and clear about what he wants. He makes deals and keeps to their wording, while finding every loophole. He studies opponents closely and respects strength when he sees it. A few fighters get real praise from him, usually right before he kills them. That habit, a cold kind of honesty about who was strong, is one of his most distinctive traits.
He has a simple philosophy: he lives by his own appetites and nothing else. Love, loyalty and duty strike him as weakness or foolishness. Yuji's belief in helping people and dying surrounded by them is close to the opposite of everything Sukuna stands for, which is why he is so contemptuous of his host. Much of their conflict is a clash of these two ideas about what a life is for.
What does Sukuna want?
For most of the story it's left vague. He wants to be free of Yuji and to have a body again. He wants Megumi, for reasons he keeps to himself for a long time. Beyond that, he simply wants to enjoy himself, which for Sukuna means fighting strong people and doing as he pleases. The lack of a bigger goal is deliberate. Our villain types guide puts him firmly in the "force of nature" camp.
Abilities and cursed technique
Sukuna's power scales with the number of fingers he holds. With one finger he's already a threat to most sorcerers. With fifteen he levels part of Shibuya. With all twenty, a body of his own and his original form, he's the strongest fighter in the series. On top of his technique he has vast cursed energy, deep knowledge of jujutsu and complete mastery of reverse cursed technique.
Shrine: Dismantle and Cleave
Sukuna's innate technique is usually called Shrine. Its two main moves are slashing attacks:
| Technique | What it does |
|---|---|
| Dismantle | An invisible slash that cuts through almost anything. It's his everyday attack, fast and hard to see, and he can fire it in volleys. |
| Cleave | A cut that adjusts itself to the target. It measures the target's toughness and cursed energy, then cuts with just enough force to slice them apart. Used mainly against living opponents. |
| Fire | A separate technique that produces a fire arrow. He uses it rarely, usually as a finishing blow after his domain. |
| World-cutting slash | A late-story version of Dismantle that cuts space itself rather than what's in it, so defences based on space don't help. Spoiler details in the story section. |
Reverse cursed technique
Sukuna heals almost any wound with reverse cursed technique, including lost limbs. Early in the story he also uses it to restore Yuji's heart after ripping it out, which shows he can repair a body he isn't fully in charge of. For most opponents, this means damage only matters if it's huge and constant.
Combat skill and knowledge
Even without his technique Sukuna is a brutal close-range fighter. He's also an expert in jujutsu theory, quick to read new techniques and quick to adapt. In his full form his extra arms and second face let him do more than one thing at once, such as fighting with his hands while his second mouth chants.
Domain expansion: Malevolent Shrine
Sukuna's domain is unlike anyone else's. A normal domain expansion seals a space with a barrier, then guarantees that the user's technique hits anything inside. Malevolent Shrine opens without a barrier. A shrine decorated with skulls appears, and everything in a wide radius around it is hit by a nonstop storm of Dismantle and Cleave.
- Huge range. In Shibuya he sets its radius to around two hundred metres, and nearly everything inside is shredded.
- A binding vow. Leaving targets a way out, by not closing a barrier, is a kind of vow that boosts the domain's power. The series compares it to painting on the air without a canvas.
- Tailored attacks. Cleave targets anything with cursed energy, while Dismantle hits everything else, so living things and buildings alike are cut apart.
- Clashes. Because it has no barrier, it can attack another domain's barrier from outside. That matters a great deal in the Shinjuku fight with Gojo.
The domain's hand sign and its look, a temple surrounded by bones, show up in a lot of fan art. Its sheer reach is one reason readers place Sukuna at the top of most power scaling lists.
Sukuna's story, arc by arc
The Heian era
Very little of Sukuna's original life is shown directly. The series establishes that he was born human, that he became feared as a calamity, and that the sorcerers of his time failed to kill him. Late in the manga a few chapters look back at his past and his reasons for being the way he is, without turning him into a sympathetic figure.
Waking up in Yuji
Yuji eats the first finger in chapter 1 to stop a curse killing his friends, and Sukuna immediately takes over and shows off. Yuji takes his body back, which shocks everyone, including Sukuna. Gojo tests the arrangement by letting Sukuna out for ten seconds. Yuji passes, and his execution is postponed.
On their first mission, at a juvenile detention centre, Yuji lets Sukuna out to deal with a special grade curse. Sukuna refuses to give the body back, tears out Yuji's heart to stop him returning, and plays with Megumi. Yuji dies. In the space inside Yuji's soul, Sukuna offers to bring him back in exchange for a binding vow. Sukuna can take control for one minute after saying a word, Enchain, and Yuji will forget the agreement. It's the most important deal in the series, and it doesn't pay off until much later.
Sukuna also notices Megumi for the first time here. He sees something in him and tells him he's holding back. From this point he has a private interest in the boy.
Mahito and the early arcs
When the curse Mahito tries to reshape Yuji's soul, he reaches Sukuna instead and is badly wounded and warned off. It's a neat scene: the most dangerous curse in the early story learns that Sukuna's soul is not something to touch. Sukuna mostly watches during these arcs, commenting, mocking Yuji and waiting.
The Shibuya Incident
In Shibuya, the curse Jogo feeds Yuji ten fingers at once while he's unconscious, hoping to free Sukuna. It works. Sukuna wakes with fifteen fingers and, after a short, contemptuous fight, kills Jogo, then tells him he was strong. He also kills other curses and curse users who cross him.
Megumi, losing a fight nearby, summons Mahoraga, the strongest shikigami of the Ten Shadows, as a last resort that will kill him too. Sukuna steps in to save Megumi, purely for his own reasons, and destroys Mahoraga with Malevolent Shrine. The domain wipes out a huge part of the district and kills many people. When Sukuna hands control back, Yuji has to see what was done with his hands. The guilt shapes the rest of Yuji's story.
The Culling Game and Megumi's body
During the Culling Game, Megumi's stepsister Tsumiki turns out to be possessed by Yorozu, an ancient sorcerer obsessed with Sukuna. Sukuna chooses that moment to use Enchain. He takes over Yuji for one minute and uses it to transfer himself into Megumi's body. He then uses Megumi's own hands against his sister's body, deliberately to crush Megumi's will, so that Megumi's soul sinks and stops fighting him.
With Uraume's help, he collects his remaining fingers and recovers much of his strength in his new body.
Shinjuku: Sukuna vs Gojo
Once Gojo is freed from the Prison Realm, the two meet in an empty Shinjuku on December 24. Their fight is the most anticipated in the series. They clash domains again and again, and Gojo seems at times to be winning. Sukuna's answer is Mahoraga. He uses the shikigami's adaptation to study Gojo's Infinity, then uses what it learned to cut through space itself. In chapter 236 the world-cutting slash kills Gojo.
The final fight
After Gojo, the rest of the sorcerers fight Sukuna in relay. Kashimo, Higuruma and others fall. Sukuna takes on his four-armed Heian-era form. Yuji, Yuta, Maki, Todo and a returning Nobara keep him under pressure, while Yuji lands Black Flash after Black Flash and learns new techniques, including a domain of his own. The series reveals that Yuji's link to Sukuna is a family one: his father was a reincarnation of Sukuna's twin, which is part of why Yuji could hold him at all.
Yuji, in the end, beats him and frees Megumi. Even then he offers Sukuna a chance to live alongside him and try again. Sukuna refuses. In a short afterlife scene he looks back on how he lived, and the series leaves room to read whether anything in him shifted. The manga's final chapter came out in September 2024.
Relationships
Yuji Itadori
Vessel · Opposite
Sukuna despises Yuji, mocks his ideals and does the worst things he can with his body. Yuji, in turn, carries the guilt for all of it. Their bond is the backbone of the series, and the final arc ties them by blood. Read Yuji's profile.
Megumi Fushiguro
Obsession · Second vessel
From their first meeting, Sukuna sees Megumi's potential with the Ten Shadows. He saves him in Shibuya only to use him later, and he takes his body in the cruellest way he can find.
Satoru Gojo
Rival
The strongest of the past against the strongest of the present. Each sees the other as the only real challenge left, and Sukuna enjoys the fight more than anything else in the story. Read Gojo's profile.
Uraume
Servant
Uraume has served him since the Heian era, and is one of the very few people Sukuna treats with anything like warmth. They cook for him, guard him and care about nothing else.
Kenjaku
Business partner
The body-thief and Sukuna have a long arrangement that benefits both. Neither trusts the other; they just want things that fit together for a while.
Mahito
Curse
Mahito learns early that Sukuna's soul isn't something to touch. Later, Sukuna's contempt for him is a reminder that even among curses, he stands apart.
Jogo
Curse
Jogo frees Sukuna in Shibuya hoping to recruit him. Sukuna kills him for fun, then tells him he was strong, a moment that sums up his odd sense of honesty.
Yuta Okkotsu
Opponent
Yuta is one of the sorcerers who holds the line against him in the final arc, and he goes to extreme lengths to do it.
Trivia
- The name. Ryomen Sukuna is a figure from old Japanese records, described as a being with two faces and four arms. Akutami borrowed the name and the look.
- Markings. When Sukuna takes control, black lines spread across his host's face, and a second pair of eyes opens under the first. It's the quickest way to tell who's in charge.
- Twenty fingers. Twenty is not a random number: four hands of five fingers each.
- One-word deal. Enchain, the trigger for his vow with Yuji, sits unused for most of the series, which makes its eventual use land hard.
- Fan favourite villain. He's one of the most popular antagonists in modern manga, often compared with other villains who simply want to enjoy themselves. Our iconic rivalries page looks at his fight with Gojo.
- Death count. Sukuna is responsible for more deaths than anyone else in the series, including some of the most shocking. Our guide to character deaths covers how stories use moments like these.
Why Sukuna matters to the story
Sukuna is the measuring stick for Jujutsu Kaisen. Every fighter is judged by how they'd do against him, and every arc tightens the question of when he'll get out. He gives the story a ticking clock, from the first finger to the last, and he gives Yuji a constant, intimate enemy that he can never simply walk away from.
He also makes the series' central argument clearer. Yuji believes people matter because of their connections to each other. Sukuna believes only in himself. The ending sets those two ideas against each other one last time. If you want to compare him with the rest of the cast, the JJK character guide has the strongest characters ranked, and Yuji's and Gojo's profiles tell the same story from the other side.
Frequently asked questions
Who is Ryomen Sukuna?
Sukuna is the main antagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen. He was a human sorcerer in the Heian era, around a thousand years before the story, so powerful and cruel that the sorcerers of his time could not destroy him. After his death his power survived in twenty fingers, and when Yuji Itadori swallows one, Sukuna wakes up inside him.
Is Sukuna a curse or a human?
Both, in a sense. He was born human and was a sorcerer in life, but the jujutsu world treats him as a curse because of what he became and because his fingers act as special grade cursed objects. The title "King of Curses" refers to his power and his reputation, not to being born a cursed spirit.
How many fingers does Sukuna have?
His remains were split into twenty fingers, matching the four arms of his true form. Yuji is meant to eat all twenty so that Sukuna can be executed along with him. By the Shibuya Incident Yuji has absorbed fifteen, and Sukuna collects the rest after he moves into Megumi's body.
What is Sukuna's domain expansion?
Malevolent Shrine. Instead of closing a barrier around its target, it opens without one and fills a huge area with constant Dismantle and Cleave slashes for as long as it lasts. Building a domain without a barrier is something the series treats as close to impossible, which is part of why Sukuna is so feared.
Why does Sukuna want Megumi?
Sukuna sees huge potential in Megumi and his Ten Shadows technique, and he wants a body of his own instead of being stuck sharing Yuji's. During the Culling Game he uses a binding vow he tricked Yuji into to take control for a minute and move himself into Megumi. See the spoiler section above for how that plays out.
Does Sukuna die in Jujutsu Kaisen?
Yes. The manga ended in 2024, and Sukuna is defeated in the final arc by Yuji and the surviving sorcerers, and Megumi is freed. The spoiler-marked part of the story section covers it.
Who voices Sukuna?
Junichi Suwabe voices him in Japanese and Ray Chase in the English dub.