Up until the Shibuya Incident arc, disaster curses served as the main antagonists in Jujutsu Kaisen, including Jogo, Hanami, Dagon, and Mahito. These are all special-grade curses created from humanity's basic fear of natural disasters.
However, Mahito is a bit different from his group in Jujutsu Kaisen.
Rather than being a natural disaster, Mahito was born from humans' innate fear of each other. That's why he has the most human appearance out of the others in the group and has a terrifying ability to go with it.
In addition to his origins, Mahito is also the youngest of the group and is said to have the most potential. This fact, while previously unnoticed, has now been brought to attention thanks to a Reddit post. A user asked why Mahito is the youngest when the fear of each other among humans is as old as any other fear.
Mahito represents humanity's fear of itself.
The answer behind this in Jujutsu Kaisen is quite simple, yet profound. As some users pointed out in the comments, it shows the intelligence of creator Gege Akutami.
Humanity's fear of itself reflects the state of society, and over time, humans became more and more aware of the atrocities their fellow humans were capable of, leading to the birth of this fear and consequently the birth of Mahito.
One person wrote: “Gege's idea is perhaps directly relevant to humanity, especially in the modern era, where humans have shifted from primarily protecting each other to primarily threatening each other. We fear each other in a way we never did before, and the negative emotions that have accumulated in modern society have created a new natural disaster called 'human'.”
“When we had the potential for mass destruction, the cursed soul that represented our fear of each other manifested into a soul that better represented the potential for true mass destruction.”another person commented.
Obviously, this is a very interesting approach to a character as hated as Mahito. But it also shows how Akutami skillfully incorporates such subtle and profound details in creating his characters. It will definitely encourage us to dig deeper into the characters of Jujutsu Kaisen.
Jujutsu Kaisen will finally end with chapter 271 on September 29, 2024.
