Several new shonen anime air every season, giving fans the opportunity to enjoy new shows from their favorite genre every few weeks. Despite the influx of shonen anime, there have been certain things that have remained constant in most of them – and those are clichés and tropes that they’ve carried forward from more popular anime.
Jujutsu Kaisen is no exception to this, seeing how 2021’s most popular anime has borrowed heavily from some of the most popular shonen shows out there. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with sticking to clichés, especially when fans get to discover certain things that they’ve already seen and loved in their favorite shonen shows.
10 The Hero Gains Power Due To A Mysterious Supernatural Entity Residing Within Him
No matter how hard a shonen character trains with his blood, sweat, and tears, he might never be able to achieve his maximum potential without the beast who resides within him.
For example, Yuuichiro from Seraph of the End became the King of Salt after illegal experiments were done on him as a child. Similarly, Yuji swallowed one of Sukuna’s fingers that instantly made him a vessel for the King of Spirits.
9 There’s A Simple-Minded Young Boy Who Believes In Good
This trope was popularized and normalized by Naruto who believed everybody deserved redemption, regardless of what they’ve done in the past. This is shown in how he tends to have deep conversations with his enemies instead of outright killing them to prove a point.
Yuji too is the type of guy who won’t jump to kill cursed spirits despite personally witnessing the horrors they are capable of because he feels killing them is going too far. He even broke down in the final battle he had with Eso when the spirit cried for its brother.
8 The Villains Are Always Surrounded By Their Minions
Maybe it’s because having more villainous characters would mean more epic battles, but shonen anime are filled with groups and squads of villains, with one of the most popular squads being the League of Villains from My Hero Academia.
In Jujutsu Kaisen, Mahito too has several of his comrades like Jogo, Hanami, and Suguro who are just as intent on taking down the jujutsu sorcerers.
7 There’s A Unique Power System With Unanswered Questions
Tokyo Ghoul had ghouls that were categorized by the CCG according to their power levels, but these levels were never once explained in the anime.
It’s the same in the case of Jujutsu Kaisen where everything happens because of reserves of cursed energy collected by spirits or sorcerers, but the exact manner in which they function and how strong they make a person is never clarified.
6 The Hero Being A Teenage Boy
One of the most reoccurring parts of the shonen genre is how most of its protagonists are teenage boys who will always find a way to get wrapped with supernatural occurrences in their lives and end up becoming the best of their kind out there.
In Yuji’s case, he at least had the privilege of leading the life of a normal high school boy up until the death of his grandfather, after which he just forgot about his old school life and friends.
5 The Tournament Arcs Simply Showcase & Compare The Characters’ Strengths & Skills
The main point of tournament arcs is to showcase fantastic battles between superpowered individuals on screen, with the second season of One-Punch Man being an excellent example of this.
While there wasn’t an official “tournament” in Jujutsu Kaisen, Yuji and his schoolmates did have a showdown with the students of his sister jujutsu school, which was used to introduce new characters to the series along with their skills.
4 Family Members Die & Have A Mysterious Connection To The MC Being The “Chosen One”
Tanjiro witnessed his family being slaughtered and then Muzan became obsessed with “the boy with the hanafuda earrings” because they served the demon as a reminder of the one time he lost a battle with the original owner of those earrings, who has a mysterious connection to Tanjiro.
With Yuji, nothing of the sort is mentioned in the anime yet but manga readers are aware of several heavy hints which point in the same direction – Yuji isn’t as normal of a kid as everybody originally thought he was.
3 There’s A Scene Where The Hero Seemingly Dies (But Not Really)
Perhaps one of the most shocking scenes in shonen anime was in Attack on Titan when Eren was eaten up by a titan, but he never really died because his titan powers triggered within him, helping him regenerate his body.
Yuji died in his show as well but by this point, fans knew better than to truly believe he was dead, seeing how just a few minutes later Sukuna was able to revive Yuji.
2 A Powerful & Experienced Teacher Helps His Students
Naruto is trained by several male teachers throughout the show but the absence of a good enough female teacher in the shonen genre makes for a stark difference.
Even in 2019’s Demon Slayer and 2021’s Jujutsu Kaisen, the shonen genre has yet to come up with one strong female teacher who trains the shonen protagonist. In Yuji’s case, his teacher is the popular Satoru Gojo.
1 The Heroes Manage To Do The Impossible To Save The Day
The stakes are never high in shonen anime because fans know that even if the hero loses, he’ll only come back stronger and eventually pummel villains into the ground, like in the case of Rin Okumura from Blue Exorcist.
Perhaps the best scene highlighting this aspect in Jujutsu Kaisen was when Kento Nanami was caught within Mahito’s impregnable domain expansion, Yuji came in at the very last second, powered by Sukuna’s cursed energy, and saved the day.
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