How Did Geto Survive Death In Jujutsu Kaisen?
This article contains spoilers for Season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen.
Characters have a knack for coming back from the dead on TV, but anime and manga take that trope to a whole other level. The heroes and villains of the medium have survived death in some of the most improbable ways this side of comic book superheroes, often with varying degrees of success as far as storytelling goes.
That's why fans could be forgiven for being skeptical about Suguro Geto's (Takahiro Sakurai/Lex Lang) survival in "Jujutsu Kaisen." Though the character has been active with the antagonists of the series since very early on, fans watched him get killed in the prequel movie "Jujutsu Kaisen 0." This naturally led to viewers wondering how he could still be alive.
Well, as a recent plot twist revealed, Geto is indeed dead, and his body is actually being piloted by a sorcerer named Kenjaku. The revelation came when Geto finally revealed the source of the scars he's had since coming back from the dead, undoing his stitches with a shockingly casual tone before revealing the new brain that inhabits his body. But who is Kenjaku, and why did he take Geto's body in the first place? Well, it would seem that Kenjaku has survived for ages using this ability, moving from body to body to stay alive long enough to complete his plan.
It looks like we haven't seen the real Geto since Jujutsu Kaisen 0
Kenjaku was able to get a hold of Geto's body after death and had himself implanted into the dead sorcerer's skull to gain his Cursed Spirit Manipulation ability. While other anime and manga sometimes have moves and abilities that anyone can learn with enough training, the mythology of "Jujutsu Kaisen" holds that these powers are honed over generations as new family members mix with them in different ways.
The easiest example of this is Satoru Gojo's (Takeshi Nakamura/Kaiji Tang) Six Eyes abilities, which are powered by the most effective combination in his family's genealogical history. Still, "Jujutsu Kaisen" smartly masked this twist by having another member of Geto's group, Mahito (Nobunaga Shimizaki/Lucien Dodge), also sport scars on his face, which suggested that Geto may have instead returned as a cursed spirit.
Now that fans of the seinen series finally know the truth behind Geto's miraculous return, however, and with Gojo sealed away for the time being, the power balance of the show has shifted in an unpredictable way that could alter "Jujutsu Kaisen" forever. Though Yuji Itadori (Junya Enoki/Adam McArthur) looks like he will be able to help get things sorted before the Shibuya Incident becomes even more disastrous, we can't help but remember that there is something very dark asleep inside of him as well.