Megumi Fushiguro's Powers From Jujutsu Kaisen Explained
For most of the pilot episode of "Jujutsu Kaisen," one of the best anime series of 2020, series protagonist Yuji Itadori is a relatively normal high schooler. What sets Yuji apart from his classmates, and possibly most of humanity, is his physical strength. This catches the attention of Megumi Fushiguro, a student at Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School, where teenagers with supernatural powers learn how to strengthen their abilities and battle villainous Cursed Spirits, sometimes simply called Curses.
Megumi meets Yuji while investigating a Cursed Object at Sugisawa High, the school Yuji attends. Yuji is searching for that same object as a member of his school's Occult Club. Unbeknownst to Yuji at the time, said object is one of the fingers of Ryomen Sukuna, historically the most dangerous Curse of all. Megumi's combat proficiency, learned in part during his time at Tokyo's Jujutsu High, comes in handy in the ensuing fight against various Curses unleashed upon Sugisawa High amidst their attempts to secure the Cursed Object. From that point on, Yuji and Megumi become classmates, often battling foes alongside one another.
Over the course of the first season of "Jujutsu Kaisen," Megumi wields a variety of powers, some supernatural and others learned through more traditional martial arts training, providing him with a wide range of tools in battle.
Megumi is proficient in hand-to-hand combat
Given that almost every fight in "Jujutsu Kaisen" features either Cursed Spirits or supernaturally powerful humans, Megumi accordingly seems to default to weaponry and/or Cursed Techniques — which refer to forms of sorcery fueled by their users' magical Cursed Energy, oftentimes varying in form depending on their wielder's particular area or areas of expertise.
That said, like Yuji, Megumi is demonstrably physically fit even without taking into account his superpowers. "The Origin of Obedience," the 22nd episode of "Jujutsu Kaisen" Season 1, reveals that during his middle school years, Megumi not only fought other students frequently but beat up virtually every one of his delinquent classmates. Megumi's base, physical strength comes in handy during, for example, his fight alongside fellow Tokyo and Kyoto Jujutsu High students against Cursed Spirit Hanami.
At the beginning of their fight, Megumi and co. are primarily attempting to flee or subdue their more powerful foe rather than battle him. Megumi's physicality allows him to keep up in battle fighting alongside his allies. The "Jujutsu Kaisen" fan Wiki even includes "Megumi's willingness to use hand-to-hand combat" as one of his key characteristics.
His signature ability is the Ten Shadows Technique
One major reason physical fitness is a necessity for Megumi is the fact that his signature Cursed Technique manifests entirely separate from himself. Megumi's most frequently used ability in battle, introduced in the pilot episode of "Jujutsu Kaisen," is his Ten Shadows Technique, inherited from the Zenin family, his royal bloodline. In practice, it allows him to summon friendly Cursed Spirits that will fight against whomever or whatever may be a threat to his wellbeing. Much of the time Megumi spends in combat, then, is not directly battling against his foe but commanding an ally or team of allies to fight in his stead.
Later episodes reveal that the Ten Shadows Technique functions such that Megumi summons Cursed Spirits with whom he has entered into an alliance from a liquid-like shadow he manifests with his Cursed Energy. That shadow acts like a portal, transporting Megumi's Cursed Spirit allies to his side. It also doubles as a trans-dimensional storage space from which he can pull weapons and other objects.
Megumi commands a team of animals
All of Megumi's Cursed Spirit allies (called Shikigami) closely resemble real-life animals. One of his most frequently-summoned Spirits is a pair of Divine Dogs. As suggested by their name, Divine Dogs are doglike in appearance, and even similarly possess a heightened sense of smell — but attuned to Curses, rather than anything in the human world. At first, Megumi summons two dogs who fight in tandem, then during the battle against Hanami, he summons a strengthened version of one of his dogs, called Divine Dog: Totality.
Megumi also frequently fights alongside Nue, an electric bird-like creature. Nue can provide support from the air, and is even large enough to transport Megumi should he desire the power of flight.
Rounding out his team of Shikigami are a Toad with a long, powerful tongue; a giant elephant, called Max Elephant he summons in the fight with Hanami, capable of expelling large amounts of water from its trunk; and a Great Serpent, though Sukuna destroys the serpent and renders Megumi no longer able to call upon it early on in the series' run.
He can power up with his Domain Expansion
Perhaps the most powerful kind of technique Jujutsu Sorcerers and Curses can utilize in battle is the Domain Expansion. In short, the user of a Domain Expansion technique creates an area around them and their opponent in which the effectiveness of their particular supernatural combat proficiencies is amplified.
Megumi first activates his Domain Expansion technique, called Chimera Shadow Garden, in "The Origin of Obedience, Part 2," the 23rd episode of "Jujutsu Kaisen" Season 1. Within Megumi's domain, the entirety of the ground is covered in the shadowy liquid from which his Curse companions can emerge. Not only does this allow him to call upon his allies with greater ease, but he can even summon more than one of the same Shikigami at once. Against his opponent in "The Origin of Obedience, Part 2," Megumi summons multiple Toads and Nues both, while using the openings they create to land physical attacks, making use of many of his predominate combat skills at once.
Megumi wields a variety of weapons
In situations where hand-to-hand combat might not be feasible but he still wants to fight alongside his Shikigami companions, Megumi has proven capable of wielding a variety of weaponry over the course of "Jujutsu Kaisen." He first realizes how he can best incorporate weaponry into his fighting style in Episode 6, recalling a conversation from the previous episode in which Sukuna compliments his Ten Shadows Technique. This recollection compels him to use the technique to store weapons, thus introducing them into his repertoire.
Megumi then wields a variety of weapons during the Kyoto Goodwill Event Arc. In his semi-friendly fight against classmate Noritoshi Kamo, for example, Megumi wields a pair of wooden tonfas. Then, when Megumi, Noritoshi and others battle against Hanami, Megumi attacks the Curse with a black-bladed sword. Finally, Megumi provides his Zenin family relative Maki with a three-section staff called Playful Cloud in the midst of that same fight. He later wields it too, proving capable not just at a few different weapons, but a wide variety ranging from blades to the large -nunchaku-like Playful Cloud.
In essence, Megumi's proficiency with a wide variety of weaponry mirrors his multifaceted fighting style, which makes use of the ability to summon helpful creatures alongside whom he's more than capable of fighting with his own raw strength.