Nobara's Powers In Jujutsu Kaisen Explained
Episode 3 of the first and thus far only season of supernatural anime "Jujutsu Kaisen" introduces viewers to Nobara Kugisaki. She joins protagonist Yuji Itadori and his companion Megumi Fushiguro as a first-year student at Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School. There, human beings learn how to wield a power called Cursed Energy to fight evil manifestations of negative emotions known as Curses.
Nobara first meets her new classmates in urban Tokyo, where she looks forward to exploring hip neighborhoods like Harajuku and Roppongi. Her leisure time in the big city is cut short, however, when their teacher Satoru Gojo challenges Yuji and Nobara to defeat a curse inhabiting a building in a dilapidated Tokyo neighborhood. This is where Nobara reveals the full depth of her personality — though she enjoys activities commonly coded as feminine, like shopping for new clothing, she also turns out to be a bloodthirsty fighter. This contrast, in turns out, is represented even in her choice of hairstyle.
In addition to her Tokyo debut, Nobara engages in two subsequent fights over the course of "Jujutsu Kaisen" Season 1, through which she showcases her formidability in combat with a series of complementary Cursed Techniques.
Nobara's fighting style is based on Japanese voodoo
During her first fight in Episode 3, Nobara reveals that her primary weapons in combat are a hammer, some nails, and a straw doll. Viewers with knowledge of Japanese folklore will recognize these as implements used in a voodoo-like spell called ushi no koku mairi, performed by nailing a straw doll to a tree (via Yokai.com). While broadly considered black magic, its effects can vary depending on whomever is performing the ritual.
Nobara, meanwhile, forgoes the need for a tree, while using each other core component of ushi no koku mairi to great effect in battle. In her combat debut, Nobara demonstrates how she can imbue her nails with cursed energy, such that, when struck in midair with her hammer, they become deadly projectiles capable of puncturing Curses' bodies.
She then expands on this technique in her fight with the witchlike Momo Nishimiya in Episode 17. One of Momo's signature attributes is her speed, enhanced by a witch's broom that grants her the power of flight. During their battle, Nobara fires a series of nails into the forest that surrounds them, all of which miss the speedy Momo and instead land in various trees. However, this is but a prelude to the activation of her Hairpin technique, which causes each of those nails to explode in bursts of Cursed Energy. Her nails alone, then, are multi-use projectiles capable of piercing her enemy's flesh or turning into powerful explosives.
Nobara's signature ability is the Resonance technique
Though useful in their own right, Nobara's hammer-and-nail attacks are a prelude to her most powerful skill, called the Resonance technique. She reveals this ability in Episode 3, when she commandeers an arm from her Curse opponent severed by Yuji and nails it to her straw doll while imbuing it with Cursed Energy. This functions akin to an American voodoo doll, such that the damage inflicted on the Curse's severed arm is amplified and felt by the Curse itself.
Nobara activates her Resonance technique against a couple of more powerful foes in the final episode of "Jujutsu Kaisen" Season 1, during a fight alongside Yuji against a pair of Curse/human hybrids named Kechizu and Eso. Initially, the pair infects Nobara with their blood, which they explain can corrode the human body if not dealt with promptly. Nobara, however, drives a nail through her wrist, replacing her usual straw doll with her own body, and utilizing her opponents' blood as she did the previous Curse's arm. This inflicts severe pain on Kechizu and Eso, leaving them distracted and open to a dual assault from Yuji's fists and Nobara's nails. Her Hairpin technique serves as her finishing move, meaning that Nobara utilizes her full range of abilities in this fight, showcasing her combat prowess in full.