The world-famous manga series created byGege Akutami,Jujutsu Kaisen, cemented itself as one of 2024’s biggest highlights as it came to a somewhat overwhelming and divisive end. However, beyond all of the manga’s successes, criticisms, and battles, this piece focuses only on the distinctiveness of the manga’s volume covers.
Already a perfect series,Jujutsu Kaisenbrought a rather eye-catching style to its volume covers that can only be appreciated objectively. Perfectly capturing the essence of each volume, the volume covers showcased a level of intentionality with the story not many can recreate or boast of. As such, below are the best of the series’ manga covers.
10Volume 5
Title: Kyoto Sister School Goodwill Event
The cover that marked the start of Jujutsu High’s Tokyo Sister School Goodwill event, Jujutsu Kaisen’s fifth volume cover illustration, featured two new characters at the time:Aoi Todoand his imaginary girlfriend / Jojo Stand, Nobuko Takada.
While the cover is not particularly as intense as the rest of the other volumes, it is only befitting that Todo was the featured character, as it not only introduced his character but showcased the unconventional side of Jujutsu that would go on to flow through the rest of the story.
9Volume 7
Title: The Origin of Obedience
Titled the Origin of Obedience, Jujutsu Kaisen’s seventh volume cover signified several things, which included the indication of a deeper plot than the sorcerers and students of Kyoto’s Jujutsu High were aware of other than being distinctly alluring for some inexplicable reason. Featuring all of the cursed womb brothers in Choso, Eso, and Kechizu, the cover unveils their presence in the series.
Simultaneously, it alerts readers to the fact that the consequences of unleashing the King of Curses, Sukuna, are rather far-reaching and may even have unintended ones to boot, referring to the origin of theCursed Womb Spirits. With only Choso fully illustrated, it also subtly hinted at the major role he would later go on to take throughout the rest of the story.
8Volume 15
Title: The Shibuya Incident ( – Transformation – )
The cover illustration of Volume 15 features a mangled or rather unrecognizable Mahito, symbolizing the Jujutsu world undergoing its most intense transformation, specifically the Shibuya Incident.
Like a weapon being forged in a fire for a rebirth of sorts, it illustrated its titular transformation in more than a few characters, including Itadori, Kugisaki, and Mahito, among others. The trio is at the center of incidents in the volume. With Mahito approaching dangerous levels even for a special grade curse and Yuuji spiraling into the depths of despair, it seemed the perfect expression of change.
7Volume 17
Title: Perfect Preparation
Titled Perfect Preparation, featuring a bloody Naoya Zen’in holding up his hands covered in blood, dripping right onto his face, Volume 17’s cover illustration evokes a certain sinisterness that is only associated with Zen’in Clan in the series. Like a perfect symphony, the volume’s title, illustration, and events line up so perfectly that it is hard to ignore.
With Yuuji, on the one hand, still in the process of coming to terms with his relationship with Choso, Noritoshi Kamo, and Kenjaku while being hunted by Yuta, the focus shifts to Maki Zen’in, once more at the hallowed doors of the Zen’in clan. However, this time, the feeling is more ominous than ever. Like a lamb to be sacrificed, the clan had anticipated her arrival. Like a ritual reaching its climax, everything comes in perfect order for the fall of the Zen’in clan.
6Volume 9
Title: Premature Death
Illustrated over the ninth volume of the manga series ofJujutsu Kaisen, the cover features Suguru Geto in his full element as a curse-gobbling jujutsu sorcerer. The volume’s cover illustration bears a dark vibe brought forth by Suguru Geto’s inevitable descent into madness and darkness.
It perfectly depicts in one image everything that makes the Hidden Inventory arc an essential part of the story’s progression. Who better to convey this than the most crucial figure of the arc, Suguru Geto? An argument could be made for Gojo to have been illustrated alongside Geto; however, looking at how the arc ties into the rest of the story, any more or less would have been less than ideal.
5Volume 19
Title: Tokyo No.1 Colony ( –Angry Man– )
Illustrated for the nineteenth volume of the manga series, the cover featured the newly introducedHiromi Higurumaand ushered in the Culling Game arc fully. Like the events of the volume, the cover illustrated represented all the new and sudden changes the Jujutsu society underwent from the beginning of the Shibuya Incident.
With Kenjaku’s plan in motion, steadily gaining ascendancy, and the descent of jujutsu sorcerers all over Shibuya, both new and ancient, Hiromi Higuruma would be the unexpected wildcard that would swing the tide of battle, wherever he chose aligned with his ideal,s the most.
4Volume 25
Title: Inhuman Makyo Shinjuku Showdown
The volume more or less signaled the beginning of the end for the story’s opposing forces. The cover illustration features a Ryomen Sukuna entirely free from Yuji Itadori’s bodily confines and with a new host.
Capturing the biggest obstacle of the Shinjuku Showdown arc, Sukuna, in all his evil glory, the illustrations subtly teased the heavily- anticipated matchup of the Jujutsu world’s heavyweights, Sukuna and Gojo, posing the King of Curses as something of the final boss that the rest of the Jujutsu society had to overcome, including the strongest modern sorcerer, Satoru Gojo.
3Volume 14
Title: The Shibuya Incident ( –Right and Wrong– )
The first full illustrated feature of theKing of Curses, Ryomen Sukuna, the fourteenth volume of theJujutsu Kaisenmanga series, could not have been any more perfect. With the Shibuya Incident arc at its peak and a newly-released Ryomen Sukuna, the morality of right and wrong had long been thrown out the window.
Only the whims of the one who stood atop the Jujutsu society remained. While characters like Fushiguro still insisted on meaningless attempts to curtail the widespread destruction and bloodshed unleashed by Sukuna, the King of Curses would only do as he pleased, and nothing conveyed the idea of his whims more than the featured illustration of the demon sorcerer.
2Volume 1
Title: Ryomen Sukuna
The very first cover illustration of the manga series featured both Yuuji Itadori andRyomen Sukuna, albeit with more focus on the former than the latter. However, the illustration conveyed precisely what the series and story would be molded around with acuity.
Showcasing both major characters who would come to define everything that the story would eventually be, the cover illustration captured the series in its essence. A boy whom fate had tied to the demon sorcerer in a roundabout manner and an existence that could only be perished by one with whom he shared blood.
1Volume 30
Title: From Now On
Featuring the story’s central character,Yuuji Itadori, who also featured in the first cover illustration for the first volume of the manga series. However, this time, you see not the boy who is just thrust into the chaotic world of Jujutsu but a seasoned war sorcerer bearing his scars proudly as the one who defeated the King of Curses.
Symbolic in every way, the cover illustration signified the completion of a cycle that began with him unknowingly fusing the souls of himself and his long-lost ancestor and now just him as a full-fledged jujutsu sorcerer. It marked the end of a thousand years of struggle, violence, and evil. As such, it was only fitting to be conveyed by the one who reignited the flames of fate.
