Highlights
- Yuta Okkotsu, a special-grade sorcerer, has the necessary skills in close-quarters combat to go toe-to-toe with Sukuna, the King of Curses.
- Yuta can use his partner, Rika, to deal with Sukuna’s powerful shikigamis, leaving Yuta free to focus on fighting Sukuna alone.
- Yuta’s ability to copy other people’s cursed techniques, including possibly Sukuna’s, gives him a variety of options when facing Sukuna in battle.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Jujutsu Kaisen manga.
When Sukuna fought Satoru, everybody had high hopes that the strongest jujutsu sorcerer in the modern era would come on top and beat the King of the Curses. Unfortunately, fate can be cruel sometimes and Satoru Gojo has to lose his life to Sukuna. From that point on, Sukuna wiped the floor with every sorcerer that dared to stand in his way. It seems that no human on Earth can defeat the current form of Ryomen Sukuna. Or is that truly the case?
There is one particular character that should have the necessary firepower and the tools required to fight against Sukuna. Not only that, there’s also a good chance that he might defeat the King of Curses. After all, he is a special-grade sorcerer who is second only to the mighty Satoru Gojo. His name is Yuta Okkotsu, and here are some of the reasons why he might be able to defeat Ryomen Sukuna.
Yuta Has the Advantage in Close Quarter Combat
Sukuna’s battle against Satoru revealed a lot of things about the King of Curses’ combat style. One of the most surprising things about him is the fact that he is extremely proficient in close-quarter combat. Out of the remaining people from the good guys’ faction, the only ones who can be considered to be expert martial artists are Maki Zenin and Yuta Okkotsu. Unfortunately, while Maki is extremely powerful in close-range fights, she will be at a disadvantage when it comes to medium to long-range battles, which is Sukuna’s forte. That leaves Yuta Okkotsu as the only one who can go toe-to-toe with Sukuna in a fistfight.
Yuta has shown his expertise in close-quarter combat on numerous occasions throughout the series. The most recent one was when he fought against three powerful opponents at the same time in the Culling Game arc. His opponents are Kurourushi the man-eater cursed spirit, Ryu Ishigori who can blast powerful cursed energy like a laser cannon, and Takako Uro who can manipulate the sky itself.
In that three-way fight, Yuta showcases a masterclass in both hand-to-hand combat and also in fighting with bladed weapons like a Katana or a Cleaver. He uses his bottomless cursed energy to strengthen his muscles, harden his body, and also to enhance his overall speed and agility. By the end of the fight, Yuta rips Kurourushi’s iron-clad body apart, withstands Ryu’s full-blast attack, and jumps high enough to deliver a barrage of blows to the flying Uro. So it’s safe to say that Yuta Okkotsu is more than capable of facing Sukuna in close-quarter combat.
Ten Shadows Technique vs Rika
One of the reasons why Satoru Gojo had such a hard time fighting against Sukuna was because the King of Curses had managed to take over Megumi Fushiguro’s body, thus claiming the boy’s prized Ten Shadows Technique. Thanks to this technique, Sukuna gained the ability to summon all kinds of powerful shikigami to fight alongside him, including the all-powerful Mahoraga. If Satoru only needed to fight Sukuna alone, he might be able to defeat Sukuna. But once these shikigamis appeared and joined the fray, Satoru had to fight against multiple enemies at once, which inevitably led to his downfall.
Yuta’s raw power may be below Satoru’s, but he has something that Satoru didn’t have, a fighting partner. For all his life, Yuta was haunted by an extremely powerful and dangerous cursed spirit called Rika. Even Geto Suguru, a special-grade sorcerer who can manipulate cursed spirits, called Rika the “Queen of Curses”. This cursed spirit was actually the manifestation of his childhood friend, a girl named Rika Orimoto. Thanks to Satoru and the rest of his friends at the Jujutsu High, Yuta managed to properly send Rika’s soul to heaven before the event of the main series.
However, the cursed spirit that she used as a vessel remains with Yuta to this day. Its name is Rika as well, and it can be used as a storage for Yuta’s cursed tools collection. Not only that, Rika still retains its autonomy and also its monstrous physical prowess. Furthermore, Yuta can summon Rika whenever he wants to accompany him during a battle. This means if Yuta fights against Sukuna, Rika can deal with the Ten Shadow Technique’s shikigamis, leaving Yuta free to fight Sukuna alone.
Malevolent Shrine vs Copy
Even if Yuta is on par with Sukuna in hand-to-hand combat and can use Rika to deal with the Ten Shadows Technique’s Shikigami, Yuta still has to find a way to deal with Sukuna’s innate technique. Sukuna’s Cursed Technique revolves around absolute slashing attacks. The ones that he uses the most are “Dismantle”, an absurdly powerful slashing attack that can cut through everything, and “Cleave”, a torrent of slashes that can automatically adjust its power level according to the target’s toughness to ensure a one-shot kill. If that’s not enough, there’s also his domain expansion, The Malevolent Shrine, which greatly amplifies his slashing attacks to the point of destroying everything within a 200-meter radius.
Fortunately, Yuta also has an absurdly powerful innate jujutsu ability called “Copy”. As the name suggests, this ability allows him to copy other people’s cursed techniques. He has showcased several copied abilities thus far, such as Inumaki’s Cursed Speech, Dhruv’s Shikigamis, and Uro’s Sky Manipulation. With such a wide array of cursed techniques at his disposal, Yuta has tons of options that he can use when fighting against Sukuna. And if he manages to fulfill the right condition to activate his ability, Yuta might be able to copy Sukuna’s cursed technique as well.
As if that’s not enough, Yuta also has another special ability that nobody in the series has. You see, every jujutsu sorcerer worth their salt can use the Reverse Curse Technique to heal themselves. Yuta, however, can go one step further and use this fairly common technique to deliver a blast of positive energy into a cursed spirit, effectively exorcising them from this mortal realm. In fact, this is the technique that Yuta uses to instantly kill Kurourushi.
Sukuna may be the strongest in history, but he is still a cursed spirit. This means this technique should work on Sukuna as well. Add to that Yuta’s unbelievable close-range combat prowess, his versatile cursed technique, and his fighting partner in the form of Rika, then it’s not an exaggeration to say that Yuta Okkotsu has all the tools he needs to defeat Sukuna. But whether he can actually pull it off or not, well, only time can tell.
Jujutsu Kaisen is available to stream on Crunchyroll.