Highlights
- Both Jujutsu Kaisen and Hunter x Hunter have rich and vibrant power systems, with characters possessing unique abilities based on their preferences and personality.
- The complex power systems in both series can negatively affect the audience’s viewing experience, creating confusion and requiring multiple explanations.
- Examples from Hunter x Hunter and Jujutsu Kaisen, such as Tserriednich’s ability to see into the future and Kinji’s Domain Expansion, highlight the unnecessarily complicated nature of the powers in these series.
New stories always take inspiration from the ones that came before them. In the case of Jujutsu Kaisen, this series is heavily inspired by one of the greatest shonen series ever made, Hunter x Hunter. A muscle head boy whose primary offensive move requires him to focus his inner energy on his fists. A calm and collected best friend who comes from a powerful family. An insanely strong teacher who is defeated by an even stronger enemy. The list of similarities goes on and on.
Unfortunately, just like everything else in life, Jujutsu Kaisen also takes the good with the bad. There is one particular story element in Hunter x Hunter that has been going out of control as of late. The unnecessarily complex power system. Unfortunately, Jujutsu Kaisen has fallen into the same trap as its predecessor. So let’s use this chance to talk about both series’ power systems, how they negatively affect the audience’s viewing experience, and some examples of this trap in both series.
The Rich and Vibrant Power System
Crafting an elaborate and interesting power system is one of the most important things for every action shonen series. After all, the best part about this genre is the action sequences. That’s why having characters with crazy and flashy powers and abilities will make the fight scenes so much more exciting to see. As a matter of fact, the more the merrier. That’s what makes One Piece and My Hero Academia so compelling and successful.
Hunter x Hunter has also followed the same path with its power system, which is called Nen. Nen is an innate energy that exists within every living being. Once somebody learns how to control and manipulate their Nen, this energy will enhance their physical power, speed, agility, and overall durability. Those who manage to go beyond manipulating Nen will develop a unique ability based on their personality and preferences. Since everybody has different abilities, every encounter between two advanced Nen users will result in highly different fight scenes.
Jujutsu Kaisen is highly similar to Hunter x Hunter in this regard. But rather than Nen, the characters in this series use something called Cursed Energy instead. Cursed energy is a negative energy that exists within every living thing. For a normal person, this energy usually accumulates and dissipates on its own throughout the day. Those who can harness this energy, however, can mold their cursed energy into different kinds of abilities based on their preferences and personality, just like Nen. One thing that makes Jujutsu Kaisen different from Hunter x Hunter is the existence of inherited techniques, a cursed technique that is passed down from one generation to the next.
Too Complex for its Own Good
While it’s true that a story that features characters with different powers or special abilities will have a much easier time crafting highly engaging and dynamic action sequences, there is actually another crucial component that is often forgotten by a storyteller, which is simplicity.
You can get away with creating a super complex power system if there’s only a handful of characters who can use it. This is precisely the case in Death Note and the many rules and tricks around the usage of those deathly notes. When you have tons of characters who can use superpowers or unique abilities, however, then it is important to create a much simpler power system that doesn’t require many explanations. This is precisely the case in One Piece where anybody who eats a devil fruit gains a strange power.
Death Note may require walls of text to explain its many perks and limitations, but since there are only a couple of characters in the series who use this power, it’s relatively easy for the audience to follow the characters’ actions and why they decide to do certain things. In One Piece, although different characters have different powers, the explanation behind those powers is the same. Sure, some characters will find a way to do strange things with their powers, but no powers are so complicated that they require more than a minute to explain.
Unfortunately, in their pursuit of crafting exciting powers, some authors ended up giving superpowers to tons of characters, and every single one of those powers required hefty explanations. As a result, the viewers will likely get confused over which characters have which powers and how those powers actually work. They might even need to rewatch certain scenes and listen to the explanation several times just to know how certain characters manage to do certain things. This exact thing happened to Hunter x Hunter, and unfortunately, it happened to Jujutsu Kaisen as well.
Examples From Hunter x Hunter and Jujutsu Kaisen
It’s important to note that not every character in Hunter x Hunter and Jujutsu Kaisen has complex powers. However, it’s clear that the longer the series goes, the more and more characters with complex powers pop up in the story. So let’s talk about some of the most glaring examples of this issue.
In Hunter x Hunter, there’s a side character named Tserriednich Hui Guo Rou. One of his Nen powers is the ability to see ten seconds into the future whenever he closes his eyes and activates one of Nen’s basic forms called Zetsu. If he continues to close his eyes after the initial ten seconds, he will get the chance to see further into the future. However, the time that passes is now different between his vision and reality. Apart from Tserriednich himself, the reality will stick to the script that he sees in his vision no matter what sort of changes he tries to make. Even if he tries to deviate from the script, other people around him will ignore him and act as if he is still following the original script that he sees in the vision the first time.
In Jujutsu Kaisen, there’s a side character named Kinji Hakari. His Domain Expansion is called the Idle Death Gamble and it is based on the principle of a real pachinko machine. If he manages to execute the same move set more than once, he gets the chance to enter the Riichi Scenario. Depending on the complexity of the moves, the chance of getting Riichi will increase up to 70%. Once Hakari enters the Riichi Scenario, he will be able to get one of the four results, with the best one being a jackpot. If he somehow manages to hit the jackpot, he can undo any damage that he receives even if he is on the brink of death while dealing critical damage to his foe.
Those two walls of text are the simplified version of the powers wielded by those two characters. By the way, in their respective manga, the authors need to draw charts to explain Tserriednich and Hakari’s powers. If that is not unnecessarily complicated for a Shonen series then we don’t know what is.
Jujutsu Kaisen is available to stream on Crunchyroll.
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