Highlights
- Orochimaru and Kenjaku both seek immortality through body transfer, displaying similar ambitions.
- Unethical human experimentation is a shared trait between Orochimaru and Kenjaku, showcasing their mad scientist nature.
- Both villains use resurrection techniques – Orochimaru with Impure World Reincarnation and Kenjaku with Reincarnated Sorcerers.
Orochimaru and Kenjaku are two of the most iconic villains from two highly popular series. After all, these two are some of the most dangerous and ruthless masterminds that have caused so much grief, tragedy, and destruction in their respective worlds.
However, once you look deeper into their life as a whole, Orochimaru and Kenjaku turn out to have quite a few striking similarities that go beyond being a villain. These two evil beings have made the same actions and decisions throughout the course of their story.
Pursuit of Immortality
Both Kenjaku and Orochimaru are obsessed with immortality. After all, their plans and ambitions are so grand that it is basically impossible to achieve them all in one lifetime. That’s why they are obsessed with prolonging their life. Needless to say, not only did they manage to find a way to be immortal, but the methods that they used were actually quite similar.
Orochimaru’s Soul Transfer
In his pursuit to acquire an immortal body, Orochimaru has done all kinds of augmentation on his own body. But he quickly realized that was not the best way to get what he wanted. The answer to obtaining eternal life is to jump from one body to the next.
For this purpose, Orochimaru developed a jutsu called the Living Corpse Reincarnation, also known as Fushi Tensei. This jutsu allows him to transfer his soul to another body and devour the original soul of said body at the same time. It’s unclear how many times Orochimaru has used this jutsu throughout his life. One thing’s for sure, by the time he first appeared in the story, Orochimaru was already in someone else’s body.
“Do not be afraid. Your strong will shall remain inside me as a residual aura. You will not lose everything. Well then, I thank you for your body.”
– Orochimaru, Chapter 199
Kenjaku’s Brain Transfer
Similar to Orochimaru, Kenjaku was also able to live for thousands of years by hopping from one body to the next. Unlike Orochimaru, however, what Kenjaku transfers is not his soul, but rather his entire brain.
When Kenjaku transfers his brain into somebody else’s skull, he obtains the original body’s cursed ability, which is precisely what happened when he took over Suguru Geto’s body. Not only that, Kenjaku has also shown that he can retain some of the cursed ability from his previous body, as he showcases when he uses Kaori Itadori’s cursed ability.
Unethical Human Experimentations
Another uncanny similarity between Orochimaru and Kenjaku is their penchant for unethical human experimentation. The two men are essentially mad scientists. Their heads are filled with wonders but there is no such thing as morals and ethics in their hearts. When one’s ambition and curiosity take over with no heart to rein them in, the result is unethical and immoral human experimentation.
Orochimaru’s Research on Immortality
Orochimaru’s first true human experimentation happened back when he was still an elite Jonin in Konoha. He was already obsessed with immortality at the time but theory and animal trials could only give him so much information. So he decided that the time had come for him to begin human experimentation.
Orochimaru kidnapped innocent citizens and low-ranking shinobi from Konoha and neighboring villages. He conducted all kinds of horrific experiments on them to work out which one of his theories could lead to true immortality. These experimentations had been going on for a while until the higher-ups in Konoha finally got wind of it and moved to capture Orochimaru. Unfortunately, he managed to get away and carried on his sinister experimentations elsewhere.
“The child born from a cursed spirit and human would become a prisoner of his intellectual curiosity.”
– Eso, Chapter 60
Kenjaku’s Cursed Womb: Death Painting
Kenjaku has been involved in all kinds of horrible experiments in his pursuit to learn more about cursed energy and cursed spirits. Out of all of those experiments, however, the most horrific one has to be the Cursed Womb: Death Painting.
In the Meiji Era, there was a woman who mysteriously gave birth to a half-human half-cursed child. This led to her being ostracized by her people. At the time, Kenjaku, who was in the body of Noritoshi Kamo, offered his helping hands to the poor woman.
However, what ended up happening was that Kenjaku conducted human experimentation by forcing the woman to have nine pregnancies and nine abortions. This was his attempt to produce a perfect being. The result of this experiment was Choso and his brothers. But despite their status as Special Grades Cursed Spirits, Kenjaku still considers them failures.
Bringing People Back From Death
The last uncanny similarity is their ultimate trump card. A secret weapon that drastically changes the course of the battlefield. In a move that surprises everybody involved in the battle, Kenjaku and Orochimaru manage to bring powerful people back from the dead in order to do their bidding.
Orochimaru’s Impure World Reincarnation
Orochimaru found and perfected a forbidden jutsu called Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation, also known as Edo Tensei jutsu. This jutsu allows its user to call forth the soul of the dead and imbue it into a living human, effectively bringing those people back to life, albeit temporarily.
While in the Impure World state, the dead can use their signature jutsu, and they are pretty much indestructible as well. Not only that, the reincarnated shinobi has to obey the user of this jutsu. As if that’s not good enough, Impure World Reincarnation doesn’t bear any kind of risk to its user.
The first time Orochimaru used Impure World Reincarnation was when he attempted to invade Konoha. At the time, he summoned the First and Second Hokage. After that, Orochimaru’s pupil, Kabuto Yakushi, used this jutsu to summon dozens of renowned past shinobi as soldiers for the 4th Great Ninja War.
“It’s true. Edo Tensei jutsu has no risks. Except for one possibility. It is a powerful jutsu, whoever wields it becomes famous far and wide.”
– Kabuto Yakushi, Chapter 521
Kenjaku’s Reincarnated Sorcerers
Kenjaku’s revival ritual is a lot more complicated than Orochimaru’s. He has to spend at least a thousand years meeting and striking a deal with numerous powerful jujutsu sorcerers. Because for the ritual to work, Kenjaku needs a verbal agreement or consent from the people that he will reincarnate in the future. That’s why this technique is only possible for an immortal like Kenjaku.
When those sorcerers died, Kenjaku turned them into cursed objects through a secret technique. Before they can be reawakened, Kenjaku needs to find an appropriate vessel first in the form of a regular human who has the potential to wield cursed energy. He will mark those innocent people, put them into a coma, and force them to swallow the aforementioned cursed objects.
Once that is done, he can reawaken those past sorcerers whenever he wants. When they are awakened, the souls of those powerful sorcerers of the past will immediately take over the body and devour the memories and the soul of the original owner of the body. In no time at all, these reincarnated sorcerers become major players in the Culling Game.
Kenjaku and Orochimaru may have different goals and motivations, but the choices that they make and the actions that they’ve taken turn out to be quite similar. They say great minds think alike. Well, apparently wicked minds think alike as well.
Jujutsu Kaisen is available to stream on Crunchyroll.
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