‘Jujutsu Kaisen’ Season 2 Ending Explained & Finale Recap: Did Yuji Manage To Free Gojo?

The most eventful, shocking, and action-packed phase of the Jujutsu Kaisen anime, the Shibuya Incident arc, came to a cathartic close after bombarding fans with a tirade of tragic events for a month or so, and thus the smash-hit Shounen series ends its second season. The season began by exploring Gojo Satoru’s past life and developed into a large-scale conspiracy during All Hallows Eve, as the king of curses, Sukuna, was unleashed once again, this time with the help of Mahito, Pseudo Geto, and their band of anti-human curses. Pseudo Geto managed to distract Gojo Satoru, the strongest sorcerer, and trapped him inside the prison realm. In Gojo’s absence, Jogo resurrected Sukuna using Yuji’s body as a vessel, and he used his devastating domain expansion power to obliterate an entire section of Shibuya, killing countless people in the process.

As opposing forces of sorcerers and curses collide, two of Yuji’s close associates, his mentor Nanami and friend Nobara, die at the hands of an unhinged Mahito. A grief-stricken Yuji almost gives up and prepares to meet his end at the hands of Mahito, until Todo Aoi, his friend and self-professed elder brother from Kyoto High, makes a surprise appearance in the twentieth episode and inspires Yuji to continue the battle to honor the memory of the fallen. In the last three episodes of the season, the climactic battle between Mahito and the tag team of Todo and Yuji takes center stage, and a shocking aftermath sets the premise for the third season, which is hinted to be even more eventful and momentous for the series than the second one.

Spoilers Ahead


Were Yuji And Todo Able To End Mahito?

The 21st episode begins with the battle between the strongest disaster curse, Mahito, and the duo of Todo and Yuji, which was initiated in the previous episode. Mahito’s use of vicious curses and transfigured humans trouble the duo, but eventually they hold their own. A desperate Mahito makes a daring move, taking a cue from Gojo’s skillset shown previously, and uses his domain expansion for a miniscule amount of time—enough to not trigger Sukuna resting inside Yuji but devastating enough to incapacitate Todo momentarily. However, Todo counters Mahito’s attack as he draws strength from his personal source of inspiration and lives to fight another day.

As Mahito transcends into his final form to end Yuji once and for all, Yuji uses  the Black Flash skills at command to overwhelm and ultimately defeat him. Finally, the killer of his close ones at his mercy, Yuji taunts Mahito, stating he will kill him in this incarnation, and swears to do the same in every incarnation he might take in the future. The villainous hunter turns into the hunted, and scared out of his wits, Mahito limps away from Yuji. The scene is, to say the least, extremely satisfying. However, Yuji’s much-awaited vengeance needs to be halted at the moment as pseudo Geto comes to his curse’s aid.


Who Is Kamo Noritoshi?

Knowing that Geto has entrapped Gojo in the prison realm, Yuji tries to rush him but eventually gets easily overpowered. In his own unique form of saving Mahito, Geto consumes him and goes on to explain to Yuji about another of the strongest abilities of a sorcerer aside from Domain Expansion, i.e., Maximum, which is a composite form of all-powerful curses of a sorcerer. Geto’s version of the ability, Maximum Uzumaki, has been enhanced after consuming high-grade curse spirits like Mahito, which he prepares to test on Yuji, but a timely interruption by junior sorcerer students stops him in his tracks.

Meanwhile, Choso gathers himself from his dazed state and arrives at the scene of the battle. Previously, he was shaken while fighting Yuji, as the blood manipulation skilled sorcerer had sensed a blood relation with him during Yuji’s near-death condition and is now feeling an obligation to assist his newfound ‘younger brother’. Now, seeing pseudo-Geto in front of him, Choso at once identifies him as Kamo Noritoshi. It is revealed that more than 150 years ago, Noritoshi, a diabolical sorcerer, used a malevolent curse on Choso’s mother, which led to his birth. However, pseudo-Geto states that Noritoshi is one of the identities he had taken during his multiple body-swapping adventures through the centuries, leaving his true identity a mystery to us.

Sukuna’s apprentice, Uraume, arrives in order to assist Geto and stomp out the sorcerers, and Choso attacks both of them using his blood manipulation abilities. However, Uraume overpowers the entire squad with their ice technique, and as they are about to deliver a fatal blow, special grade sorcerer and Geto’s old associate, Yuki Tsukumo, makes a surprise appearance to save the day.


What Is Pseudo-Geto’s Master Plan?

In the flashback sequences of the earlier episodes, it was revealed that Yuki’s idea of a curse-free world planted the seed of human (non-sorcerer) extermination in Geto’s mind, who was already troubled with the Jujutsu Association’s ineffectiveness and the plight of sorcerers across the world. However, Yuki’s personal ideology never aligned with the anti-human propaganda of Geto, and even in this post-death-controlled form, pseudo-Geto finds himself as the direct opposition of Yuki.

At the beginning of the season finale, pseudo-Geto, aka Noritoshi, reveals his long-range, heinous masterplan as he unleashes Mahito’s innate ability, Idle Transfiguration, by amplifying it. The curse is supposed to transform two sets of non-sorcerers cherry-picked by Noritoshi—the ones who have consumed cursed objects and the ones who lack the brains of sorcerers but have innate curse abilities—and pit them against each other in a vicious battle royale. Yuki is still hopeful about the reasoning capabilities of humans, but Noritoshi appropriately taunts her for such misplaced optimism. Afterwards, he leaves while raising almost thousands of cursed spirits, which will keep the sorcerers busy and put human lives in peril, but not before taunting Yuji for the last time and showing the prison realm cube structure where he was trapped, Gojo Satoru. Despite their best efforts, Yuji and co. have failed to free the master sorcerer, and the resultant calamity has proven to be devastating.

The harrowing updates of the Shibuya incident spread across Japan like wildfire and impacted the politics and economics of the country in massive ways. Soon enough, the government realizes that it is no longer an affair they can cover up and decides to go public with the information regarding the infestation of cursed spirits. The nation plunges into darkness as freed cursed spirits obliterate people rampantly, and the scene shifts to show the predicament of a hapless victim—a little girl who gets tricked by a couple of spirits. However, a surprise appearance by Yuta Okkotsu, the special-grade junior sorcerer and secret protagonist of the series, saves the day. Fans will remember Yuta as the central protagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen 0, who was able to best even Geto during his first days as a sorcerer.

Through all these years, Yuta trained in Africa under senior sorcerer Miguel, and his entry as a wild card will balance the currently lopsided dynamics between sorcerers and cursed spirits. However, the elders have other plans as they decide to use Yuta to hunt down Yuji, and the threat of Sukuna’s emergence has revoked the ban against Yuji’s death warrant as well. As of now, Gojo has been announced to be permanently exiled from the Jujutsu Association due to his connection to the Shibuya incident, which only shows the pathetic, corrupt face of the elders who will cover up their misdeeds instead of addressing the issues that should be prioritized. The plot points left in the season finale in the form of Yuta’s role in the larger narrative, Gojo’s fate, and Yuji’s responsibility have already hinted at major ramifications in the third season, which we will speculate about in another article.


Siddhartha Das
Siddhartha Das
An avid fan and voracious reader of comic book literature, Siddhartha thinks the ideals accentuated in the superhero genre should be taken as lessons in real life also. A sucker for everything horror and different art styles, Siddhartha likes to spend his time reading subjects. He's always eager to learn more about world fauna, history, geography, crime fiction, sports, and cultures. He also wishes to abolish human egocentrism, which can make the world a better place.


 

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