Gege Akutami Shares Original Vision for the Gojo vs Sukuna Clash

Jujutsu Kaisen has become one of the biggest long-running successes in Weekly Shonen Jump’s history, and creator Gege Akutami has kept the series rolling with high-impact fights from the very start. When fans talk about the franchise’s defining clash, most minds immediately jump to the showdown that launched the Shinjuku Showdown arc—Satoru Gojo vs Ryomen Sukuna, beginning in Chapter 222.

That battle didn’t just reshape the series’ reputation—it also drove major sales and attention for the franchise. But the conclusion was brutal: Gojo, declared the victor, ended up dead. Since then, readers have asked a simple question—when was the decision made, and was there ever an alternate plan for Gojo’s survival? Fresh remarks from Akutami, officially shared on June 18, 2026, claim the outcome was effectively locked in long before the final confrontation, with Gojo’s death already determined during the Shibuya arc.

Gojo’s Fate Was Set Earlier Than Fans Expected

Jujutsu Kaisen first appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump Issue #14 on March 5, 2018. It quickly gained momentum, but it truly became a worldwide phenomenon after the anime produced by MAPPA premiered on October 3, 2020, and continues to this day. A fourth anime season is planned for 2027. The manga later wrapped on September 30, 2024, after reaching the rare milestone of more than 150 million copies in circulation, placing it among the best-selling manga of all time.

Momentum for the manga surged further because of the final stretch—known as Shinjuku Showdown. This arc begins after a brief time skip following Gojo’s release from the Prison Realm, and it kicks off the “Strongest” battle that fans had been building toward.

In the showdown itself, Gojo Satoru—an exceptional sorcerer born with both the Six Eyes and the Limitless cursed technique—faces Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses who held power in the Heian period. The fight escalated into something fans still talk about. Although many initially believed Gojo would pull through, Sukuna ultimately cut Gojo in half using his World Splitting Dismantle in Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 236. That chapter was officially released on September 25, 2023, in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump Issue #43.

Gojo’s death landed like a shockwave. Fans struggled to accept the reveal at first, and the community immediately split between two possibilities: was this a late creative move meant to spike tension late in the story, or was it always the intended plan?

Akutami’s newer comments come from participation in a seminar for new manga creators aiming to build successful series. In that setting, he answered multiple questions about how he approached crafting Jujutsu Kaisen. The key takeaway is that Gojo’s fate was decided during Shibuya—an arc Akutami worked on across Chapters 79 through 136, running from October 14, 2019 to January 25, 2021. At some point during that period, he reportedly made the decision to kill Gojo during the battle against Sukuna. Before that, it appears Akutami was still uncertain about which member(s) of the main cast would be casualties, but Gojo was always the central target.

That idea aligns with earlier remarks. During a Q&A at Jump Festa 2019, Akutami said his plan involved either killing one of the four main characters or killing three of the four. It’s not possible to confirm whether Gojo was guaranteed among those potential losses from the start, but the later claim that the decision was made in Shibuya lines up with that 2019 statement.

“Avoidable” Doesn’t Mean “Unwritten”: Why Gojo Still Had to Fall

Gojo vs Sukuna is widely treated as the series’ most important battle, and it helped push Jujutsu Kaisen into near-legendary status among modern battle shonen. Fans often point out that Gojo’s death intensified the moment, making the confrontation even harder to forget. Still, Akutami has also said that the death itself could have been avoided.

In a Q&A dated April 20, 2025, Akutami stated that if Gojo Satoru hadn’t lowered his guard during the final moments, he would have avoided dying. This suggests Gojo was effectively “nerfed” in the fight—not necessarily in raw power, but in the critical timing that left him exposed.

Akutami also clarified the chain of events around Sukuna’s plan. In the same Q&A:

• Q: “When did Sukuna make the Binding Vow to cut down Gojo?”
• A: “Sometime after Kusakabe said he won. The reason he was cut down was also that he had let his guard down after destroying Mahoraga. By this point, Gojo thought Sukuna no longer had a way to bypass Limitless. Perhaps Gojo, under normal circumstances, would’ve been able to sense it and narrowly avoid fatality.”

Even with that explanation, Gojo still had to die for the story to move forward and to give other characters their chance to shine—specifically Yuji Itadori and Yuta Okkotsu. It’s undeniably painful for fans to consider that, regardless of Gojo’s overwhelming skill, the series had already set him on a path where death was the inevitable end of that confrontation.

Gojo vs Sukuna’s Manga Timeline, Then the Anime Road Ahead

In the manga, Gojo vs Sukuna unfolded between Chapters 223 and 236. The sequence kicked off in Weekly Shonen Jump Issue #25 on May 22, 2023, and concluded in Issue #43, released on September 25, 2023. Because of that, the fight is now “old” in terms of recent release cycles—even if it remains one of the most discussed moments in the franchise. Its cultural weight hasn’t vanished, but the conversation has naturally cooled after three years.

What MAPPA’s Season 4 Could Mean for the Shinjuku Showdown Peak

Even if the manga’s immediate hype has faded, the next wave of attention is expected to come from the anime adaptation. The real rise in popularity for Gojo vs Sukuna, the story argues, will likely happen when MAPPA adapts it. MAPPA has already confirmed Jujutsu Kaisen Season 4 for 2027, and the projection is that Season 4 will end with Gojo’s unsealing from the Prison Realm and the setup for the Sukuna battle.

That framing means whatever comes after Season 4 of Jujutsu Kaisen should cover the events of Gojo vs Sukuna from Shinjuku Showdown—exactly where the series’ “Strongest” conflict begins. The fight could be adapted across a fifth anime season, but there’s also hope among fans for a theatrical treatment similar to how Demon Slayer handled the Infinity Castle storyline.

After the massive success of Infinity Castle, the idea of a movie-style adaptation remains plausible. Either way, the argument is that with a strong adaptation, Jujutsu Kaisen can further cement its reputation as one of the defining battle shonen series of its era. If the series lands the execution, Sukuna vs Gojo could become the most popular and culturally impactful fight of all time. There’s also the expectation that manga backlog sales could push the franchise toward the 200 million-copy mark, putting it on a short list of only the largest manga properties in history.