Jujutsu Kaisen and Frieren: The Return of the White-Haired Wizards

On January 8, the third season of Jujutsu Kaisen: The Culling Game premiered, marking the third animated installment of this saga. The following week, on January 16, the second season of Sōsō no Frieren began, which will feature around 10 episodes. Both will be available on Crunchyroll, and if you don't want to pay like a fool, you can find them on platforms like AnimeFLV or Nyaa: the largest anime and manga torrent archive and search community in the world.

Jujutsu Kaisen is a Shōnen Nekketsu manga (that's what we call Japanese fight cartoons, nekketsu -熱血、ねっけつ- means hot blood) written and illustrated by Gege Akutami, serialized from 2018 to 2024 in the famous Weekly Shōnen Jump by Shueisha (yes, the same magazine that publishes One Piece and Chainsaw Man). The anime premiered in 2020, brought to life by Mappa studios. The story follows a classic line in Japanese narratives of this style: a young protagonist named Yūji Itadori joins a legion of sorcerers centered around a magic school where they seek to eliminate cursed spirits and curses. A plot that might have gone unnoticed if it weren't for a deuteragonist who captured the hearts of millions around the world: the powerful sorcerer Satoru Gojō, Yūji Itadori's teacher. Carefree, charismatic, a bit arrogant, nearly 30 years old, and incredibly strong. Something strange is going on with Gojō, the public's affection for this character is so immense that it overshadows the protagonist, to the point where he has become the icon of the saga. This is a problem.

Sōsō no Frieren, or as it was translated, Frieren: Beyond the Journey, is also a Shōnen medieval fantasy manga, though it borders on Seinen due to its unique pacing and proposed themes. It is written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe, serialized in Shūkan Shōnen Sunday magazine by Shōgakukan. In September 2023, its anime adaptation began airing, produced by Madhouse studios. One interesting aspect of Sōsō no Frieren is that the story starts with the end: the group of adventurers who defeated the Demon King returns home triumphantly; they are the human hero Himmel, the dwarf warrior Eisen, the human priest Heiter, and our protagonist, the elf mage Frieren. She is over a thousand years old and will continue to live for thousands more due to her race, making her practically immortal. She is also extremely powerful, but paradoxically, in this story, these traits are her Achilles' heel. She must undertake the hero's journey in reverse: leaving the extraordinary world to access the ordinary world before it's too late. Intelligent, lazy, and funny, though sometimes taciturn and not very assertive, without being the classic caricature of the ideal Chinese doll, this elf brings us a story that feels like a refreshing breeze coming from our screens.

WHITE WIZARDS

The canon suggests that the color white in wizards represents leadership, victory, wisdom, purity, and immense power. Gandalf the Grey defeats the Balrog, dies, his spirit travels beyond the world where he gains strength, and Gwaihir comes to take him back to Middle-earth so he can help in the fight against Sauron. But Gandalf the Grey is no longer Gandalf the Grey; he is THE MOTHERF***ING BADASS GOAT OF ALL GOATS, GANDALF THE WHITE!!! Applause, ladies and gentlemen! Gandalf, Merlin, Dumbledore, Raistlin Majere, Elminster, when I become a lady, I will let my gray hair grow. Now, if this anime season gives us not one, but TWO incredibly powerful white-haired wizards, it would be a huge waste not to pit them against each other, along with their universes. I will set the categories, okay? Let the battle begin!

1. POPULARITY:

These two stories are breaking audience records, or should I say animedience :P. The anime of Sōsō no Frieren has the highest rating on Myanimelist, holding the top spot since early 2024 with over 1.2 million fan votes, crowned with a score of 9.4 out of 10. It has displaced Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood from this legendary list, which had held this position undefeated for several years.

Guinness World Records awarded Jujutsu Kaisen the title of the most popular anime of 2023, knocking One Piece off its throne. Its manga also dominated the official Oricon ranking during 2021, 2022, and 2024. I have to give this point to both. The score is 1 - 1.

You know your anime is going to be popular when you have a character with white hair.

2. NARRATIVE COMPONENTS:

A question: What to do and what not to do in world-building? Always as a guide, I don't want to be too dogmatic and definitive since leaps in creativity and breaking rusty narrative traditions allow for the emergence of beautiful things (also because I’m not such a suck-up to question anyone who creates something because it's a drag to be a killjoy, and also because I'm just a simple Cordoban dwarf, what do I know). BUT, generally, there are some lines, some rules, some suggestions you can follow to make the universe you created feel plausible in its own terms. As minimum requirements: characters, a destination that marks the story's direction, and a world with its own rules that are somewhat grounded. When we introduce a character who is diametrically stronger than everyone else, that's when problems arise. Although it may be very tempting, if a character is given too much power, the world and the story become unbalanced, and this is something that must be resolved conveniently.

Eiichirō Oda said in an interview that if Fleet Admiral Akainu were the protagonist of One Piece, he would have found the treasure in a few months, so he couldn't have told the story. Having a super strong character is as inconvenient as having a super weak one because you won't be able to manage them. Powerscaling is a problem of this era born from the vertical growth of characters' strength and power. I don't believe in powerscaling because I know that some malnourished Vietnamese peasants can defeat the greatest military power that exists. Many people defined Jujutsu Kaisen as the well-executed Naruto, and well, they share the fact of having a weak ending due to making precisely the same mistake. Sukuna (the villain of Jujutsu Kaisen) is Madara (the villain of Naruto): they had to twist the entire story of Naruto to defeat him. This is what happened in Jujutsu Kaisen: Akutami had to resolve the entire story in five chapters of the manga because he got tired of the story, the characters, and the audience. In his words: he never thought his manga would become so popular; he just wanted to make a fighting manga, so he escalated a lot and couldn't wrap it up convincingly. The guy hates Satoru Gojō, hates the fans, hates you, hates me, hates everyone, but honestly, I would also hate the world if my work cost me 20 years of life expectancy compared to the rest of the people in my country. Why does he hate Gojō? Because he couldn't narratively deal with the fact that fans loved this guy (due to his traits) more than the main character of the work.

A piece of advice that authors often repeat when thinking about power systems in relation to storytelling is to distribute tension horizontally rather than vertically. Qualitative and not quantitative power systems, to stop the escalation that inevitably ends in a fall. The positive aspect of Frieren is that the plot does not rely on power; this is a trope that is broken in this work. The problems in Frieren are different. If you're going through a crisis or if you're in the process of mourning, it will kick you right in the ribs while also healing your heart. Frieren is a beautiful well-written letter to humanity.

Frieren 2 - Satoru Gojō 1.

3. MAGICAL SYSTEM: HAND-TO-HAND COMBAT

Magic is serious business. Jujutsu Kaisen and Frieren are opposing examples of the two classic methods of magical writing: hard magic vs. soft magic (Brandon Sanderson ipse dixit, although D&D players have been using these concepts for decades). The magic in Jujutsu Kaisen stems from the ability to manipulate cursed energy that originates from the negative emotions of all living beings. Not everyone can use this energy; you have to be part of a lineage to adopt it. If you're a magic-poor baby, you have rituals, cursed techniques, possessions, and domain expansions in your arsenal. The magic in Jujutsu Kaisen is a closed and hard system. I have to say that my inner wuss falls for a well-executed fight. The shōnen nekketsu moves me to tears, and I mean it. Plus, Gege Akutami only knows how to do two things: kill characters and write fights. The battles in Jujutsu Kaisen on a physical level are wonderful, and this is evident in the number of MMVs and AMVs of this saga on the internet, the most famous being one that hasn't been officially animated yet (only enter if you know how the manga ends). In Frieren, magic is learned. Everything here is mana, experience, visualization, and will. Imagination is both a limitation and an enabler, which is why in this world, for example, a psychological attack is possible. The elf has the advantage that time is on her side: thanks to her immortality, she owns the server. The magic of this world is an open system; everyone is magical, and everyone can use this magic. One of the best animated battles in this saga is Frieren vs. Aura “The Guillotine”, a fight that takes place without any flashy moves, pure strategy. Frieren saying: “Mommy played Doom.” Even so, in Frieren, the fights are not even 25% of the story, although they are executed so cleanly and epically that they do not go unnoticed.

I must confess that I lied to you in the title of the article: Satoru Gojō is a sorcerer (his magic is innate), and Frieren is a mage (her magic is learned). But both are the pinnacle of skill in their world, mastering the terms in which their story is written. So it's just a matter of imagining what would win: inherited natural talent or over a thousand years of experience? In my mental canon, due to their personalities, both are reluctant to engage in this fight, so I will give the point to both.

Frieren 3 – Satoru Gojō 2.

4. CHARACTER DESIGN

In these sagas, both designs are quite good, but I wouldn't say they are the most original in the industry. Frieren is an elf mage: long ears, very long light silver-gray hair (or rather, white hehe) tied in two pigtails, green eyes, light beige tunic, red earrings, boots, and her characteristic staff. Satoru Gojō is very tall, thin, with messy silver-white hair, disconcertingly blue eyes, and is almost always dressed in a black school uniform (something very common in Japanese works). He also often wears sunglasses or a bandage covering his eyes, like characters from Nier: Automata. I give the point to both because I'm very lenient when it comes to design. Frieren 4 - Satoru Gojō 3.

5. MEMES MEMES MEMES

Current epic sagas, huge impact on ~social media~. These two stories have been soaked in debates, fights with authors, and wonderful memes. Here are the most resonant ones so far:

• Nazi allegations in Frieren: Frieren breaks many current molds, one being the classic redemption arc for demon figures (for example, this trope is heavily used in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba). Frieren hates demons because they are merely evil beings seeking to corrupt humans by mimicking the most beautiful thing we have: language. This is inherited from Tolkien, as he posits throughout the creation of the languages in his works that language should not be perverted and must be tied to truth and beauty. So, Frieren takes down demons, doesn’t listen to them, and doesn’t hesitate for a second to slice them all up. A couple of poorly read individuals linked this behavior to genocidal logics. Thus, there exists the internet narrative that Frieren is a supremacist racist. Intellectual laziness and lack of understanding, if you ask me, but the trolls were not absent.

• You're going down, Gege, the most hated mangaka of the moment If you search for “you're going down, Gege” on any social media platform, you’ll get millions and millions of results. A large number of fans despise the author of Jujutsu Kaisen, dedicating millions of TikToks, Facebook groups, Twitter trends, etc. etc. A cute meme that captures the love/hate relationship between the author and the audience culminated in a farewell letter from Gege Akutami apologizing for concluding the work that way.

• Redrawing Frieren: I can’t help but mention the beautiful challenge that originated on Reddit and was replicated on Twitter (well, X, you get it) following a fanart created by an amateur artist of Frieren’s face in a low-angle perspective, a rather complex angle. Since it didn’t turn out so well, other artists began to replicate the drawing, forming a beautiful exchange of tips and illustration advice that hundreds of artists joined, including famous mangakas and industry animators.

• Gojō/Geto: One of the most famous ships today comes from the Jujutsu Kaisen universe and features our beloved Satoru Gojō. He is paired with Suguru Getō: in the saga, they were inseparable friends who, due to a dispute over their ideologies, end up becoming enemies. It’s a pretty tragic story, but this ship transcends screens and forums.

• “It’s what Himmel would have done”: An event that went far beyond a simple occurrence on social media. On May 21, 2024, young Taiwanese Ruixian Xu became a very brave hero as he confronted an armed attacker with knives who was trying to kill people in a subway in Taichung. When he received his award, Xu declared that his hero Himmel, one of the characters from Frieren, would have done the same. Xu, you’re a great guy.

Xu receiving his award. I have to give this point to the elf. Frieren 5 - Satoru Gojō 3.

The winner of this battle is our elf mage Frieren!

!SPOILER ALERT! If you’ve made it this far, I have to confess a second thing: in season 3 of Jujutsu Kaisen, Satoru Gojō doesn’t appear: he’s been nerfed for the sake of the poor plot that, at this point, is starting to fall apart, and because Gege Akutami hates him with a passion, not knowing what to do to get rid of him. But even so, it’s one of the shōnen that has marked this generation. And if you watch Frieren, I recommend having a pack of tissues handy to wipe your tears, as its story speaks of transcendence through time, the kind that can only be achieved through love, care, and dedication to others, all through a medieval fantasy story! Enjoy these new seasons!