From Godzilla to Demon Slayer, Japanese pop culture has a long history of reinventing millennia-old stories and legends for modern audiences. This very much includes the dark fantasy manga/anime Jujutsu Kaisen and its antagonist Ryomen Sukuna, a powerful sorcerer and demonic “King of Curses.” That nickname doesn’t actually come from Japanese mythology, but the historical depictions of Sukuna have changed so fundamentally over the centuries that Jujutsu Kaisen’s take on the character feels like a natural evolution of the fabled figure. Judge for yourself:
Ryomen Sukuna statue carved by Enku (1632-1695), held at Senkoji temple in Takayama, Gifu
From an Ancient, Multi-Limbed Antiauthoritarian
The first mention of Ryomen Sukuna comes from the Nihon Shoki, the second oldest Japanese chronicle. Its chapter about the reign of Emperor Nintoku (c. 290–399 CE, reigned 313–399) talks about a bandit from Hida in modern-day Gifu who didn’t recognize imperial rule and terrorized the local population, so an emissary was dispatched to kill him. He probably had little trouble finding Sukuna, who lived up to his name of “Two-Faced” (the literal meaning of “Ryomen”).
According to the chronicle, Sukuna “was so formed that on one trunk he had two faces. The faces were turned away from each other … He carried swords on his right and on his left side, and used bow and arrow with all four hands at once.” Yes, you read that right: four hands. He also had four legs.
Japan’s early texts are actually full of stories of Kyoto eliminating fearsome people who posed a threat to its authority (be they four- or eight-limbed), but the stories usually have something more to them. For example, the death of the hook-bending strongman Kuyehaya described in the Nihon Shoki was actually the historic origin of sumo. So, what about Sukuna?
The story could be a parable about the expansion of the Yamato ethnic group that today makes up the majority of Japan’s population. But they weren’t always the only game in town, having to fight for hegemony with descendants of the indigenous Jomon people, here represented by Sukuna. His four arms, all clutching weapons (sometimes also including a spear and an axe), might have been a poetic way of saying that these non-Yamato were skilled warriors, thus raising Kyoto’s prestige for defeating them. Or it might have been literal demonization of “others,” which the people of the Hida region were not having.
Ryomen Sukuna sculpture housed at Zenkyuji temple, Gifu | c/o Hida-Takayama Tourism and Convention Bureau
‘Our Sukuna Is Different’
Regional tales from around Hida-Takayama and Mino in Gifu portray Ryomen Sukuna as a heroic leader of a powerful clan, who fought against the aggression of the Yamato. Some researchers even speculate that the whole “eight limbs” depiction might be a historic memory of twin chieftains who waged war for the sovereignty of Hida. But, since they lost, local myths also tend to throw stories into the mix about how Sukuna/the Sukuna twins killed a dragon, which is super hard. So it’s like that whole defeat by the Yamato doesn’t even matter by comparison!
Also, Gifu’s Ryomen Sukuna might have been a giant who used magic to plant over 1,000 cypress trees across the land. That part is almost definitely an amalgamation of the warlord stories with ancient mountain deity myths, merging the possibly real freedom fighter with a godly creature of immense strength to add more prestige to the former. It’s happened with other legendary Japanese figures.
Statue of the Eleven-headed Kannon sculpture, designated a national treasure, at Shorinji Temple, Kyoto
Buddhism Claims Ryomen Sukuna for Itself
The conflict between the Yamato and Jomon descendants goes back to around the third or fourth century, when there were two primary Sukuna myths: the monster and the folk hero. However, after Buddhism arrived in Japan in the sixth century, Sukuna’s myth received another expansion pack. Reading accounts from the Nihon Shoki about Sukuna’s multiple heads and sets of arms, Buddhist monks noticed a lot of similarities between that figure and the goddess Kannon.
Technically the bodhisattva of mercy and compassion, Kannon is a key figure in Japanese Buddhism, with depictions that include an 11-headed version and a thousand-armed version. These multihead and multilimb similarities were all the monks needed to elevate Sukuna to the status of a semi-holy figure and patron of Senkoji Temple in Hida-Takayama.
According to Buddhist myths, Ryomen Sukuna emerged from the caves of Dewa-ga-hira, dug up a copy of the Lotus Sutra, and ventured across Hida performing miracles and promoting agriculture. The association between Buddhism and Sukuna is so strong that Senkoji actually experienced a surge in visitors following the success of Jujutsu Kaisen. Diehard fans of the comic and anime probably also bought local “Sukuna pumpkins” as souvenirs.
Ryomen Sukuna depicted in Jujutsu Kaisen | © Gege Akutami / MAPPA
Sukuna’s Gritty Reboot Connects It to Jujutsu Kaisen
During the Taisho era (1912–1926), the monster-warlord-miracle-worker was reinvented yet again, this time as a two-headed mummy found during the excavation of a demolished temple. Those who opened the wooden box it was stored in all died, became cursed/catatonic or met with some other terrible fate. This, of course, never happened, and was possibly someone trying to create a Japanese version of the Curse of Tutankhamun, whose tomb was discovered in 1922. And when that someone needed a name to put on their spine-chilling tale, they reached for “Ryomen Sukuna,” one of the busiest figures in all Japanese mythology.
It wasn’t such a huge leap from this to Jujutsu Kaisen, which admittedly did much more with the Sukuna character than just transplant him into modern times. Who knows what other stories the mythological figure will pick up in the future. With him having so many jobs, maybe he should be made the deity of freelancers next?
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