Jujutsu Kaisen Author Explains How The FATE Series Influenced His Work In An Interview

It’s well known amongst earnest Jujutsu Kaisen fans that Gege Akutami took inspiration from many series like Bleach, Naruto and Neon Genesis Evangelion. In his recent interview, the author talked about the influence the FATE series had on his series, specifically FATE ZERO written by Gen Urobuchi.

Along with that, he also mentions the sequel “Fate/stay: Type Moon”, a visual novel series written by Kinoko Nasu, as his inspiration for plot and world-building.

(Fate/Stay: TYPE MOON VN Poster)

However, in regards to JJK, the intriguing part of TYPE MOON that he brings up is that he adores the way the author omitted the explanation of the storyline and vocabulary. And if any reader had trouble following along, the author essentially advised them to do some exploring of the previous series chronologically.

Hearing this made JJK fans on Twitter squirm as they recall certain plot lines in the final arc and think, “well, this aspect isn’t explained very well”. Additionally, they are quite scared of Gege describing TYPE MOON as having no explanation for its plot because FATE has multiple platforms, like games, Visual Novels, manga, etc. to explain its worldbuilding, whereas JJK has only the manga.

And Gege making his opinions by reading merely the manga of TYPE MOON rather than its Visual Novel, and the fact that he had used that as his inspiration to build the world of JJK made fans even more concerned for the series’ conclusion.

Furthermore, Gege admits that his favorite character in FATE is Gilgamesh and fans couldn’t help but wonder if Sukuna was inspired by Gilgamesh as their personalities match quite a bit.

The entire bit of Gege talking about the FATE ZERO and TYPE MOON influence on his writing goes as follows:

“If we’re talking about influence, Fate Zero is also a major influence in JJK. I was also very influenced by Nasu Kinoko Sensei’s plot building (TYPE MOON). It might be a little different from Urobuchi Gen Sensei’s original FATE ZERO though. I really love how they just skip the explanation of the plot and the terms, and I find it fabulous that in Evangelion, they construct it for entertainment. It’s like they’re telling us to just look it up if we didn’t understand it. My favorite character is Gilgamesh, and I was happy that in FATE ZERO he was most strict with people and was self righteous.”

About Jujutsu Kaisen:

Jujutsu Kaisen is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Gege Akutami.

It has been serialized in Shueisha’s shōnen manga magazine Weekly Shōnen Jump since March 2018, with its chapters collected and published in 25 tankōbon volumes as of January 2024.

Studio MAPPA brought the world of JJK into anime by airing 24 episodes of season 1 from October 2020 to March 2021 and a second season that premiered in July 2023. A sequel covering the “Culling Game” arc has been announced.

Crunchyroll describes the overall plot of Jujutsu Kaisen as:

Yuji Itadori is a boy with tremendous physical strength, though he lives a completely ordinary high school life.

One day, to save a classmate who has been attacked by curses, he eats the finger of Ryomen Sukuna, taking the curse into his own soul.

From then on, he shares one body with Ryomen Sukuna.

Guided by the most powerful of sorcerers, Satoru Gojo, Itadori is admitted to Tokyo Jujutsu High School, an organization that fights the curses… and thus begins the heroic tale of a boy who became a curse to exorcise a curse, a life from which he could never turn back.

Source: Twitter