Jujutsu Kaisen: Naobito Zenin’s Cursed Technique Explained!

Naobito Zenin, the head of the Zenin clan, is regarded as the fastest Jujutsu sorcerer after Satoru Gojo.

What helped him achieve this feat was his cursed technique, Projection Sorcerery. With its help, he was even able to evade an attack from Jogo, a special-grade cursed spirit.

What is projection sorcery, and how does it work? In this article, we will discuss exactly that!

What Is Projection Sorcery?

Projection Sorcery is an inherited cursed technique of the Zenin family, similar to the Ten Shadows Technique.

The only known users of this technique are Naobito Zenin and his son, Naoya Zenin. It allows its user to trace movements at twenty-four frames per second and trap anyone who disobeys this rule for one second.

Some of you may be wondering what dividing movement into twenty-four frames per second means.

For that, we must understand a bit about how animation is made.

Animation is an illusion of motion achieved through changing pictures in front of an audience at high speed.

In the animation industry, each picture is called a frame, and the speed at which these frames change is referred to as frames per second, or FPS.

In general, in animation, each second is divided into 24 frames, which provide a pretty smooth experience without feeling like a slideshow.

Projection Sorcery is exactly this, but it divides the real-life movements into 24 frames, and the user gains the ability to jump to whichever frame they want to.

With these, they can reach the end of the frame the moment they begin their movement, resulting in an immense speed boost.

This is exactly how Naobito and Naoya achieved their immense speed.

Naoya was also able to reach sub-sonic speed in his fight against the awakened Maki.

To do this, they first need to project or plan their movement in twenty-four frames per second.

This also brings its biggest flaw, that once movement or trajectory is finalized, they cannot change their trajectory; otherwise, the user themselves will get frozen for one second.

If anyone gets hit by the user’s palm, the technique will also force them to follow this rule, and if broken, they too will get frozen for one second.

While frozen, they appear to have stuck in a frame floating in the air. This frame can also be broken by force, and in doing so, it deals massive damage to the one frozen.

We saw this in action when Naobito touched Dagon, after which he got stuck in the frame in season 2, episode 14 of the anime.

He used this against Dagon multiple times, allowing himself and Nanami to land powerful hits on the cursed spirit.

Flaws Of Projection Sorcery

We have already discussed one of the fatal flaws, that the user cannot change the direction of the motion, but this is not all.

When deciding the trajectory, one can create motion under their field of vision, meaning they can reach places they can’t see.

Another limitation is that they cannot ignore the laws of physics to a high degree.

Furthermore, there seems to be an upper limit to the acceleration the user’s body can achieve when the technique is activated.

Although we saw Naoya continually build up speed by repeatedly stacking the technique upon itself.

This was explained and showcased in chapter 151 of the manga during Naoya’s fight with newly awakened Maki Zenin.

That was all about projection sorcery.

If you are a Jujutsu Kaisen fan, you might want to read our article on why Gojo may not be dead yet or challenge yourself with a quiz on Jujutsu Kaisen!