Satoru Gojo
Satoru Gojo is a fictional character from Gege Akutami's manga and anime series Jujutsu Kaisen. He was first introduced in Akutami's short series Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical School as the mentor of the cursed teenager Yuta Okkotsu, who suffers a curse of Rika teaches him at Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School. This miniseries became the prequel Jujutsu Kaisen 0 of Jujutsu Kaisen. In main series of Jujutsu Kaisen, Gojo takes the same role but mentors the student Yuji Itadori who suffers a curse of Sukuna, helping him become stronger while protecting other characters in the series.
He was designed by Akutami to be a formidable yet endearing figure who is passionate about his students. He is voiced by Yūichi Nakamura in Japanese and Kaiji Tang in English and Lohit Sharma in Hindi in the animated adaptations by MAPPA. The character was well-received by the media for his carefree nature and power shown when protecting his students, becoming the series' breakout character.
Creation and conception
One of Akutami's key ideas for Gojo's design is a blindfold he can see through thanks to his supernatural powers. His Six Eyes bear extrasensory powers, granting him the heightened ability to see, read, and manipulate cursed energy, as well as amplify his own technique, Limitless. In his debut in Jujutsu Kaisen 0, Akutami linked Gojo and Yuta Okkotsu to Michizane Sugawara, a famous figure in Japanese history, which he described as the source of both characters' supernatural powers. This was done as a tribute to his late editor, Yamanaka. Gojo's design is intended to be one of a bishonen. His facial design was inspired by major Naruto character Tonbo Tobitake. In regards to Gojo's relationship with his students such as Yuji Itadori and Yuta Okkotsu, Akutami wrote their relationship simply, as he claims Gojo only wants troublemakers like them to become strong. Despite the common Japanese custom of calling others by their last names, Gojo refers to each of his students by their first names. Akutami said he made this decision because he thought that Gojo did not have proper considerations for such social traditions.Sunghoo Park, who directed the first season of the Jujutsu Kaisen
The song "Where Our Blue Is" by Tatsuya Kitani, which acts as the opening of the anime's second season, deals with the youth of Gojo and Geto with an emphasis on blue backgrounds. The opening contrasts the ending theme "Light", which uses a more relaxed melody while emphasizing Gojo and Geto's friendship.
Casting
He is voiced by Yuichi Nakamura in the original Japanese series. From serious scenes to comical gag scenes, Gojo has different facial expressions, but since Nakamura played without restrictions on the swing range, he reiterated at the recording site that he enjoyed gags. The actor did not find a change in Gojo's characterization, finding his mentoring of Yuta similar to the other protagonists from the main Jujutsu Kaisen series. He enjoyed the multiple recording sessions he had, as well as the many school-like relationships. He was impressed by Megumi Ogata's work as Yuta for providing him with a large range of emotions. Mariya Ise voiced the younger Gojo in a flashback from the anime. For the anime's second season Nakamura claims he suffered struggles in properly portraying Gojo due to the two story arcs depicting the same character with different quirks and personality as a result of his age; while people do not change their voices too much over a decade, Nakamura aimed to make Gojo different in the two story arcs from season 2. The voice actor was impressed by the animation studio Mappa which allowed his character to have more facial expressions which resulted in more direction from his superiors.Kaiji Tang voices Satoru in English. Tang described him as "the trolliest trolls to ever troll anime." The actor noted that the character stands out due to his whimsical nature and how he interacts with his students. He was also praised for how likeable he comes across, due to the kind nature he portrays in the series with a dark narrative while simultaneously showing interesting supernatural powers. Tang still noted that Gojo's arrogance was his only weak point, which also makes him come across as more human.
In another interview, Tang compared Gojo to the comic book character Clark Kent, and believed the charm behind the character was that, despite his age, Gojo acts like a spoiled child. Before dubbing Gojo, Tang had not read the Jujutsu Kaisen manga but had heard of it. When cast, Tang did research by reading the manga. When first interacting with Yuji Itadori, Gojo is noted to see a rarely-explored darker side of his personality due to how he thinks of the idea of killing a cursed teenager, which leads him to see more arrogance in Gojo. In contrast to his previous works like Gearless Joe from Megalobox or Archer from Fate/stay night, Tang feels that Gojo looks at the world in a more childish way than his previous characters; while Gojo has seen several challenges in his past, none of them made a major impact on him. In order to lipsync the character, Tang ended up ad-libbing, resulting in Gojo swearing when confronting Jogo.
Appearances
''Jujutsu Kaisen 0''
A sorcerer working as a teacher at Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School, he holds the self-proclaimed title 'The Strongest'; most allies and enemies alike never actually dispute the title and generally consider him to be one of the most dangerous people alive. In the events of Jujutsu Kaisen 0, Gojo recruits Yuta Okkotsu, a high school student, accompanied by his Curse Spirit, Rika Orimoto, and convinces him to join Jujutsu High. During this time, Gojo makes Yuta train with the previous year students, Panda, Maki Zenin, and Toge Inumaki, to help Yuta control his curse and develop friendships. Yuta's curse attracts Suguru Geto, a previous student at Jujutsu High and an old friend of Gojo. Geto seeks Yuta's curse and wishes to create a shaman-only world. Geto is gravely injured after his fight with Okkotsu and is later executed by Gojo. Gojo then helps Yuta understand the true nature of his curse and powers.''Jujutsu Kaisen''
On the day of the Kyoto Goodwill Event, Gojo meets up with the other faculty to watch the event. As the event starts, Gojo watches it through monitors with the other faculties. When intruders invade the site, Gojo heads over to the site along with Utahime and Yoshinobu. He decides to handle Juzo first, and easily manages to restrain him. Gojo then uses a Hollow Purple technique on Hanami, but they cannot tell for sure if he is killed. As a result, Satoru is widely respected by sorcerers and holds high influence in the sorcery world. He convinces his superiors at the college to keep Yuji Itadori alive until he consumes all of Sukuna's fingers. He teaches Yuji, Megumi Fushiguro, and Nobara Kugisaki.Afterwards, the manga explores Gojo's past. When he and Geto were both sophomores, they were assigned to escort the Star Plasma Vessel Riko Amanai, who was to merge with the immortal sorcerer, Tengen. When the merging was to take place, they are attacked by mercenary Toji Fushiguro, who defeats the two and kills Riko. As Gojo recovers and kills Toji, Geto begins doubting his duties as a sorcerer, and, having grown annoyed of protecting non-sorcerers, vows to break the cycle and kill every non-sorcerer to prevent the birth of more cursed spirits. He escapes from the school and massacres a village with his powers. Gojo confronts Geto about his crimes, but is unable to kill him and lets him go.
He was ambushed by the Special Grade Cursed Spirits at Shibuya, and after he exorcised Hanami, Kenjaku manages to seal him away in the Prison Realm. Nevertheless, Gojo has Yuta take the favor of protecting Yuji from being executed should something bad happen to him. Towards the end of the Culling Games, his students successfully release him from the Prison Realm and he immediately challenges Megumi, Sukuna's current host, to a duel on Christmas Eve. After several exchanges, Gojo nearly wins but is killed by Sukuna and finds himself talking with Geto and his other late friends. His corpse is later used by Yuta to aid Yuji in fighting and defeating Sukuna.
Reception
Popularity
Satoru Gojo was well received by the series' readers and critics. In a Viz Media popularity poll taken in March 2021, he was voted the most popular character in the franchise. At the 5th Crunchyroll Anime Awards, Gojo and his fight against Ryomen Sukuna was nominated for Best Boy and Best Fight Scene, respectively. Yuichi Nakamura's performance as Gojo was one of the nominees for Best Voice Artist Performance. Nakamura won "Best Actor in Supporting Role" for his work as Satoru Gojo in the 16th Seiyu Awards. In promoting the movie Jujutsu Kaisen 0, advertisements with Gojo as a dog were made alongside SoftBank Group. In December 2021, Mappa and Shueisha also celebrated Gojo's birthday with PulpFiction Cine finding him as one of the most popular characters from the series while also promoting the movie. In a poll from 2021 by LINE Research, Gojo took the first spot in regards to Jujutsu Kaisen characters. Gojo ranked second in the Best Male Character Animages 2021 Anime Grand Prix poll behind Kyojuro Rengoku from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, while he was third in the 2022 poll behind Yuta Okkotsu from Jujutsu Kaisen 0 and Tengen Uzui from Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba. Yuichi Nakamura ranked eighth in the Best Voice Actor category in 2021, while he was fifth in the following year for his character's performance.The character attained popularity in Chile when the second season of the anime aired, resulting in fans illustrating Gojo at an advertising billboard located inside Universidad de Chile station of Metro de Santiago. At the 8th Crunchyroll Anime Awards, Gojo won the award for Best Supporting Character. Three of Gojo's international voice actors were nominated in the voice acting categories, namely Yuichi Nakamura, Jose Gilberto Vilchis, and Léo Rabelo ; Nakamura and Rabelo won their respective awards, while Vilchis lost to Emilio Treviño's Denji. In August 2024, Gojo ranked in first place on Shueisha's fourth Jujutsu Kaisen character popularity poll, with 113,392 votes. He won the Newtype Anime Award for Best Male Character in 2024. At the 9th Crunchyroll Anime Awards in 2025, Lohit Sharma won Best Voice Artist Performance for his performance as Gojo.