When Jujutsu Kaisen‘s manga finally wrapped in 2024, the feeling was less bittersweet than sheer relief. Gege Akutami’s megapopular shonen juggernaut certainly delivered spectacle with its battles, but its story was thin. At its worst, its fights could be frustratingly hard to parse, be it from poor health trying to keep up with the rigorous weekly shonen crunch schedule or its labyrinthine power system that had to be explained with such exhaustive mid-bout exposition that it rivaled Bleach. 

So when Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo, its sequel series, debuted soon after, I braced for a Boruto-style continuation that would only double down on those flaws. However, after catching up—curiosity finally won out—I can admit Modulo is not only surprisingly strong but, dare I say, better than its predecessor precisely because it sidesteps the gripes that weighed the original down.  

From the jump, Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo—written by Akutami and illustrated by Yuji Iwasaki—takes a bold step few sequel shonen have taken: it situates itself years removed from its predecessor and embraces the reality that the old heroes’ era has ended, clearing the stage for a new generation. Sure, nostalgia lingers in nods, cameos, and winks to the past. But these gestures never overshadow the fresh cast with the hollow “what if they were adults now?” fanfare most sequel shonen series pigeonhole themselves in.

Whereas Jujutsu Kaisen proper, all the way to its end, always felt like it was building its power system as it went, never taking the training wheels off with explainers and shock deaths (ardently leaked/spoiled online by fans) that never rang deeper than their archetypes in a cool fight manga, Modulo actually sets up the series’ thrust early on and lets its story take center stage. And then there’s the paradigm shift in its premise, going full Giorgio A. Tsoukalos by adding aliens to the cursed spirit-fighting series’ narrative gumbo.

According to your comments and replies, we are so back.

(via Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo) pic.twitter.com/psypZUNji2

— Shonen Jump (@shonenjump) September 8, 2025

Set 68 years after the Culling Game, in 2086, Modulo sees Japan at a precarious crossroads where a humanoid alien race called Simurians has arrived on Earth as refugees from a distant world, wielding a power system strikingly similar to jujutsu sorcery. The central tension of the manga thus far lies in whether coexistence or conflict between sorcerers and Simurians will define Earth’s future.

Early chapters trace a fragile tightrope as Japan—functioning as Earth’s de facto extraterrestrial representatives, thanks to its supernatural sorcerers—seeks to understand the vagabond aliens and suss whether fostering prosperity is in the cards without provoking hostility. Meanwhile, the Simurians themselves strive to build new lives after years of subjugation under brutal colonization.

At the heart of this narrative are sorcerer siblings Yuka Tsuguri Okkotsu, joined by their Simurian ally, Maru. For JJK fans, Yuka channels Yuta’s gentle essence with a more playful edge; Tsuguri blends the grit of Maki Zen’in (best character; argue with a wall) with Megumi’s composure; and Maru embodies an alien spin on Yuji Itadori’s golden-retriever exuberance. They form a compelling trio as they venture into a back-to-basics supernatural battle of the week that made early JJK so much fun to read week after week before the series dovetails back into the intergalactic elephant in the room that feels planned out instead of improvised week to week. And layered atop the intricate is a miraculously genius combo of Akutami and Iwasaki, whose past works would have made such a story feel impossible to come together without highlighting both creators’ past pitfalls.

Cipher Academy is so infused with japanese wordplays that it simply broke the official translation, I’m in awe pic.twitter.com/qAo9ZHGPp9

— Rukasu (@RukasuMHA) February 12, 2023

As noted earlier, when Modulo was first announced, I was pretty apprehensive about whether the series could cohere given the pedigree of its creators. While I’ve waxed poetic about late-stage Jujutsu Kaisen enough, Yuji Iwasaki’s prior work—Cipher Academy, a death-game series once deemed nearly untranslatable—suggested a potential for even greater opacity. On paper, their pairing seemed destined to be even more unparsable. Yet the collaboration proved the opposite, embodying what Chainsaw Man creator Tatsuki Fujimoto has often wished for himself: the freedom to focus on writing while another artist handles the visuals, allowing each creator to lean wholly into their strengths.

The result is a pretty damn great team-up that’s also pretty damn great to read play out. Iwasaki’s panels are clean, legible, and brimming with personality, never drowning the reader in infodumps, while Akutami’s worldbuilding and character dynamics unfold without the threat of runaway power scaling. Together, their return to the sandbox of JJK’s world strips things back to basics even as the premise expands into extraterrestrial territory—and in doing so, they coalesce into something unexpectedly profound. With a series that’s got a narrative bone structure to support the emotional catharsis and hype of its fight, Modulo is Akutami and Iwasaki cooking at the height of their powers in a way that doesn’t feel as canned or forced as many sequel manga series chasing the hype of their predecessors often do.

Failing to see eye to eye, the humans and Simurians reach a dangerous point of no return.

Read Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo, Ch. 13 in Shonen Jump for free! https://t.co/fVTvWf9rcg pic.twitter.com/PlxXCR4O1p

— Shonen Jump (@shonenjump) November 30, 2025

Within the first 20 chapters of the manga thus far, its characters are deeply written, my favorite being Yuka and her unlikely bond with Maru’s Trigun-esque meaner brother, Cross; any callbacks to the original series are less showy for cheap fanservice pops and more in service of writing a deeper narrative that’s basically an immigrant tale with all the anxiety that comes with it wrapped in a shonen package. There’s real tension and friction in Modulo that’s not limited to its fights, of which there are scarcely any—a decision that only adds to their pomp and circumstance. The story feels carefully crafted rather than an afterthought to ferry you to the next overly complicated bout. As with wrestling, it’s always cool to see a guy get his shit in by doing gymnastic flips, but unless there’s a story reason why they’re about to break their neck for folks’ entertainment, it’s just vapid. Modulo is shaping up to be anything but, and I’m glad to have my notions about the series proven wrong.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.