Which One is Better, My Hero Academia or Jujutsu Kaisen ?

 

    This is a hot topic of discussion in the manga and anime community and is still debatable until recently. In these couple of years, some manga gains popularity, among others are  MHA, Black Clover, Dr.Stone, Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsawman, Kimetsu no Yaiba, and so on.  The question is, why compare JJK and MHA? why not compare other series? there is some reason why JJK and MHA is the best match-up. Kimetsu no Yaiba and Chainsawman already end even though they are popular and have really good sales. Black Clover and Dr.Stone are quite popular, but their sales are very low compared to other popular series, not even approaching the top ten manga sales annually. So, Jujutsu Kaisen and My Hero Academia is evenly matched, that's because they are battle shonen manga, still ongoing, have really good sales, and gain more popularity because their anime is just so good.

    When it comes to sales, surprisingly JJK is becoming 2nd place just behind Kimetsu no Yaiba. Meanwhile, MHA had to be content with being in 7th place. What's make it crazy is because JJK has become 2nd place in just one year, last year this manga is just in 5th place. This is not coming in just one night, MAPPA the studio behind this successful story directs the anime of JJK, and MAPPA doing a really great job. Many people did not expect that JJK's anime can be this good. Anime from MHA also actually contributes quite well to the development of the popularity of the manga, even though the anime is not as cool as JJK. But to see which series is better, we need to look as a whole, from character and story.

Characters

    Quality beats quantity, this is the right expression to describe that JJK characters are written better than MHA characters. Actually, the character from MHA is not bad at all, the way Horikoshi introduces to us so many characters and their abilities make the story more colorful. But this is not without consequences, the more character means its needs enough space for them to grow as well. Unfortunately, of the many characters that appear, only a few make a big impact on the story and the rest are useless and easily forgotten. Toru Hagakure, Koji Koda, Rikido Sato, and most of the Class 1-B  that even if they die, fans don't even care and just forget about it. Some of the Pro Heroes with cool design, just come out and die in vain, without showing their true abilities. Meanwhile, the closest one with Deku, like Bakugou, Shoto, and Uraraka after several arcs didn't show any growth as a character, even though they got some new moves, but that's all.

    The similarities between MHA and JJK is that both of their main cast are high school students who are still in training to be the best in their field and trying to purge evil forces. But in this case, the character in JJK has their own uniqueness. There are not many characters in JJK but each one of them faces its own problem. Megumi Fushiguro always tries to sacrifice himself because he thinks that his life doesn't have any value. Nobara Kugisaki, even though she is a girl, she doesn't want to look like most girls, she wants to do things her own way. Maki Zenin wants to prove to her family that even she doesn't have curse energy, she still can be a jujutsu sorcerer. Meanwhile, her twin, Mai Zenin, has curse energy but when it comes to fighting, she feels inferior and weak compared to her sister.

    The gap becomes wider when it comes to villains. Most of the anime and manga villains are always be a shadowy character that plans their evil strategy in some dark hideout, far from society. The same things also happened in MHA. But in JJK, the villain group is different, they don't afraid of society, instead of hiding they choose to hang out in a cafe, playing board games, chill out on the beach, all of their evil plans are talking about in public area.

Geto and Mahito playing with Jogo's head on the beach

    Most of the villains in MHA are lack cool design and their personality is not really impressive. Re Destro is just trying to copy Destro's motive to be evil, end to be subordinate of Shigaraki. Shigaraki itself is a lame character, who tries to destroy everything because in his past his family didn't accept him. Not only that, as the main villain, he doesn't have a proper plan, he just following orders from All For One. The only good villain is Overhaul, he looks smart enough to do his plan even though in the end he becomes such a crybaby. Other than, All For One, the rest of the villain in MHA are just bunch of weaks that doesn't look intimidating at all.

    Things become different when you see the villain group at JJK. Although not always look solid, but each one of them is strong and they can play their role really well. Mahito has an annoying personality where he can play with human souls and kills them whenever he wants. Hanami wants to annihilate humans because they destroy mother nature. But the leader and masterplan behind their evil motives are Suguru Geto. Suguru Geto was a friend of Satoru Geto when they are still active students in Jujutsu High School. At first, he is just a jujutsu sorcerer who wants to protect humans from curse spirits. But after seeing the reality he becomes tired and lost his trust in humans. His power, which is curse manipulation, makes him can control curse spirits, but to do this he needs to eat them. He becomes tired he feels that what he is doing will be never-ending and want to stop this direct from the source, who is none other than human because the cursed spirit is born from the negative emotions of humans. The villain JJK feels like hit different than any villain in shonen manga, and it makes the reader curious about their growth. 

Story

 There was a time when My Hero Academia story was good and every character has a place and time to shine. This happened in the first saga when most of their story was still around school and training to become heroes. But over time the story is increasingly centered on Deku who is trying to master all the powers of One For All (OFA) and defeat All For One (AFO). Yakuza arc and Join Class arc can be said is some of the stories that tell another character besides Deku and how much they can grow. Unfortunately, the story itself drastically change, and not for good but for bad, because most of the character buried under some chaotic action in the war between villain and hero, and don't have any development anymore.

    Jujutsu Kaisen follows the story of Yuji Itadori who become a jujutsu sorcerer because accidentally he eats Sukuna's finger and became a Sukuna vessel. Sukuna itself is the legendary and most evil cursed spirit that his existence became such a great disaster for any living creatures. But the story of JJK is not always about Yuji, Satoru Gojo has a more interesting story about being the strongest jujutsu sorcerer in modern times. The worldbuilding in JJK is also much more worthy to follow because Gege Akutami shows how vast the Jujutsu world is. Starting from the story about Kenjaku's plan to rule the human world, the battle between Gojo and Toji Zenin in the past, to the conflict between the Zenin clan itself, even though it seems to run alone, but all these stories are interconnected. Meanwhile, My Hero Academia's story has always been about, the battle of good vs evil,  AFO vs OFA, from its predecessors to its successors, and any characters that have no direct connection with this will only be complementary elements.

    

    Overall, My Hero, Academia isn't a bad series, but it just feels generic like any other shonen series and for now, the story feels like it's going downhill. Meanwhile, at this time, JJK is gaining popularity thanks to MAPPA who managed to present an anime from JJK that amazes many anime lovers. So for now JJK is better than MHA, but in the future, this can be changed depends on how the author can direct their series.