JJK Students and Teachers

Japan has two jujutsu schools in the story: Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College and Kyoto Prefectural Curse Technical College, which fans and the English releases usually just call Tokyo Jujutsu High and Kyoto Jujutsu High. Both train teenagers as sorcerers and send them on real missions long before they graduate, which says a lot about how short-staffed the jujutsu world is. Classes are tiny. Tokyo's first-year class in 2018 has three students.

The two schools meet every year at the Goodwill Event, a supposedly friendly competition that the anime covers in Season 1 episodes 14 to 21. Kyoto's principal tries to use it to kill Yuji, which tells you how friendly it really is.

First-years

Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro and Nobara Kugisaki. Yuji is enrolled late, after he eats Sukuna's finger and Gojo talks the higher-ups into a suspended death sentence. Megumi was scouted years earlier by Gojo. Nobara transferred in from the countryside.

Second-years

Maki Zenin, Toge Inumaki, Panda and Yuta Okkotsu. Their first year is the story of Jujutsu Kaisen 0. Yuta is away overseas for most of the main story's first half and returns as a special grade sorcerer.

JJK third years

Kinji Hakari and Kirara Hoshi. Hakari is suspended after clashing with the higher-ups, and Kirara stays with him. Both join the fight during the Culling Game, and Hakari turns out to be one of the strongest characters in the series.

The third-years are Aoi Todo, Noritoshi Kamo and Momo Nishimiya. Todo is a Grade 1 sorcerer and basically a force of nature. Kamo is the heir of the Kamo clan with Blood Manipulation. Momo rides a broom and works as the team's eyes from the air.

The second-years are Mai Zenin (Maki's twin sister), Kasumi Miwa and Mechamaru. Miwa is the self-described weakest member of the team and somehow one of the most liked characters in the fandom. Mechamaru's story turns out to be far darker than his first appearance suggests.

Satoru Gojo is Tokyo's first-year teacher, and the reason the students are both well trained and wildly overconfident. Masamichi Yaga is Tokyo's principal, a former teacher of Gojo and Geto who makes cursed corpses, Panda included. Atsuya Kusakabe teaches the second-years and is the strongest Grade 1 sorcerer who doesn't have an inherited technique. Shoko Ieiri is the school doctor, one of very few people who can use Reverse Cursed Technique on others.

At Kyoto, Utahime Iori teaches the students and openly can't stand Gojo. Yoshinobu Gakuganji is the principal, a conservative old sorcerer who plays electric guitar. Kiyotaka Ijichi isn't a teacher but deserves a mention: he's the assistant manager who drives everyone around and absorbs most of Gojo's teasing.

A lot of the story's adults are Tokyo alumni. Gojo, Geto and Shoko were classmates in 2006, which is the story of Season 2's Hidden Inventory arc. Kento Nanami and Yu Haibara were a year below them. Haibara's death on a mission is what pushes Nanami out of jujutsu and into an office job, before he comes back. Seeing those characters as teenagers makes the present-day story hit harder, because you know what the job costs.

Yuji is the obvious answer, so we'll go elsewhere. Maki has the best growth arc of any student. Inumaki does more with a vocabulary of rice ball fillings than most characters do with full sentences. And Todo turns a joke character into one of the most loved fighters in the series in about three episodes.

The Goodwill Event is the best place to see the two schools side by side. It has two days: a team battle, where both sides hunt cursed spirits on a large site, and an individual match day. The 2018 event's team battle becomes chaos once Hanami and a group of curse users crash it, and the second day is replaced with a baseball game, which is exactly as silly as it sounds.

The match-ups say a lot about each student. Yuji and Todo's fight turns into a friendship, Maki and Mai's fight is all about the Zenin clan and Nobara's fight with Momo is basically an argument about how women get treated in jujutsu.

Students are graded like other sorcerers, from Grade 4 up to special grade. Yuta is the standout: a special grade sorcerer while still a student, one of only four special grade sorcerers in the modern era along with Gojo, Yuki Tsukumo and, before his defection, Geto. Todo is Grade 1. Megumi starts as a Grade 2 sorcerer and Nobara as Grade 3, while Yuji has no official grade at first. Maki is held back from promotion by her own clan, which is a big part of her story.

Jujutsu High students wear dark uniforms that are customised to each person, which is a nice design detail. Yuji's has a red hood, Nobara wears hers with a skirt, Maki wears hers with trousers, and Inumaki's has a tall collar that hides the marks around his mouth. Yuta's uniform is white, which makes him easy to spot in group shots. Momo is the easiest Kyoto student to pick out, because she's usually on her broom.