It came as a surprise to many when Mahito, who seemed very much like a human due to his appearance and his intellect, turned out to be a cursed spirit. Siding with Geto, the immature and childish curse has become a thorn in the path of our young Jujutsu sorcerers. His involvement with Junpei and his role in the Shibuya incident made Mahito one of the primary antagonists of the series. 

Though Mahito started out as a curse who was not even as strong as Jogo, he quickly became a formidable opponent thanks to him learning and growing from his experiences.

His unique cursed technique played a crucial role in helping him gain the status of a feared opponent. In fact, he is one of the very few antagonists in the shounen history who gained multiple power-ups and continued to grow stronger in the same vein as the protagonist.

And that is one of the primary reasons why there is a lot of confusion regarding what Mahito’s powers are and how they work.

Let us take a look at what Mahito’s innate techniques and his domain expansion are capable of doing.

What is Mahito’s Idle Transfiguration Cursed Technique?

Mahito’s Idle Transfiguration can help him see and understand the soul’s composition and modify it as he wishes. His cursed technique allows him to reshape a person’s soul by touching their body.

This is first seen when Mahito modifies the souls of high-school students in a theatre during the vs. Mahito arc in Jujutsu Kaisen. This modification in turn causes their bodies to transmogrify and eventually kills them. He is also able to control his cursed energy according to his will.

Being a newly-born cursed spirit, Mahito experimented a lot on humans using his cursed technique to understand the limits of his powers. Using Idle Transfiguration, he is able to increase or reduce the size of humans by modifying the shape of their souls. He displays his experiments proudly to Junpei during one of their meetings. 

Mahito even stores these small humans with him and later uses them in fights. This is seen multiple times during his encounters with Nanami, Itadori and then later Gojo Satoru. By using these transfigured humans, Mahito intends to make the sorcerers question their morality in having to kill helpless humans.

However, his tricks would not falter the likes of Satoru or Nanami, even though they accepted that killing these humans left a bad taste in their mouths. 

Soul Multiplicity:

Mahito can not only use his cursed technique for changing the shape and size of a soul, but he can also use it to combine multiple souls and make a new one. He calls this technique the Soul Multiplicity. When two souls merge forcefully, they reject the fusion and cursed energy is released. 

In cases where the rejection is strong, the physical body undergoes a vast transformation. Mahito uses this as output and directs it towards his opponents. He calls it the body repel.

This is first seen in Mahito’s fight against Satoru in the Shibuya incident (Jujutsu Kaisen manga chapter 89). When the rejection of the cursed energy by the souls is weaker, Mahito can form a powerful transfigured human with a stable body. This is called the Polymorphic Soul Isomer.

He uses this technique during the fight against Itadori and Todou during the Shibuya incident. While this seems like a whole new power-up, all he is doing is merging souls and putting them in a container causing the body to have huge cursed energies and a more stable form. 

Basically, every technique that Mahito uses is a variant of the Idle Transfiguration and involves changing the shape of the soul and hence the body of his opponent. 

Healing and regeneration:

Being a high level cursed spirit, Mahito is able to heal and regenerate his body using cursed energy. However, he does not do so by using the reversed cursed technique which is a common method of healing in the Jujutsu world. Instead, he uses the Idle Transfiguration to modify his soul and accordingly change the shape of his body. This is how he survived even after being crushed by the falling rubble caused due to Nanami’s attack.

According to Mahito, the shape of the body is dependent on the shape of one’s soul. By using this logic, he is able to change the shape of his body or regenerate parts of his body that are damaged. So instead of healing, he is essentially reinforcing his soul and altering the shape of his body.

Mahito believes that as long as he can sustain the shape of his own soul, nothing will happen to him even if he is crushed to bits. He can freely manipulate the shape of his soul, which in turn allows him to freely manipulate his own body.

Nanami’s attacks on his physical body were useless because he was unable to harm Mahito’s soul. However, this was not the case with Itadori. And this is the reason why Mahito marked Itadori as his mortal enemy. 

Mahito’s Domain Expansion: 

Mahito could not use the domain expansion initially due to him being a new cursed spirit. However, when he was pushed to his limits during the fight against Nanami and Itadori, he found new inspiration from the near death experience and unlocked this technique. Mahito’s domain expansion is called the Self Embodiment of Perfection and its effects are deep-rooted in his innate cursed technique and amplifies it.

In Idle Transfiguration’s base form, Mahito had to touch his opponent in order to transfigure or modify their soul. However, it can be said that the people who are trapped in his domain expansion are literally in the palm of his hand. He can freely modify their souls as required without having to touch them. 

However, the downside is that he inadvertently and modifies the souls of everyone who is trapped inside his domain expansion, without getting to choose. This is why the Self Embodiment of Perfection backfired with Itadori inside it. However, he was able to overcome this limitation during their face-off in Shibuya, inspired by what Gojou did during their previous face-off.

While these are the major techniques or powers of Mahito, he is also shown using the curtain and later the Black Flash in Jujutsu Kaisen manga. The cursed spirit learnt to master the Black Flash during his fight against Itadori, which is pretty commendable in itself. What are your thoughts on Mahito’s powers? Did you find them confusing at the start? Do you think we have missed out anything related to Mahito’s powers or his cursed technique? Let us know in the comments below!