Jujutsu Kaisen: Mahito’s Idle Transfiguration Technique Explained

Jujutsu Kaisen is known for its complex and well-articulated techniques. One such character is Mahito, who has one of the most intriguing and complex techniques in the series.

As a cursed spirit, Mahito is nothing short of a menace, a sadistic being enjoys and grows by inflicting harm on innocent humans.

To do this, he uses his creepy and disturbing innate cursed technique: Idle Transfiguration. In this article, we’ll break down his CT in detail!

Mahito’s Idle Transfiguration Technique Explained:

Mahito’s cursed technique, Idle Transfiguration, allows him to see and understand the soul’s composition and change it as per he wishes.

We saw him use it for the first time in the vs. Mahito arc, where he deforms a few high-school students.

His cursed technique allows him to modify the “soul” of a person, which essentially affects their physical attributes and bodily functions as well.

Mahito does so by controlling his cursed energy and channeling it through his hands.

As a new-born spirit, Mahito would use humans as his test subjects, playing with them, according to his own pleasures.

He learned that he can change the size of humans, deform them in any way he wants, and turn them into mindless creatures.

Mahito stores the humans he has deformed in miniature forms and uses them during battles.

We’ve seen him use them in almost all of his fights (like against Nanami and Itadori). He not only uses it to attack sorcerers but also to test their mental fortitude.

He wants to see question their morality and see how far they’d go to get rid of curses. While this works on many, it fails to affect skilled sorcerers like Gojo and Nanami.

Mahito can also change the shape of his own soul. This allows him to change his size to effectively dodge, escape and catch his opponents off-guard.

Furthermore, he also uses this to turn his body into an array of weapons, as seen throughout his fight against Itadori and Nanami.

Due to the way his soul works, Mahito can use the Idle Transfiguration technique to heal himself by reshaping his soul.

This is a viable way for him to heal as he only sees the physical body as a way to represent the soul.

According to him, even if his body is destroyed into pieces, he will still survive if he manages to preserve the shape of his soul.

Soul Multiplicity:

What makes Mahito is not just the ability to modify a soul, but to also combine multiple souls into a new one.

Mahito refers to this as “Soul Multiplicity”. When he performs this technique on his subjects forcefully, the victims’ souls reject the fusion, in turn releasing cursed energy.

When the rejection of souls is particularly strong, the new body goes through a drastic and horrifying transformation. He uses this as a way to attack his opponents as a surprise attack and calls it “Body repel”.

Mahito used this in chapter 89 of the manga for the first time in his second fight against Itadori.

The cursed spirit can also create strong transfigured humans by using soul multiplicity on souls with low rejection. He calls this technique the “Polymorphic Soul Isomer”.

This results in a far more stable body that can attack its own. While they aren’t particularly strong, these transfigured humans are perfect distractions.

All of these are versions of the Idle Transfiguration technique, with his Domain Expansion being the apex of it.

Mahito’s Domain Expansion Explained:

During his fight against Itadori and Nanami, Mahito found himself cornered as he was about to be beaten to death.

That’s when he realized that he was close to death, which motivated and excited him.

This allowed him to grow, which led to him creating his own domain.

Called the “Self-Emobidment of Perfection”, the domain is the ultimate version of his cursed technique.

As mentioned above, Mahito had to touch his subject to use his cursed technique in order to manipulate their soul.

His domain expansion takes away this limitation, as anybody caught in the domain is quite literally standing on his palm.

This allows him to freely manipulate their soul. This is essentially Mahito’s version of the “no-miss” rule of domain expansions.

While all of this would instantly make him win any battle, there’s one downside: Mahito will involuntarily modify the soul of anyone trapped inside his domain.

This doesn’t leave any room for him to decide whose soul he’s getting in contact with.

As seen during his fight against Nanami and Itadori, this backfired severely.

Mahito accidentally touched Sukuna’s soul. While Sukuna had barely consumed any of his fingers, one slash was enough to bring the domain caster to a near-death state.

However, Mahito is always adapting, and he managed to do so in the Shibuya Incident arc. He did so by using a 0.2-second domain expansion like Gojo Satoru.

During the Shibuya Incident arc, Mahito grew exponentially, even learning to use Black Flash well. Furthermore, he also managed to reach a higher stage of understanding his soul.

Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing:

During his final fight against Itadori and Aoi Todo, Mahito managed to find the true essence of his soul.

This led him to unlock a newer and stronger body. The new form has a far more menacing look with a more muscular and “monstrous” design.

Mahito clearly took inspiration from Hanami for this form, as it was quite durable against physical attacks. In fact, Itadori’s punches, which were the most effective weapon against Mahito before were useless now.

For Mahito to enter this state, he has to rip his human face off, shedding every bit of his human-like traits.

Mahito can revert to his original form at will, or the change can be forced by dealing heavy damage.

This was the apex of Mahito’s strength, where he was almost unrecognizable when it comes to strength!

This is the extent of Mahito’s cursed technique, Idle Transfiguration. His understanding of the soul and the physical body defines the extent and the limits of his abilities.

Mahito is not only one of the most intriguing and complex characters in the series, but he also boasts one of the most detailed and carefully articulated technique/power in all of Shonen!