Anime Like Jujutsu Kaisen
If you came out of Jujutsu Kaisen wanting more, be honest about which part hooked you, because it's doing three things at once. There's the rule-bound sorcery, where cursed energy behaves like a system you could actually sit an exam in. There's the horror, monsters born out of ordinary human fear and wearing the shape of the anxiety that made them. And there's the choreography, fights that look expensive and feel like they cost the people in them something. The shows below hit at least two of those, and the ones near the top hit all three. We've ordered them by how closely they sit to Jujutsu Kaisen's exact wavelength rather than by any ranking of quality, so the further you scroll, the further you drift from the source. Deliberately left off: comfort-food battle shonen where nobody stays hurt, and power-fantasy fantasy where the magic works however the plot needs it to that week. Half the pleasure of Jujutsu Kaisen is that the rules bind the protagonist too.
- 01
Chainsaw Man
8.3The closest sibling on this list, and the one most likely to unsettle you. Devils here are born from what people fear, the same engine that powers cursed spirits, but this world is grimier and lonelier: a story about a starving kid who wants toast and a girlfriend, told with sudden, casual cruelty between the jokes. Perfect if you loved Jujutsu Kaisen's tonal whiplash. Skip it if you wanted the tidy school-of-sorcerers structure.
Where to Watch → - 02
Demon Slayer
8.3The other giant of modern dark shonen, and the sincere one. Where Jujutsu Kaisen is wry and faintly nihilistic, this is warm-hearted almost to a fault: a brother who refuses to give up on his sister, fighting things that were once people and get a moment of pity before they go. The fight sequences are why most people stay. Bring a tolerance for earnestness, because there is no irony here at all.
Where to Watch → - 03
Bleach
7.9The ancestor of this entire shelf. A licensed organisation of exorcists, spirits that prey on souls, duels settled by named techniques and sheer style: every one of those beats runs through Jujutsu Kaisen's DNA. It's here because watching the lineage makes the modern version read differently. The catch is the era it comes from. It lingers, it repeats itself, and long stretches move at a crawl compared to what you're used to.
Where to Watch → - 04
Dandadan
8.3Take Jujutsu Kaisen's occult brawls, strip out the doom, and add aliens. This is the pick for the animation flex, colour-drunk and kinetic and constantly finding a new way to move a camera, with a genuinely sweet teenage romance load-bearing under all the chaos. It earns its slot by proving supernatural combat can be joyful rather than grim. Fair warning: the opening stretch is crude and confrontational, and some people never get past it.
Where to Watch → - 05
The one that matches Jujutsu Kaisen on brutality rather than on tone. An Edo-period island where a condemned assassin hunts an impossible flower, with a power system rooted in the body itself and creature design engineered to genuinely disturb. Deaths land here, and the story is willing to remove people you had grown attached to. For the fan who wanted more of that weight. It's grim, and its early cast is large and cold.
Where to Watch → - 06
The source code. Nen is where anime learned that a magic system is more thrilling when it reads like a legal document: declared conditions, self-imposed limits, victories won by understanding an opponent's rules before they understand yours. Jujutsu Kaisen's best fights are Nen fights in a city. It does ask patience, though. The early arcs are bright and adventurous, and the darkness you were promised takes a real while to arrive.
Where to Watch → - 07
Tokyo Ghoul
7.6For the part of you that watched Jujutsu Kaisen with your hand over your mouth. A student becomes the thing he is most afraid of and has to keep living among people who would kill him for it, and the transformation is physical, painful, and never once framed as an upgrade. It's the bleakest pick here with far less humour to cut it, and it gets uneven as it goes. Come for atmosphere, not plotting.
Where to Watch → - 08
The counterweight, and a palate-cleanser after everything above. Same shelf on paper, with exorcists and spirits and absurd power gaps, but the question isn't how to win a fight, it's whether being powerful makes you worth anything at all. If Gojo's casual godhood and the comedy were your favourite parts, this is the one. It's also fundamentally kind, wrapped in some of the boldest animation anyone is making.
Where to Watch →
FAQ
Three things, usually: a supernatural system with rules the hero is also bound by, monsters that come from something recognisably human, and fights that are choreographed rather than just powered through. Miss the rules and it collapses into a power fantasy; miss the humanity and the monsters stop mattering.