The future of shounen manga is looking really bright with all the new titles with gripping plots and intriguing characters. Currently, two of the biggest shounen titles are Jujutsu Kaisen and Black Clover. Both are insanely popular and so are their respective protagonists: Yuji Itadori and Asta. But if these two new age shounen heroes were to clash, who would win? Here’s our take on Yuji vs. Asta.
Being the protagonists of shounen manga, Yuji and Asta have a number of similarities. They both start their journey as underdogs still trying to understand their inner powers. They both share their bodies with another entity, however, for very different reasons and contexts. These two underdogs have come a long way from their early days and grown to be among the strongest characters in their respective stories.
So, if these young men were to get into a fight, who would dominate this battle of protagonists? Let’s find out here with Yuji vs. Asta:
Table of Contents
Yuji Itadori: Power and Abilities
The protagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen is Yuji Itadori, a seemingly normal high-schooler whose life changes one day after meeting Megumi Fushiguro and learning the existence of curses. In a desperate moment, he ends up swallowing a cursed object that makes him the vessel for Ryomen Sukuna, known as the King of Curses. Now with an impending execution ahead, Yuji must learn the ways of the jujutsu world and himself.
Despite being the protagonist, Yuji has the most basic ability in the story. He has always been physically gifted to the point of being able to perform superhumanly. Yuji is also a very skilled hand-to-hand combatant and possesses instinct far greater than any normal human, even jujutsu sorcerers.
However, when it comes to jujutsu, he has little to show. Here are the power and abilities of Yuji Itadori:
- Divergent Fist: Being so new to the jujutsu world, Yuji initially has trouble mastering his cursed energy. Under the guidance of Satoru Gojo, he learns to channel it, even though he still doesn’t have a cursed technique yet. Instead, he channels his cursed energy into his melee combat techniques in a way where the cursed energy hits the target a moment after the physical blow. Yuji calls this technique Divergent Fist.
- Black Flash: Black Flash is a technique that requires a deep understanding of cursed energy and few jujutsu sorcerers are able to perform. In this technique, the user channels their cursed energy within the span of 0.000001 seconds after the physical hit, creating a spatial distortion in the process that, in turn, causes the cursed energy to flash black.
Asta: Power and Abilities
The other challenger of the Yuji vs. Asta fight is Asta, the protagonist of Black Clover. In a world where everyone is born with magic, he’s the only one who possesses zero magical ability. Asta is an orphan who grew up in a church with his friend and fellow orphan Yuno. Both the boys dream of becoming the Wizard King of their kingdom. The ambition seems impossible for Asta until he receives an unprecedented five-leaf clover grimoire.
Though Asta never had any magical power whatsoever, he has always been blessed with exceptional physical prowess. From the beginning, he’s shown extraordinary strength, speed, and endurance, and even more so later by wielding the huge swords provided by his grimoire. Asta’s lack of mana also helps him on multiple occasions.
As with every wizard, Asta’s true power comes from his grimoire. Despite having no mana, Asta gets a five-leaf clover grimoire which has never been heard of. Here are the powers his unique grimoire provides:
- Anti Magic: Asta’s grimoire gives him the unique power of Anti Magic i.e., the ability to nullify magic.Â
- Anti Magic Swords: He channels his Anti Magic through a bunch of Anti Magic Swords provided by his grimoire. As of yet, Asta possesses four different Anti Magic Swords, each of which has a different appearance and specific ability.
- Demon-Slayer Sword: The Demon-Slayer Sword allows Asta to deflect spells by channeling his Anti Magic into the edges of the sword.
- Demon-Dweller Sword: The Demon-Dweller Sword can cut through spells by releasing projected slashes of Anti Magic.
- Demon-Destroyer Sword: The Demon-Destroyer Sword comes with a special ability called Casualty Break that allows Ats to absorb the aftereffects of any spell.
- Demon-Slasher Katana: Unlike the other three, the Demon-Slasher Katana doesn’t come from Asta’s grimoire, but rather is given to him by Yami Sukehiro. After channeling Anti Magic into the sword, Asta can release a slash that only affects his intended target and doesn’t harm anybody else. Later, the sword enters Asta’s grimoire and becomes a part of his collection.
- Unite: Asta’s possession of the five-leaf clover grimoire also connects him to the Devil Liebe. After uniting with Liebe, Asta becomes stronger and faster and gains the ability to coat any weapon with his Anti Magic.
- Ki: Asta learns Ki from the Hino Country. After learning it, he can use his sixth sense to perceive any attack without seeing it. He can also concentrate on channeling his Anti Magic and release a projected shot with the help of Ki.
Yuji Itadori: Power and Abilities
Now that we’ve discussed their individual powers and abilities, let’s see how they would fare if they were to fight against each other. Since the power system is different in their respective anime, we’d have to assume cursed energy to be the same as mana to get an idea about how Yuji vs. Asta fight would go.
Both Yuji and Asta are physically gifted and rely a lot on their physical prowess. Yuji’s usage of cursed energy is limited to his Divergent Fist and Black Flash. In Asta’s case, he doesn’t have mana at all. However, what he does have is Anti Magic. But even if Asta nullifies Yuji’s cursed energy, the rookie jujutsu sorcerer would still give a tough competition.
That’s why Yuji is a difficult opponent for Asta because, unlike his opponents in Black Clover, Yuji doesn’t entirely rely on mana or cursed energy in his case. That’s why Asta’s Anti Magic would only buy him a little advantage.Â
Asta is a skilled enough combatant to challenge Yuji and has the further advantages of being a master swordsman and having mastered Ki. But despite these in his arsenal, Asta would lose to Yuji in martial arts and hand-to-hand combat, leaving the jujutsu sorcerer to be the winner of the Yuji vs. Asta fight.Â
To get a better idea of how the fight would go, we’ll compare them in various aspects of the fight:
Based on Strength
As mentioned before, both Yuji and Asta are physically very strong. Yuji is capable of lifting a whole car while Asta regularly wields his huge swords without effort. But when it comes to strength, we have to give this point to Yuji because his fights are majorly dependent on his physical strength. He’s shown superhuman strength on multiple occasions including breaking someone’s bones with his punches and kicking his opponents several feet away.
Based on Speed
They are also very fast. Yuji has shown his exceptional speed, faster than the world record. Asta is also fast but not quite on par with Yuji. So, Yuji wins both the strength and speed rounds of Yuji vs. Asta.
Based on Durability
Durability is important in a fight and both Yuji and Asta have got plenty of it. Both can withstand multiple attacks and damages and still keep fighting. However, Yuji’s superhuman stamina far surpasses Asta’s naturally high durability in a fight.
Based on Abilities
When it comes to abilities, Asta surpasses Yuji quite easily. Yuji’s usage of cursed energy is very limited and he doesn’t even have a cursed technique while Asta’s Anti Magic is nothing short of ace in the hole. Along with that, Asta has also mastered Ki and now has superhuman perception of his surroundings and exceptional instincts.
There’s no question that Asta wins the abilities round of the Yuji vs. Asta fight since Yuji relies too much on hand-to-hand combat to be considered versatile.
Conclusion
At the conclusion of our Yuji vs. Asta discussion, we see that despite not having very special abilities, Yuji still is a very strong character who can win a fight solely with his physical prowess and martial arts skills. As a new-gen shounen protagonist, this is quite rare and what makes him such a great main character. Asta is also a wonderful protagonist who only gets better with time.
His defeat in this hypothetical fight is only because of Yuji’s lack of reliance on his cursed energy. But from the ability standpoint, Asta is much superior.
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Anamika loves words and stories and putting them to pages. She also loves anime, manga, books, movies and everything fantasy. She has been a fan of anime since childhood and her admiration for it only grew with years. Her passion for writing is even more elevated by writing about the things she loves.
