Jujutsu Kaisen Watch and Read Order: Anime, the 0 Movie and Manga

Jujutsu Kaisen is easy to start and a little tricky to keep straight. So far there are three TV seasons, a prequel movie, two recap films, a finished 30-volume manga, a separate prequel volume, two novels and a short spinoff. This guide lays out what each piece is and the order to take them in, without spoiling a single plot turn.

The short version

If you just want to press play, watch in release order:

1. Season 1 (24 episodes, October 2020 to March 2021)
2. Jujutsu Kaisen 0, the movie (Japan: December 24, 2021; US and Canada: March 2022)
3. Season 2 (23 episodes, July to December 2023)
4. Season 3: The Culling Game Part 1 (12 episodes, January to March 2026)
5. Season 4: The Culling Game Part 2 (announced, no date yet)

That's 59 TV episodes and one movie as of this writing. Every piece of it was animated by studio MAPPA, and Crunchyroll has streamed the recent seasons outside Asia on the same day as Japan.

What each piece is

Season 1 introduces Yuji Itadori, a high schooler with absurd physical strength and an ordinary school life, right up until he gets pulled into the hidden world of curses and the sorcerers who fight them. Through the season he ends up enrolled at Jujutsu High, a school for sorcerers, under the eye of a teacher named Satoru Gojo. That's the whole premise, and it's all you need going in.

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is a prequel movie. It adapts Gege Akutami's one-volume prequel manga, which VIZ Media describes like this: Yuta Okkotsu is a nervous high school student whose childhood friend Rika has turned into a Curse and won't leave him alone, and Gojo convinces him to enroll at Jujutsu High. It stands on its own, and later seasons build on it.

Season 2 is two story arcs back to back. Episodes 1 to 5 are "Hidden Inventory / Premature Death," a flashback to Gojo's own school days with fellow student Suguru Geto. Episodes 6 to 23 are "Shibuya Incident," which picks the main story back up. The season ran for two continuous cours (a cour is one broadcast quarter, about three months), with two recap episodes in between the arcs.

Season 3, The Culling Game Part 1, opened with a one-hour, two-episode premiere in January 2026 and closed in March with an extended 27-minute finale, the 59th episode overall. Season 4, The Culling Game Part 2, is on the way: the official Weekly Shonen Jump site shared its teaser video in June 2026 and was still describing it as in production in September 2026, with no release date announced.

Release order vs. story order

The story's timeline doesn't match the release order. According to Crunchyroll's official description of Season 2, the flashback arc is set in spring 2006, Jujutsu Kaisen 0 wraps up in December 2017, and Yuji's story begins in June 2018.

A strict chronological watch would look like this:

1. Season 2, episodes 1 to 5 (2006)
2. Jujutsu Kaisen 0 (2017)
3. Season 1 (2018)
4. Season 2, episodes 6 to 23
5. Season 3

It works, but release order is the friendlier route for a first watch. The official anime site's own introduction to Season 2 says the flashback finally reveals the past that the movie only hinted at, which means it was designed to land after you've seen the film. Season 1 is also where the show explains its world from scratch, through the eyes of a kid who knows nothing about curses. Starting there means you learn the rules alongside him.

If you'd rather begin with the movie, that's a reasonable choice too. Jujutsu Kaisen 0 tells a complete story with its own lead and its own ending. Just know that Season 1 was made with the assumption that its audience was meeting this world for the first time.

The recap movies (optional)

Two theatrical compilation films have been made from the TV series. Neither is required.

• Hidden Inventory / Premature Death – The Movie (Japan: May 2025) is a compilation of the Season 2 flashback arc. GKIDS screened it in US theaters in July 2025.
• Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution (Japan: November 7, 2025; North America: December 5, 2025) is a special edit of the Shibuya Incident arc, followed by the first two episodes of Season 3 ahead of their TV debut.

One small catch: if you saw Execution in a theater, you've already seen the first two episodes of Season 3.

Reading the manga

Gege Akutami's manga ran in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump from March 2018 to September 2024, and it's collected in 30 volumes. VIZ Media published the English edition from Volume 1 on December 3, 2019, through Volume 30 on May 12, 2026. VIZ and Shueisha's MANGA Plus service have both published it digitally in English.

Then there's Volume 0. It collects a four-chapter series Akutami ran in Jump GIGA in 2017, before the main series launched, and it was later retitled Jujutsu Kaisen 0. VIZ released it in English on January 5, 2021. You can read it first (that's publication order) or slot it in after Volume 8 or so if you're mirroring the anime's release order. Either way it reads cleanly, because it's a self-contained story.

Where the anime leaves off in the manga

If you've watched some of the anime and want to switch to reading, here's roughly where to pick up. These are volume-level pointers, not exact chapter numbers.

• Season 1 ends partway through Volume 8.
• The movie adapts Volume 0.
• Season 2 opens with the flashback arc, which begins late in Volume 8 and runs through Volume 9, and ends in Volume 16, the volume where the Shibuya Incident wraps up.
• Season 3's last two episodes cover battles that VIZ's synopsis of Volume 20 describes, and VIZ's Volume 21 synopsis moves on to Hakari and Panda heading for the Tokyo No. 2 Colony, which the anime hasn't reached yet. So Volume 21 is the place to pick up, with the end of Volume 20 as overlap.

Because the manga is finished, you can read straight through to the end without waiting on anything. Just be aware that anything past Season 3 is territory the anime hasn't reached yet, so the fan conversation online gets spoiler-heavy fast.

The extras

These are side dishes. None of them is needed to follow the main story.

• Two prose novels, written by Ballad Kitaguni from Akutami's original concept. VIZ published Jujutsu Kaisen: Summer of Ashes, Autumn of Dust on December 27, 2022, and Jujutsu Kaisen: Thorny Road at Dawn on April 25, 2023. Both are side stories starring the main cast.
• Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo, a three-volume spinoff manga written by Akutami and drawn by Yuji Iwasaki. It ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from September 2025 to March 2026. MANGA Plus describes it as set in 2086, 68 years after the Culling Game, which is a later arc of the main story. Save it until you've finished the original.

Quick reference

• Fastest way in: Season 1, then the movie, then Seasons 2 and 3.
• Purist's way in: follow the in-universe timeline listed above.
• Reader's way in: Volume 0 and Volumes 1 to 30, then Modulo.
• Already watching: switch to the manga at Volume 8, Volume 16 or Volume 21, depending on where you stopped.

Whichever door you pick, you end up in the same strange, scary, funny world. Enjoy the ride.