Maki Zenin (JujutsuKaisenRising.0)

Megumi Fushiguro (Second Nephew)

* Oboro Mu (Boyfriend)

**Maki Zenin** (禪 (ぜん) 院 (いん) 真 (ま) 希 (き) , *Zen'in Maki*?) is a major supporting character in *Jujutsu Kaisen: The Star, The Blight, and The Rose* and one of the main protagonists of its prequel, *Jujutsu Kaisen 0: Jujutsu High Rebirth*. She is currently a second-year at Tokyo Jujutsu High. Daughter of Ogi Zenin and the elder twin sister of Mai Zenin, Maki was born in the Zenin Clan.

Born a non-sorcerer in one of the Big Three Sorcerer Families, Maki was constantly mistreated and felt compelled to expel herself from the Zenin clan alongside Oboro Mu. She aspires to be a great jujutsu sorcerer to spite her family, working closely with her friends Panda, Oboro Mu, Death Scythe, and Toge Inumaki, while also serving as a role model to the first-year students.

## Appearance

Maki is a young woman with a tall athletic build. She has small golden eyes and long black hair (dark green in the anime) normally tied into a short ponytail. She had fringes of hair over her forehead with smaller strands framing her cheeks and used to sport different pairs of glasses that allowed her to see curses.

While still a member of the Zenin clan, Maki wore a traditional outfit, a white yukata, and a black hakama. Maki's original Jujutsu High student uniform consisted of the traditional long sleeve jacket with a skirt. As a first-year student, she wore thick, long tan socks and black shoes with her uniform. As a second-year Maki wore a different pair of glasses and sported black leggings instead of socks.

While training for the Goodwill Event, Maki wore a purple tracksuit a black jersey with tan shorts over her leggings. While training Yuta Okkotsu, Maki wore the same top with darker shorts. Her casual clothes consisted of a cyan hoodie over a white shirt with pink horizontal stripes, white shorts over black leggings, and white boots.

### Post Shibuya

Maki was severely burned by Jogo's flames during the Shibuya Incident. This has left a great deal of her body covered in scars from the severe burns, running all the way up and down both her arms and the sides of her face. Her hair now only reaches just past her ears, which may be a result of her cutting it, or it may have been partially or entirely burned off. And overtime from training while she recovered from her injuries developed a more robust physique than before.

Maki decided to alter her uniform to keep her arms mostly uncovered. She wore a sleeveless, turtle-neck, black shirt underneath a large cape attached by two Jujutsu High pins on each side. The shirt tucked into a large brown belt with a gold buckle, tied around the waste of tight black pants. The glasses she paired with this outfit were circular but Maki's right eye was covered in bandages from the burns.

During her conflict with the Zenin Family, Maki lost her right eye altogether and now has a scar where it was sliced by her father's katana. She ditched the cape but sports mostly the same outfit, with the same sleeveless shirt paired with the same pants, belt, and shoes. By the time she entered the Culling Game, Maki reclaimed her cape and had her right eye completely healed.

## Personality

Maki is a very headstrong and straightforward person who tries to drive herself forward without needing anyone else's help. She is extremely strong-willed, capable, and motivated to escape the standards that have been set for her by people who are supposed to be her family.

In a sorcerer clan, strong cursed techniques are everything, but Maki couldn't even see curses. Women in sorcerer clans have to stand out even more, leading Maki to be constantly severely mistreated and abused by the Zenin clan. Despite feeling cursed by her own blood, Maki motivates herself to become a strong sorcerer regardless of what her family thinks. She wants to break apart the foundation of their way of their life and reject it completely.

Maki can come off as rather cold at times, even to her classmates. She is the leader type but Maki is very tough on others and tends to be impatient and hot-tempered, something both she and her best friend, Oboro, share. Maki doesn't seem to respect Satoru Gojo as a person due to his very goofy attitude. Even as her teacher and senior, Maki often refers to him as a moron. She was initially very mean to Yuta because of his shy attitude and openly told him he had no business attending Jujutsu High as a cursed human.

While working on a mission together, Maki and Yuta learned to understand one another and she realized they weren't so different. She asked Yuta why he enrolled in the school and he told her that he wanted it to be acceptable for him to live. Maki told him that's what Jujutsu High is all about and encouraged him to use his curse to save people.

Maki trained Yuta harshly because she wants to see him get stronger and fight beside her. Something she would later impart on to Megumi, Nozomi, Saki, and Nobara as their senpai. She's taught them all highly advanced situational awareness and how to properly wield a variety of weapons, even if they had to get beaten up a lot in the process.

Maki has repressed many of her emotions to maintain her trademark tough exterior. She hadn’t expressed romantic interest in anyone and Panda enjoyed teasing her about this as first-years. When it came to Yuta, this embarrassed Maki enough to lash out at Panda in a temper. In Oboro’s case, she could barely articulate words, with her only expressing her feelings towards him upon her finding Oboro motionless after his and Yuta’s victory over Suguru Geto, punching Oboro in the gut when he woke up for “scaring her”.

Following their first encounter with Suguru Geto, Maki and Yuta talked about why Geto referred to her as the "failure of the Zenin clan". Maki initially played it off as if being born a non-sorcerer gave her a perfect excuse to leave because she hated the clan for a variety of other reasons. When Yuta inquired as to why Maki chooses to be a sorcerer and Maki said it's because she's got a bad personality and wants to be a grade 1 sorcerer to spite the Zenin clan.

Yuta admires Maki's strength and revealed he wants to be like her, strong and resilient. Yuta awkwardly offered to help her stick it to the Zenin clan but called him an idiot and said it was something she needed to do alone. She had spent so long rejecting the need to feel accepted that she became flustered that Yuta kindly recognized her strength. Maki left the conversation to gain her composure and then reminded herself that she should not go feeling like she's finally been recognized.

As a second-year student, Maki carries an aura of leadership and guides her juniors appropriately, unlike her now boyfriend, Oboro, who still acts childish from time to time. She gravitates toward Megumi Fushiguro because he's also an ex-member of the Zenin clan and they get along well. She's comfortable with teasing him even if it's harsh and this can make her come off as a "cold-hearted demon" at times. When she found Megumi sulking with Nobara Kugisaki, she jokingly asked them if they had just attended a funeral. However, this was ironically after their classmate, Yuji Itadori's death. This made Maki feel really guilty and as usual, she lashed out at Panda in a rage for not informing her sooner, which Oboro found funny. Even after the accident, Maki was still unsure if taking it easy on the first-year students would've even been a kindness.

Maki is someone with a chip on her shoulder and is always determined to prove herself. For the Kyoto Goodwill Event, she needed strong teammates to help showcase her abilities on a public stage where she couldn't be denied. She encouraged her first-year juniors to get stronger for their fallen ally and figured it was the perfect opportunity to put her juniors in their place.

Maki doesn't appear to be concerned with the moral aspects of being a sorcerer and is more focused on personal goals. While training, Megumi asked Maki what kind of people she wanted to save as a sorcerer but she doesn't think about that kind of stuff. This clearly annoyed Megumi which in turn angered Maki. She decided to compromise and told Megumi they could talk about it if he improved his skills in hand-to-hand combat enough to challenge her.

As a child, Maki promised her twin sister Mai that she would stay with her forever. However, as Maki grew older she realized she couldn't live under the thumb of the oppressive family while Mai was content with doing so. Leaving Mai behind led the only other person Maki cared about in the clan to resent her as well. Mai was punished for Maki, and especially Oboro’s leaving by getting pressured into becoming a sorcerer even though she wanted to live a normal life. She grew to hate Maki, and especially Oboro by the time they were both in Jujutsu High, believing that Oboro specifically “poisoned her sister against her”.

Mai treated Maki as if she was worthless because she lacked significant cursed energy. This is the same type of ridicule most of the Zenin clan threw at Maki all her life, so it didn't appear to bother Maki all that much. In the stance where Mai and Nobara got in a fight, Maki told her twin that they were both worthless because Mai isn't that talented herself, only able to charge weapons with cursed energy.

This revelation surprised Nobara, who asked the same question Yuta did, why would Maki want to become a sorcerer. Maki simply told her that she wanted to prove her family wrong by becoming a great sorcerer. Nobara expressed her profound respect but Maki didn't make a big deal out of it.

During the planning phase of the Goodwill Event, Maki overheard Nobara telling Yuji about her circumstances and how they have to win to prove the Zenin clan wrong. At the time, it annoyed her, but only because Maki doesn't want the others to worry about her. Recalling her classmate's acknowledgment of her ability, later on, made Maki smile.

Maki doesn't take well to taunts and is quick to insult anyone back regardless of who they are. Inside his domain, Dagon called Maki the weakest there. After surviving a hard hit that surely injured her, Maki responded by bolding taunting Dagon and confronting the special grade directly again. Maki told the "octopus" that if he's going to call her weak, then he should've killed in her with that one hit. Maki was also annoyed with herself for not taking Playful Cloud out earlier in preparation for tougher battles instead of waiting for permission. She was happy to see Megumi when he invaded the domain and gave her Playful Cloud. She smiled and her way of expressing gratitude to her junior was calling Megumi a cocky brat.

Maki was severely scarred and injured as a result of the fighting in Shibuya, but she's not the type to ever make a big deal out of it. Yuta reunited with her after some time and expressed his concern but Maki claimed she was fine. When Yuki acknowledged what happened and commended Maki's toughness, Maki simply replied that it was not like she was going for it.

Even in a team of unlikely allies compiled to combat the Culling Game, Maki's leadership skills helped everyone keep in line with their roles for rescuing Tsumiki Fushiguro. She was the one who suggested that Yuji and Megumi recruit Hakari despite his bad attitude because their group is shorthanded and needs all the help they can get.

After the betrayal of her father, and the subsequent “death” of her sister, Maki was forced to say goodbye to her sister too soon, marking a massive change in her personality. Inside a dream-like space, Mai explained that she was going to sacrifice herself while distancing herself from Maki. During that conversation, Maki listened to Mai's explanation but she was constantly trying to close that distance. She didn't want to let go of Mai, before they ever truly got a chance to reconcile, but was forced to accept this was the end. In exchange for Mai giving everything to ensure Maki reached her potential, Maki promised to destroy everything. Maki was devastated by her sister's apparent death but had no time to mourn and had to carry out Mai's request immediately, killing their father in cold blood. Immediately after, Maki was ready to continue and looked to the last thing her sister left for her, a sword. With a cold and remorseless disposition, Maki looked to the sword and told Mai "lets get started."

Maki ruthlessly annihilated the entire Zenin clan without any expression of emotion. She slaughtered every member of the Hei and the Kukuri unit present that day without a hint of remorse. The only words she exchanged with anyone were with Naoya when he asked if she had a human heart. This was after she decapitated Jinichi and tossed his severed head into a pond. Her reply was simply: "No... it was taken from me." He also tried to call Maki an imposter during their fight but Maki interrupted him by smashing his face with a punch. Then she taunted him by asking him if he could repeat that statement.

In the midst of her ruthless tirade, Maki still wanted to believe there was good left in her family. Before killing her own mother, Maki attempted to see if her mom was trying to warn her about Ogi's trap back when she harassed Maki upon her return. However, Maki was assuming the best of her mother and appeared disappointed when she didn't get a fortunate answer. Maki's own mother fell way to her vengeful wrath and even after that, Maki left Mai's body with Momo Nishimiya Kaito Yuki, and was present when Oboro killed off the rest of the clan members who weren't present that day. Upon reuniting with Oboro, Maki was unable to compose herself, losing herself to her pent up grief and crying into Oboro’s arms.

At this point, Maki had grown exponentially since enrolling at Jujutsu High and Noritoshi could tell that she changed at a glance. However, she grew content being more like her peers, and was unable to maximize her potential. She lacked the perception same Hagane Daido possessed and struggled to understand what she was missing to make her like Toji Fushiguro. While normally relaxed and focused, Maki became tense and frustrated. Maki was self-aware enough to recognize that she was overthinking and accepted Rokujushi Miyo's offer to sumo wrestle in order to blow off some steam. Maki never truly had anyone she could sincerely recognize as a teacher because she views Satoru and Atsuya as idiots, and views Oboro’s coaching as more of advice than actual lessons. She never rejected the idea of having a teacher due to pride, it just never crossed her mind to rely on anyone else to grow stronger. Maki put her trust in Miyo and explained what was holding her back. Through sumo wrestling, Miyo taught Maki how to free her mind and perceive everything around her without the pressures of the world on her shoulders. During this, she recalled a conversation with Oboro several days prior, in which he told her to “leave it all behind if it means you get stronger.”. With that newfound freedom of the mind, Maki smiled and proudly declared that she was at her best.

Maki's enlightened mental state allowed her to bring out her full fighting potential. She regained her calm and focused demeanor along with a newfound sense of freedom and confidence in herself. She realized it wasn't enough to be like everyone else and needed to focus on what she could do specifically, things only she and Toji could achieve as she recalled Oboro’s complete, unwavering belief in her abilities. Maki was completely nonchalant during the latter stages of her fight with Naoya's cursed spirit form as he became the increasingly frustrated one. Maki didn't bother acknowledging Naoya's antics a single time and effortlessly took him down. In one last conversation with her sister, Maki is able to confirm that she's broken anything that shackled her, just as Mai intended.

Despite everything Maki has been through, she remains loyal and kind to her friends. Although she and Noritoshi weren't close before their time in Sakurajima together, Maki could relate to him due to their complicated familial relationships. Maki told Noritoshi to talk with his mother before assuming she doesn't want him. After learning Naoya was killed by her mother, Maki admits maybe she was wrong about her and never got a good answer as to what a mother is. She emplored Noritoshi to find out for himself and not to make the same mistake she did. Upon Kaito relaying information that Mai could be brought back, Maki’s eyes shone with a long lost light.

## Abilities and Powers

**Overall Skill Level**: Maki's grade 4 ranking is not at all reflective of her actual skill level. She was born a non-sorcerer but she has always had tremendous physical abilities, gifted through heavenly restriction in exchange for her severely low cursed energy. By mastering the use of weapons and studying curses at Jujutsu High, she has become a jujutsu sorcerer nonetheless.

Satoru Gojo and Mei Mei both casually agreed that as a second-year students, there was no good reason Maki wasn't ranked at least grade 2. Maki's tension with the Zenin clan caused them to stall their promotion even though she can exorcise a grade 2 cursed spirit with ease. Oboro Mu, her closest friend and boyfriend, has been known for never doubting Maki’s abilities, and constantly praising her capabilities as a jujutsu sorcerer.

Maki's close peers all recognize how powerful she is, Yuji Itadori could tell just by looking that she has an aura of strength. Even so, she's still often underestimated by her opponents. She wields quality cursed tools with proficiency and her heavenly restricted physical prowess is second only to Yuji's superhuman abilities.

In the 2018 Goodwill Event, Maki made short work of both Kasumi Miwa and Mai one after the other. Kasumi realized Mai was dead wrong about calling Maki a weakling and believed she'd exorcise a grade 2 curse with ease. In a fight between weapons users, Maki effortlessly overpowered Miwa and took her katana from her. Mai did her best to use tricks to overcome her sister, but she was also forced to recognize that Maki's physical abilities far surpassed her own. Against Hanami, the special grade cursed spirit that invaded the event, Maki was able to hold her own with Megumi's help and bought enough time for reinforcements to arrive.

Maki also proved herself an asset in the harrowing battles of Shibuya despite Naobito and Nanami telling her to turn back. She was a step slower than the seasoned grade 1 sorcerers at the start of the fight with Dagon and Naobito rescued her at one point, but Maki continued to improve throughout the battle. Inside Dagon's domain, Maki survived his early onslaught and even launched an effective counterattack against the special grade with Megumi's aid.

Fighting against her father, Maki was able to overwhelm her opponent in a sword duel, but Ogi ultimately cut her down using jujutsu. As Mai explained, Maki was never able to reach her full potential because what little cursed energy she had was only holding her back. Twins are treated as the same person in jujutsu and Mai was the one born with the innate cursed technique. In exchange for “sacrificing” her life and taking all the cursed energy between them with her, Mai was able to free Maki from cursed energy and grant her a body of steel.

Maki's heavenly restricted body was immensely improved, to the point where her strength is comparable to Toji Fushiguro. She effortlessly killed her father in an instant and then went on to annihilate all of the clan's strongest fighters. Maki slaughtered every member of the Kukuru Unit when they had her completely surrounded. Then the Hei immediately ambushed her with all their cursed techniques only for Maki to destroy all of them with a single cursed tool.

Even Naoya, who inherited Naobito's cursed technique and refused to accept Maki could be Toji's successor in strength, was bested by her new power. Maki has surpassed Naobito, who once saved her. She has showcased the ability to eliminate one of the Big Three Sorcerer Clans and she can't be tracked now that she has no cursed energy at all.

Maki gained a body of steel but mental shackles held her back from maximizing her potential until she changed her mindset. While she was strong enough to eliminate the Zenin clan, she struggled against Naoya when she fought him as a vengeful curse in Sakurajima. She couldn't close the gap in abilities between herself and Toji because she had become content being like her peers and didn't allow herself to thrive in areas only she could excel at. After some guidance from Rokujushi Miyo and words shared with her by Oboro, Maki freed her mind and realized she could perceive inorganic matter. This advanced perception allows her to see how her opponent will move due to the subtle changes in temperature and air density. She can even take hold of these scattered surfaces to move in mid-air at extreme speeds. She was also completely immune to Naoya's domain expansion and effortlessly killed him. Twelve years after his death, a war god equal to Toji Zenin has been fully realized in Maki.

Fully awakened, Maki was able to stand up to a fifteen-finger Sukuna while fighting alongside Yuji and Nozomi. Sukuna was in an unpolished state and Maki held her own against him in hand-to-hand combat, even shaking off a direct hit from him.

**Master Weapons Specialist**: Maki is touted as the best cursed tool user at Tokyo Jujutsu High. Able to wield a wide assortment of different weapons, Maki has mastered all sorts of armed combat styles, with even Death Scythe, a fellow classmate who specializes in cursed tools, is inferior to Maki’s mastery. She appears to prefer using polearms and spears in battle but is fully capable of switching between multiple weapons in the course of a single fight.

Maki's proficiency with weapons is also shown in her ability to teach others to use them. She helped give Yuta a strong base for close combat by training him to use a katana. He became a decent sparring partner after three months and he eventually blossomed into a talented swordsman. Maki is also responsible for teaching Megumi how to fight in close quarters. He was extremely lacking at the beginning of his first year at Jujutsu High but she has shown him how valuable close-quarters combat is. She helped him realize he could keep weapons in his shadow and motivated him to learn how to fight with a variety of different types of weapons.

**Master Hand-to-Hand Combatant**: Maki is well trained in several forms of close-quarters combat and generally uses hand-to-hand in tandem with her weaponry. While her hands are generally occupied fighting with weapons, Maki likes to throw kicks at the same time. While fighting Mai, Maki sliced apart her foothold with a katana then delivered a devastating kick to her sister's body that tossed her through the air.

Unlike Yuji, Maki generally didn't get to showcase her martial arts skills because she requires cursed tools to be a sorcerer. Maki did, however, use hand-to-hand combat to best many members of the Zenin clan with her improved body of steel. Chojuro and Nobuaki were both killed with Maki's bare hands and she defeated Naoya with a single punch after parrying many of his early high-speed attacks. After unlocking her full potential, Maki even overpowered Sukuna in a few exchanges during their fight.

**High Tactical Intellect**: Maki was raised in one of the major sorcerer clans so she has a solid grasp on the important aspects of the jujutsu world. While generally looking to overpower her opponents with her physical skills, Maki is also a highly intelligent fighter. She has proven leadership skills and gives effective orders within her squad to work together as a unit. As one of the de-facto leaders of the Tokyo Team in the Goodwill Event alongside Oboro, Maki came up with the strategy to counter Aoi Todo's one-track mind and brute strength. She and Megumi were also quick to figure out the Kyoto Team's formation was targeting an assassination on Yuji. In Shibuya, it was her plan for Nobara and Akari to leave the barrier and rescue Ijichi.

Against her father, Maki formulated a good plan to win a sword exchange with Ogi. She feigned a single-strike duel and then followed up with more attacks that broke Ogi's katana. She defeated Naoya by constantly analyzing his cursed technique and looking for the secret to his speed, which she was eventually able to figure out.

**Immense Strength**: Maki has always possessed extraordinarily high levels of strength for a human. She knocked out Aoi Todo with a baseball to the face and broke a wooden polearm over her thigh, something no normal person is physically capable of. As a testament to her heavenly gifted strength, Playful Cloud is a cursed tool that relies solely on its user's power. She was able to use it to damage two powerful special grade cursed spirits on her own.

As with all of her physical abilities, Maki's strength grew tremendously after her cursed energy was completely taken away. It is more than enough to fight back against cursed techniques. Maki easily broke free from the stone hands attack that Chojuro hit her with and broke free from Ranta's paralysis using brute strength and willpower. Compounded with the speed Naoya was approaching her at, the brute strength in Maki's left hand crippled the right side of her opponent's face to end their fight.

**Immense Agility & Reflexes**: Maki has incredible speed to match her strength and moves well enough in a fight for her agility to be acknowledged by Hanami. She makes sharp moves, and stays highly mobile in a fight with great precision. Against Mai's revolver, Maki effortlessly dodged and weaved through her sister's barrage of bullets. Not only did she slice a bullet in half with a katana, Maki even moved fast enough to catch a speeding bullet just a few centimeters from her face using incredibly astute reflexes.

er escaping from cursed energy, Maki's body could move and react fast enough to compete with Naoya's Projection Sorcery, which allowed him to break subsonic speed. She killed Chojuro and Nobuaki before either of them even knew what happened. In their last moments, both noted how Maki's speed had grown so much she had become unrecognizable. Once fully realized, Maki's speed has reached inconceivable levels for a human being. Naoya, a curse that can move three times the speed of sound, was unable to catch her.

**Immense Endurance**: Although she never had an effective resistance to curses, Maki has always been tough. Her inborn physical toughness saved her life when she was burned point blank by Jogo's cursed technique, though Yuki Tsukumo noted that Oboro’s emergency aid and carrying her to Shoko Ieiri helped her recover. No amount of curse tolerance saved Naobito from similar injuries.

While Maki was very durable, she was eventually sliced open and incapacitated by her father. Maki's improved body of steel healed her injuries and came with highly improved durability that overpowered the Zenin clan's cursed techniques with pure physical prowess. Maki suffered a direct hit from Chojuro's giant stone hands smashing together, something Nobuaki believed should've completely immobilized her, and broke out of the stone just a few moments later.

## Trivia

* Maki's surname contains the kanji for "meditation" (禪, *zen*?) and "institution" (禪, *in*?), and her first name contains "real, genuine" (真, *ma*?) and "hope" (希, *ki*?).
* Maki loves junk food.
* Maki's hair is straighter than Mai Zenin's hair.
* According to Jujutsu Kaisen Unofficial Fanbook:
	+ Enrollment method: Family lineage.
	+ Her specialty is crushing empty cans.
	+ Favorite dish: Junk food.
	+ Least Favorite dish: Vegetarian food.
	+ Cause of stress: Zenin family procedure.
* She thinks Oboro’s “technique collecting” is stupid.