Start with Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 1, not with Jujutsu Kaisen 0. The zero volume is a prequel: four chapters Gege Akutami serialised in 2017 before the main series began, collected and renumbered afterwards. Its numbering is a publishing artefact, not a reading instruction. Volume 1 is the actual beginning — a high-schooler swallows a cursed finger, becomes the vessel for a thousand-year-old curse, and is enrolled in a school for sorcerers on the condition that he will be executed later.
Where volume 0 does belong is around volume 8. That is where the series turns to the flashback showing Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto as students, and the prequel's antagonist is the reason that flashback matters. Read it first and it is a decent standalone; read it after volume 8 and its ending is one of the best-placed reveals in the run. Some readers put it first for chronology. That is defensible, but it spends a reveal for nothing.
This list skips volumes, and the story does not
Our catalogue holds volumes 1 to 8, then volume 0, then volumes 10, 12, 14 and 16. Those gaps are ours, not the manga's. Jujutsu Kaisen reads straight through in numeric order with no side stories to slot in and no alternate continuity, so volumes 9, 11, 13 and 15 must be read in place, between the ones listed here. Do not treat this page as a complete volume list — treat it as the order, with holes in our records. The series ran in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2018, finished in 2024, and runs to thirty volumes in total.
Volumes 1 to 4: the setup
Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 1 through Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 4 establish the school, the grading system for curses and sorcerers, and the small cast that carries the whole series. Volume 2 is where the fight choreography and the rules of cursed energy click into place; our record for it carries the Japanese title alongside the English one, which is a cataloguing quirk and not a different edition. The early volumes are the most conventional part of the series — a shonen school arc with a body count.
Volumes 5 to 8: the Goodwill Event and the turn
Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 5, Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 6, Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 7 and Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 8 cover the exchange event with the sister school and then pivot hard. This is where the series stops being about ranked fights and starts being about the institution the students belong to and what it is willing to do to them. Volume 8 leads directly into the flashback arc, which is the natural moment for the prequel.
The prequel
Jujutsu Kaisen 0 follows Yuta Okkotsu, a boy haunted by a childhood friend who died and came back as a curse. It is tighter than anything in the main series because it was written as a self-contained story, and its supporting cast rejoins the plot much later.
Volumes 10 to 16: the strongest run
Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 10 and Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 12 build toward the Shibuya Incident, which occupies roughly Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 14 through Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 16 and beyond. Most readers name Shibuya as the peak of the series and a considerable number stop shortly after it. That is a real option: it is a resolution of a kind, the cast is permanently reduced, and the arcs that follow are structured differently — more tournament, more exposition, more new characters — and are more divisive. Nothing after Shibuya is bad enough to warn you off, but if the series was working for you because of its cast, be aware that the cast changes.
Honest warnings
This is a violent series and specifically a mutilating one: the horror imagery is graphic, major characters die badly, and the Shibuya arc kills people the story has spent fifteen volumes making you like. The comedy is broad and sits directly against that, which some readers find tonally unbearable. The anime covers roughly the first eight volumes in its first season, with the prequel adapted as a separate film, so an anime-first reader can begin the manga around volume 9 without missing anything — but reading from volume 1 takes an evening. More manga and comics lie on Discover.
Follow the full ordered path here: Jujutsu Kaisen Reading Order: Where to Start and What Order to Read the Manga In.
