I’ve always been fascinated by the quiet gears that turn a story behind the scenes — those supporting players who never occupy the spotlight but whose choices, values, and deaths ripple outward and reshape everything. When I ask myself which supporting character in Jujutsu Kaisen had the biggest unseen impact on the plot, my mind returns, again and again, to Kento Nanami. He’s not the loudest or flashiest presence, but his influence on Yuji, the narrative’s moral framing, and the series’ approach to sacrifice and duty has been profound.
Why Nanami? A short premise
On paper, Nanami is a classic supporting character: an adult sorcerer who mentors the protagonist, appears intermittently, and ultimately meets a heroic — yet understated — death. But what makes him different is how much of the story’s emotional architecture he helps construct without grabbing the center stage. His worldview contrasts with Gojo’s brash confidence and Yuji’s youthful idealism, providing a stabilizing — and sometimes sobering — lens through which the series explores the cost of being a sorcerer.
Mentor without melodrama
Nanami’s mentorship of Yuji is intentionally understated. He doesn’t deliver motivational speeches or perform emotional cliff dives. Instead, he models a way of living as a sorcerer: pragmatic, disciplined, and bound by a quiet sense of responsibility. When Nanami trains Yuji, it’s not just about improving technique. He teaches him how to think like an adult who has to make moral trade-offs. That training becomes visible in the moments when Yuji chooses to prioritize people he cares about over an abstract notion of the “right” thing to do. Those decisions shape key plot points later on — from how Yuji confronts enemies to how he responds to loss.
Shaping Yuji’s moral compass
One of Nanami’s most significant contributions is how he anchors Yuji’s moral development. Yuji is inherently compassionate, but without Nanami he might remain impulsive and naive. Nanami’s approach — “do your job, and remember why you’re doing it” — gives Yuji a framework for channeling that compassion into action. This is crucial during scenes where Yuji must weigh saving foes, protecting bystanders, or following orders. Their contrasting philosophies (Yuji’s empathy vs Nanami’s duty-driven pragmatism) deepen the narrative stakes and make Yuji’s eventual choices feel earned rather than convenient.
Reframing sacrifice — death that matters
Nanami’s death during the Shibuya Incident arc hits particularly hard because of the character he had become for Yuji and the audience: a calm realist who accepted the bleakness of their world, yet kept fighting. In many shonen narratives, supporting deaths are emotional tools — flashy or manipulative. Nanami’s death is quieter, which makes it more unsettling. It exposes the vulnerability of the adult sorcerers and forces both the characters and readers to reckon with the real, irreversible costs of the conflict. That moment reshapes the ensemble: it pulls Yuji further into the adult world, increases the sense of urgency among sorcerers, and highlights the consequences of underestimating curses and enemies.
The unseen systemic impact
Beyond personal growth, Nanami’s presence and absence reveal structural truths about the jujutsu world. He embodies the exhausted, overworked sorcerer — someone who once had agency (he left and resumed as he wished) and then returns to duty. His method of compartmentalizing grief and duty reveals how the jujutsu world tries to survive long-term trauma. When Nanami dies, it’s not just a personal loss; it’s an institutional crack. It shows that even experienced sorcerers can be overwhelmed, which influences recruitment, tactics, and the general morale of the entire jujutsu community. That sense of systemic vulnerability becomes an undercurrent that drives later plot choices.
Foil to Gojo — a counterpoint that clarifies stakes
Nanami’s interactions with Gojo, while limited, are telling. Gojo is the public symbol of overwhelming power and optimism about the future of sorcery. Nanami, in contrast, is the realistic counterpoint who sees the long-term wear and tear. This dynamic is crucial because it prevents the narrative from leaning too heavily on a “power saves everything” trope. Nanami’s skepticism and pragmatism constantly remind readers and characters that power isn’t synonymous with problem-solving; sometimes the issues are structural, ethical, or emotional. That framing matters because it makes the major conflicts feel more intricate — not solvable by raw strength alone.
Key scenes where his impact is felt
- His training scenes with Yuji — these plant seeds of disciplined thinking that re-emerge when Yuji faces tough moral choices.
- Moments of restraint — Nanami’s refusal to glamorize killing or vengeance shapes the moral tone of later fights.
- His late-career return to duty — demonstrating the personal sacrifices experienced sorcerers make, which raises the emotional stakes for the ensemble.
- His death in Shibuya — the turning point that forces the community to confront loss on a much larger scale.
Nanami vs other supporting characters: why his impact stands out
Jujutsu Kaisen is rich with supporting characters whose unseen impacts are real — Shoko Ieiri’s medical work keeps the team alive, Mei Mei’s intelligence network nudges plot arcs forward, and Kiyotaka Ijichi’s administrative choices prop up operations. But Nanami’s impact is distinctive because it operates at multiple levels simultaneously: emotional (on Yuji), philosophical (as a counterpoint to Gojo), and systemic (revealing institutional fragility). The combination of those layers makes his presence — and later absence — resonate throughout the series in ways that ripple into character motivations and plot mechanics.
Why this matters to fans and the narrative
For readers like me who enjoy close readings and the emotional architecture of stories, Nanami is a gift. He demonstrates how a well-written supporting character can do heavy lifting: clarifying themes, motivating the protagonist, and raising consequences that make the world feel lived-in and dangerous. His pragmatic morals complicate black-and-white interpretations of justice and sacrifice, encouraging readers to ask harder questions about duty, burnout, and what it means to fight for a future not yet won.
When I write guides and analyses on Jujutsukaisen.co.uk, I often come back to characters like Nanami because they remind me that storytelling is as much about the spaces between the big moments as it is about the moments themselves. Supporting characters shape those spaces. They’re the scaffolding beneath the climactic panels, and Nanami’s scaffolding is one of the series’ most quietly powerful constructions.
