Highlights

• Orochimaru and Kenjaku both seek immortality through body transfer, displaying similar ambitions.
• Unethical human experimentation is a shared trait between Orochimaru and Kenjaku, showing their mad scientist nature.
• Both villains use resurrection techniques – Orochimaru with Impure World Reincarnation and Kenjaku with Reincarnated Sorcerers.

Orochimaru and Kenjaku are two of the most iconic villains from two highly popular series. After all, these two are some of the most dangerous and ruthless geniuses who have caused so much pain, tragedy, and destruction in their respective worlds.

However, once you look deeper into their lives as a whole, Orochimaru and Kenjaku reveal themselves to have some striking similarities that go beyond being villains. These two evil beings have made the same actions and decisions throughout their history.

In Search of Immortality

Both Kenjaku and Orochimaru are obsessed with immortality. After all, their plans and ambitions are so grand that it is basically impossible to accomplish them all in a single lifetime. This is why they are obsessed with prolonging their lives. Needless to say, not only did they manage to find a way to be immortal, but the methods they used were quite similar.

Orochimaru's Soul Transfer

In his quest to acquire an immortal body, Orochimaru made all sorts of improvements to his own body. But he quickly realized that this was not the best way to achieve what he wanted. The answer to obtaining eternal life was to jump from one body to another.

To this end, Orochimaru developed a jutsu called Living Corpse Reincarnation, also known as Fushi Tensei. This jutsu allows him to transfer his soul into another body and devour that body's original soul at the same time. It is unclear how many times Orochimaru used this jutsu throughout his life. One thing is certain: when it first appeared in the story, Orochimaru was already in someone else's body.

“Do not be afraid. Your strong will will remain within me as a residual aura. You will not lose everything. Well then, I am grateful for your body.”

-Orochimaru, Chapter 199

Kenjaku Brain Transfer

Similar to Orochimaru, Kenjaku was also able to live for thousands of years by jumping from one body to another. Unlike Orochimaru, however, what Kenjaku transfers is not his soul, but rather his entire brain.

When Kenjaku transfers his brain into someone else's skull, he gains the original body's cursed ability, which is exactly what happened when he took over Suguru Geto's body. Additionally, Kenjaku has also shown that he can retain some of the cursed abilities of his previous body, as shown when he uses Kaori Itadori's cursed ability.

Unethical human experimentation

Another uncanny similarity between Orochimaru and Kenjaku is their penchant for unethical human experimentation. Both men are essentially mad scientists. Their heads are full of wonders, but there is no morality or ethics in their hearts. When ambition and curiosity take over without the courage to control them, the result is unethical and immoral human experimentation.

Orochimaru's Research into Immortality

Orochimaru's first true human experimentation took place when he was still an elite Jonin in Konoha. He was already obsessed with immortality at the time, but theory and animal testing could only provide him with so much information. So he decided that the time had come to begin human experimentation.

Orochimaru kidnapped innocent citizens and low-ranking shinobi from Konoha and the surrounding villages. He conducted all sorts of horrific experiments on them in order to find out which of his theories could lead to true immortality. These experiments had been going on for some time, until Konoha's higher-ups finally got wind of this and moved to capture Orochimaru. Unfortunately, he managed to escape and continued his sinister experiments elsewhere.

“The child born of a cursed spirit and human would become a prisoner of his intellectual curiosity.”

Kenjaku's Cursed Womb: Painting of Death

Kenjaku has been involved in all sorts of horrific experiments in his quest to learn more about cursed energy and spirits. Of all these experiments, however, the most horrific has to be the Cursed Womb: Painting of Death.

In the Meiji Era, there was a woman who mysteriously gave birth to a half-human, half-cursed child. This led to her being ostracized by her people. At the time, Kenjaku, who was in the body of Noritoshi Kamo, offered his helping hand to the poor woman.

However, what ended up happening was that Kenjaku conducted experiments on humans by forcing women to have nine pregnancies and nine abortions. This was his attempt to produce a perfect being. The result of this experiment was Choso and his siblings. But despite their status as Special Grade Cursed Spirits, Kenjaku still considers them failures.

Bringing people back from the dead

The last uncanny similarity is their final trump card. A secret weapon that drastically changes the course of the battlefield. In a move that surprises everyone involved in the battle, Kenjaku and Orochimaru manage to bring powerful people back from the dead to do their bidding.

Orochimaru's Impure World Reincarnation

Orochimaru discovered and perfected a forbidden jutsu called Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation, also known as the Edo Tensei jutsu. This jutsu allows its user to summon the souls of the dead and imbue them into a living human being, effectively bringing those people back to life, albeit temporarily.

While in the Impure World state, the dead can use their signature jutsu and are also virtually indestructible. Not only that, the reincarnated shinobi must obey the user of this jutsu. As if that weren't enough, Impure World Reincarnation poses no risk whatsoever to its user.

The first time Orochimaru used Impure World Reincarnation was when he attempted to invade Konoha. At the time, he summoned the First and Second Hokage. After that, Orochimaru's student Kabuto Yakushi used this jutsu to summon dozens of renowned shinobi from the past as soldiers for the Fourth Great Shinobi War.

“It’s true. The Edo Tensei jutsu poses no risks. Except for one possibility. It’s a powerful jutsu, whoever uses it becomes famous all over the world.”

-Kabuto Yakushi, Chapter 521

Reincarnated Sorcerers of Kenjaku

Kenjaku's rebirth ritual is much more complicated than Orochimaru's. He will have to spend at least a thousand years meeting and making deals with several powerful jujutsu sorcerers. Because for the ritual to work, Kenjaku needs a verbal agreement or consent from people that he will be reincarnated in the future. That's why this technique is only possible for an immortal like Kenjaku.

When these sorcerers died, Kenjaku transformed them into cursed objects through a secret technique. Before they can be awakened, Kenjaku must first find a suitable vessel in the form of a normal human who has the potential to wield cursed energy. He will brand these innocent people, put them into a coma, and force them to swallow the aforementioned cursed objects.

Once this is done, he can awaken the sorcerers of the past whenever he wants. Once awakened, the souls of those powerful sorcerers of the past will immediately take control of the body and devour the memories and soul of the original owner of the body. Before long, these reincarnated sorcerers become important players in the Game of Purge.

Kenjaku and Orochimaru may have different goals and motivations, but the choices they make and the actions they take are quite similar. They say great minds think alike. Well, seemingly evil minds think alike too.

Jujutsu Kaisen is available for streaming on Crispy roll.