Sukuna Quotes in Japanese (Romaji, Meaning & Grammar)

Sukuna is the most quotable villain in Jujutsu Kaisen, and the reason is grammatical. Almost everything he says is a command aimed downwards at someone he considers beneath him — and Japanese has a whole register for that, which English simply flattens into “Know your place.” I’m a Japanese teacher, and here are Sukuna’s quotes in Japanese with rōmaji, translation, and the grammar that makes each one land. Fair warning: this is the single most dangerous vocabulary list on this site to copy out loud.

Can-you-use-it legend: ◎ = safe in real conversation · △ = fine in anime, odd in life · ✗ = rude or role-play only.

Sukuna quotes in Japanese

Japanese	Rōmaji	English	Use it?
誇れ、お前は強い	Hokore, omae wa tsuyoi	Be proud. You are strong.	△ Command form + お前
素晴らしい、鏖殺だ	Subarashii, ōsatsu da	Splendid. A massacre.	✗ 鏖殺 is not a normal word
頭が高いな	Zu ga takai na	Your head is held too high.	✗ Period-drama contempt
分を弁えろ、痴れ者が	Bun o wakimaero, shiremono ga	Know your place, you fool.	✗ Deeply insulting
一秒やる、どけ	Ichibyō yaru, doke	I’ll give you one second. Move.	✗ どけ is a bark, not a request
言ったはずだぞ、二度はないと	Itta hazu da zo, nido wa nai to	I told you — there would be no second time.	△ Grammar ◎, tone rough
ナメるなよ、俺は呪いだぞ	Nameru na yo, ore wa noroi da zo	Don’t underestimate me. I am a curse.	✗ Negative command
貴様らは身の丈にあった不幸を生涯噛み潰していればいいのだ	Kisamara wa mi no take ni atta fukō o shōgai kamitsubushite ireba ii no da	You lot can spend your lives chewing on misfortune that fits your size.	✗ 貴様 is a genuine insult
じゃあな最強、俺がいない時代に生まれただけの凡夫	Jā na saikyō, ore ga inai jidai ni umareta dake no bonpu	Goodbye, “strongest” — an ordinary man who merely happened to be born in an age without me.	△ じゃあな alone is ◎
次があれば生き方を変えてみるのもいいかもしれない	Tsugi ga areba ikikata o kaete miru no mo ii kamo shirenai	If there is a next time, perhaps I’ll try living differently.	◎ Entirely natural Japanese

誇れ、お前は強い — the one time Sukuna is kind, and it’s still a command

This line lands in chapter 116, spoken to Jogo as he dies. It is the only compliment Sukuna pays anyone in the entire series, which is why it makes readers cry. English subtitles usually render it “Stand proud, you’re strong.”

But look at the verb. 誇る (hokoru) means “to be proud.” 誇れ is its imperative — the bare command form. Sukuna is not saying “you should be proud.” He is ordering a dying enemy to feel pride, the same way he orders people to move or to know their place. The tenderness and the cruelty run through the identical piece of grammar.

Form	Rōmaji	Who says this
誇れ	Hokore	Sukuna. A bare order.
誇って	Hokotte	Softer, still casual.
誇ってください	Hokotte kudasai	Polite request.
誇っていいよ	Hokotte ii yo	What a friend would actually say.

Teacher’s note — the imperative is rarer than anime suggests: Japanese has a true command form (行け, 見ろ, 誇れ), and in real life adults almost never use it with each other. You hear it from coaches, in emergencies, in anger, and on signs. Anime villains use it constantly because it instantly signals “I outrank you and I don’t care.” If a learner drops 誇れ into conversation, the grammar is perfect and the social effect is catastrophic.

鏖殺 — a kanji almost no Japanese person writes by hand

素晴らしい、鏖殺だ is worth the price of admission for one character. 鏖 (ō) means to slaughter to the last person. Look at how it is built: 鹿 (deer) stacked on top of 金 (metal) — a herd of deer and a blade. It is a picture of wholesale killing, and it is so rare that most Japanese adults can read it in context but could not write it from memory.

This is a real feature of the series’ language design, not an accident. Sukuna is a thousand-year-old curse, so the author gives him archaic, heavy vocabulary — 鏖殺, 痴れ者, 凡夫 — while the modern students speak plain contemporary Japanese. You can hear the centuries in the word choice.

Sukuna’s word	Rōmaji	What a modern speaker says
鏖殺	ōsatsu	皆殺し (minagoroshi)
痴れ者	shiremono	バカ (baka)
凡夫	bonpu	凡人 (bonjin)
貴様	kisama	あなた (anata)
頭が高い	zu ga takai	失礼だ (shitsurei da)

頭が高い — the insult that only works if you know the history

頭が高いな reads literally as “your head is high.” It is not a comment about posture. In feudal Japan you lowered your head — physically, to the ground — before someone of higher rank. To say a person’s head is too high is to say they have failed to prostrate themselves.

Note the reading: 頭 here is zu, not the everyday atama. That archaic reading survives almost exclusively in this fixed phrase and in period drama, which is exactly why it sounds ancient coming out of Sukuna’s mouth. A modern person who wanted to say the same thing would just say 失礼だ.

The pronoun problem: 俺, お前, 貴様

Sukuna uses 俺 for himself and 貴様 or お前 for everyone else, and this pairing does more characterisation than any of his speeches.

貴様 (kisama) is the interesting one. Written out, its characters mean “honourable” (貴) and “Mr./Ms.” (様) — it began life as a term of respect several hundred years ago and slid downhill until it became one of the strongest insults in ordinary Japanese. Subtitles render it “you,” which tells an English reader nothing at all.

Teacher’s note — pick your pronoun before your verb: in Japanese the word you choose for “you” already decides how the sentence will land, before you have said anything else. Learners are safest avoiding second-person pronouns altogether and using the person’s name plus さん, which is what Japanese adults actually do. We break the full system down in our guide to ore, boku and watashi.

The last line is the one you can actually use

次があれば生き方を変えてみるのもいいかもしれない — “If there’s a next time, maybe I’ll try living differently.”

After ten chapters of imperatives and insults, Sukuna’s final thought is in soft, hedged, thoroughly ordinary Japanese. Every softener in the language is stacked into it: ～てみる (“try doing”), ～のもいい (“would also be fine”), かもしれない (“might be”). Nothing is asserted. It is the grammar of someone no longer giving orders.

That contrast is the whole character, delivered through verb endings. It is also the most useful sentence pattern in this article: ～てみるのもいいかもしれない is exactly how a Japanese adult floats a suggestion without pushing.

Where the practice has to happen

You can memorise all ten of these lines this afternoon. The hard part is the thing this article keeps circling: knowing which register you are in, and being able to move between them on purpose. Sukuna is thrilling precisely because he sits at one extreme of a scale — and you cannot feel a scale you have only read about.

At TOMODACHI JAPAN, small groups of children learn with qualified teachers who currently work in Japanese schools, alongside peers their own age in Japan. A good number of our students arrive quoting anime villains. The teacher’s job is to get them from 誇れ to 誇っていいよ — and to know exactly why that matters.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sukuna’s most famous quote in Japanese?

誇れ、お前は強い (Hokore, omae wa tsuyoi) — “Be proud, you are strong,” said to Jogo in chapter 116. It is usually subtitled “Stand proud, you’re strong.” 誇れ is the imperative form of 誇る, so even this rare moment of respect is delivered as an order.

What does 貴様 (kisama) actually mean?

Literally “honoured one” — it was polite centuries ago. Today it is a strong insult, roughly “you bastard” in force, though its dictionary meaning is just “you.” Never use it. Subtitles translate it as plain “you,” which hides how aggressive it is.

Why does Sukuna’s Japanese sound old-fashioned?

Because he is written that way. He uses archaic vocabulary (鏖殺, 痴れ者, 凡夫), the old reading 頭 = zu, and constant imperatives, while the student characters around him speak plain modern Japanese. The vocabulary gap is how the author signals that he is a thousand years old.

Can I learn Japanese from Jujutsu Kaisen?

For listening, yes — the sentences are short and emotionally clear. For speech style, be careful: Sukuna’s register is unusable in daily life, and Gojo’s casual speech is only appropriate between close friends. Our Jujutsu Kaisen quotes guide and Gojo Satoru quotes guide tag every line for real-world usability.

How does my child practise this with real Japanese speakers?

Through small group classes with same-age peers in Japan and a teacher who corrects politeness as well as grammar. See TOMODACHI JAPAN’s plans and pricing, or start with our guide to learning Japanese with anime.