Jujutsu Kaisen – 8 [Boredom]

Welcome all to another week of Jujutsu Kaisen! Apologies for the wait, it’s been a busy weekend and all things considered, not much happened this episode. Still, without further ado, lets jump right into it!

What do I mean by “not much happened”? Simply that this week was more of a transition episode than anything else. It transitioned us from Gojo’s fight into the next arc, setting up conflicts and introducing the new “antagonists”. I put that in quotes because its fairly obvious that Toudou at least will become an ally later on. For now though, he serves as the big obstacle Fushiguro must overcome. Beyond that brief skirmish though, Jujutsu Kaisen mostly dedicates this week to character time. Expanding on our side characters and Gojo’s own conflict with the Jujutsu Conservatives. This is a good thing of course, not every week can be a high octane sakuga fest. Turning things up to 11 loses its appeal if you are always at it. It does mean though that, outside one or two cuts, there wasn’t any big animation to gush over.

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Jujutsu Kaisen – 7 [Assault]

This week on Jujutsu Kaisen we get punches, kicks, explooooooosions galore! That’s right its a low-narrative, high-hype week as Goto defeats a curse spirit with the power of theoretical math. Without further ado, lets dive in!

As I said, this week was pretty light on the story content. The whole thing was basically one big fight with a dash of narrative relevance at the end. I’m not complaining of course! I love hype fights, I’m self-proclaimed Shonen trash. It just means this weeks post is going to be a bit shorter since I can only gush about animation for so long. As for the narrative we did get, it’s mostly setup for the arc to come. We meet a new villain named Mahito, who many will recognize from the OP. Meanwhile Gojo gives us a hands on lecture on jujutsu domains, how they work, and just how powerful they can be. All in all it isn’t anything to incredible, but Jujutsu Kaisen did a fine job working it into/around the set piece fight for the week. So enough piddling around lets talk about that!

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Jujutsu Kaisen – 6 [After Rain]

Jujutsu Kaisen is a lot of things, but this week what it is, is disappointing. Because for all that the villains step up to the plate, for all that the animation is on point, Jujutsu Kaisen did one thing wrong: It went back back on its cliffhanger. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Clickbait doom and gloom opening aside, Jujutsu Kaisen did a lot of things right this week. And first and foremost amongst those has to be the animation. Seriously, just click into the full article below to see a clip of it, but Jujutsu Kaisen looked good. Between the burning effects, the facial expressions and the body movements, the whole café scene worked really well. I will talk more about what it did for the villains in detail later. From purely a production standpoint though, I thought it was a great. Jujutsu Kaisen didn’t stop there though, it was very expressive and creative with some of its scenes. One of my favorites being the paper-craft Itadori scene we see later on, fluttering in the wind. It’s a small thing, but it was really cute and I liked it. It’s those kinds of inventive animations I want to see more of.

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Jujutsu Kaisen – 5 [Curse Womb Must Die -II-]

Alright Jujutsu Kaisen, you win this round. For all that I expected it, Jujutsu Kaisen managed to actually keep it’s promise from 2 episodes ago. However long or short it may last, someone has died. So how about we jump right in and talk about that?

Starting off with the non-spoilers, action! Animation! Production! Boring technical stuff, but I like getting animators names out there. Jujutsu Kaisen actually did an alright job here this week. The close quarters combat wasn’t as impressive as the first episode with Gojo, not even close. It often felt a bit… floaty, in that characters where static in movement as the background spun. An attempt to give motion without much actual animation, and it shows. But that doesn’t stop Norimoto Tokura and Shota Goshozono from giving us some pretty great effects work like in this clip here. I love the animation on the snake twisting through the air, or how it explodes into particles down it’s length. It was easily the most stunning shot of the episode and one I hope we see more of. I can only hope that this slow shift isn’t a sign of MAPPA’s production curse starting.

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Jujutsu Kaisen – 4 [Curse Womb Must Die]

Welcome to week 4 of Jujutsu Kaisen! Last weeks cliffhanger promised us some death, but it looks like that will have to wait until next week. In the meantime we do get some dismemberment, some curses and a whole load of pretty colors. So without further ado, lets jump right in!

Starting off, everyone’s favorite section, production! Animation wise what stood out to me the most were the ragdoll physics. Watching Itadori get knocked around or Sukuna jump around was a treat. I really enjoyed how the limbs flew around or bodies bounced off the ground, etc. There was also a 3D hallway scene similar to the first episode, but whether it be lighting or the environment, it didn’t look as good this time around. That said, Jujutsu Kaisen continues to be very colorful, using a lot of bright blues, purples and greens to keep things interesting. It was really nice how ever scene had its own color palette to differentiate it. From the dark blue with the curse to the bright red of their initial entry to the green’s of the waterway. Not only did it make it easy to tell locations apart, but it simply looked good.

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Jujutsu Kaisen – 3 [Girl of Steel]

3 weeks, 3 good episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen! This week we meet the final member of our trio, get some THICC shots and end on a cliffhanger I can’t believe is real. All that and more in this weeks episode! So lets dive right in.

As always, we start with production, because this way I can put all my spoilers after the break. For only being 3 episodes in, Jujutsu Kaisen has had some pretty fantastic cuts. Whether it be running down a hallway or a dynamic camera following a fight, its looked good. This week though we see Jujutsu Kaisen slow it down a bit. Nothing bad, there isn’t a serious drop in quality or anything. Its just clear that MAPPA is in this for the long haul, saving the big animation for the big moments. As while it looks fine, there are no big standout “wow” scenes. We did at least get some cute little chibi reactions to fit with the lighter mood, and I like those a lot! They are very expressive. No, the only noticeable issue this week were some inconsistent backgrounds at the station but that gets left behind quickly.

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Jujutsu Kaisen – 2 [For Myself]

Welcome all to the Fall 2020 Season, I am Lenlo and this is my first new show, Jujutsu Kaisen! I had no idea what this was before this season, didn’t even know it existed. Boy am I glad for that, because I don’t think I would be enjoying it as much as I am if I knew what was coming. Without further ado lets dive into the episode!

Right off the bat, lets talk some animation, because Keiichiro Watanabe went a little bit crazy this episode. Just like his work in Mob Psycho 100 and God of Highschool, Watanabe is all about the action scenes. Saying screw the model, screw physics, lets just have a good time. Combine that with the crazy camera of Seong-Hu Park, Director of last seasons God of Highschool, and you have a recipe for some insane cuts. From the opening fight on the roof to the expressive dolls in the second half, Jujutsu Kaisen looked great this week. I have absolutely no idea if MAPPA can keep this up of course. They are working on Taiso Samurai and Attack on Titan this season well. Combine that with the MAPPA curse and things look sketchy. For now at least though, I am hype. Gimme my action Watanabe! I need it my fix!

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