Jujutsu Kaisen – 16 [Kyoto Sister School Exchange 2]

Another week, another episode of Jujutsu Kaisen’s token tournament arc. I imagine it’s tough to follow up Yoshino’s arc, that was both emotional and hype. But I was hoping for something a bit more… poignant from Itadori’s return. Still, this week Toudou gained some depth and Panda got a backstory, so not all is lost. So without further ado lets dive in!

Production wise this week was an improvement from the last. Along with the fights being overall better choreographed, Jujutsu Kaisen also brought back some of the sakuga. It’s still a far cry from the series highs, but it makes for a decent time nonetheless. The continued use of the CGI environments for rotating camera shots is interesting, but the forest is proving to be a challenging location for it. Unlike the sewers or the highschool, a forest is a natural location. It doesn’t have the same rigid, geometric style to it as man-made locations. So when you start trying to render it in CGI, to rotate around it, the fake becomes very easy to spot. I think it has to do with the trees, their leaves and the general spread of color through the scenes. It’s not great, but Jujutsu Kaisen makes it work well enough.

While the fights weren’t to great though, Toudou actually was. I mentioned last week that I really needed something more from the big man. Something to move him beyond the gag character he was. And much to my enjoyment, Jujutsu Kaisen delivered this week. I really liked what we got to see of his philosophical side, of how he approaches life and jujutsu. It’s simple, in that he focuses on living in the now and on emoting/experiencing life with his whole body rather than treating himself as a sum of separate parts. But this simplicity fits his actions and how he approaches every interaction really well. He’s earnest and open both in his posture and how he talks to Itadori. It helps that Jujutsu Kaisen had some great music, imagery and phrasing to go along with it. “Do we show anger with our guts”, great stuff.

I also found everything surrounding Toudou’s speech to be better to, with the big example being the flashback. Last episode had a very similar sequence to this ones, the highschool “flashback” with him and Itadori. But where that one went on a bit long, this one kept itself down to a montage. Quick cuts, represented as film reels in the background. Just enough to give us an idea and to allow us to connect with Toudou, but not so much as to take us out of the scene. Other than that we had the exit, with Itadori picking up the power, them starting the fight again, etc. Its a Shounen so I can forgive it a bit with Itadori learning it right away. The big test is going to be how it handles using this against actual curse spirits when the raid inevitably happens later.

Moving on we come to a less impressive and narratively important conflict, Panda and Mechamaru. I have to admit that I was not particularly enthused with this fight. It was nice learning about Panda’s backstory sure, though I think keeping him as a meme-panda would have worked to. And the reveal of there basically being multiple spirits inside Panda to change up how he fights isn’t to bad either. But overall this entire segment feels like “quantity” over “quality”. This fight takes up about 80% of the episode and, simply put, I just don’t care. Panda isn’t nearly as interesting as Nobara, Fushiguro or Itadori. And the fight itself isn’t that impressive either. It lacks both narrative stakes and Shounen hype and so it ends up feeling like a waste of time. A lot of Shounen do this in their “tournament” arcs, but its still disappointing.

That brings me to Mechamaru who I’m not sold on. Jujutsu Kaisen brings back some of the old darkness here as we meet someone stuck with a curse from birth. That’s not bad, forcing him to interact with the world through puppets can be compelling. But it feels as if Jujutsu Kaisen tried to resolve this way to quickly with Panda’s little speech at the end. We haven’t spent enough time with him to care about Mechamaru, which leaves Jujutsu Kaisen with only 2 options regarding his character. First, it can do nothing and leave him a disappointing waste of time. Or second, and far more likely I think, he probably isn’t a good guy. I just get this vibe from him that he is going to end up betraying the students since all he really cares about is fixing his body. Hopefully that’s the case, it could be compelling.

All in all, while this episode of Jujutsu Kaisen was better than the last, I miss the early arcs. The pacing there felt a bit fast at times but something compelling was always happening. Whether it was Sukuna killing Itadori, Gojo stomping Jodo or just Mahito stringing people along, those were all engaging. But the only interesting thing happening right now is Toudou and thats because he’s had more screen time than any of the other new characters. He got the chance to make an impression way back before Yoshino’s arc, giving us time to acclimate to him. I can’t say the same for the rest of the cast. Maybe if Jujutsu Kaisen was doing something with Nobara and Fushiguro struggling to reaccept Itadori, or Gojo dealing with politics, it would be better. But I’m just not getting much from this arc so far and that’s a damn shame.