Jujutsu Kaisen – 17 [Kyoto Sister School Exchange 3]

Welcome to Girl Power, sponsored by Jujutsu Kaisen! This week the production is back in force and the narrative is back on the interesting characters. So without further ado lets dive in!

This is an interesting week for Jujutsu Kaisen, and for Shonen in general, because its almost 100% female lead. Why is this special? Well to put it simply, most Shonen female characters are absolute trash, they are terribly written. Its clear that most Shonen authors either don’t know how, or are not interested in, writing female characters. So to get an episode where they are not only the spotlight, but the sole focus, was rather novel. It’s a bit sad though that they were all still restricted to only fighting each other. The “female empowerment”/Strong Women narrative gets a little smudged when they are locked in their own box, not allowed to fight the male characters. Hopefully that changes as the event progresses though. I would love to see Maki or Nobara actually get a shot against Toudou or perhaps the other Kyoto student.

Speaking of Nobara, she got to strut her stuff this week against the witch, Momo! Fight wise I love Nobara, she’s a strong lady who can get hit, hit back and kicks ass. Narrative wise it was a bit confusing though. Momo spends most of the fight criticizing the male dominated world of Jujutsu. Basically telling Nobara the way things are, that women have to be cute, strong and perfect and that nothing they could do could change it. You would think this is a criticism of the patriarchy. But Jujutsu Kaisen lays it on so thick here that you would be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Luckily though Nobara’s condemnation and refusal of the whole thing is clear as day and done in a stunningly strong manner. I love kickass female characters, and I love it even more when the have actual character.

Maki also received a similar treatment this week as we see her takedown multiple opponents! Once again, she was restricted to only female opponents, which kind of sucks. But the emotional and narrative connection between her and Mia did a good job making up for that. Before we get to them though I want to talk Miwa and some snappy choreography because ooooo girl, Maki got it going on. While her fight against Miwa is mainly to establish Maki’s strength and under evaluation by everyone around her, the animation really sells it. I love how they keep changing the frame rate mid fight to emphasize the blows. Speeding it up as the strike follows through to really sell the momentum. It can look a little choppy at times but its a small price to pay for the effect. Once again, props to Vercreek for doing a fantastic job.

Getting back to Maki and Mai, Jujutsu Kaisen used their history as the through line of the episode. Both Momo’s criticisms of Jujustu/patriarchy and the actual sisterly conflict get tied into it. For the first we get to see a hands on example of the discrimination Momo talked about. How it ties back into the old preference for male heirs along with the general criticism these Shonen typically have of the older, more conservative generations in Japan. As far as the feminism angle goes, I think it’s alright. Rather heavy handed in places sure, and I can understand viewers who might not want “politics” brought into their fighting anime. But I think Jujutsu Kaisen did a decent job of working those politics naturally into Mai and Maki’s story. Using how they both responded to these challenges to divide them and generate the conflict between them.

Maki for instance is clearly rejecting of the whole Jujutsu/Patriarchy treatment. She chose her path, she went out of her way to escape it, she refused to be looked down on for how she was born. Mai meanwhile never wanted this life, she was content to put up with it and fade away. She only ever wanted a conflict free, normal life, or at least what she considered “normal”. But with Maki leaving she was put on the spot to not fall behind her rebellious sister. Tie this together with Mai’s general abandonment issues of being left behind to deal with the family on her own and you have a rather complicated relationship. Definitely a much better one than I was expecting when Mai was first introduced. My only major complaint about the whole thing is that Mai should have won. Because that bullet trick was fuckin great.

Finally lets take a short moment to talk production. Its at the end this time, I know, I’m changin it up on ya. Overall the episode looked pretty great. The CGI environments were still wonky. But Shouta Goshozono, the episode director for this week, did a fantastic job integrating it into the action. Having Momo weave between trees, Nobara jump off them, etc. Last week they were really only used for the first person shots or for scenic backgrounds and they looked awful because of it. But between this and clever shot compositions such as reflecting them through Mai’s eye the episode looked pretty great. Definitely the best produced one since the first cour finale against Mahito. Hopefully they still have a few tricks up their sleeve for the remaining 7.

All in all, this was the best episode of Jujutsu Kaisen’s tournament arc yet. Mai and Maki’s story was engaging, the action was crisp and Best Girl Nobara finally got to show off. This episode basically tried to do the same thing as last weeks, focusing on the side characters, but was much more successful at it. I can only attribute that to Mai and Maki’s preexisting relationship from earlier in the series and their personal connection making it far more interesting. My opinions aside though, what did you think? Was Jujutsu Kaisen to heavy handed with its politics this week or did you enjoy seeing it tackle something more? I know I enjoy the series more whenever it reaches beyond the usual confines of Shonen. Let me know down below and I will see you next week!