Jujutsu Kaisen – 18 [Sage]

This is it, this is the week Jujutsu Kaisen kicks it into gear! At least I hope it is. Between Hanami breaking into school grounds, Gojou getting locked out and one last flashback it better be. So with all that to talk about lets skip the preamble and jump into it!

The big one, the most exciting bit, is that the raid is happening! I can’t tell you how happy I am to see these curses because the first half of this episode was everything wrong with this arc. Once again Jujutsu Kaisen is shoving in another backstory/fight combo for one of its side characters whom I don’t even remember the name of. I get why it’s doing it, Jujutsu Kaisen wants to establish everyone’s powers and motives before heading into this big conflict. That’s good practice, you want you audience to know these things. But you can’t just introduce 5 new characters, info-dump their entire personality, and then expect us to care when you launch into a huge conflict. You need smaller arcs focused on each that build up to this big event. And it’s not like Jujutsu Kaisen can’t do this, because it did so with Toudou.

It’s not as if everything involving Noritoshi was bad. The slow reveal of his abilities was done well. Starting him off with arrows, then effectively self-doping into effectively using pre-filled blood bags as grenades. These are clever ways to use an otherwise basic “blood bending” power set. Where Noritoshi fails though is the same as many of the previous characters: his narrative. Once again we get some sort of sympathetic backstory that’s supposed to explain his attitude, his reason for wanting to kill Itadori, but the issue is I just don’t care. I don’t know this character, I’ve only ever seen him for maybe 30 seconds at a time until now. The only meaningful connection we have to him is the constant “Major Clans”/”Zenin” thread from Mai/Maki/Fushiguro. But that isn’t why I liked those characters and isn’t enough to make me like Noritoshi.

Speaking of clever uses of power though, I do want to give Jujutsu Kaisen credit where it’s due. Along with Noritoshi’s creative use of blood I like how it continues to expand on Inumaki’s Cursed Speech. The “ingredients instead of words” is still annoying and still makes his scenes a pain, but the power itself has been used well. From stealing someone’s phone and impersonating their teammate to have easy access with the voice to forcing Fushiguro to run away without having to explain anything. It’s creative, I’m looking forward to seeing how Jujutsu Kaisen uses it in the upcoming fights as more than a simple “I win” card. Maybe he can influence teammates, get them to move how he wants, heal them, etc. Or perhaps he can give commands to inanimate objects, who knows. Whatever he can do I want to see it though, and that’s a good thing.

Moving on to the raid itself, Hanami makes an appearance! This is the first time we are really going to see her/him?/it fight. The only other Special Grade curses we have really seen have been Mahito, Jogo and the one from the prison so we have a really variable level of power here. From what we have seen though she seems to be more comparable to Jogo than anyone else: A primal force of nature, representing the earth and life to Jogo’s fire and destruction. Compared to Jogo though, Hanami seems far more durable, tanking heavy blows from Fushiguro and Noritoshi. I wonder if she’s a more defensive focused Curse compared to Mahito and Jogo, which would fit with her “nature” theming. Mostly though I am just hoping she can do more than grow some trees.

As for Hanami’s motives, we get a bit more from them than we did Mahito and Jogo. Mahito seems in it for personal pleasure and being a curse formed from human hatred, that makes sense. Jogo meanwhile comes off as very prideful but ultimately focused on bettering his fellow Curses as a group. Hanami though… Hanami seems to be in the middle. They recognize that there are good humans, and doesn’t seem to want conflict. But they also say that humans and nature can no longer live together, that we are destroying it and so Hanami must stop us. It’s a pretty straight forward “nature fights back” narrative but I find it interesting that “nature” in this case takes the form of a curse, something made of negative emotions. I’m curious if Jujutsu Kaisen is going to do anything with that or if I’m just reading to much into it.

Finally lets talk about all the small or random shit in this weeks episode such as: Rock n roll grandpa. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting his character to go this way and I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s the kind of goofy fun you expect in a Shounen series, sure. But this was also supposed to be the main political antagonist of that entire subplot… wielding a guitar to fight… curses. It just doesn’t fit for me, I’m sorry. Maybe Jujutsu Kaisen can make it work but typically your hardline conservative authority figure isn’t a “Rage Against the Machine” fan, you know? The other small thing I wanted to touch on was just Gojou being blocked by the veil. This random Jujutsu user clearly isn’t important and was probably tricked but it does make you wonder: What happened to the other? And is he here?

So all that said, how was this weeks episode? And I have to say it was… alright? Certainly not the worst, but also not as good as last weeks. What it does do though is set the stage for something much better. I have been saying for a long time now that this arcs major weakness was the slapdash nature of this tournament. With that coming to an end and returning to more mortal combat with darker tones Jujutsu Kaisen has a good chance to catch my interest again. If Hanami can make half the impact Mahito had, or have half the sakuga Jogo did, then it should be a good time. What I am looking forward to most though, and what I hope it delivers on, is Toudou. Let this man shine like a brilliant sun or get him out of the story. Nothing else will work.