This is it, it’s here, Kimetsu no Yaiba Jujutsu Kaisen episode 19! I would call that a joke but Jujutsu Kaisen really tried to pull out all the stops this week. From big flashy fight sequences to some emotional moments, it tried. But does it succeed? Well lets talk about that.
Starting off, production was all over the place. The animation was incredible of course. From Itadori’s kick sequence to Hanami’s flowers and tree growth. It’s all very dynamic, moved well and looked great. The problem is that the composite was complete shit. More often than not the characters didn’t look like they belonged in the world. Whether it be the utterly terrible splashing water or CGI forest once again standing out, it was bad. Of special note is the running sequence atop Hanami’s branches which just feels like an inferior version of Yutaka Nakamura’s work on the first My Hero Academia movie which you can find here. I don’t want to criticize Keiichiro Watanabe to much. The vines/trees and the actual character animations are fucking incredible as you will see in the clip below. But they don’t fit together well, with Itadori’s run seeming to float above the environment.
Production quibbles aside the narrative of the fights wasn’t to bad. I like how Jujutsu Kaisen continues to flesh out power sets. It manages to apply reasonable limitations without restricting the creativity for how they can be used. Take Inumaki for instance: As I hoped he can apply his power to inanimate objects as well, which we see with the attacking vines. But the restriction Jujutsu Kaisen places on him, that stronger targets or stronger words hurt his throat more, limits his power without hamstringing its creativity. Another good example is Fushiguro, whose Shikigami can’t come back after being destroyed completely. However their power doesn’t go away, it consolidates. This makes me wonder if we will see all but one die in the future, resulting in a super strong Shikigami. Jujutsu Kaisen is leaving itself a lot of options for power growth and I’m looking forward to it!
Meanwhile on the villains side we have Hanami and her instincts. This wasn’t what I was expecting from Hanami, I figured she would be holding back out of a hidden love or respect for humans. She is all about nature after all. Instead though, as we learn from her flashback with Mahito, it’s that she was ignoring her instincts. A spirit of nature who was to controlled, denying her own nature and instincts, all symbolized by the cloth restricting her more feral left arm. And the best part is that it works better than my idea ever would have! It reinforces both her nature as a curse and her chosen element of nature. I’m looking forward to what a more feral, instinctual Hanami will be able to do once Toudou kicks the whole thing up a notch next week.
Speaking of Toudou, him and Itadori did good this week! I can understand if the Engrish gets on your nerves but I love how straight Jujutsu Kaisen is playing their friendship. The two have dived headfirst into it, calling each other brothers and Toudou lamenting that their honeymoon got interrupted. The two are having a lot of fun supporting each other and we can see that in how they fight. They are already pulling off combo attacks or helping each other accomplish feats impossible if they were alone, such as the mid-air dodge. And they aren’t blind to each others faults either! Toudou knows when Itadori is out of it and admonishes him for letting it get away from him. They see how they both want to better themselves and have built their friendship around it and it shows.
Sadly as great as Hanami accepting her instincts and the bromance between Toudou and Itadori is, the fight fails to support them. The big moments land, stuff like the Black Flash are cool and the chef metaphor wasn’t to bad either. It explains the idea that once you climb the first mountain you are better able to see and understand the larger mountains to come rather well. But I can’t get over the composite in some of these scenes. They completely took me out of a number of hype moments such as the aerial battle near the end. And I haven’t even talked about the color grading where the entire episode seems like it was simultaneously lit from everywhere and nowhere. I can’t help but think that episode 17, with Nobara, Maki and Mai, came together to form a much more cohesive whole.
All in all I enjoyed this episode, there were good things there and I got exactly what I wanted from Toudou. But for what many expected to be the episode of the season I can’t help but feel… let down. I don’t know if Jujutsu Kaisen got a tad to ambitious or if Park’s vision simply doesn’t work for me. This isn’t the first time watching that I’ve questioned how he uses CGI or the camera. And with 5 episodes remaining I doubt it will be the last. Still despite these creative issues I have managed to find something I like in every episode. And if Jujutsu Kaisen can keep that up until the end I’ll probably leave happy. And hey! Based on the OP it looks like we have a baseball episode coming. Hard to fuck that up right?
And with that my spiel is done. This is going to be a contentious one, so let me know what you think down below! Am I being to harsh or did the composites stand out for the rest of you to? I’d love to know and I’ll see you next week.
I’m not a fan of Park either. After watching The God Of High School and Jujutsu Kaisen, I think Park potentially adds more negative to a series than he brings positives. I believe a lot of his decisions don’t really make much sense.
I also read on a forum that Crunchyroll made a big translation error in that it said Black Flash multiplies the power of a blow by 2.5x, but apparently, it raises the power of the blow exponentially by a factor of 2.5, which is actually quite a more significant power boost.
I agree with you that the episode that focused on the girls was the best episode of the tournament arc.
Ok that exponentially bit makes a lot more sense. I was like “2.5x doesn’t seem that much” but figured hey, I dont make the rules. If it works it works. An exponential factor is a lot more damage though. Thanks for that update!
I liked that post-credits gag where Juzo, who threatens to turn his victim’s corpses into hangar racks, explains in detail to Mahito how exactly he’ll turn Gojo’s spine into a hangar rack lmao.
I honestly thought the somewhat odd looking sequences were a style choice. Maybe they’ll fix it for the bluray releases? Hope they do. JJK’s adaptation deserves first class treatment