Jujutsu Kaisen – 24 [Accomplices]

This is it, the grand finale, the last episode of Jujutsu Kaisen… And its actually pretty good. We get some sakuga, there’s no cliffhangers and most important of all Nobara finally gets a moment to shine. I can’t believe my wish got fulfilled that quickly. So without further ado lets jump right into it!

And as always the first thing we need to talk about is the production. Some how, some way, MAPPA managed to make it through the season without melting. There were some warning signs in there and even this episode suffers a bit from poorly composited CGI trees. Beyond that ever returning bugbear though? It was pretty damn good. Keiichiro Watanabe makes a return with his cloth and effects animation on Nobara’s final blow. Meanwhile Seong-Hu Park once again proves himself a more proficient animator than he is director in the close quarters Itadori sequence. And it’s not as if the animation was restricted to just the action either. Tomiya’s work on Mahito during the board game was stellar, not to mention a few other scenes as well. As far as ending a season strong I think Jujutsu Kaisen did just that here.

With production out of the way its time to talk about Best Girl Nobara! I complained a bit last week that she was starting to turn into a damsel in distress. That Fushiguro and Itadori were passing her by in usefulness. And as if in direct response this week Jujutsu Kaisen finally lets her kick some ass. This was exactly what I wanted from her. Taking hits, shrugging them off and tossing her own right back. The entire sequence I included above is beautiful and reminds me exactly why I voted Nobara as Best Girl all those months ago. The best part is that Jujutsu Kaisen managed to do it without putting down the other two either. Instead of lowering them to Nobara’s level to let her fight as in equal, it raised her up. Expanding on her existing power set by applying it to herself rather than just opponents.

Speaking of those opponents, I liked the brothers more than I thought I would. Not much of course. You can’t expect to introduce new characters in the last few episodes and expect me to care about them. At best they made for an entertaining finale. But Jujutsu Kaisen managed to work something in that I always love to see in villains: Love. By giving them something they care about, something to lose, you give both sides of the fight stakes. This works best with longer running villains because it makes it equally likely for either side to win. But for monster-of-the-week style ones it at least gives them an emotional reason to even bother fighting. Something for us to latch onto and experience the fight through. And when combined with a protagonist that cares, like Itadori, it can even make a win feel a little like a loss.

Finally lets talk about Sukuna. Sukuna was and still is one of my favorite characters in Jujutsu Kaisen. The fact that we haven’t seen him since the Mahito arc is criminal to me and a real waste of potential. At least the way Jujutsu Kaisen brought him back was good though. By having him eat the finger out of nowhere it reminds us how he is always watching, waiting for the right time to strike. Combine that with some snarky dialogue at the end between him and Itadori and it reminds me why I like him so much. As for eating the finger? Well we all know that’s probably not a good thing. I would wager the only reason he didn’t take over Itadori’s body right there was to lull them into a false sense of security. I suppose we will have to wait to find out though.

All in all I think this was a pretty good way to end the season. The action junkies got their fix, story junkies got a climax and it even managed to work in some Nobara time I criticized it for lacking back in the tournament arc. It doesn’t make up for the lack of resolution there but its nice to have. As for the rest of my thoughts? Well I’m being purposefully vague here in an attempt to make you want to read the final review. Sneaky right? You can expect to see that go up sometime this weekend with Volley-Bu following after next week. Until then? Have a good weekend. See you for Spring 2021.