Jujutsu Kaisen – 6 [After Rain]

Jujutsu Kaisen is a lot of things, but this week what it is, is disappointing. Because for all that the villains step up to the plate, for all that the animation is on point, Jujutsu Kaisen did one thing wrong: It went back back on its cliffhanger. So without further ado, lets dive in!

Clickbait doom and gloom opening aside, Jujutsu Kaisen did a lot of things right this week. And first and foremost amongst those has to be the animation. Seriously, just click into the full article below to see a clip of it, but Jujutsu Kaisen looked good. Between the burning effects, the facial expressions and the body movements, the whole café scene worked really well. I will talk more about what it did for the villains in detail later. From purely a production standpoint though, I thought it was a great. Jujutsu Kaisen didn’t stop there though, it was very expressive and creative with some of its scenes. One of my favorites being the paper-craft Itadori scene we see later on, fluttering in the wind. It’s a small thing, but it was really cute and I liked it. It’s those kinds of inventive animations I want to see more of.

Speaking of the villains, I gave them a bad rap last week, their introduction didn’t do it for me. But as commenter BNK said out, they just needed a moment to get going. Jogo, the volcano head, is so far the only one with any sort of personality. But Jujutsu Kaisen did a good job with his facial expressions and mannerisms, such as using the volcano to show when he is excited. The real meat of this scene for me though, and what really sold it, was the café worker. His tiny story about sensing something wrong and nopping the hell out of there? It was a nice addition that built up the tension really well while acting as a sort of… gallows humor style comedic relief. He tied the scene together and overall, I think it made for a much stronger introduction than we got last week.

Similarly there were some nice scenes for the good guys as well. I particularly loved what Jujutsu Kaisen did with Fushiguro, having him return to the convicts mother. I fully expected this to be glossed over and forgotten. A small moment of character conflict in the previous arc that never gets brought up again. So to see Fushiguro seek out the mother during his grieving of Itadori? To start questing how/why he saves people, to gives Itadori’s “death” more meaning? I really like it, even if everything else surrounding Itadori is a let down. We will get to that though, as I also want to mention the new side characters a bit as well. These guys still haven’t gotten much sadly, nothing that makes them compelling. They feel like a collection of one note personality quirks still and I can only hope Jujutsu Kaisen manages to fix that soon.

Speaking of Itadori’s death, it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room, Jujutsu Kaisen’s big stumble. I said last week that I didn’t mind Itadori being the one to die, so long as it wasn’t resolved super quickly. Sadly, that is exactly what Jujutsu Kaisen did this week. By bringing him back not 5 minutes into this episode it sort of just undermines all of the tension from the past few weeks. How are we supposed to feel anything when a characters life is on the line anymore? How will we know if a character is well and truly threatened when our first instance of character death is resolved that quickly? I always knew he was coming back, but surely it could haven taken longer right? Shift the training arc into Sukuna’s inner domain or something, I don’t know. Regardless, I was not a fan of this move.

It’s a shame to, because not all of it was bad. The whole bit inside Sukuna’s inner domain was nice. Yes, he seems to be getting the Kyubi treatment and that worries me a bit. But everything surrounding the deal was great. I loved how Sukuna baited Itadori into it and how Jujutsu Kaisen subverted the fight itself. Instead of Itadori actually managing to fight and hold his own, Sukuna just takes him out in an instant the moment the terms are agreed on. I know liking this goes counter to my previous statement about not liking how quickly Itadori’s revival happened, I get that we can’t have one of these scenes without the other. I just wish there was a way to decouple the two and get the best of both worlds, because while the “1 minute” deal is interesting, I am not sure it is worth this.

Moving on we come to the last bit of the episode, Gojo and the training arc. Gojo continues to be interesting as Jujutsu Kaisen fully commits to him being the strongest character in the show. I like that his reasoning for not killing the Jujutsu heads isn’t that he couldn’t do it, but rather that it wouldn’t accomplish what he wanted. No one would follow him after all. Instead his plan is to basically raise and educate his own little army for an inevitable coup. To indoctrinate people to follow him after he inevitably snaps and kills the Jujutsu heads. The more we learn about Gojo the less he seems like an actual good guy. Maybe his intentions are good, but his actions are stretching it and he just so happens to be on our side. I am looking forward to what Jujutsu Kaisen does with him in the future.

Finally we come to the training and its… meh? It’s a shounen training arc, there really isn’t much to speak about here. Itadori’s is kind of funny, figuring out how to channel negative emotions consistently by watching horror movies etc. It fits the setting while still being light hearted. But just like Fushiguro and Nobara’s training, ultimately it is still tied to a very standard shounen formula. I wish we didn’t have it, I don’t see how a tournament arc of all things fits into Jujutsu Kaisen’s setting, but this is where we are. I can only hope Jujutsu Kaisen makes the best out of it and gives us some hype moments. Whether it be well animated combat sequences or an emotional reunion between Fushiguro and Itadori. If it can deliver on those two things, it might make it out of this arc doing alright.

So all in all, this episode of Jujutsu Kaisen was… decent? Aside from an opening stumble with Itadori coming back to life, and its a stumble that will effect the rest of the series to come, I still had fun. As a stand alone episode the villains in the café and Fushiguro managed to keep things moving while Itadori sort of just stumbled around. I am definitely not as in love with the series as I was when it first aired, that ship has sailed with Itadori’s revival. But I do still think we can get a hype weekly shounen with some well animated fight. And at the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with some popcorn entertainment, you know? Tell me what you think about this weeks episode below, I would love to hear it! Am I being to hard on Jujutsu Kaisen? Let me know!