Jujutsu Kaisen – 8 [Boredom]

Welcome all to another week of Jujutsu Kaisen! Apologies for the wait, it’s been a busy weekend and all things considered, not much happened this episode. Still, without further ado, lets jump right into it!

What do I mean by “not much happened”? Simply that this week was more of a transition episode than anything else. It transitioned us from Gojo’s fight into the next arc, setting up conflicts and introducing the new “antagonists”. I put that in quotes because its fairly obvious that Toudou at least will become an ally later on. For now though, he serves as the big obstacle Fushiguro must overcome. Beyond that brief skirmish though, Jujutsu Kaisen mostly dedicates this week to character time. Expanding on our side characters and Gojo’s own conflict with the Jujutsu Conservatives. This is a good thing of course, not every week can be a high octane sakuga fest. Turning things up to 11 loses its appeal if you are always at it. It does mean though that, outside one or two cuts, there wasn’t any big animation to gush over.

So, onto our new would-be antagonists! And my thoughts on them are… eh? Her initial impression is not a strong one, though if Jujutsu Kaisen wanted me to dislike her, it succeeded. She shows up, insults Itadori and generally acts like a stereotypical bitch. Jujutsu Kaisen does allude to some family issues with Maki, how their curse powers are weak, etc. That there is more to her, a reason for her attitude. But her general treatment of Fushiguro and Nobara, along with flashing a gun which is generally hard to find in Japan, really takes precedence over any family troubles. Similar to the other side characters, it feels like Jujutsu Kaisen is putting the obvious character traits first. Establishing her via more shallow, easy to understand personality quirks, before it dive’s in to what actually makes her Mai. Until that happens though, she’s just sort of a bitch.

Meanwhile Toudou is… I am very split on Toudou. Based on his appearance in the ED, I was really hoping for something different. Perhaps some kind of wholesome dude or a hopeless romantic, something belie his great size. So you can imagine my disappointment when he opens the conversation with “What kind of woman do you like”. It felt like Jujutsu Kaisen just doubled down on the overly macho “I love to fight” archetype rather than doing something different. It’s still early days of course, and the after credits scene softened me to him a bit. I just hope that this more… maybe not perverted but I can’t think of a better word, side doesn’t become his defining character trait. That said, Jujutsu Kaisen did do one thing right with him, and that’s selling us on his raw power.

As far as “powerful characters” go, Jujutsu Kaisen did a great job putting Toudou up there. Part of it is his design, the man is built like a brick house. But the other part is the simultaneous explanation and then demonstration of his skills. Explaining his performance against Special and A Grade curses, only 1 episode after we see a Special Grade in action. Only to then launch into the fight against Fushiguro without using a single Jujutsu technique, just raw power. Jujutsu Kaisen generally does a good job with depicting the power levels of its characters, either through how they stand/move, or through how others react to them and Toudou is no different. I will admit, I was grasping for reasons to like him at this point since his opening dialogue put me off. But I think the series did a decent job with him here.

Moving on, the rest of the cast also came out of this episode a bit better. And though his scene was short, the biggest gain has to go to Inumaki, the cursed speech guy. In a single line we get a demonstration of his ability along with an explanation of his power. Basically, it appears that he can talk, but that any real sentences become commands. This makes his whole “Can only speak in ingredients” thing make much more sense. Go for words that sound similar, but don’t actually trigger his power, etc. It’s a tiny thing I know, but it makes him much more bearable/interesting now that we know how it works. Similarly, Miwa get’s a small explanation about her dependency on cursed weapons. It’s not much, but it does make me think of the glasses shot in the OP, which is nice.

Finally we come to Gojo and the principle, which was a great scene. It’s always fun to see Gojo sticking it to people and his complete lack of respect or decorum made it fun. In particular his speech about the “next generation”, the “wave you have been holding back” did wonders to setup what is to come. How it’s not only the curses that have been gathering, but the next generation of jujutsu sorcerers as well. It makes it clear that the upcoming story is one of momentous events, a changing of the era as more and more events pile up. It isn’t required for a good story, but I am always down for these kinds of premonitions. The only question left is if Jujutsu Kaisen can actually deliver on the promise it is making here. I have high hopes for it.

So all in all, how was this episode of Jujutsu Kaisen? I don’t think it will go down as anyone’s favorite, nothing that happened was really “wow” worthy. But it does its job of transitioning us and focusing us on this conflict between Jujutsu schools. It does appear that we are going to have one more minor arc between now and that tournament though. The ending scene with the theater was alright I suppose, but I don’t really get why we are jumping back and forth from Itadori. Don’t get me wrong, I want to see more of Mahito. I really like his design and he is very striking in the OP. It just kind of feels like we are torn between two separate plot threads at the moment. Small nit picks like this aside, I am still on the Jujutsu Kaisen train and ready to see where it leads.