Welcome all, to another episode of Jujutsu Kaisen! This is a rough week I’m afraid. The melt is setting in, and as compelling as Nanami is as a character he can’t carry the episode on his back when he’s only around at the end. Curious what I mean? Well lets dive in and talk about it!
Like I said in the intro, this week was rough for Jujutsu Kaisen visually. Don’t get me wrong, it still had some good moments. Shunsuke Okubo, making his directorial debut, did the best they could with a failing production. From cool angles to a heavy focus on character faces, expression and heavy shading, he made some scenes pop. Just look at basically every scene Nanami was in for examples of that. On top of that, a lot of the VA work was top tier. But outside of those the way the actual characters moved was rough. They were choppy, static, felt like there was a lot of trouble keeping them on model and actually looking like the characters. In most shows, were this their consistent level of animation, it wouldn’t be a huge knock against them. But with Jujutsu Kaisen, which started very very strongly, this continual decline, along with news from behind the scenes, paints a grim picture of the future.
Narrative wise, the highlight of the episode was easily Nanami. We got some great subdued emotion from him. That opening scene talking about how detached he is, like he’s trying to convince himself. The flash to his fellow student from the Hidden Inventory arc. His slow walk towards Shigemo, all combined with a restrained performance from Tsuda. It was good shit! On top of that, it was also a solid setup for what we should expect from the fights to come. Not quality wise, we’ve talked about the melting production. I more mean the power ceilings of them. His lines about he, himself, being the minimum for what is to come, refusing to let Nobara tag along, making it clear just how dangerous some of these are about to be. Again, it’s solid.
Going along with this, I think Shigemo was a good choice for jobber as well. As stereotypical as it is, jobbing is a classic in Shounen series for a reason. It shows us not just the difference in power between between Nobara and everything she’s about to face, but also where Nanami sits on the totem pole. Sure, we knew a lot of this already. Nanami has fought Mahito before in Season 1. But we haven’t seen him do anything since then, so this is a good reminder. As for Nobara, her last showing was actually rather impressive against a pair of special grade curses, so making it clear exactly where she stands in Shibuya is important. Naturally she’s still going to get drawn into fights, we can’t avoid that, but this is a good way to set her up for them.
As for the rest of the episode, outside of Nanami it’s mostly setup. Mei Mei with the Smallbox Curse into Geto afterwards, Itadori against Choso. Both of these feel like they can be decent fights. Mei Mei is a side character, she’s not particularly relevant so we all know she isn’t actually going to beat Geto. Still she can close off one of the exits and, if she makes it to him, become a jobber to show how powerful he is. Meanwhile with Choso, we don’t know much about his power level but he’s one of the few opponents here that actually has an emotional connection with Itadori, which should bring some much needed spice to the fight. That said, until they begin we can’t really know how they will go. And with the melting production it’s possible they will disappoint.
That leaves us with Toji, breaking free of the Grandma’s technique and taking over the body. I’ll admit, I hadn’t noticed that this was meant to be a “controlling” thing, I thought they had just brought him back. Still, it’s cool to see him just saying “fuck it”, breaking out, and deciding to murder everyone there. Suddenly there is a neutral 3rd party who doesn’t mind killing people on either side. And he’s a rather badass one at that, probably the strongest person currently in Shibuya. However, one has to wonder if this technique has weakened/limited him at all. Jujutsu Kaisen did mention they only summoned his body, not his soul. So despite that still being enough to overwhelm the grandson, will this affect him at all? I honestly can’t remember. Only time will tell, but should be interesting.
So yeah, all in all this was a narratively fine episode with the cracks in the production starting to widen more and more. For the long term health of the season, this is pretty concerning. I know there are some big fights coming up, and as confident as I was after Hidden Inventory, that confidence is quickly fading as Jujutsu Kaisen melts more and more. Hopefully it can pull itself back up a bit. Because as good as stuff like Nanami was, a lot of what makes it work, what makes it good or “above average”, is in the way that story is being delivered. In the direction of the show itself. If Jujutsu Kaisen loses that… Well it might fall back to what I remember it being when I first read the arc. Little more than decent. Hopefully that doesn’t happen though, I want Jujutsu Kaisen to succeed.
