Welcome all, to episode 3 of Season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen! Apologies for the delay on this, I had a concert last night and was out until 4am. On a side note, all of you should go check out Ok Goodnight and Challenger Deep, great bands. Enough of that though, on with the episode!
Getting into the episode proper, I need to reiterate that this is, hands down, the best Jujutsu Kaisen has ever been. Ever. Without question. Everything about this season so far is hands and feet above what came before. From the character interactions and individual stories in this little stand alone arc to its implications on the larger story. The only thing I think Jujutsu Kaisen season 1 may have a leg up on is animation. Not because this season is bad, in fact as far as direction goes I would say this season is still the clear victor. But This episode showed us a bit of what can happen when you get to ambitious. Some of Gojo’s fight looked kinda sloppy, such as Gojo’s Blue attack. The CGI, compositing, and general style of animation just weren’t quite there for me. At least the character acting was top notch though.
As for an example of the narrative, we need look no further than Riko. Jujutsu Kaisen has spent the last 2 and a half episodes building up her as this lonely child enjoying her last few days of life. Everyone is going out of their way to make her happy, letting her experience everything she can and say goodbye properly. It even revealed that she knows what is going to happen, and that she was just putting on a brave face before, a lovely bit of vulnerability from her. All of this was setting it up so that when our leads win, as they inevitably would because Shounen, it wouldn’t feel like a victory. They might even fight/get into conflict about it, explaining their split and why Geto is a villain in the current timeline. And then Jujutsu Kaisen just… Didn’t do any of that, and it’s great.
Instead Jujutsu Kaisen not only had our leads to let Riko walk away, to live her life and do the exact thing Fushiguro’s client wants, preventing the assimilation into Tengen, but it adds a layer of tragedy onto it as well by killing her the moment she decides to leave. And not in some fantasy bullshit “Magic of death” kind of way, she just gets shot in the freaking head. There was happy music and everything, we just had a flashback about how lonely she was growing up, it was a legitimately heart wrenching moment… And then Fushiguro just takes her out. He could have gotten what he wanted, avoided all this conflict and most likely his own impending death, had he just not shot her. But he did. And tragedy gets layered on top of tragedy, resulting in another in a long line of fights. It was great.
Speaking of the fights, while the animation was a bit choppy at times the narrative of them was fantastic. The payoff of wearing Gojo down, the strategy of setting a timer to make him think it would be over when it ran out and thus encouraging him not to rest at all, the tactics of using spirits to confuse his senses and waiting until he turned to look for Riko. There was a lot of great stuff in there. It also helps that Fushiguro has just been a great antagonist so far. His arrogance matches that of Gojo, that scene of meeting Gojo as a child and being a little peeved he was noticed, the sheer brutality of how he takes him down. He’s intimidating, I love him. And of course it helps that Gojo actually freaking lost. Who saw that coming?!
Now sure, we know he survives this, after all he’s still around in the main timeline. And the “How” here doesn’t really matter either, maybe he gets revived, maybe he healed himself, maybe it was a fake out. None of that matters. The important thing is that there is now a precedent for Gojo, previously depicted as the single strongest character in the show, to lose. And that, for now at least, the one who did it is not only still out there, but the father of another one of our lead characters, Megumi. That’s going to come up, and when it does it’s going to be great. In fact it almost makes Gojo’s adopting/taking in of Megumi suspicious, since it’s the kid of the one guy to ever beat him. Imagine what that did to Gojo’s pride? It’s probably why he mellowed by the time we see him.
As for what is to come next, I’m really excited. Jujutsu Kaisen is setting up a Geto/Fushiguro fight for next week. And while we know Geto survives, just like with Gojo that doesn’t mean he can’t lose. Unlike Gojo however, Geto goes on to become the main villain of the series, shifting from advocating for the protection of non-sorcerers to their culling. Is this the event that sets him off, that causes that shift in perspective? If so how? Why does he and Gojo basically swap opinions after all of this? Could it be a cover to tear down Tengen/get revenge? I don’t know, but I’m really curious how Jujutsu Kaisen is going to handle his evolution into a villain, especially after Riko’s brutal murder before his eyes.
All in all this was a fantastic week for Jujutsu Kaisen. Strong fights, strong narrative, strong emotional highs, strong everything. I know that a lot of people consider the upcoming Shibuya Arc to be Jujutsu Kaisen’s strongest, but for me it’s this Hidden Inventory that beats it. And it did so even before all of the added original scenes, strong direction and great OST choices. To me Shibuya is a pretty standard Marineford style “Everyone gets in one place and fights” sort of arc. It has highs and lows, and it will probably have some incredible animation. But it lacks the character work to really make me care the same way Hidden Inventory does. Still, if we’re lucky, maybe it will get the same treatment and be elevated the same way this arc has been. At the very least I know I’m more excited then I thought I’d be.
Dude there is no need to be so hard on shibuya. Do you have fucking mice things to say about it or are you just going to trash it because it is “popular and overrated “? The one thing I like about jjk and CM is that unlike most shonen(OP and MHA) they have the balls to kill off characters and keep them dead.
I don’t think I trashed it all that much at all. In fact I think I was pretty clear that not only does it have highs and lows, it also is probably going to have some good animation and, if the adaptation work done in Hidden Inventory is anything to go by, will have plenty of original content to fill it out as well. All I said was that I thought it was a relatively standard Shounen arc, which it is. so I wasn’t even all that negative to begin with.
As for JJK having “the balls to kill off characters and keep them dead”, yeah that’s why (Spoilers for One Piece, JJK and Naruto, click to read)
Maki has returned, Itadori had his heart ripped out and got back up and Gojo is going to get back up after this episode. Meanwhile One Piece has killed off… Lets see, Ace, Oden, Whitebeard, numerous single-arc specific characters. As another example we have Naruto with Jiraiya, Itachi, Asuma, Neji, Third Hokage.
Suffice to say, I don’t think it’s really a strength of JJK… At all. And even assuming it was, that doesn’t make Shibuya an interesting or engaging arc for me. At least when I read the manga, it was all rather standard. Not bad. Not amazing. Just… a decent shounen arc. Nothing particularly harsh or hard.
What’s funny though is that out of all my positivity about this adaptation, about how these 3 episodes have been fantastic, you pick out just this to try and say I’m calling it “trash” because its “Popular and overrated”. Just because I don’t think something is the best thing ever doesn’t mean it’s trash, nor does it mean I hate it. Try to calm down a bit.
ur probably the only one ive ever seen who shares my opinion omg… i like shibuya but hidden inventory is definitely my favourite arc and every time i say that ppl r like wtf and its like im insane. hidden inventory just has a more streamlined and coherent plot (and a plot that i personally enjoyed more anyway) and more endearing characters. love this arc and sad its adaptation is almost over…