Jujutsu Kaisen – 23 [The Origin of Blind Obedience 2]

Welcome everyone to the penultimate episode of Jujutsu Kaisen! And this week I present to you: Megumi Fushiguro. That’s it. I don’t have anything clever here, this is Fushiguro’s episode and its pretty damn good. So lets dive into it.

As always lets start by first bitching about Jujutsu Kaisen’s production. Or at least that’s what I would say if it didn’t do a great job this week. Everything from the composite and choreography to even the CGI tracking shots were good. Whether it be the intensity of Gojo’s stare during Fushiguro’s flashback or Itadori running and spinning through the domain. It’s frankly amazing how much of a difference changing the environment you are tracking in can help. I’m sure you remember the forests of the tournament arc and just how… bad that looked. Of course part of that comes down to this room being a flat plane compared to complex foliage. But it’s not as if Park didn’t know what the environment would be like in each of these shots before planning them out. So let this be a lesson on using the right tool for the right scene.

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Jujutsu Kaisen – 19 [Black Flash]

This is it, it’s here, Kimetsu no Yaiba Jujutsu Kaisen episode 19! I would call that a joke but Jujutsu Kaisen really tried to pull out all the stops this week. From big flashy fight sequences to some emotional moments, it tried. But does it succeed? Well lets talk about that.

Starting off, production was all over the place. The animation was incredible of course. From Itadori’s kick sequence to Hanami’s flowers and tree growth. It’s all very dynamic, moved well and looked great. The problem is that the composite was complete shit. More often than not the characters didn’t look like they belonged in the world. Whether it be the utterly terrible splashing water or CGI forest once again standing out, it was bad. Of special note is the running sequence atop Hanami’s branches which just feels like an inferior version of Yutaka Nakamura’s work on the first My Hero Academia movie which you can find here. I don’t want to criticize Keiichiro Watanabe to much. The vines/trees and the actual character animations are fucking incredible as you will see in the clip below. But they don’t fit together well, with Itadori’s run seeming to float above the environment.

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