Tag: Summer 2023

Welcome all, to the penultimate episode of Jujutsu Kaisen! This is… This is a rough week for me. If you’re a fan, if you don’t like it when I’m particularly negative about an episode or a series, it might be best if you look away. Because I’m about to rant. If that’s what you’re looking for though? Well then lets jump right in!

Getting right into it, I realized something as I watched this episode. Our heroes… Haven’t actually finished any of the villains. Mahito? Geto just absorbed him. Jogo? Sukuna burned him alive and then annihilated the entire district before fucking off and giving the body back to Itadori. Dagon? That’s Toji, who in turn killed himself to save Fushiguro. Choso and Geto? Both of them are still alive and kicking, though I suspect Choso is about to eat it next episode. Even Hanami was taken out by Gojo, the OP teacher figure of the series. Aside from some random sorcerers like the old man or luck boy, the villains all killed each other while our heroes ran around getting their asses kicked. Even now, as Jujutsu Kaisen brings in more and more characters, the entire cast gets defeated/frozen by them in an instant! It makes them all feel… So useless.

Continue reading “Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 22 [Metamorphosis, Part 2]” →

Welcome all, to… to the same fight we’ve been watching for a while. Oh god it just keeps going. And going. Why? Oh god he has another form. And his buddy showed up to help. At least Todo is doing something! Oh gosh. Well this is going to be a fun week to talk about, someone is going to get mad at me. So lets rip off the band aid and dive right into it!

So in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m tired. I left this episode feeling fatigued. We’ve been doing this same fight, this same conflict, for so many episodes now. Every time it’s about to come to a close new powers, new strategies, new allies, new ass pulls occur to keep it going just a little longer. I can accept a few, it’s the genre, have fun with it. But much like Wano and the current My Hero Academia arc dragged on, so too has this fight. There comes a point where it’s simply to much, where you want the fight to end and the story to move on. And right here, right now? Jujutsu Kaisen has reached that point. Because every time something cool happened, every time Todo appeared on screen, every time I had fun, I was then reminded we have the same fight to get back to.

Continue reading “Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 21 [Metamorphosis]” →

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.

Continue reading “Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 12 [Dull Knife]” →

Welcome all, to another late episode of Jujutsu Kaisen! Apologies for that, seasonal premiers are taking a lot of my writing time. I haven’t even started the Undead Murder Farce review yet! God damnit… Getting back to Jujutsu Kaisen, this week kicks off a few fights, lets a senpai show off and sees the return of one of our greatest villains. Is it any good? Lets dive in and find out!

First up, lets talk production. While Jujutsu Kaisen is still generally solid, this week some cracks have started to appear. From ridiculous close ups designed to obscure the action to some choppy movement, this was one rougher than most episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen. Combine that with MAPPA forcing animators to sign confidentiality agreements and looking for animators on twitter and the signs that production is falling apart are there. While we’re still getting some banger shots for now, seriously I don’t want to underplay how good things like Toji or Itadori’s spiderman shots were, I would not be surprised if Jujutsu Kaisen started to melt in the upcoming weeks. Hopefully that doesn’t happen, I think MAPPA has generally done a good job elevating Gege’s original work. But we can’t just ignore what’s going on in the industry I’m afraid.

Continue reading “Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 11 [Seance]” →

Welcome all, to a late episode of Jujutsu Kaisen! Sorry about that, new season is starting and I have a lot of things to write, this sort of just fell through the cracks. Going to see if I can squeeze it in here before the wave that comes on Saturday. So without further ado, lets dive into the episode!

So production wise this was a decent episode. Some nice shots, good animation, nice composition, etc etc. In particular I really liked the body horror and existential dread that comes up anytime Mahito uses his power. The facial expressions of some characters and transfigured humans were great, as usual. The only issue I can see is less on the visual side and more behind the scenes. More and more this past week I’ve been reading about terrible conditions at MAPPA, of how absolutely horrid this production is. While I won’t get into any moral grandstanding about treating your employees like people, that should be a given, I will wonder about how this will end up affecting the final product we get down the line. Will Jujutsu Kaisen hold together until the end? Or is a collapse somewhere on the horizon? I dunno, but it’s something to think about moving forward.

Continue reading “Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 10 [Pandemonium]” →

Welcome all, to another week of Jujutsu Kaisen! This week is the climax of Gojo’s fight. We all know how this ends, so the real question is: How hype was it? Lets dive in and find out!

Starting off, lets give some praise for Jujutsu Kaisen’s animation team this week because that was great. Gojo got to go hard and show off exactly why he’s the fan favorite. Whether it be running around at the speed of sound killing some monsters or schooling some spirits in hand-to-hand, it was a great time. It’s a damn shame about the dimming though. I get it, it’s required by law, Porygon’s existence continues to affect anime to this day. Doesn’t change the fact that it made a couple of scenes look worse than they otherwise would have though. Still, at least fans have something to look forward to when the blu-rays come out. And it’s not like it ruined every scene either. To bring it back around to positivity, Jujutsu Kaisen’s focus on facial expressions this week was great. From Jogo to Geto to Gojo, I loved them all.

Continue reading “Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 9 [Shibuya Incident – Gate, Open]” →

Welcome all, to another episode of Jujutsu Kaisen! This week sees the villains show up, gives us our first fight of the arc, and lets Itadori show off a bit. Plenty to talk about, so lets jump right in!

Starting off, production wise this week wasn’t anything to great. It wasn’t bad, but it’s obvious Jujutsu Kaisen is saving the big stuff for later. Instead this week was mostly a rather standard display of Gojo’s power and a weird hallway CGI scene with Itadori. As awkward as it was at times though, I would still call it an improvement from Season 1’s poorly composited sewers and forests. Part of that is probably that the environment was a lot less ambitious, really just being two rectangular hallways side-by-side. But I think they’ve also just legitimately improved at it, full stop. The textures were better, they slowed the camera down and let the animation do most of the work. If anything the complexity of the Curse’s design was what held them back the most. Hopefully it continues to improve as we get further and further into the arc.

Continue reading “Jujutsu Kaisen S2 – 8 [The Shibuya Incident]” →