Cursed Training & Mahito Arc
(Minor spoilers for episodes 6-13 of the Jujutsu Kaisen anime)
I am enjoying Jujutsu Kaisen, I really am. Promise. But, after a strong start to the show, I feel like for every cool fight, awesome line, and fantastically smooth piece of animation the show is also cursed with some growing flaws.
For one, as the impending competition between schools heats up, we meet students from different grades and schools. This was such a goofy set of characters that it shattered so much of the vibe I was loving about this show. We meet a kid who only talks using ingredients in rice balls, a Panda, and the very obnoxious simp, Aoi Todo. Todo was the worst; he proclaims his love for tall women with big butts and then attacks Megumi for his taste in women. It all just felt so over the top for a show that feels a little more adult and deals with darker themes.
One of the worst things about the school stuff is the show doesn’t really do a good job of establishing why it matters. It honestly seems like students do less learning in any sort of school setting and do much more on the job training, making it feel more like an agency than a school. The only real training we see Yuji do takes place away from the school since Gojo is keeping him away while he fakes his death.
Gojo’s training is very entertaining though, Yuji must watch movies of all different varieties in order to learn to control his cursed energy while experiencing a range of emotions. If he does not control his cursed energy he is punched by a teddy bear.
I am into this show. I really am. But, in the cursed training arc, which serves to clear up more of how Jujutsu sorcery and cursed magic works, I found myself more confused than ever. Gojo offers a nice explanation, cursed energy is used to power cursed techniques. Simple right? The very next episode the show blows all of that wide open when we see Gojo in combat. As great as the animation was, this man’s infinity powers don’t exactly make it easy for the viewer to identify what is happening or apply what we’ve learned about jujutsu sorcery to what we are seeing. It is the equivalent of learning basic addition then being asked to watch someone do trigonometry. Speaking of math, Kento’s 7:3 ratio technique confused me no matter how many times it was explained.
To make matters even more confusing we are also introduced to domain expansion. The attacker can engulf their opponent in a sort of barrier which holds a world of their making. Fine. However, this skill feels really overpowered and while it allows for some really beautiful backdrops it leads to some really anticlimactic finishes to fights.
Now, for the good because I really do enjoy watching this show. Yuji continues to be a great protagonist, he still has a laid back way about him but we are getting some great glimpses of how much heart this kid has both fighting wise and compassion wise.
I also have very little bad to say about the Mahito arc as a whole. I hope this is what the show will be more of instead of the unnecessary school tropes. This arc gives us the addition of a tragic character, Junpei Yoshino. He is a kid who is horrifically bullied while being ignored by his teachers. When he sees his bullies get murdered by Mahito, the cursed spirit born from humans' hatred of eachother, Junpei sets down a dark path.
Junpei was absolutely my favorite part of this block of episodes. He was so relatable and real, you wonder how he takes up the same airtime as a character that can only say “Bonito flakes” or a character that fights people because of their taste in women.
The Mahito arc also introduced Kento, the overly serious and sensible ex-businessman sorcerer, who has an awesome dynamic with Yuji, a character driven by his gut and his heart. Their investigation of the murders of Jumpei’s classmates and their eventual battles with Mahito himself are all top notch.
The end of the Mahito arc hit pretty hard. Between Junpei teetering between humans being heartless or having hearts and just forsaking him and his mother, to Yuji needing to deal with killing in order to give people the proper deaths that seem so important to him. The show definitely knows how to set up and pay off on some powerful themes.
Jujutsu Kaisen does a lot well but something is really keeping it from being a top tier show for me. The Mahito arc showed what it can do right, but the training arc showed that we are going to be getting a school tournament without any real reason to be invested in it. I am really hoping the show leans way heavier into what makes it feel special as things progress, for now this is a show I am enjoying but haven’t fallen in love with yet.