JUJUTSU KAISEN

I'm going to preface this review by stating my opinion on two things related to reviewing anime. First off, to me, not everything is a 10/10 or a masterpiece. In my opinion, rating everything extremely high takes away some of the value of a high rating. Second off, you like what you like and you dislike what you dislike. There is nothing wrong with that. Rating anime (unless it is your job) is a fun hobby and should not be something you lose sleep over.

Before I begin my review I will state clearly I have not yet read the manga and I am rating this anime based on this season alone. I am not rating this anime based on the potential of what it could be or what it will become when later manga arcs are adapted. Along with that I keep all my reviews spoiler free so I will not be stating any spoilers in this review. With all that out of the way and said I'm going to state my opinion on Jujutsu Kaisen. In this review I'm going to sing the many praises along with the gripes I have related to this anime.

Story:
The story of Jujutsu Kaisen, while not unique, is somewhat interesting. It keeps the viewer invested from episode to episode but isn't anything too special. The central premise of stopping cursed spirits from killing and placing curses on people is somewhat compelling. When you add in that the average human can not see these cursed spirits and do not realize that they have a curse placed on them it further emphasizes the importance of these jujutsu sorcerers. The main characters act through a secret agency of jujutsu sorcerers and must exorcise evil spirits but do so in a way that will not cause harm to the general public. In this way Jujutsu Kaisen prevents itself from falling into the monster of the week formula.

Animation:
The overall animation of this anime is spectacular. MAPPA really did outdo themselves with this animation. The animation flows seamlessly throughout the fight scenes and the fight scenes are beautifully choreographed. Along with this the characters are beautifully adapted and each have their own unique flair to them. That's honestly about all I have related to the animation. It's simply extremely good!

Power System:
The power system is arguably the greatest aspect of Jujutsu Kaisen. The idea of using cursed energy as a power scale and something that is finite and is determined based on the individual is a good way of doing power scaling. It prevents the whole power of friendship trope from so many shonens of interfering with the power system. Furthermore, the addition of domains allows for the writer to give each character their own unique skill, similar to nen in Hunter x Hunter. Overall, the power system in Jujutsu Kaisen has a lot of potential and it is one of my favorite aspects of Jujutsu Kaisen.

Characters:

I came to enjoy some protagonist more than others. Todo, Gojou, and Megumi stuck out by far the most. Looking specially at Yuuji, the main character, there is very little that makes him stick out from your average shonen main protagonist outside of the fact that he doesn't like killing and that he is extremely physically gifted. The result is that the main character feels fairly vanilla and kind of falls flat. Many people loved Gojou, as did I, but I found that he prevented us from seeing actual growth out of the other main characters because he was always there to protect them when they actually faced a realistic chance of death. This was however solved in the final arc of this season so I can't really complain too much about that.

I am going to sing the praise of Jujutsu Kaisen very heavily for a second here. The females in this show are very well written. The creator does not try to jam down the throat that female characters are just as strong as male character but instead shows us that they are. Each female character feels like they are just as strong as their male counterparts and that is a very welcome change to the norms of the shonen genre.

That being said, the villains (antagonists) in Jujutsu Kaisen might be some of the most underwhelming I've seen in a shonen anime in a long time. This is where my main disappointment with Jujutsu Kaisen stems from. There is not a single time I was convinced that any of our main protagonists would fall to the villain they faced. Throughout this season the main characters never actually have to encounter a real threat of death because Gojou will always come to the rescue. Mahito and company never really do feel like a threat to the main protagonists so long as Gojou is still around. Along with that, outside of some actions that Mahito makes, the villains don't actually do anything that makes me inherently hate them. I simply see them as villains because they are on the opposite side of our protagonists. All this added up together took away greatly from my enjoyment of the anime as a whole. I think the potential of Sukuna as a main villain is very promising but there is no development towards that in this season.

Soundtrack:
The soundtrack in Jujutsu Kaisen is very well done. It is not overbearing during scenes with heavy dialogue. Furthermore, some of the fight scenes in the anime are accompanied with incredible songs that just get you hyped. It's not crazy good in a way to where it sticks out in the genre but it does do a great job fulfilling its intended role.

▶ __ Overall Thoughts:__ I do think Jujutsu Kaisen is brimming with potential but I think it is very premature to call it a masterpiece among shonen anime. If the writer does a good job continuing this trend and he shores up the villain problem that this anime seemed to have then I could see it entering the conversation as a classic shonen anime. The best way I could put it is that it is currently a jack of all trades but a master of none. For me, it is currently a very solid shonen that has a lot of potential but it isn't there just yet.