SPOILER-FREE

For starters, this movie is very watchable as a newbie to the world of Jujutsu Kaisen. It was adapted from the prequel to the primary series, so while it doesn’t flesh out the world as well as the main series does, you can watch it without any prior knowledge of the world and still understand it just fine.

Now, onto the review.

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 had stunning animation, incredible music, and amazing characters. It’s a shame it was only an hour and forty-five minutes, but they made every moment matter.

I thought the characters were great. I loved the look into the second-years from the main series when they were first-years, and of course I loved Yuuta. His development and relationship with Rika was clever and unique, and I enjoyed how the ending of the movie worked out for them. I also liked the further exploration of Inumaki’s character in how he related and reacted to Yuuta. The development here really builds the deeper you get into the story as a whole. Also, Maki was mega-hot in this movie.

The animation was amazing. I can’t think of any particular scenes that made me think oh, clearly the budget went somewhere else, although the shots of Gojo’s eyes did make me think this. this is where the budget went. The fight scenes were animated incredibly as well. Of course you can’t compare it to the quality of ufotable, but MAPPA really did do a great job with the animation. The CGI was good, the fighting was good, the curses and characters were good. No complaints here from me.

And then the music! Great music. King Gnu makes banger music. The OST was fantastic too. The right song played in the right moment, and the music really complemented what was going on during the movie.

Then, of course, there’s the plot itself. Honestly I don't have much to say where the story is concerned (well, not without spoilers, anyways). I wouldn’t call it anything incredible, but it’s far from being a trash plot. I like how it works into the main story, and the concept as a whole was very interesting and enjoyable. It definitely got me wanting to get back into Jujutsu Kaisen.

The anime original scenes were very enjoyable too. After recently rereading the manga, I can confirm that there were very few anime-only scenes; they added some extra pizzazz to the fights of course, and they also gave cameos to characters from season 1 that didn't appear in the manga. There is an additional end credits scene that was not included in the manga, but I think that's about it.

As for some other negatives, I did think the pacing was a little off, but not so much that I didn't enjoy the movie. The manga (a mere four chapters and ~200 pages) had some poor pacing, and this movie was a very faithful adaptation. However, even if it was anime original, I do think that an extra thirty minutes or so could’ve made the movie just that much better. It really felt like a short movie, especially in comparison to recent American movies that have been closer to three hours.

Overall, this was a great movie. I’m not quite as awed as I was after leaving the theater from the Mugen Train movie, but it’s certainly better than any My Hero Academia movie they’ve made so far. Many individual aspects I found amazing, like the characters, animation, music, and story, despite the pacing feeling a little off in a few places. But, even though the fights were amazing, it simply wasn’t as enjoyable for me as season 1 was. However, I do think it’s fair if you liked the movie more; it was a very solid movie with several incredible aspects. The big-screen experience is one you won't want to miss for this movie. Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is definitely worth the watch, regardless of how much you already know about the series.