NOTE: This contains spoilers for Season 2 and potential spoilers for Season 1.
Firstly, Todo appearing in the fight in general is pretty lame. What I think is the creator wanted to have a character with a strong connection to Itadori helping him in the fight, except any other character would be better if only he didn’t kill them off, it’s like they wrote themselves into a corner by Todo being the only option left here. The problem with this is Todo is not a good person or friend, the only reason he’s Itadori’s friend is because he objectifies women the same way Todo does. There has been, what… three scenes total with Itadori and Todo together? The first appearance, the fight against the curse during the training/battle thing, and here at the end of the fight against Mahito. There has been no development with these two characters, maybe except Todo teaching Itadori the Black Flash. Don’t get me wrong, I really like Todo when he’s not a shitty person, and I think he has the most interesting power since he’s very creative with it, but there is no importance to him being in this final fight with Itadori outside of him being literally the only other character Itadori knows enough (barely) to help him in this fight.
Then you have the whole narration thing trying to explain every single action the characters make. I really don’t see how this is ignored, if you have to TELL your audience what’s happening then that’s pretty bad choreography in the fights, and at worst a bad power system. I shouldn’t have moments that stop me from enjoying the fight scenes, both a lack of understanding the scenes and the narration do this. I think this could’ve been solved if the power system passed the “show don’t tell” test; if you can have a character do something on screen and I understand it by visuals then that’s good, but if you just have a narrator tell me what this character is doing then that’s pretty bad. The only exception to this is if we are first being introduced to the general power system of the series. This is just an idea though and I’m not a writer or anything, but I feel like that’s common sense.
Mahito is very inconsistent in the show, in Season 1 he was near death by Nanami and Itadori (correct me if I’m wrong, been a while since I seen that part) and yet fighting Mechamaru he’s incredibly overpowered. Here in the final fight is the worst case of inconsistency; he seemed to be on par with Mahito during the beginning until we find out he’s at half strength because of his clone. Itadori pulls through though but instead of, you know, clapping his head with his fists until it explodes he just keeps pummeling his chest and face. He somehow comes away from what looked like one hell of a beating to a full on sprint to his clone, no damage has really been done on that half of Mahito if he can run at the same pace as his mostly unharmed clone. Let’s ignore the fact Nobara could’ve done something to stop him or herself from getting injured (dead?) or even figuring out that Mahito could make clones and that might be one (I think it’s pretty obvious considering his power). He goes onto this final fight with some greater strength he had before, even getting a transformation out of nowhere. It’s almost like Todo being there made Mahito look too weak and so they gave Mahito some buffs here. Buffs can be fine if there’s a reason for them, but Mahito has no real motivation outside of wanting to kill everyone and have fun doing it. Because of this there’s no reason he should’ve gotten stronger, why would he need to be? It’s not like the character to increase in power since he’s been shown to be full of himself. Mahito has inconsistently been average at worst and incredibly overpowered at best, making the fight feel like there’s no real tension or intrigue as I feel like anything could happen at this point. My only motivation for the main character winning comes from Mahito being the worst character so far and overstaying their welcome.
I really wanted to like this show, especially after the first season and the movie (I LOVED the movie). Things I wanted to happen never have, development between characters doesn’t exist, killing off a main supporting character can happen at any point while having no real purpose while simultaneously removing all potential that character had, the antagonist I actually care about is still half-assed and barely appears in this season, all my favorite characters have died without amounting to anything. I really, and I really mean it, wanted to like this show and I did for a while. I don’t think I’ll be continuing it as with the past several episodes I’ve been getting an incrementally worse taste in my mouth.
Good chance I’m just incorrect, it’s just what I had in mind while watching up to the point I left off.
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