I really liked JuJutsu Kaisen. At first I was pessimistic, not even watching it for a long time as I was sure that it would just be an uninspired shounen with not much unique going on. Boy was I wrong.

This series takes the title Sorcery Fight extremely seriously, with the power system itself allowing for some of the most creative fights I have seen in the genre. Cursed techniques in general have such a wide variety of strength and applications, yet a solid list of fundamental ground rules. This mashup of creative freedom and immutable limitations allows for insane powers to be displayed without arbitrarily forcing the main characters up a power cliff. A great example would be the Yuji and Todo fight against Hanami, where the opponent clearly had a much better ability yet they were able to clutch the fight by sticking to the fundamentals and playing it out perfectly.

The characters are fun yet intriguing. They always have great and memorable surface level interactions while also having more to analyze beneath the surface. It's not true for all of them, but a good amount of the cast are extremely well fleshed out and likeable. Mahito, for example, is a great villain in any immediate situation he's in. He's a great agent of chaos, being easily hated even if you watch with your brain completely turned off. Yet there's still plenty of internal conflict going on in him that you have to extrapolate and interpret yourself. Like his inability to fully accept himself as a curse and his urge to become the strongest due to the competitive nature of his human side.

There's also one thing in particular that this series has completely revolutionized in terms of shounen, which is the Domain Expansion. I don't care who you are, you know that Domain Expansion is the one of the coolest trump card abilities to come out of anime in the last 10 years. It's like the full potential version of what the Bankai from Bleach was supposed to be. An extremely overpowered personalized ability that guarantees a strong advantage against an opponent (and looks cool while it happens). Manga authors will have to cook for the next 10 years to even have a chance at making something with more aura than Domain Expansions.

The main complaints I have about the series are few. I wish the power system was more accessible for climbing. Not to the point where Nobara could potentially do a million pushups and then one shot Sukuna or anything. But having such cool characters eternally locked to being pointless in high tier fights is a miss in my opinion. I also wish there were more character interaction scenes. There are a good amount, don't get me wrong, but a lot of characters never even speak to each other. A lot of it happens off screen.

With that being said, JuJutsu Kaisen is absolutely my favorite anime to come out of the 2020s so far. I came in expecting slop and got an actually extremely well cooked meal. Good job, Gege.