I enjoyed season 1 of Jujutsu Kaisen well enough; a solidly told story with great fight scenes. But for the majority of season 2 I was either bored or annoyed for one reason: The fight scenes were awful.

Of course, they were animated beautifully, but a good fight scene that does not make. There is validity to watching a show for it's visuals alone — plenty of my favorites I love solely for their beauty — but the intent of fight scene to give a good fight means good animation alone isn't enough, at least for me. What makes a good fight scene is the clever use of space and/or interesting use of abilities. Season 1 did both quite well: Yuuji and Nobara's first excursion made good use of the environment they were fighting in and Toudou's boogie woogie is easily my favorite ability in anime. In season 2, however, these qualities are few and far between.

After Gojo's arc (which is fine) season 2 has the first plainly awful fight: Mahito v. Mechamaru. In terms of environment, it doesn't matter. The forest around them isn't used for cover, stealth, or anything else, and the dam could be any other wall or platform and function the same. The environment is just set-dressing. As for abilities, neither character's powers are firmly established and are functionally made-up on the spot. This is the first fight where Mahito's Idle Tranformation just becomes random bullshit without any way for the viewer to predict or be impressed with how he fights (yes, I know he's portrayed as a child playing around. No, that doesn't make it better). And Mechamaru's bad vibes storage is used for, again, random bullshit the viewer has no means to follow. Compared to boogie woogie, which has clearly defined rules the viewer can engage with and be exited by when it's used in an interesting way, mahito and mechamaru are functionally just weaponizing animator crunch-time. It's one thing for a show to have nonsensical mech fights if that were it's intent from the start, like Promare, but here it's just boring. Without an interesting environment or abilities, the only thing left to the fight is to wait for the inevitable end of mechamaru being defeated. Inevitable because, with media literacy, it's obvious that's the only way for the story to progress without being wildly derailed (the point of this review isn't to critique jujutsu kaisen for being predictable, because if the fights were good that wouldn't a big issue, but I thought I should establish that).

After Mahito v. Mechamaru, the fight scenes don't get better. One small example that bothered the hell out of me was when Yuuji fought the grasshopper in the subway. Constantly during the fight it would be animated like they were running/flying hundreds of feet only to stop and have moved, like, five feet. That fight treated the subway like wind tunnel that was infinitely long yet tightly constrained. Again, the environment didn't matter.

There were some solid fights, like Yuuji v. Chousou, making great use of it's environment and solidly established abilities, but most fights continued in the vain of Mahito v. Mechamaru. Yuuji v. Mahito had good moments like them being pinned by the flesh wall making a very interesting fighting environment, but most of it was them running around in it-doesn't-really-matter-subway and the show pretending Mahito can lose before having him slither out of danger. Or Sukuna v. Jougo, which removes any pretense of it being an even fight and makes the point solely the damage Sukuna can do. It's a good story element, but the fight itself is largely empty beyond the animation.

And then there's a matter of Nobara's death, which is truly awful. One: It's incredibly lazy to tell Nobara's backstory after her death, trying for force the viewer to care hand over fist, instead of giving her story time during an earlier arc and allowing the viewer to grow invested in her organically. Two: It's a textbook example of fridging (a character, typically female, suffering and/or dying for the development of another, typically male. Overly Sarcastic Productions made a great video on it if you want to learn more).

The thing is, I know I can be very tolerant of lazy writing if I'm enjoying a show. So I have to ask myself if I hate her death because it's poorly written on its own, or do I hate it because I already wasn't enjoying the show? I wouldn't have liked her death either way, but would it be such a massive deal-breaker if the fights were good, or would it just be an annoyance?

Some of you reading may argue that I shouldn't be so fussed about the fight scenes, and that I should focus on the story. But critiques can cascade. I hated Mahito v. Mechamaru, so I didn't care that Mechamaru died. I was bored going into Sukuna v. Jougou, so I was unphased by the destruction he wrought — A point I thought the show had made enough before then. I already thought of the show negatively, so I found Nobara's death abhorrent. I can easily see myself not being nearly as critical, or enjoying, these scenes if the fights didn't become so dull. One problem with a show can cripple everything else, creating further critiques where they wouldn't have been before and exacerbating critiques that would've been there regardless.