Forum - View topicJujutsu Kaisen (TV + movie) (w/ index).
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 12058 Location: Frisco, TX |
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[ep. 48]
Nice bloody re-introduction to the franchise. Having recently gone through S1 to get screen shots, I'm a little amazed at how much the production quality jumped, in terms of art, between S1 and S3. For S1, I was finding it really difficult to just cap good art, like backgrounds, structures, monster designs, or cool looking character angles. A lot of the budget went into animating the fights, but you can't really capture motion in a cap. Comparatively, I was also capping Frieren at the same time, which is light years above JJK in the art department, so that made it a lot harder. Once I get to the movie and beyond, I'm sure the art will be easier to cap. I had contemplated seeing the Execution event in theaters (movie recap for S2 + the first two eps. of S3 put together), but I didn't wanna' fork out the money for a recap and something I could eventually see a month later without paying $15+ dollars. It's not like this was Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc in Dolby Cinema or anything fancy like that (which I'm still buzzing about). Those first two episodes did look pretty awesome, though. Last edited by Tony K. on Fri Jan 09, 2026 12:52 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 12058 Location: Frisco, TX |
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[ep. 49]
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Edjwald
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Yeah, that opening scene in particular was crazy good. Not just the animation, but the way it conveyed the weirdness of the world while traveling through it in a chase scene. Even the familiar decaying urban landscapes felt slightly alien because of all the strange angles.
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Harleyquin
Posts: 3443 |
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#48-49
A double-header to begin, and as always the series doesn't waste time with summary and goes straight into the action and this arc's storyline. In addition to lots of gore as curses are fed into the Itadori/Chouso grinder, there's the small matter of Okkotsu Yuta from the movie now making his formal bow into the TV series proper and fulfilling his duty as Itadori's executioner. The new Zen'in sorceror is arrogant and a stereotypical MCP, but he's got the skills to back up the mouth and attitude. Like the former head of the Zen'in clan, his ability to trace movements gives him uncanny speed and reaction times, so in some ways he's like an inferior version of Maki since he still has to rely on his physical attributes and weapons to kill curses since he lacks the supernatural power to destroy them like more conventional sorcerors. He's more than worth his rating as a special class sorceror, and for most of the first two episodes he's taking Chouso to the cleaners. That said, Chouso is no slouch. This is the same special specimen who would have comfortably killed Itadori (without Sukuna backup) had the Itadori Deus Ex Machina not kicked in. If the opponent is so far that he can't be hit with precise attacks, then going for the artillery barrage/carpet bombing approach works. Once Naoya's speed is hindered by sticky blood it is Chouso's to lose. Too bad Okkotsu finished his duel with Itadori faster and made a great show about finishing his commission. The second episode brings the casual viewer straight into the arc (it is named after the great game the contestants must play for this arc and the next adapted one). Plenty of rules, and the English subtitles only give snippets of what the contestants have to expect. Anyone who can read Japanese can simply pause the episode and read the rules for themselves, but the English snippets will become clearer as the game progresses for the benefit of non-Japanese viewers. One facet of the rules which the summary didn't mention is the time limit of 19 days, so Fushiguro is desperate to get a move on as he doesn't have much time before his sister is automatically "culled". Playing catch-up for all of last season means the high schoolers need to do something to improve the dire straits they are in, and finding the mysterious Tengen who was the focus of a young Gojou's assignment to find his new vessel is as good as any place to start with. Good thing Chouso is on their side, as it is his ability to resonate with his siblings that gives the students the shortcut they need to meet Tengen directly. The other students will have to be wary of him trying to extricate his captive brothers, but he should be fine while he's still under Itadori's spell. The students (and Chouso) will most likely have to hear what Tengen has to say about the death game that's about to start, and whether there's anything they can do to get Gojou out of his prison since without him they have no chance of victory. It's been a busy two episodes for the animators, so I'm expecting them to have a break next week as it's more conversation than action. |
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ACｘS
 Posts: 1226 |
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48, 49:
Man I swear, JJK will be the death of MAPPA. And why do I say that? Do you remember how people couldn't wait for the next season to come, but also worried that the studio and animators would burn themselves out? Yeah, this is that show. That one chaotic time when MAPPA was juggled JJK, Vinland Saga, AoT final episode, and Chainsaw Man at the same time. But now the last three shows are out of the way now, they can finally focus on JJK. BOY, does this studio go ham on this show. I could see that this studio wants to dominate the season. For real. I thought the OP for Jigokuraku (MAPPA's other show for this season) was amazing. MAPPA must have heard me and went "heh, watch this--". The sheer effort being put into the animation is expectedly unreal, but the most fascinating part is the change in direction. Unlike the last two seasons, this time it combines a lot more slow and subtle vibe scenes, and the cinematography is ramped up. It's like JJK and Chainsaw Man have become a singularity. Some things haven't changed, though: I still don't understand the jujutsu-babble in every fight scene. Not that it really matters: the fights are phenomenal, and that's what matters I can tell that MAPPA is pouring everything it's got into this show, and I feel like I'm watching something special. This show will go down as a main contender for anime of 2026, and a favourite among anime fans. I just hope MAPPA doesn't crash over their own masterpiece, because they almost did. Until then, let the games begin! |
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WatcherZer
Posts: 521 |
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It looks beautiful, but holy exposition dump Batman! Half of the 3rd episode is just text on screen.
I also feel like there's something missing between the end of the previous season and the start of this one. Everyone suddenly knows about the culling game when it only had the argument about different philosophies and the release of the 1,000 monsters. Secondly all the other sorcerers disappeared from Tokyo and is missing when they were frozen in the ice previously and it feels like like several days have passed offscreen since the family were able to have the will reading then come to Tokyo. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 25599 |
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Episode 50
I came here specifically to whine about this (basically) episode length info dump complete with schematics. When you need something like this to "explain" things, you know you have disappeared creatively up your own butthole. I loved the first season of JKK. Things were in balance. There was enough detail about the world's sorcery system to be interesting, but more time was devoted to cool fights and interesting/funny interactions between a manageable number of characters. For me, that balance has been destroyed. I'm the first to admit that I am just a casual fan... I watch the material as it comes out and I think I have only rewatched the first season and JKK 0 once. Talk about barriers... the barrier for a casual fan like myself to understanding this show is just way too high. Not that I will drop it, but I'm resigned to the fact that I'll be inundated with "information" that will not mean much to me, won't stick in my admittedly aging brain and that I'll just have to collect my nuggets of fun where I can find them. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 3443 |
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#50
For those who didn't pause the screen when the rules came out, you'll get your explanation and more in this one episode. I knew this was going to be an exposition episode, since there's A LOT of action to be had coming up and the creator simply decided it was more efficient to get the rules of the game out of the way and then remind readers which ones are relevant at specific points in the storyline. For those who are not fluent in Japanese and/or have the attention span equivalent to ADHD sufferers, it will be easily the worst episode of the entire quarter and the arc. For everyone else who's actually interested in the universe this franchise is trying to portray and how some deeds from the movie and Gojou Satoru's high school arc have contributed to the current mess, it's got plenty of answers in addition to the questions it poses to viewers who are paying attention. This is Tengen's formal introduction to the franchise, and she/it is surprisingly cooperative for a being who's first instinct is to seal itself away in a vacuum as a means of self-protection. Clearly that time has now passed, since the being which has possessed Geto's corpse is almost as good as Tengen at the art of barriers and sooner or later will get close enough to try to manipulate Tengen like the other Curses roaming the Japanese mainland. Since it's come down to brass tacks and Tengen is definitely not interested in seeing a country of evolved sorcerors being reduced to an angry murderous mob akin to a zombie infection, she's doing all she can to get our future contestants up to speed on the rules of the game since they are literally on the clock. That explanation alone in real time cost them close to an hour and they have less than 10 days to go before the battle royale begins. I wonder what Fushiguro is planning in trying to gain points without resorting to homicide. The rules seem clear enough; I can't see a loophole that would allow the game master to award points without a corpse. It might be to do with Fushiguro's domain of shadows and how he can hide things and people away indefinitely, but would that work in the game rules? Maki is an interesting exception. She's not Fushiguro Toji, but she's bereft of sorceror power and technically she's out of scope for this mass evolve exercise. If she does participate, she needs weapons which her ancestral home has. Problem is the entire extended household isn't going to let her waltz in and take her share even with Megumi as the current clan head, so that's the first action set piece coming up which is definitely taking up multiple episodes if she has to take on Naoya who doesn't think she's worthy of human treatment. I wonder what role that failed comic is going to play now that he's confirmed as a contestant in the culling game yet is just an ordinary non-sorceror. |
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WatcherZer
Posts: 521 |
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But if Tengen was this powerful, how was their barriers breached, sanctum invaded and they were almost killed during the Hidden Inventory arc, unable to prevent the death of their next vessel inside their very home. The series had to create a nonsense explanation that the assassin was not bound by fate and so could overcome plot armour, but didn't then explain how they physically overcame the defences of a being with god like power and a maze where only 1 of a 1,000 doors would lead to them.
There's a complete discontinuity between the end of the previous arc and the start of this one and a 'game' so convoluted it took an entire episode to explain with diagrams and full page text, its just really bad writing. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 3443 |
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Inside job, and there's a lot which is answered later on in the storyline with regards to Fushiguro Toji. A lot of those questions are partially answered during the arc itself, but this is not a franchise which is forgiving to casual viewers. The previous arc? With Gojou Satoru being sealed off after the gates of hell open up in Shibuya? Plenty of continuity there, since what's going on happens immediately after Itadori is brought out of his Sukuna-induced trance having laid waste most of Tokyo's 23rd ward. It's the one before that which went back into Gojou Satoru's past which is so jarring since it went from the end of Itadori's first year to Gojou Satoru's high school years and a lot of casual viewers simply gave up paying attention to the plotline and hung around for the visual spectacle. For those who are really stuck, there are online resources that serve as a reference for everyone too overwhelmed by all of the moving parts. Different languages serviced as well, although it's clear the best resources are those written in the native language. Not that casual viewers will care, and a lot of people watching this are in it specifically for the spectacle alone. Conveniently enough, there's even a 3 minute summary of what everyone is going to do after this week produced by the animators. Great for the ADHD Japanese viewer or for those who didn't pay attention, since anyone who did won't learn anything new from the summary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0S6-pODw-s Last edited by Harleyquin on Fri Jan 16, 2026 10:07 am; edited 1 time in total |
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ACｘS
Posts: 1226 |
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50:
Man, what a load of info-dump. A real 180 from all the action of the last two episodes. This is actually a gripe I have with JJK: the world-building has a strong temptation to be convoluted. Jujutsu is an imagined art in JJK, so the rules seem arbitrary, and it's useless to argue over the logic behind the art of jujutsu because "that's just how it is". All we know is that there are rules to the world of jujutsu, and the key for our audience is to simply know what they are, not question them. All I could take away from this episode is 1) Tengen's existence is under threat from Kenjaku, the main antagonist of JJK, 2) the game has begun, and nobody can just ignore it, and 3) time is running out before it's all over. The Jujutsu High gang has come up with a plan, and they're hoping for the best. Yup, that's all I need to know. Man, I have to bookmark this episode. I can barely remember more than one of the eight rules of the Culling Game right now. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 12058 Location: Frisco, TX |
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[episode 50]
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ACｘS
Posts: 1226 |
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51:
Even when I knew it was gonna be magnificent, it still blew me away. It's bonkers: in just one episode, the whole Zen'in clan was literally obliterated by Maki. An entire clan. And it's pretty obvious that this episode took a leaf out of Kill Bill's book. That's just marvelous to watch. I do have two questions: one, why exactly did Naobito give all the inheritance to Megumi, of all people? And two, what exactly was Mai's cursed technique that gave Maki a second chance? I got the idea that she gave it all to Maki eventually, and I got the hint that Maki's new gift is a goddamn resilient body. But how did Mai pass it to Maki in the first place? Through a pocket reality? MAPPA isn't playing with JJK. They mean business. |
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Blood-
Bargain Hunter Posts: 25599 |
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I loved watching the Zen'in Clan get wiped out... especially given its mode of destruction. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people. Knowing their fate will make future rewatches of the franchise even more enjoyable. Yay, Maki!
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Harleyquin
Posts: 3443 |
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#51
The first big action set piece of this quarter: Maki vs. the entire clan that has ostracized her since young for her lack of sorceror powers and brought her sister down to the same level simply because they were twins. It didn't even have to be that way: Maki did not go in intending to kill all of her clan members: she simply wanted to open the armoury using Megumi's authority and help herself to a few items to prepare the culling game before taking her leave. How ironic that her father's decision to kill his own daughters to curry favour with the remaining power brokers in the sorcery world backfires so spectacularly that not only is the clan close to extinction, the powers that be are going to strip it of the very status it is willing to murder for. How much viewers will enjoy this episode will depend on how much they remember from the first season regarding Maki and Mai's abilities. Casual viewers who are only in it for the action won't have seen Maki for some time and probably don't even remember why she's in her current scarred state, let alone Mai who has been off screen since the inter-school competition. Cue the inevitable criticim that everything makes no sense because it isn't spoon feeding information from past episodes while recounting what's going on in the present. Maki is the easy one: Naoya effectively repeats it in the simplest way to understand it. She's an inferior version of Fushiguro Toji who despite having zero sorceror ability made a living as a sorceror assassin and actually killed Gojou Satoru in a head-on fight once. As for the younger twin sister Mai, she used a gun and enchanted bullets which she forged from her own energy reserves as her weapon of choice. Unlike the elder sister, she is a conventional sorceror like Fushiguro Megumi and thus lacks her older sister's incredibly physical attributes. So what exactly happened which led to Maki becoming the second coming of Fushiguro Toji? Without resorting to external wikis, it's possible to trace how the process goes especially after Mai's dying wish to her older sister in her mental space. Maki and Mai are twins, which is a bad omen for sorcerors in this universe. Their father Ougi said as much when he said they were the bane of his ambition to becoming the head of his clan. Being twins, the conventional sorceror wisdom of gaining strength through the exchange of effort or something more fundamental no longer applies to them. To the sorcerors, twins are essentially the same individual entity, albeit two sides of the same coin. Mai has a regular sorceror ability to craft items from energy, but she admits she can't do much more than create simple items which do not exceed a certain size. As for Maki, she has the physical attributes that Toji has, but not to his ability because Mai exists and both act as a limiter on the other's potential. So Mai's solution to both of them dying pointless deaths at their hands of their father is a radical one. Mai will use all of her energy and lifeforce to create a powerful ensorcelled weapon that her surviving sister will use as a keepsake. When Mai dies, she will remove any trace of magical energy which Maki had, in doing so strengthening the physical attributes she enjoys as part of her innate nature. The end result: the second coming of Fushiguro Toji the mageslayer as Zen'in Maki. Anyone who has seen the arc where Gojou Satoru first lost to Toji and then Toji's temporary resurrection by the sorceror pair early on during the Shibuya disturbance will remember just how ridiculous Toji is in battle, and with Mai's sacrifice Maki is essentially the same as he was. Since the Zen'in clan didn't realise Mai had sacrificed herself to remove the limiter on Maki's physical attributes, they are in some sense caught off-guard not realising they are supposed to be taking her on in the same way they would take on Fushiguro Toji (who one of the three Hei experts said was so lethal he actually chose not to slaughter his clan like Maki did this week). By the time the surviving elite of the Zen'in clan realise what has happened to Maki, it is too late since they have lost whatever manpower they had in the earlier slaughter of the non-magic squad Maki used to be a part of and don't have the pawns required to keep Maki in place long enough for someone or something to actually kill her. The only one who actually had a chance of killing Maki was Zen'in Naoya, the same one who beat Chouso half to death early on before losing once Chouso pulled out his trump card. Likewise, Naoya is so confident in his abilities and his assessment of what Maki is capable of that he doesn't think for a second he will lose and will take his time beating Maki up first to sate his enjoyment before actually trying to kill her. Naoya and Naobito have the same "tracing" ability described twice in this quarter to date. Maki had never surpassed her grandfather, but had always suspected there was a gimmick behind the impossible speed both were capable of. Thanks to the big buff she received to her physical attributes (including hand-eye coordination and spatial acuity), she is finally able to dissect the principle behind Naobito and Naoya's powers and realises there is a fundamental weakness which someone like her can exploit. Because of both sorcerors' decision to split their movements into 24 frames per second, there is a miniscule delay whereby they will be entirely still until their next action is again broken up into 24 frames. Maki basically aims for this, since she has the speed, power, hand-eye coordination and combat sense to be able to predict when and where Naoya will be completely still and vulnerable for a microsecond to the perfectly placed attack. Even if the speedsters layer their actions at once to make their movements appear even faster, the basic principle remains and Maki has to predict when and where she strikes to take advantage of that delay. One thing the source material probably covered in more detail and which is not so clear here due to airtime limitations are the actions and motivations of Maki's mother. Early on in the episode, she implores Maki to listen to her and not head for the armoury. Finally, when Maki goes for the matricide she does not answer Maki's question regarding why she told Maki to return, instead feigning forgetfulness. Yet despite having her throat cut and knowing she was going to die, she chose to go over to the mortally wounded Naoya and backstab him, finishing him off and dying herself. What's more, she said she was happy to have given birth to the twins, despite her demeanour with Maki prior to her rampage. Perhaps she too laboured under the stigma of bearing twins with Maki having almost no power whatsoever, and with the oppressive forces compelling her to conform now dead at Maki's hand she can finally fulfil her own personal ambition of killing the Zen'in heir apparent who had mercilessly bullied her children when they were younger. There's not enough to work with beyond suppostion and conjecture in this aspect, so another reason for curious viewers to pick up the completed source material. With this spectacle out of the way, something less flashy for next week. The plan continues as Itadori now needs to seek out the 3rd year who was suspended from school to recruit into the culling game. Unlike Okkotsu Yuuta, he's never been mentioned except by name in previous seasons. So seeing who he is and what he's capable of should be interesting. |
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