Jujutsu Kaisen

Episode 17

As a critic, there's an interesting dynamic of challenge and levity at play when you're tasked with reviewing an episode like Jujutsu Kaisen's “-Group Battle 3-”. On the one hand, the development of the plot is decidedly not the focus, so there's not a whole lot to work with when it comes to analyzing the story, making predictions about what's coming next, and so on. There's some good character stuff, which we'll get to in a bit, but it's all fairly straightforward, so it won't take me thousands of words to lay out the complex nuances of such weighty themes as “The patriarchy sucks”, “Maki is a fucking badass” and “Nobara is also a fucking badass”.

On the other hand, sweet merciful Anime Jesus does this episode whip seven-and-a-half different kinds of ass. I can't help but laugh bitterly at my time with Sunghoo Park and MAPPA's most recent stab at bombastic battle anime spectacle, The God of High School. That show was just terrible, but it knew how to clean up at a fighting tournament, at the very least. “-Group Battle 3-” features the kind of explosive, expertly choreographed, and fist-pumpingly-cool-as-shit action that TGoH did, but Jujutsu Kaisen has thankfully remembered that sick fight scenes are even better when the story they're helping to tell makes actual sense, and when you give a damn about the characters that are throwing down. Who woulda thunk it, am I right?

There are three bouts to break down, all of which got set up in the battlefield shuffling that went down during the Yuuji/Aoi and Panda/Mechamaru fights from earlier. The first is the quickest, but it serves as a pretty killer punchline, as we open up on Miwa thinking back to the time that Mai convinced her not to worry too much about her “perpetually fourth-grade” twin sister, on account of her inability to use cursed energy and all. This turned out to be a fat load of bullshit, which poor Miwa realizes once Maki starts to take her to school with her nifty spear. To her credit, Miwa does show off her “Simple Domain” technique, which gives her a radius of pinpoint accuracy that will knock away Maki's spear no matter what she does. Maki's a clever cookie, though, and instead of rushing in only to lose her advantage, she decides to snap her spear in two herself and forfeit the reach on her own. The resulting distraction is enough for her to sneak in close with a kunai strike and steal Miwa's sword out of her own hands.

Did I mention that all of this looks freaking gorgeous? Because it does. I'm not entirely sure why anyone would read a recap of an action-heavy episode before seeing it for themselves, but in case you're one of those types, just imagine a constant barrage of fluid, crisp, and heavy-hitting cuts of animation, coming straight at your eyeballs one right after the other. I talked before about the joy that comes from watching the MAPPA crew get so braggadocious with their technical skills, and boy howdy is that ever the case here. It isn't just the clever camera movements, dynamic storyboarding, and use of slick-slow motion either; the character animation we get here is perhaps the best Jujutsu Kaisen has ever delivered. Mai's resentful pride, Momo's fierce loyalty to Mai, Maki's deadly confidence, Nobara's endearingly spiteful refusal to take any crap — there's plenty of dialogue and narration throughout the episode to explain the girls' goals and motivations (maybe a bit too much), but it all comes through with crystal clarity in every movement they make, and every hit they take.

Anyways, once Maki takes care of Miwa, it's Nobara's turn to ground Momo, and this is probably the highlight of the episode for me. I don't think there's anything especially groundbreaking with the way that Momo highlights how the culture of jujutsu sorcerers places exceptionally high demands on its women, who must exhibit traditional beauty and unrivaled strength in everything they do if they want to be taken seriously. That said, it's always refreshing when anime are willing to address the everyday struggles of women that are trying to establish a place for themselves in a patriarchal society, especially shonen battle anime that are traditionally targeted at an audience of young men. It is in keeping, too, with Jujutsu Kaisen's ever-present antiauthoritarian streak, and that little bit of punk rock edge is one of the spices in the JJK stew that helps it stand out from the competition. Kudos to Nobara, too, who isn't interested in impressing anyone else other than herself. She likes when she can dress up and feel pretty, and she likes when she can use her magic voodoo nails to kick snarky little Kiki-knockoffs down from their pedestals.

All of that light social commentary is well and good, but do you know what's even better? When Nobara, after using some fiendish misdirection to rip Momo out of the sky, decides to play it safe and takes a toy squeaky hammer straight to Momo's face. There isn't even anything I need to add to that. Just look at the screencap. It's goddamned hilarious.

The final fight of the episode is the most loaded one, narratively speaking, as it is where Maki and Mai take their longstanding rivalry to the next level. Mai shoots Nobara in the face with a rubber bullet, Maki takes a katana to her twin sister with ferocious abandon, etc. The usual sort of sibling spat, in other words. It's here where we get a flashback that shows us in a bit more detail why Maki and her family have had such a falling out. The Zenin clan's refusal to recognize Maki's potential was largely because of her lack of cursed energy, as we know, but that only piled up the kindling of her ambition and resentment. Once the sparks got going, there was no stopping her. She left the clan, effectively abandoning Mai to be the sole heir of their unfeeling and critical attention, swearing to return one day as its true heir. The clan has been blocking her attempts to climb the sorcerer ranks ever since, but winning this Exchange Event would be just the push that Maki needs to secure so much renown and respect that the Zenin clan would have no choice but to acknowledge her worth.

This is, again, nothing new or especially thrilling as far as backstories go, but it's enough to give both of the Zenin girls the necessary amount of depth and motivation. Mai is bitter that her sister valued her own ambitions over her family ties, and Maki cannot help but follow her goals, regardless of the bridges they burn. I didn't exactly get emotional over Mai's teary monologue or anything, but I would be happy to see the twins reconcile someday. That'll probably be a while yet, though, because Maki kind of cleans the floor with Mai, and even when Mai uses her Construction technique to conjure up one final surprise bullet for her revolver, Maki catches it out of mid-air like she was goddamn Ozymandias. Good lord, Jujutsu Kaisen is cool. That's it. That's the review. “JJK is cool AF.” Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to go watch Nobara beat up a smug witch with a squeaky hammer again.

Rating:

Odds and Ends

• Nobara breaks out the “daisuki” to describe how much she loves and admires Maki for putting up with so many years of nonsense. I've thought that JJK has played up Nobara as having a crush on Maki before, and while I'm not green enough to think that the show has done enough to make Nobara and Maki a “canon” pair or anything, I think there's still plenty of hope that this ship might yet sail!

• We also learn that Maki's inability to harness cursed energy is a result of the same kind of Heavenly Pact that made Mechamaru so…well, Mechamaru-y. Except, in Maki's case, she ended up possessing superhuman strength and reflexes. You know, just in case you were wondering.

• No lie: I nearly hit the submit button on this review before remembering about the Jujutsu stroll. I'm glad I remembered, though, because this week's was cute: Miwa wakes up in the middle of the night to discover that Mai and Momo have once again utterly failed her as friends and partners by eating her leftover edamame that was in the fridge. Momo tries to offer her cup-ramen recipe in return (Add some chili pepper slices to a half-and-half mix of milk and water when you cook it). I'm definitely going to try that sometime, but Momo better not think that such an obvious deflection will earn her forgiveness for violating the sacred laws of helping yourself to other people's leftovers.

Jujutsu Kaisen is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop-culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.