THIS IS A SPOILER-FREE REVIEW
Alright, this is gonna be a big one.
Every generation has an anime that served as their main entrance point into the medium. For me personally, “MyHeroAcademia” was that show, back in the year 2016. Before that it was Attack on Titan. Before that there were the big 3, One Piece, Bleach and Naruto. Right now, as of 2024, “Jujutsu Kaisen” has risen to the absolute top of the anime world. The fantastic first season and the wonderful prequel movie “Jujutsu Kaisen Zero” did a great job at catapulting this show out of the anime community and into the general mainstream. This is definitely the one anime that even people who never watch anime normally, got into. The expectations for season two were enourmous, with manga readers hyping up the content that will be adapted in season two to a ridicoulous degree. But did this show deliver on everything it promised? Lets get into this extra long review for the generational Jujutsu Kaisen season two!
Story – 8/10
I just talked about manga readers that already knew what will happen in this season, and i can actually say that i was one of them. I read the manga almost three years ago and as soon as i finished this part, i knew exactly that it was gonna pop off. This season adapts two arcs of the manga that are very different from each other so i will take my time and review both individually here.
Episode 1-6: The Hidden Inventory – Gojo´s Past
This arc was a very pleasant surprise. The show takes us back into the year 2006, and focuses mainly on the relationship of Gojo Satoru and Suguru Geto as they try to protect a highly important character from the ruthless Toji Zen´in. There are a bunch of fantastic action setpieces and the animation is already insane, but at it´s core, this really is the first Jujutsu Kaisen arc that actually laid the main focus on character development instead of action. The tone is much lighter than other arcs and there is a certain 2000s summer feel to the whole storyline. I thought this was the perfect place for the series to pick up after season one. These six episodes were super fun and highly enjoyable. The story of Gojo and Getos friendship actually hit the right emotional spots, especially after watching the Jujutsu Kaisen Zero movie. The final fight of this arc was also one of my favourites in the whole series. We saw Gojo dominate everything in his way for pretty much all of the previous arcs, but here he is truly at his limit for the first time. Really cool stuff.
However, there are issues here that have plaqued Jujutsu Kaisen since the beginning of it´s run: pacing and worldbuilding. I think the whole “world of jujutsu” this manga is set in, is not build up very well. The pacing is just waaaaay to fast. A lot of newer shounen struggle with this, mostly because of their production cycle and the immense pressure on the mangaka to pump out chapter after chapter to retain the hype of the series, making it extremely hard to plan ahead with the story. The whole foundation of Jujutsu Kaisen is pretty shaky at best. The author has to constantly explain the power system, which is just all over the place. He introduces a lot of interesting concepts but there is absolutely nothing that pulls it all together, so most of the fights are more visual spectacle than strategic and well thought out. So, does that mean the show lost me? Absolutely not
Episode 7-23: The Shibuya Incident
This right here is the arc that changed everything. When it aired weekly, the internet was completely on fire. At this point in the story, every single character, both heroes and villains, come together in Shibuya for a showdown that shakes the foundation of the whole world. This arc is absolutely crazy. This really is just a 16-episode, all-out, martial-arts, action-fantasy rollercoaster ride that starts slowly and keeps escalating more and more and more to absolutely insane degrees of hype and excitement. The episodes just flow into each other perfectly, making this one of the best binge-watching experiences i´ve ever had (Keep in mind, I KNEW WHAT WILL HAPPEN). Every single episode is better than the last. The stakes are massive and the fights are as well. Every single character gets his time to shine. I absolutely love the eery, cramped setting in Tokios underground system and all the real-life locations. The villains plot is just so unbelievably cruel and brutal. At this point, the show does not hold itself back in the slightest anymore. People die, not just the villains and the heroes, but also everyone in a radius of multiple kilometres gets pulled into the fight, making this one of the darkest and most destructive scenarios in shounen history.
This also marks the first time that Jujutsu Kaisen managed to touch me on an emotional level. Before this arc, it was just a fun, hype, action-fantasy. But this season had a huge amount of emotional weight to it, especially in regards to our main character, Yuji Itadori.
All of the problems i talked about before still remain a factor in this arc, but honestly, a show does not need to have perfect writing, perfect worldbuilding or perfect pacing to be enjyoable. I am willing to look over these flaws, accepting the show like it is: A fast-paced, hype, action roller-coaster.
This will stand as one of modern animes best story-arcs. Give it like, 5, maybe 10 years and a new generation of anime fans will call this a classic.
Art – 10/10
Studio MAPPA has been infamous for years for their absolutely crazy workload. They are definitely the biggest, most influential anime studio of the modern age, and they just absolutely churn out hit after hit after hit. Their incredible trackrecord now includes shows like “Attack on Titan”, “Chainsaw Man” and many more. However, in recent years, people started to notice that things are getting shaky for the studio. Multiple reports of production issues hurt their reputaion a lot. Attack on Titan was a prime example of that. But with the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen, it apparently got even worse. Working on this show was absolute hell for the animators. The incredible workload, the tight schedule and of course the countless high-intensity action scenes required for the Shibuya-arc absolutely crippled the studio to it´s core. They pulled everything they had into this season. Every single creative idea, every single design choice they had laying around to fulfill the high expectations people had in this arc. And it absolutely shows.
This show does not take a single break. It starts absolutely insane and not only is the animation itself highly dynamic, creative and well edited, the quality also increases with every single episode. Everytime you think that they peaked, the show throws a new animation concept, a new artstyle, new camera angles, new effects and much, much more onto the screen. The scope and scale of the fights get bigger and bigger, and the animation keeps up the pace again and again. This is not like shows like “Demon Slayer” or “MyHeroAcademia”, which mostly reserve the big scenes for the climax: It really is a constant stream of sakuga that grabs you and does not let go up until the final episode.
Sound – 8/10
The soundtrack of JJK is always a treat to hear, and this season started of really strong. The OP of the first part was beautiful and perfectly fitted the concept of the arc itself. The second opening introduces the much darker second arc perfectly. The BGM itself uses a mix of older songs from the previous seasons and a bunch of newer songs. The crazy jazz section that played during Gojos first fight, the gritty theme of Aoi Todo and many more standout moments give the show a lot of personality. The older songs do hit a bit better than the newer ones, and i think there was more room for some vocal tracks here and there. This season probably has my least favourite soundtrack of the whole series so far, but that just shows how consitently good the music in this show really is.
Characters – 8/10
First off, lets talk about Suguru Geto. His role in the first arc was wonderful. From all the villains in this show, he is my absolute favourite, because the show spends a lot of time on his backstory, his relationships and him slowly distancing himself from everyone because of his differing believe system.
Our protagonist Yuji Itadori was another huge standout. He truly goes through the five stages of grief in this season. Being pushed to the absolute physical limit and seeing his friends and companions die, one after another, leads him down a rough path to stay true to his ideals. Super emotional and heartbreaking stuff here. The different side-characters were also a ton of fun. Especially Jogo had an insane amount of screen presence, and his interactions with Sukuna were an absolute blast to watch.The same goes for Nanami, a character i already loved in the first season. Unfortunately, because this is a spoiler-free review, i can´t get into my favourite character moments, because, yes, a lot of them revolve around death (or worse) and other circumstances. Although this show does not spend much time on character development, especially in the second arc, everyone is at least very, very memorable. That is a huge plus, if you think about the crazy amount of characters that play a role in this season.
Enjoyment – 9/10
This experience was absolutely worth it. Altough i always enjoyed diving deep into the ocean of anime to find these rare, exceptional undergroung shows that perfectly fit my personal taste, i still enjoy the absolute mainstream juggernauts of the medium to the same extent. This is a must-watch show for every single anime and non-anime fan and it will be talked about for a long time both in-and outside the community, if you like it, or not.
- Marco_Yooo
FINAL SCORE - 9/10
