Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Movie

Violent misfortunes frequently occur around 16-year-old Yuuta Okkotsu, a timid victim of high school bullying. Yuuta is saddled with a monstrous curse, a power that dishes out brutal revenge against his bullies. Rika Orimoto, Yuuta's curse, is a shadow from his tragic childhood and a potentially lethal threat to anyone who dares wrong him.

Yuuta's unique situation catches the attention of Satoru Gojou, a powerful sorcerer who teaches at Tokyo Prefectural Jujutsu High School. Gojou sees immense potential in Yuuta, and he hopes to help the boy channel his deadly burden into a force for good. Yet Yuuta struggles to find his place among his talented classmates: the selectively mute Toge Inumaki, weapons expert Maki Zenin, and Panda.

Yuuta clumsily utilizes Rika on missions with the other first-year students, but the grisly aftermath of Rika's tremendous displays of power draws the interest of the calculating curse user Suguru Getou. As Getou strives to claim Rika's strength and use it to eliminate all non-jujutsu users from the world, Yuuta fights alongside his friends to stop the genocidal plot.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Gojou, Satoru Main

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Zenin, Maki Main

Komatsu, Mikako Japanese

Inumaki, Toge Main

Uchiyama, Kouki Japanese

Okkotsu, Yuuta Main

Ogata, Megumi Japanese

Getou, Suguru Main

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Panda Main

Seki, Tomokazu Japanese

Nanami, Kento Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Toudou, Aoi Supporting

Kimura, Subaru Japanese

Miwa, Kasumi Supporting

Akasaki, Chinatsu Japanese

Mei Mei Supporting

Mitsuishi, Kotono Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Seshimo, Keisuke Producer

Maeda, Toshihiro Producer

Simone, Jamie Producer

Reviews

Dec 23, 2021

TCTriangle

Recommended

(Spoiler-free review)
In 2019, Kimetsu no Yaiba took the anime world by storm and then followed up with a movie in late 2020 that smashed all box office records to become the top grossing movie of all time in Japan. Jujutsu Kaisen seems to be following the same strategy, having been arguably the most popular anime series released in 2020, and judging by how absolutely packed the movie theater was, it will probably be another record-setting anime film in terms of financial success. However, how is the movie in terms of actual content? Pretty damn good I must say, even coming from someone who enjoyed the ... anime but did not buy into the hype train at all.

The story is a prequel to the series, and stars previously unseen character Yuta. This movie shows the incident with the mysterious villain Getou, which was only mentioned in passing/hinted at in the series, and finally fleshes Getou out as a complex character with interesting motives and backstory. The story itself is rather straightforward and nothing to write home about, but serves its job well of further world-building and character introduction.

The prequel sees the return of series favorite Gojou-sensei, with the sempai trio Maki, Panda, and Inumaki also getting ample screen time. It showcases their characters a bit more than the original series did, which was a very welcome usage of running time. Nanami and the Kyoto school team also make an appearance, and although they do not have an influence on the story, their fight scenes/cameo were much appreciated.

My one gripe with the characters is with Yuta, the movie’s main protagonist. Personality-wise, he is like a slightly less annoying version of Shinji from Evangelion. His powers are poorly-defined and kind of overpowered, a deviation from the “technique-based” fighting styles that all other characters are introduced to have in the series. His backstory is also very cookie-cutter generic for anime protagonists. However, he did not annoy me as much as Shinji does and I grew to like him by the end, so this was not a huge complaint.

As expected of Mappa, one of the few studios that can rival the likes of Ufotable and KyoAni in terms of animation quality, the animation here was top-notch. All of the fight scenes (half the reason I went to see it on opening day) were crisp and an absolute pleasure to look at. There were some awkward CGI-assisted shots and far-away shots that did not look as good as the rest of the movie, but they were sufficiently few and far between that I was not bothered.

The soundtrack for the film was great, but nothing outstanding or particularly memorable, working well as background music. The ending songs were kind of generic and not my cup of tea, but I might grow to like them with repeat listens.

Overall, I am very satisfied with this movie and really liking the plot threads it sets up that should be further explored in future seasons, and it got me excited for the future of this franchise.

(Side note: JEREMY LIN spotted in the film credits haha.)

Overall: 8/10
Story: 7/10
Animation: 9/10
Sound: 7/10
Characters: 8/10
Enjoyment: 8/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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May 26, 2022

Tkit

Mixed Feelings

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is basically a setup for an epic but inconsequential final fight, with competent but unremarkable and simple story. This story however undermines the plot of the main series and leaves stupid, unnecessary questions that lay unanswered.

Plotline is as generic as it gets: a protagonist which wants to save his loved one from a curse and antagonists which believes that might makes right and weaklings should worship him as a god. The only strength of this story is Yuuta's development. Our protagonist starts out as a shy, scared and bullied boy which gains confidence and friends throughout the runtime. Nothing original, but execution ... is good enough to make it somewhat compelling.

Maybe it's me, but i found relationship between Yuuta and Rika very weird. I know that falling in love with someone at a young age is a popular trope in Japan, but it still weirded me out enough to never take this relationship seriously.

Protagonists strength is also a problem, he basically can one shot the main antagonist of both the movie and the main series undermining Getou's threat as a villain. Yuuta's absence is also unexplained in the anime. I had to google if there was a reason at all and it is there, mappa just doesn't care to put it in their work.

Talking about unexplained, fate of Getou after the movie is also totally cut out from the anime. With how he ended up in this movie you would expect something referencing his past in the anime but nope.

Another thing about this movie is that it is a terrible idea for a prequel.
Yuuta much like Itadori is new to the Jujutsu high school and so movie has to often stop and explain how things work to its protagonist. It would be fine if it wasn't the second time we have to hear those explanations.
Not only pacing of this movie suffers from constant explaining but there is also no tension as we know who survives and don't feel anything when characters get into tough spot. We know they are gonna be ok so who cares if it looks like they are about to die.

Let's talk about the finally which suffers from the same issue. The scale of what is happening is enormous. Basically if villains win its the end of the world, what does it mean? It means that they won't win. We know that Tokyo, Kyoto and jujutsu high school survive this movie so antagonists have to fail from the start. It is a fundamental failure in concept which should have stakes at a much smaller scale. to be compelling. It is also funny how unresolved the final fight in the cities is. Movie doesn't even bother to show a resolution to a duel between two of the strongest humans out there.
Final fight between Yuuta and Getou is also unsatisfying as our protagonist is op and far stronger then the antagonist.

I should also say that this movie has a lot of cringe humor which made me feel like a weirdo for watching it in a cinema.

Technically zero is much better then plot wise.
Mappa put all of their hearts into making a spectacle and they succeeded.
Their high quality of animation features a lot of movement and crazy fight scenes with camera panning around to showcase crazy choreography (which sometimes feels like it defies gravity). Outside the fights some of the more simple scenes looked nice as well, with simple walking in the corridor feeling good.

Sound effects were always on point whether it was a fight scene or sounds of footsteps. I had some mixed feelings about the soundtrack. While the quality and variety was very good I felt like it sometimes was inappropriately intense for what was going on. I also have to say that iconic voice of Shinji from Evangelion worked really well for the protagonist and i enjoyed the performance of the voice actors as a whole.

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is a mixed bag of amazing animation, mediocre personal story and overall bad plotline.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jan 15, 2023

darkia1416

Not Recommended

The bad:

First whole hour of the movie was terrible. Just repeated comic relief after every serious moment. A ton of flashbacks to a tragic cliché backstory of a kid making a promise to marry a girl he liked. Animation quality insane in some scenes and lack luster in others (MAPPA style is typically high quality in still shots, but mid tier animation). There is a particular scene where the MC hears the villain's plan massacre tons of people leading MC to respond completely unfazed. When he sees his buddies knocked out though, he gets super strong and angry because his friends are hurt. It's just ... painfully repetitive and boring when friendship, hacky backstories, and fairytale endings are worn out as the typical structure of a movie.

Conclusion:

The final 30 minutes contained good animation though and excellent perspective action. But all in all, the story was as unfortunately quite boring, the VA for the main character unsuitable for this specific role, and the movie being a muddled series of flashbacks and poor comedy.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Movie Episode 1 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) removed-user - Dec 23, 2021	399 replies	by https-st4rrsx »» Nov 7, 6:56 PM
	Yuta should had been the protagonist of the Whole Series ( 1 2 ) Dragevard - Sep 20, 2022	50 replies	by Ant161718 »» Apr 2, 9:37 PM
	is it too late Oya-Oya - Mar 26	20 replies	by acension_986 »» Mar 28, 9:07 AM
	NOW is the perfect time to watch this after EP1-5 on S02 xXTensaZenXx - Aug 3, 2023	12 replies	by kiyokaii2001 »» Feb 11, 8:18 PM
	Why did Gojo have to do that at the end of the film? DarKViVi66 - Oct 8, 2023	15 replies	by Early_Morning »» Jan 16, 2:40 AM