Jujutsu Kaisen

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Jujutsu Kaisen is a dark, bloody, riveting story about the world of Jujutsu sorcerers as they take on cursed spirits. There's a very unique spin from the beginning since we know from the start that the final and strongest curst spirit is inhabiting one of the protagonists.

The characters in this series really ended up selling the story in a big way. From the extreme personalities, quirky personas, and endearing sincere main character. Not to mention the strong cast of side characters as well. Their interactions throughout the story are what keep the events interesting and tense.

The power system is probably one of the crowning ... jewels of the series. Cursed techniques have clear rules and restrictions that make sense for both the reader and the characters. The complexity and creativity that Gege was able to reach with cursed techniques also rivals any other power system in the genre. However, the complexity does get a little hard to understand in the latter half of the story. For the most part it didn't subtract from the overall story or make me regularly question if the rules of the world were being broken so in that sense it was handled well.

The art in this series is also worth giving a lot of praise to. Gege has created some strong distinctive character designs and frighteningly detailed ghoulish designs for curses as well. The combination gives the series an atmosphere of horror that's very uncommon to have in an action series such as this. Along with that the fight scenes and choreography are well done as well; the story has some very memorable fights and scenes that definitely separates it from the average shonen series.

When it comes to the story JJK doesn't do anything far out of the box for an action series. The story and goals of the characters start simple and branch out over time to a more complicated web of goals and ideals by the end. This expands quickly once we get through the first half of the story. From there the second half goes in a few different directions and they don't all make a lot of sense. Some of the outcomes of these branching events have very shallow contributions to the overall story or don't ever get a satisfactory explanation. So, readers are mostly left to figure out themselves what becomes of the Jujutsu world. An extensive amount of injudicious writing ends up staining what would otherwise be a great experience with relatively tight writing until that point.

Jujutsu Kaisen was such a rollercoaster for me. To be honest, I don't really get how something which is so poorly written and with such minimal character development could hook me this hard, but here we are.

Although this is mostly a negative review, I actually love this series, it hooked me like no other, really. This is a spoiler free review.

For the good:

JJK actually has a really cool power system. Like I really fw the whole cursed energy thing, but it becomes way too abstract later. Once he starts having to thoroughly explain each sorcerer's power in great deal he kind of lost me. Domain ... expansions are a super cool idea which demonstrate really well the sorcerer's personality and their own emotions. I think it's just unfortunate that it was someone like gege who wrote it because man, he could have done so much more with it than he did.

Man the characters in this manga are just so cool. I love pretty much all of the main cast, and there are some crazy cool side characters. I especially love Hakari and Maki. Just some bad ass mother fuckers. I probably don't need to go into this too much, but yeah, the characters are really interesting for the most part.

The Hidden Inventory arc is a masterfully written tragedy of epic proportions and I just can't in good conscience give the series anything lower than a 6 because of that. I actually have no idea how Gege wrote such a masterful arc while spouting such dogshit for the rest of the series. It was the only arc where it felt like Gege had a structured plotline where he knew how it would end. It really says a lot about the human condition. Geto is obviously, the epitome of evil. But he isn't inherently such. It was his experiences and trauma which pushed him to that limit. Humans are not born inherently good or bad, it's our conditions which dictate our character.

For the bad:

I mean pretty much everything else, to be honest. There are many things which I can find merit in, but nothing which I would consider to be as outstanding as Hidden Inventory.

Many people praise the Shibuya Incident arc, and while yes, there are many good moments, (Sukuna vs. Mahoraga, Sukuna vs. Jogo, Yuji and Todo vs. Mahito, Toji's return, to name a few), there are also so many detriments to it. I don't really get what the end of the arc was supposed to be, nor did it feel like anything that was set up really mattered in the end. Without getting into spoilers, Gojo's circumstances didn't really matter in the end, and pretty much wasted his character. The nature of Kenjaku's power similarly goes unexplained despite being challenged in many cases. My biggest problem was just with how nothing that happened seemed to matter in the grand scheme of things; it just didn't develop into anything meaningful.

And don't even get me started on the Shonen play by play thing that started in this arc, it pretty much ruined it for me.

As I mentioned, JJK has some really cool characters. I love their personalities and quirks that come with their respective uses of cursed energy. But we just don't get to see the characters really interact with each other past the Hidden Inventory arc. Which ends in chapter 79, mind you. The manga is 271 chapters long. So for almost 200 chapters, we got little to no character interactions or development until the end of the series. For how many characters Gege introduced, I was only really happy with the conclusions of like, 3 of them. We are told that certain characters have relationships with each other, but like, did we even see Hakari and Gojo talk once? Did we get to see the bonding of Nobara, Yuji, and Megumi with each other and Gojo? Did YutaMaki develop past an abusive situationship (Yes I'm salty)? Who is Uraume? Who is Sukuna? Who is Kenjaku? I could go on, but you get the point. I just don't know who any of these people are and why I should care about them. I could easily see JJK being at least 500 chapters with how much he introduced. It just sucks that we'll never see it developed into the manga it should have been.

There are just so many loose ends that were never tied up, it honestly frustrates me. I saw so much promise after the Hidden Inventory arc. I was promised a critical insight into what makes a person who they are, how it plays into determining their role, and the uncertainty which defines it all. I saw so much good in that premise, but sadly, it was wasted. The fact that we'll never see JJK as the manga it should have been might be a greater tragedy than the Hidden Inventory arc, but I digress. Does that make me sound smart?

But yeah. Even though this was a mostly negative review, I still have plenty of positive things I can say about this series. Hidden Inventory is amazing and I can't rate it any lower because of that. That arc alone makes the manga worth reading. It really did hook me like no other. It's just disappointing that the series as a whole ended like it did. It's like seeing your best friend getting addicted to drugs or something. Yeah. That's a good analogy.

Jujutsu Kaisen has a bad ending: it is rushed, no doubt about it. Its best part is its fights. The characters abilities are varied and interesting, and with a non-restricting power system, there are almost always surprises to the ways characters develop their skills. Jujutsu Kaisen can be likened to a sports match: the audience knows a little about the characters' backstories but not too much, and the outcome is pretty unpredictable. There is not much depth to Jujutsu Kaisen, so it is only the fights that is interesting. It was fun when the everyone was hyped about this series, but without the hype, it ... is painfully mediocre, even bad.

The hardest part is that the characters are not relatable: they do not seem real. My Hero Academia does a great job of allowing the audience to imagine themselves being within a world with heroes, but Jujutsu Kaisen has never bothered with that sadly (it is set in modern-day Japan but one is often at a loss of how the normal public would react to events). This series seems only interested in having characters fight it out, and the characters' motives are never explained very seriously or with depth. Hence, it is even more saddening to see the ending not give sufficient closure to the already depthless series. Though, naturally, the hardcore readers can derive many subtle messaging from this series; meanwhile, the average reader may be blown away by the captivating fights; alas, it is only the few like myself that would not recommend this series.