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.
