Jujutsu Kaisen is perhaps the strangest breakout anime hit of 2020, but incredible visuals and compelling characters make this dark fantasy shonen manga a cult hit worth checking out.
The story goes as such: Yuji Itadori, a cheery and average high schooler, joins his school’s occult club to visit his invalid grandfather in the afternoons. On his deathbed, his grandfather tells Yuji to help others, and to die surrounded by people. Yuji interprets this as the need to ensure that all die ‘a proper death’. Shortly after, he is attacked by a monster, and a stranger comes to his aid, revealing that the monster is one of many ‘cursed spirits’ born out of the negative emotions of humanity.
The monster is after an ancient, rotting finger that formerly belonged to the king of cursed spirits, Sukuna, which bestows an alter ego and unearthly power when consumed. When battling the monster, Yuji swallows the finger in desperation, and becomes the vessel of Sukuna. Sentenced to death, Yuji joins the stranger, a Jujutsu sorcerer, at his Jujutsu Sorcery high school in defending the weak against cursed spirits, before his eventual demise.
As plots go, this one is razor thin — even when compared to anime plots that involve reincarnation as a slime, godly baking skills, and man-eating giants. Yet, Jujutsu Kaisen works precisely because it shouldn’t — with unexpected visuals and characters that tug at the heartstrings and tread the fine line between humor and horror.
Here are five great reasons why Jujutsu Kaisen should be on your fall anime list.
- Wacky characters.
“Panda” and friends (Credits: MAPPA)
Jujutsu Kaisen’s characters are plainly out of this world. Forget Yuji and his weird finger-eating — there’s a panda that isn’t a panda, but the merger of a gorilla, a panda and an as-yet unknown creature. This abomination, an ‘abrupt mutated cursed corpse’, serves as the cheery yet formidable senior in Jujutsu high. There’s a guy that literally only speaks in words related to onigiri fillings like kombu and salmon, because all other words can obliterate everything in his immediate surroundings. There’s an invalid guy that stews moodily in a bathtub, who attends Jujutsu High by using a robot as a proxy. The school principal is a shady geezer who casts his spells through a rock guitar.
Nothing about this makes sense, but that’s also why it makes so much sense. Jujutsu Kaisen is one of those animes that just threw its own logic out of the window, and decided to embrace the wacky weirdness that makes anime great.
2) The journey, rather than the end, is key.
Yuji Itadori sentenced to death, right from the first episode. (Credits: MAPPA)
Unlike most other animes, where the ending is an epic goal, Jujutsu Kaisen sort of pulls the rug out from the endgame by sentencing its protagonist to death at the start. There’s no big push to defeat the man-eating giants, kill the Michael Jackson-esque demon king, or hunt down the shards of an ancient jewel. This is a story that ambles and wanders around the world of sorcery in a whimsical manner, and kills off its protagonist early on (only to bring him back in an equally nonchalant manner, a short while later). We know what’s probably going to happen — the sorcerers will beat back a bunch of cursed spirits, and then probably have Yuji get all of the curse king Sukuna’s fingers, ending in a heroic death to purge the world of this great evil.
This is a story supremely unconcerned with the weight of its own importance, and as a result, Yuji’s journey to understand his role as a sorcerer and hero comes into focus, and makes for a great coming of age tale.
3) The fast-and-loose rules of Jujutsu sorcery.
Satoru Gojo’s ultimate move: Red + Blue = Purple (Credits: MAPPA)
Jujutsu sorcery is awesome because it doesn’t care to fully explain its own mechanics, and just lets magic and power speak for itself. There’s no attentive detail to the grappling hooks and missiles used in Attack on Titan, nor an elaborate mythology built around the swordsmen’s breaths in Demon Slayer. What we get, instead, is a bunch of loosely explained concepts — the sorcerer’s ‘Domain Expansion’, a ‘cursed technique’, ‘cursed tools’ — that work in fluid and mysterious ways. Some serve as voodoo dolls, and others as alien arenas for battle. The most powerful Jujutsu sorcerer himself, Satoru Gojo, is nonchalantly shown to combine a red and blue singularity to essentially obliterate half a forest. None of this makes sense, and it really doesn’t have to for Jujutsu Kaisen’s sorcery to work.
4) Ridiculous battles.
Satoru Gojo trolling Jogo (Credits: MAPPA)
Jujutsu Kaisen knows not to take its battles too seriously. Sure, there are some intense ones, like when a new curse user, Junpei, is tricked and brutally murdered by the cursed spirit Mahito. But there are many others that exist just to be funny and awesome. The premiere sorcerer Satoru Gojo, for example, has so little difficulty beating back an opponent that he literally skips out to bring Yuji to watch and learn from the battle. In another memorable duel, Yuji and a senior Aoi Todo, become ‘best friends’ in tag-teaming a cursed spirit, where Yuji learns a bunch of fancy (and again, poorly explained) moves to beat the spirit back. It’s charming, smart and emotionally refreshing. There’s even an ex-salaryman, Nanami, who so hates working overtime that his powers dramatically increase once he starts using them off the clock (highly relatable, really, in a work-from-home era).
5) Tragicomic horror.
Mahito transfiguring Junpei (Credits: MAPPA)
Jujutsu Kaisen is a dark fantasy shonen that blends elements of a high school drama with horror. This odd combination comes forth in the dark school-halls and cinemas where monsters lurk, and continues to lend an unease and tension to the story that keeps the audience on edge. It’s a tragicomic element that keeps the story running on its own, and its fans comic back for more. From transfigured humans to grotesque monsters, Jujutsu Kaisen masters the art of horror in a style reminiscent of The Summoning and Pan’s Labyrinth, without ever letting up on its upbeat and energetic aesthetic. A rare combination indeed.
Sold on Jujutsu Kaisen? Tune in on Netflix to catch up on the adventures of the Jujutsu Sorcerers today!
