Anime 51009 Jujutsu Kaisen 2nd Season Reviews Filter Check 3

So this is what it’s like to watch a series crash and burn in real time…

Jujutsu Kaisen is an interesting beast of a series. When it first hit the mainstream anime community in 2020, many immediately took to praising it as one of the best Battle Shonens to come out of modern Jump, in spite of the fact that, in many other people’s eyes, it had yet to do anything all that notable or special to set itself apart from the competition. A big part of this was, of course, manga readers hyping up what the series would eventually do later down the line, and ... the rest was anime-onlies who were either blinded by the sakuga or engaged with the idea of what the series *could be* rather than necessarily what it actually was at the time.

Regardless of the reason behind the hype, it was undeniable to many people that the show had potential. Sure, it might not be anything too special now, many people said, but if it executes its ideas well and lives up to the expectations the Manga readers set, then it absolutely could become one of the best modern Shonens.

And that’s where this season comes in. Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 is the series’s attempt to cash in all its hype, the moment where shit hits the fan and it truly becomes the series everyone says it could be. Or rather, to put it more accurately, Season 2 is when the show *tries* to do that, but ends up failing, falling down several flights of stairs, and ruining most of what made it entertaining in the first place.

Breaking it down first, it’s almost necessary to talk about the season in terms of the two parts which it was broken up into: the 6 episode Hidden Inventory arc which constitutes the start, and the 17 episode Shibuya Incident arc which makes up the remainder of the season.

The Hidden Inventory arc isn’t exactly anything too special, but it’s easily the best part of the season. This is some of the most tightly focused and plotted writing in the series, with its relatively short episode count being well-complemented by its small cast. As a flashback arc detailing Gojo’s Past, it succeeds well enough, adding a layer of nuance to the character which expands on what had been previously hinted at regarding him. It retains the first season’s sense of goofy charm while managing to be relatively more serious, and is generally rather well-directed and animated on top of that.

This isn’t to say that it’s perfect, of course. The last stretch of the arc especially shows signs of rushing as just 5 episodes isn’t quite enough to fit the many emotional beats the arc tries to hit, leading to several parts of it falling rather flat when it comes to elements which don’t deal directly with Gojo’s character arc.

Now you might be thinking at this point that this seems rather more positive and good than I was making it out to be at the start of this review. Well, that’s because the real problems with the season come in its second, much larger part, the Shibuya Incident.

Shibuya starts out fine enough, mostly in how it picks up the momentum from the Hidden Inventory arc to fuel its first major fight and kick off the events of the arc. However, this is immediately lessened by the fact that that fight then proceeds to negate half of the emotional core of the Hidden Inventory arc in the first place, retroactively ruining a perfectly good arc for the sake of a cheap shock value reveal.

This bit of less than stellar writing is then followed by the onset of the rest of the arc, which is practically a nonstop series of fight scenes. And here’s where a huge problem rears its head: most of them don’t really matter.

Firstly, the show’s rather lean worldbuilding becomes a detriment here. The Jujutsu World as it exists is essentially a vague sketch made up of generic shonen worldbuilding tropes which the audience has no investment in. This was fine in the first season, where the stakes were generally character-based and the overall world took a backseat, but as Shibuya’s stakes are inherently grounded in the series’s setting, this starts to become a detriment to the audience’s investment.

This would also likely be fine if the character writing within the arc was competent enough to carry the series like it did in the first season. However, here we come to another problem: the character writing in Shibuya takes an utter nosedive. This problem is rather multifaceted, so let’s break it down a bit.

Firstly, the fights don’t really progress anything meaningful regarding the characters. Half of the fights in this season are against random one-note mooks whose only notable feature is their special ability. Consequently, there’s no personal stakes involved for any of the characters, and they have little-to-no development coming out of them. This arc’s episode count could be cut in half and pretty much nothing would change considering how inconsequential most of the fights are. This isn’t helped by the insane cast bloat, as the show constantly throws even more underdeveloped, one-note characters at the viewer and hopes that they might care about at least one of them.

Secondly, the series’ fights lack any sort of flair or personality. A big part of the appeal of the show’s first season was how simply fun the cast was in terms of their interactions and how their lovably distinct personalities shined through in their fights. However, as this is the “serious” arc, characters are not allowed to show personality or any interesting unique characteristics while fighting. So instead we get an indistinct gray sludge of generic, forgettable fight after generic, forgettable fight which is lacking in both style and substance, carried only by the efforts of the animators.

How does a writer keep the audience engaged in such an aggressively uninteresting slog, you ask? It’s quite simple, really: cheap shock value! You see that character the audience generally likes? Arbitrarily kill them off! Sure, their potential as a character hasn’t even begun to be tapped into and the audience barely knows them since you’ve spent so little time actually developing them, but if you make it sudden enough, you might be able to deceive the viewer into thinking it’s good writing!

Oh, what’s that? The viewer isn’t quite emotional yet? Just shove a flashback in the middle of their death scene and spend half the episode on it! Shoving all the character’s actual depth into the very end of their screen time, literally right before they’re dead, is *totally* a legitimate substitute for writing an actually compelling character. And, just to make sure the audience gets the point, give the character *another* flashback at the start of the next episode, just beat the audience over the head with what they’re supposed to be feeling, that’ll totally make them think the show is actually emotionally meaningful and not just boring crap.

Repeat some variant of this formula a couple times over, and you’ve got yourself the Shibuya Incident experience!

Now, of course, some might say that even if the show isn’t well-written in the slightest, it’s still very well-animated, so you can just enjoy it as turn-your-brain-off fun. However, even that approach has its problems due to the series’s consistency issues. For every genuinely great-looking fight, there’s another that’s ruined by flat shading, messy storyboarding, and the show’s ludicrously boring color palette. And even if you can look beyond that, the show’s attempts to shove emotions down your throat consistently ruin any attempt you might make to turn your brain off. It’s rather hard to just take in the action sakuga when half the episode is taken up by a boring flashback.

Overall, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 can best be summed up in one word: Edgy. The season discards all of the potential it once had in favor of an “I’m 14 and this is deep” experience where an incoherent combination of black & red color palettes, random horrific imagery, and arbitrarily killing off characters passes itself off as good storytelling. It’s the most disappointing direction the series could have possibly taken, and easily one of the worst anime experiences of the year. Unless you’re an edgy teenager or a rabid sakuga fanatic, avoid this season like the plague.

I've never seen a show more devoid of substance that's as popular. It's honestly mind-boggling! And clearly, this feeling is not mine alone (read some of the reviews here). The most heinous sin here is the incoherent storytelling and world-building. In fact, I think almost everything else about the show is equally bad too.

World-building
Starting with the world-building, how do you even make sense of it? Each episode you have the "opportunity" to see a new mechanic or some random gibberish being said about this mechanism. It's so lazy to have the characetr using a new power explain how he does it every time there's ... a new power being introduced. And, none of it has to make sense or be consistent with the existing world building (the little there is).

Characters
I truly can't seem to care about any of the characeters. Yuji at the beginning of the show was traumetized by the kids being turned. At this point in the show, he's just so casual about it. I don't care about the people dying and neither do the characters. Every character is just so bland. I have no clue what anyone's motivation. Why are the villains bad again? They just are?

Animation
Honestly the only thing that might be keeping this show afloat is the animation. I painfully watch each episode just to see the cool animation and powers. I suppose that is indeed the apppeal. But then again, is that all it takes for a show to get a 8/9 on 10 on MAL??

ENG/ESP Review on Jujutsu Kaisen Second Season
This review contains minor spoilers.

ENGLISH:

Everyone told me to wait for the Shibuya Incident arc, that it is one of the best arcs in shounen and I have also seen people comparing it to the Chimera Ant arc from Hunter x Hunter 2011 (something I could almost consider an insult to Togashi's work). It is to no one's surprise that the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen retains many of the first season's flaws. It is still a work devoid of any substance and it contains many notable tone problems; when it tries to be dark it is ruined by the ... ridiculous monster design and the absolutely idiotic decisions that the characters make, when it tries to be funny it is instead totally cringe and ineffective. It just feels so cheap, bland and shallow; Gege tries to be deep and psychological in this second season with Gojo and Geto's relationship, Geto's metamorphosis and the Hidden Inventory arc but it fails tremendously and instead turns into a show of mediocrity, superficiality and edgyness which I will talk about later. Of course, I cannot do a negative review without talking about Walmart Kakashi akka "Satoru Gojo" who receives a nice power-up to defeat an enemy; this is pretty annoying, he was a character with a lot of future to participate actively on other arcs and this is what I expected before starting this season, but the guy was dispatched in less than three episodes because Gojo gets a powerup out of nowhere with Hollow Purple; so sad bro, you were a victim of the white-haired generic prettyboy, the Gojo fapping session starts here and expands all across the Shibuya Incident arc; where despite being on a precarious situation he manages to still be asslicked by the rest of the character cast every single fucking episode. This review will be somewhat long and painful to write.

First circle of Hell: Animation

It is obviously not bad, in fact it is amazing; this is due to the fact that MAPPA has every worker on extra hours and working like cattle constantly so the studio can get more revenue from this thing without any substance, of course the animation will be very pretty.., but I still have a complaint, am I the only person who feels that this animation has no soul or inspiration whatsoever? Yeah, yes, it looks objectively cool, but I feel nothing watching Gojo take off his blindfold and reveal his eyes, I feel nothing watching the fights, I feel nothing watching the domain expansions, I feel nothing but utter apathy; there is no sense of any kind of soul behind the pretty things I'm watching, something that was a similar complaint to the one I had in my review of Oshi no Ko. This feels like you're putting lipstick, long eyelashes and pretty makeup on a robot that's constantly fighting another robot, to the point that by the time I watched the fifth fight in a row with pretty animation I was getting bored out of my mind, there is nothing in these fights that interests me. The choreography of the fights is weak and mostly consists of who can throw the strongest firework at each other instead of truly interesting and unforced tactics (I'll talk about what happens in the Shibuya arc later). Still, this is in the first circle of hell as it is obviously the strongest thing about this anime and it's still objectively nice and good, there are fights (especially in the second half of the anime, towards the end and climax of Shibuya Incident) that are visually spectacular and it is obvious theres inmense amounts of effort put into them.

Second circle of Hell: Worldbuilding

Jujutsu Kaisen's world is completely empty; yes, the worldbuilding in this anime is tremendously lame; the powers that be of Jujutsu Kaisen are explained on very silly and superficial ways, it does not feel like an actual world and it is more like randomly-chosen scenarios in which the characters fight, explain or resolve their problems on immature ways. It just does not feel like theres a true world or deep scenario surrounding our characters, there is no explanation or substantial attention to detail in how the authoritarian orders work in the Jujutsu schools or how the government acts in Tokyo at that moment, in the Shibuya Incident arc I was constantly asking to myself "how would high ranks of the government respond to a terrorist attack of such a big scale?" "why arent there any militaristic or police forces moving in when the attack is so notoriously obvious?" Even if they cannot do anything against the curse users or the monsters they can still help people out and let the Jujutsu sorcerers fight without having to care for harming innocent people. The worldbuilding feels extremely vague, the power system on Jujutsu Kaisen is still pretty basic and the curses are bland and not-interesting. It does not feel like there is a world beyond what the characters can see or something that surrounds them, there is not much else to say. Jujutsu Kaisen's Japan feels extremely artificial and it isn't more than a green screen or a chroma where the entirety of the plot happens, there is no depth or substance.

Third circle of Hell: Atmosphere and tone

The dark atmosphere that Gege tries to settle many times is ruined by his obsession to try and make his characters look "cool" constantly. Jujutsu Kaisen at some point becomes a competition of "who throws the nicest-looking fireworks" throwing powers everywhere, doing idiotic stuff because it is cool.., etc, it is extremely cheesy and I couldn't help but roll my eyes and get stressed because of the tenth time in which Gege used his lame excuse of a character cast and basically screamed at my face "LOOK HOW COOL MY CHARACTER IS WOW, LOOK AT HIS POWERS, IMPRESSIVE YOU HAVE TO BE IMPRESSED WOW" until it just became tedious and boring. This show is also sold as a shounen with a dark atmosphere and tone, yet it fails in establishing one correctly due to what I said in the first place and the ridiculous monster design; yet it isn't the worst thing in this anime and in some points the atmosphere is quite decent, like the discussion between Fushiguro Toji and Geto Suguru in the weird japanese-like halls or the big haunted house in episode one.., up until this last one is ruined by Satoru Gojo, of course, as he has an innate talent to ruin every single scene or plot that is minimally interesting.

Fourth circle of Hell: Characters

In this case, the worst circle of hell and the worst thing in the entire anime. One of the things that annoyed me in the Hidden Inventory arc is Suguru Geto's idiotic character transformation; he is taking a shower alone, he starts to say pseudo-intellectual nonsense and CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!! He suddenly becomes Jujutsu Kaisen's Adolf Hitler in basically 3 or 4 episodes; this is not character development yall, this is just a cheap and forced character metamorphosis so the plot can advance, you can't make me think that this guy goes from one pole to the other, completely radical only because one of his fellow workers died in a job where older people should be respected and because he failed a mission; have you not seen thousands of situations like this? Don't you think that people like you, in very emotionally-hard jobs like this, should have developed coping mechanisms to deal with work and emotional problems? Doctors, morgue workers, volunteer people in poor places, fireworkers, military, etc, workers on these lines of labour have ways to face problems on their work; Geto did not care at all, he suddenly decided to transform into Jujutsu Kaisen's third reich for an absolutely idiotic thing. Suguru Geto is a terrible villain, badly written and without motivations that inspire the viewer to be genuinely interested on him, he is your classic cliché BBEG who decides to become a fucking CULT LEADER and do a fucking massacre for dumb stuff that occured in the past. This guy decided to go thru wisest path and kill more than half of the population, become an authoritarian imbecile cult-leader and practice eugenics, it seems that he never thought that massacring most of the human population and only let a handful of people alive is a bad idea. Wow a girl you rescued from a hostage mission died, who cares?

Like in the first season, Satoru Gojo is a character who leaves a lot to be desired and someone who Gege constantly puts in your face to try and impress you (in my case failing tremendously) with his OP powers and cringe attitude. Gojo has always been a terrible teacher and badly-written character, I will never understand people who like to pretend that hes a deep character. I particularly remember one scene in which Gojo could have ended the Shibuya Incident arc in only three episodes.., but the plot needs to advance and he decides to make the dumbest decisions known to mankind, an enemy is running away from Gojo and he decides to fucking WALK; bro, he is running away please just RUN AND CATCH HIM, it just doesnt make any sense, it doesnt even happen because of his mental state since hes able to carefully analyze his environment and the battle conditions, it is a scene that insults your intelligence; he could have killed all of the bad guys right there with ease, escaped from that situation and could have went vs Geto, yeah thats it Shibuya ends in fucking three episodes. Episode 9 is one of the worst episodes, since it is essentially a Gojo asslicking session where every character simps for him, saying how powerful he is and yadda yadda, of course all of the fights he has Gojo completely destroys them and he can only be defeated with a deus ex machina forced by Satoru Gojo's stupid decisions. TLDR is basically that Gojo is an extremely stupid character, ridiculous, overrated and badly-written; with inconsistent speed feats and incomprehensible decisions, who is absolutely obnoxious and cringe, I'll never understand the success of this character in popular anime culture.

Gege has the tendency to mercilessly execute his characters before they can even get any type of character development or interesting plot, he has an obsession with killing them before the viewer can even feel anything for them and due to this their deaths and the things that happens during the Shibuya Incident are completely irrelevant and feel like nothing to me; it is this bad or I just don't have empathy, I'm not sure, I just cannot feel anything for such bland characters. This anime uses the "Kimetsu no Yaiba" tactic, which is inserting flashbacks and memories with sad music just before someones death so the scene can be sadder; of course it feels overtly artificial when you see a character who is clearly going to die and they suddenly insert a random flashback, no, I will not empathize with this character only because you're putting these flashbacks in their last moment. To empathize with a character and feel emotions the writer needs to build them in a correct way previously; the death scenes are good but they don't belong to anyone who feels human and thus they are very ineffective. Nobara is a nobody who has done nothing in every season and is absolutely bland as a character, Megumi is still the same Sasuke-trope guy from the first season and there is not a single type of development or change, they are still the same person they were on the first season and beginning of Shibuya, the Kyoto alumni are absurdly forgotten in a conflict which should involve both Kyoto and Tokyo schools (because of their danger and scale, it doesn't matter what Mechamaru thinks or does) and the rest of the secondary characters are the same cliché stereotype they were on the first season, there is nothing that makes them unique. Because of this, the death of people on Shibuya doesn't affect me on any way and thus Itadori's "development" feels forced and cheap, Itadori's trauma is treated in a very immature and short-lived way; as a viewer I wasn't capable of putting myself in the protagonist's shoes because I don't care a single bit about Jujutsu Kaisen's character cast, and this incapacity to empathize with such a bland cast is an enormous error on what should be a tremendously tragic and chaotic arc (Shibuya Incident) simply because they don't feel like real people, they are just stereotypes, it's like killing a bunch of NPCs without any relevance. The last episodes also have the tendency to disable and suddenly materialize characters out of nowhere in a way that is convenient for the plot, suddenly the strongest sorcerers appear in the battlefield and I'm asking to myself "where were these guys when we needed them???? why in the fuck do they appear in the ending of this conflict???" It is a terrorist attack of a great scale and these guys weren't even present here, they appear in the ending to throw around exposition dumps to the spectator and not help in anything, its ridiculous. The worst thing a storyteller can hear is: "I don't care for any of these characters" and it certainly rings true here. I don't care about anyone on here.

The Cocytus River: Conclusion

I didn't expect much but it still managed to disappoint me, the second part of Jujutsu Kaisen isn't more than the continuation of something tremendously mediocre and a shounen hidden under a veil of pretencious darkness. It is like if you turned a battle of edgy robots without any personality in japanese animation with generic anime character-designs, this battle will for sure look great but behind of that there isnt anything else; its just a show of pure style over substance and a show that is constantly trying to convice the viewer that it is more than it really is, a mediocre shounen show with generic, badly-written characters, stylish-yet soulless battles, stupid decisions, edgyness, pretenciousness and more; because of these reasons, it is interesting to me how people treat Jujutsu Kaisen as the last bottle of water in the desert, truly, I can't see how this is not less mediocre than, for example, Boku no Hero Academia.

ESPAÑOL:

Todos me decían que espere al arco de Shibuya, que es uno de los mejores arcos de los shonen e inclusive he visto personas comparándolo al arco de las hormigas quimera de Hunter x Hunter 2011 (algo que consideraría casi un insulto hacia la obra de Togashi). No es de sorprenderse que la 2da temporada de Jujutsu Kaisen contiene muchos (sino es que todos) de los defectos que la 1ra tiene. Es todavía una obra sin ningún tipo de sustancia y que posee problemas de tono muy notables; cuando intenta ser oscuro es arruinado por el diseño ridículo de los monstruos y las decisiones absolutamente estúpidas que los personajes cometen en los episodios, cuando intenta ser chistoso termina dando vergüenza ajena y siendo absolutamente ineficaz en esto. Se siente todo tan barato, blando y superficial; Gege se atreve a intentar ser más profundo y psicológico en esta segunda temporada con la relación entre Gojo y Geto, la transformación de Geto y el arco del pasado de Gojo, pero falla tremendamente pues no puede evitar que todo lo que escriba se vuelva un festín de mediocridad, superficialidad y edgyness. Por supuesto, él era un personaje con bastante futuro para estar en otros arcos de Jujutsu Kaisen y eso es lo que esperé que sería antes de ver la segunda temporada, pero el tipo fue eliminado en menos de 3 capítulos porque Gojo se sacó un powerup de entre las nalgas con el purpura; que pena bro, fuíste víctima del pretty boy peliblanco genérico, la sesión de masturbación a Gojo empieza aquí y se expande a lo largo del arco de Shibuya; en donde a pesar de que este último esté en una situación precaria sigue siendo el pretty boy famoso de este anime, por lo tanto debe seguir siendo venerado cada puto capítulo. Esta reseña será algo larga y dolorosa de escribir.

Primer círculo del Infierno: La animación

La animación no es mala obviamente, de hecho es increíble; pues el Estudio Mappa tiene a todos sus trabajadores en horas extra y laburando como ganado constantemente para sacar solo un capitulito más y conseguir ganancias de esta cosa sin sustancia alguna, es obvio que la animación será bonita; más tengo una queja. ¿Soy la única persona que siente que esta animación no tiene ningún tipo de alma u inspiración? Sí, sí, se ve linda, pero no siento nada al ver como Gojo se saca la venda y revela sus ojos, no siento nada al ver las peleas, no siento nada al ver las expansiones de dominio, no siento nada más que absoluta apatía; no se siente ningún tipo de alma detrás de las cosas lindas que estoy viendo, algo que fue una queja similar a la que tuve en mi reseña de Oshi no Ko. Esto se siente como si le pusieras pintalabios, pestañas largas y maquillaje bonito a un robot que está constántemente peleándose con otro robot, al punto de que cuando ya vi la quinta pelea seguida con animación bonita me estaba aburriendo hasta el hartazgo, no hay nada en estos combates que me interese. La coreografía de las peleas es débil y en su mayoría consiste de a ver quién tira el fuego artificial más fuerte hacia el otro en vez de tácticas verdaderamente interesantes y sin estar forzadas (luego hablaré de lo que acontece en el arco de Shibuya). Aún así, esto está en el primer círculo del infierno pues es obviamente lo más fuerte de este anime y sigue siendo objectivamente bonita y buena, hay peleas (en especial en la segunda mitad del anime, ya tirando al final y climax del Incidente de Shibuya) que son espectaculares visualmente y es obvio que hay un montón de labor y trabajo puesta en ellas.

Segundo círculo del Infierno: El worldbuilding

El mundo de Jujutsu Kaisen está completamente vacío; sí, es así, la construcción del mundo de este anime es penosa; las organizaciones de poder en este anime están explicadas de forma boba y superficial, más que un mundo se siente como escenarios elegidos al azar en los que los personajes pelean y explican o resuelven sus problemas de forma inmadura. No se siente como si hubiera un mundo de verdad rodeando a nuestros personajes, no hay ningún tipo de explicación a detalle o sustancial en como funciona el órden autoritario de las escuelas de hechicería o como es el órden gubernamental de Tokyo en ese momento, en el caso de la invasión a Shibuya estaba constántemente preguntándome "¿cómo responderían altos mandos del gobierno a un ataque terrorista a tan gran escala?" "¿por qué no hay refuerzos militares o policiales de ningún tipo cuando ya el ataque es tremendamente notorio?" Sí, seguramente no podrían hacer nada contra los monstruos o los usuarios de maldiciones, pero igual podrían ayudar a la gente lastimada a que se alejen de Shibuya o llevar gente a refugios para que los hechiceros de Jujutsu peleen sin preocuparse por bajas civiles. La construcción del universo se siente absurdamente vaga, el sistema de poderes de Jujutsu Kaisen sigue siendo bastante básico y las maldiciones siguen siendo llanas y poco interesantes. No se siente como si hubiera un mundo más allá de la visión de nuestros personajes o algo que los rodee, no hay mucho más que decir. El Japón de Jujutsu Kaisen se siente extremadamente artificial y no es más que una pantalla verde o chroma en donde sucede toda la trama, no hay nada de profundidad ni sustancia.

Tercer círculo del Infierno: El tono y la atmósfera

La posible atmósfera oscura que Gege ha intentado establecer una y otra vez es arruinada por la obsesión de este mismo con hacer que sus personajes hagan cosas "cool" a cada rato. Jujutsu Kaisen en cierto punto se vuelve una competición de "a ver quién tiene los fuegos artificiales más impresionantes" tirando poderes para todos lados, haciendo idioteces porque es cool.., etc, es muy cheesy y no podía evitar girar mis ojos y estresarme ante la décima vez en la que Gege me ponía a sus excusas de personajes en la cara y me decía "MIRA, QUE COOL MI PERSONAJE WOW MIRA QUE PODER QUE TIRA, IMPRESIONANTE TIENES QUE ESTAR IMPRESIONADO WOW" y ya hasta se volvía tedioso y aburrido. Este show es además vendido como un anime de un tono u atmósfera oscura cuando falla en establecer una correctamente debido a aquello que dije en primer lugar y por el diseño ridículo de los monstruos; a pesar de esto, no es lo peor del anime y en ciertos puntos la atmósfera es decente, como la charla entre Toji Fushiguro y Suguru Geto en aquél lugar extraño con los pasillos de apariencia japonesa o la mansión del capítulo uno.., hasta que esta última es arruinada por Gojo, por supuesto, el cual parece tener un talento innato para arruinar cualquier escena o trama mínimamente interesante.

Cuarto círculo del Infierno: Los personajes

En este caso, el peor círculo del infierno y lo peor del anime. Una de las cosas que más me molestaron en el arco de Hidden Inventory es la metamorfosis tan boba y aniñada de Geto; el tipo se está duchando solo, ve a gente muerta que es típico en un trabajo tan peligroso como el de él y entonces empieza a decir idioteces pseudo-filosóficas y ¡¡DESARROLLO DE PERSONAJE!! El tipo se vuelve el Adolf Hitler de Jujutsu Kaisen en básicamente 3 o 4 capítulos; esto no es desarrollo de personaje gente, es una transformación barata y forzada para hacer que la trama siga avanzando, no me puedes hacer pensar que el tipo pasa de un polo a otro completamente radical solo porque se murió una persona que conoció hace unos meses y falló una misión; ¿no has visto miles de situaciones como estas? ¿no crees que gente como tú, en trabajos emocionalmente difíciles, tendría que haber desarrollado métodos para hacerle frente a tus problemas laborales y emocionales? Doctores, trabajadores en morgues, voluntarios en lugares pobres, bomberos, militares, etc, todos estos trabajos tienen formas de hacer frente a lo que son los problemas que acontecen en sus trabajos; a Geto le importó un bledo esto, decidió de repente transformarse en el tercer reich de Jujutsu Kaisen por una absoluta idiotez. Suguru Geto es un mal villano, mal escrito y sin motivaciones que inspiren al espectador a estar interesados en él de forma genuina; es un malo maloso que de repente se vuelve líder de un culto y decide hacer una masacre por absolutas tonterías que le sucedieron en el pasado. Este tipo decidió que la decisión más sabia era masacrar a la mayoría de la población, volverse un imbécil autoritario líder de una secta y practicar la eugenesia, parece que nunca pensó que quizá masacrar a la mayoría de la población humana y dejar a un puñado de gente viva es una mala idea.

Al igual que en la 1ra temporada, Gojo es un personaje que deja muchísimo que desear y el cual Gege te planta constantemente en la cara para intentar impresionarte (fallando estrepositosamente, al menos en mi caso) con sus poderes OP y su actitud cringe. Gojo desde siempre ha sido un profesor horrible y personaje mal escrito, nunca he entendido a la gente que pretende que Satoru es alguien más profundo. Recuerdo particularmente una escena en donde Gojo podría haber terminado el arco de Shibuya en tan solo tres capítulos.., pero el guionazo pega y decide hacer las decisiones más estúpidas de la historia, a Gojo se le está escapando un puto enemigo y el tipo va CAMINANDO; hermano, se está escapando el tipo CORRÉ PARA ATRAPARLO POR FAVOR, no tiene ninguna pizca de sentido, ni siquiera es por su estado mental en el momento pues luego de eso procede a analizar detenidamente el escenario de batalla con cautela, es una escena que insulta tu inteligencia; podría haber matado a todos los malos malosos ahí, escapado de esa estación e ir a por Geto, listo Shibuya termina en tres capítulos. El episodio 9 es uno de los peores, siendo una sesión de lamerle las patas a Gojo constantemente y todos los personajes se babean por sobre él, diciendo lo poderoso que es y etc, por supuesto que las peleas que tiene las destroza completamente y solo puede ser derrotado por un deus ex machina forzado por las estupideces de Gojo. El resumen es que Gojo es un personaje estupidísimo, sobrevalorado, mal-escrito y ridículo; con logros de velocidad inconsistentes y decisiones incomprensibles, que cae mal y da vergüenza ajena, nunca entenderé el éxito de este personaje en la cultura popular del anime.

Gege tiene la tendencia a ejecutar sin piedad a sus personajes antes de que puedan conseguir cualquier tipo de desarrollo o trama interesante, esto es así, tiene una obsesión a matarlos a todos antes de que el espectador pueda sentir algo por ellos y por lo tanto sus muertes y los acontecimientos por los que pasan son irrelevantes; esto o yo soy alguien sin empatía, no lo sé, simplemente no puedo sentir emociones por personajes tan blandos. Este anime ejecuta la clásica táctica que Kimetsu no Yaiba también hacía, la estrategia de "métele flashbacks y recuerdos con música triste antes de su muerte para que la escena sea más triste"; se siente extremadamente artificial cuando estás por ver que un personaje claramente va a morir y justo insertan un flashback sin motivo alguno, no, no voy a empatizar con esta persona solo porque me estés metiendo estas escenas a último momento. Para hacerme empatizar con un personaje y sentir emociones precisas construírlo correctamente de forma previa; las escenas de muerte están bien pero no pertenecen a personas que se sientan humanas y por eso resultan tan poco efectivas. Nobara es una don nadie que no ha hecho nada en todas las temporadas y está tremendamente poco desarrollada, Megumi sigue siendo el mismo de la primera temporada y no hay ningún tipo de desarrollo u cambio que suceda con ellos, siguen siendo la misma persona en el inicio y en sus finales, los alumnos de Kyoto están absurdamente olvidados en un conflicto que lógicamente debería incluir a los dos institutos de magia por igual (por su peligro y escala, inclusive a pesar de lo que Mechamaru haga y piense) y el resto de personajes secundarios son el mismo estereotipo cliché y clásico que eran en la primera temporada, no hay nada que los haga únicos. Por esto mismo, la muerte de la gente en Shibuya no me afecta de ninguna forma y por lo tanto el "desarrollo" de Itadori se siente forzado y barato, el trauma de Itadori es tratado de forma muy inmadura y es de vida muy corta; como espectador no fuí capaz de ponerme en los zapatos de Itadori porque no me importan ni un poco los personajes de Jujutsu Kaisen, y esa incapacidad para empatizar es un gran fallo en un arco tan caótico y trágico como lo debería ser el Incidente de Shibuya, simplemente no se sienten como si fueran gente real, son tan solo clichés y estereotipos sin profundidad alguna, es como matar a un puñado de NPCs sin relevancia alguna. Los últimos capítulos además tienen la tendencia horrible de inutilizar y materializar de la nada personajes de forma conveniente para el plot, de repente aparecen varios hechiceros completamente sanos y yo me pregunto, ¿¿¿dónde mierda estaban cuando se les precisaba??? Es un ataque terrorista a enorme escala y estos tipos ni siquiera estaban presentes acá, aparecen al final para tirar exposition dumps al espectador y no ayudar en nada, es ridículo.

El Río Cocito: Conclusión

No esperaba mucho pero logró decepcionarme, la segunda entrega de Jujutsu Kaisen no es más que la continuación de algo mediocre y un shonen disfrazado bajo un velo de oscuridad pretenciosa. Es es como si conviertes una batalla de robots edgy sin personalidad en animación japonesa con diseños de personaje anime genéricos, la pelea seguramente se vea bien pero luego de eso no hay mucho más; es un show de puro estilo sobre sustancia y que está constantemente intentando convencer al espectador de que es algo más de lo que en realidad es, un shounen mediocre tirando a malo con personajes genéricos y mal escritos, batallas con estilo pero sin alma alguna, decisiones estúpidas por parte de los personajes, edgyness, pretención y más; por estas razones me resulta interesante ver como la gente trata a Jujutsu Kaisen como la última botella de agua en el desierto, de verdad, no encuentro la diferencia de mediocridad entre esto y otro anime como Boku no Hero Academia, como dije en mi reseña de Jujutsu Kaisen 1ra temporada esto no aporta nada nuevo y tiene básicamente los mismos defectos que su predecesor. No, no subvierte expectaciones ni hace nada nuevo, no te dejes engañar por este anime, matar a tus personajes antes de que tengan cualquier tipo de desarrollo relevante no es buena escritura ni subvertir expectaciones o algo especial, es tan solo mediocre y estúpido. Es un anime lleno de decisiones tontas, clichés y tramas forzadas, con desarrollo no-existente y peleas por doquier para justificar la falta de una trama interesante o buena escritura.

Disappointing season in terms of animation and character design, there's no way to compare it to the first season, if the third reaches that level I won't follow it. Most of the battle scenes were distorted, some episodes had a very slow pace, there were hours that looked like children's drawings. The only thing that made me continue to follow was the story that clarified some points, not all that were open. Unfortunately, the studio ended the work, I hope the mistake doesn't happen again and they still left the ending completely open, they could have added a few more chapters to really close the ... arc.

a copy without an original
Most of the problems of season 1 is apparent here unfortunately I’ll just do a quick rant and then I elaborate on them below
It’s actually disappointing how people are crawling over each other to hype up pure radioactive nuclear garbage called "Jujutsu Kaisen 2nd Season"
how style and fight scene have become what we mainly judge an anime with, who cares about plot holes? who cares if we get asspull after asspull
all that matters is mei mei is fucking her simp brother, all that matters is kakashi doing the "blue technic", all that matters is the fight scene, look at that badass ... technique kakashi just pulled out of his fucking ass, look how our 0 dimensional main character Yuuji is fighting with all his passion for humanity and finally look at how the heroes give a final speech to the villain about friendship

The thing about the blue technique is that it’s not just a power the character has, it’s a get out of the jail free card, oh you are losing the fight? The villain is smart? Don’t worry you have this hidden technique to save you, which makes you wonder why not use this power immediately? This is the plot hole I’m talking about

In a certain episode a certain ‘nobody’ dies and this was supposed to be a sad thing but the death serves as power fuel for Yuuji to fight evil harder at that moment, that’s it, I’m not upset why he/she dies because none of the characters are developed or are interesting, the incompetent mixture of comedy and seriousness made it impossible to emotionally invest in anything in this shitshow
The asspulls in the show are awful, during a fight someone suddenly gets emotional and it’s power-up time, this is really insulting, I don’t have to explain that this is a cheap way to win a fight against villains, this is overused garbage

The thing that makes me angry at the fight scenes is that they are absolutely purposeless, what is it they are progressing in the plot? Nothing! If that villain didn’t show up nothing Would have been missed
it's 10pm and instead of sleeping i'm writing this, i hate you guys so much

first season was great, but after this season crashed and burned, i'm not continuing the series.

the animation in this season is amazing, especially in the first five episodes and a vast majority of the fights. it's a far cut above the first and you can tell the animators were passionate. there were times where i rewinded just to see how a specific part was animated again.
...and that's about all the praise i have for this season.

the entire season is having an objective, saying "this is time sensitive, solve it as quickly as possible or everything will be destroyed" and then having every character go ... "mmmm ok, but i gotta get rid of this random guy first". i guess it makes sense in a way, but it felt more like the author was stalling then setting up a good roadblock. there's so many enemies introduced that die in the same episode that i have no reason to care about. so many of these fights don't add anything, if anything they just repeatedly subtract.

i like to suspend my belief when watching shows like this, but there were many times that i just couldnt. there were multiple times where characters should've died and just. didn't, somehow. meanwhile there were others where it'd make sense for a character to dodge something or flee, but didn't because getting hurt and dying would definitely be better writing and not just frustrating to watch. this isn't even mentioning that the antagonist objective doesn't make sense- we're told why it doesn't in the beginning and then we're expected to sympathize with them for idiotic reasons?!

the character writing is far worse- from confusing, to annoying, to boring, to the point where i starting saying "holy shit, just get off the screen, i don't care" and started skipping through (which i never usually do). nearly every character- especially during what should be an important moment- was handled so poorly. it felt like the author just wanted to create shock value over and over again. there comes a point where it gets less and less shocking, where you get bored and annoyed, apathetic to what's happening and instead starting to pick it apart.

the end of the season left nothing that interested me. the first season set up so much potential, and this season destroyed it. if you have to watch it, watch the first five episodes then immediately end there. it's not worth it. it adds nothing beyond that point.

Season 2 was a mess and you're huffing copium if you think otherwise.

I say this as someone who was a massive JJK fan for years (with tons of money tied up in merch and mangas, not to mention the countless hours spent watching the first season) - this show dropped off and MAPPA shit the bed. The animation for season 2 was atrocious after Hidden Inventory. There are scenes where mouths don't move when people talk, and some of the fights are static and sloppy. The Megumi-Toji fight, the Sukuna-Jogo fight, and the Yuji-Mahito fight (specifically the wolf v rabbit scene) were all SO ... disappointing. They took the most iconic scenes from the most iconic JJK arc and wiped their asses with them. The art style also occasionally shifts to something akin to tracings of the manga, which was a terrible choice. And the director spent too much time going for fan-bait scenes (like all the Daddy Nanami stuff - why did Nanami go from being a slender, dapper gentleman to a damn roided-out beefcake? Was it for instagram reel material? Because I think it was for instagram reel material...) The whole second season just felt underwhelming after a 3 year wait and having the first season to compare it to. Just...meh.

And there's also the issue of MAPPA, who overworked and underpaid the animators and didn't give them any time to animate for this season... People need to understand that sort of behavior from a studio as big as MAPPA should not be rewarded with praise. MAPPA will never do better if people dishonestly praise this show in an attempt to spare the animator's feelings (we all know the animators aren't to blame, so I have nothing bad to say about them), season 2 sucked because MAPPA did a horrible job managing it. Help the animators by letting MAPPA know that, no, season 2 wasn't "peak" and they should do better for their animators so the animators can do better for themselves and for the viewers.

In addition to all that, Gege just isn't a good writer if you stop and think about it. They are the definition of a one-trick-pony. We get it, no character is safe and anyone can die at any moment - but that is a writing style that is beyond tired and predictable. The CONSTANT fights and CONSTANT deaths have turned JJK into one of the most braindead, tedious manga/anime I've ever engaged with. Everything after Shibuya gets progressively worse. Yuji is also a passive protagonist (and spoiler alert, he probably won't even be in much of season 3 because Gege forgot he existed for about 8 months of the manga) and the story is rudderless. The villain's motivations are "Just be evil" and the heroes' motivations are "I don't care, but I guess I gotta try to stop them - oh shit, I'm dead." Like seriously...Jujutsu Kaisen WAS good, but now it's a mindless mess with animation that looks like it was ordered on Wish. For all those reasons, I don't recommend the second season or the manga.

Where Season 1 was curious to watch with the new world, story building and as it was setting up rules, it felt like there might be something good to come out of it in the future, but with how Season 2 is I don't expect it anymore.
There is barely any dialogues, bonding or character build up in general. It's just fight after fight after fight, with another fight. In which everyone keeps pulling shit out of their asses with disregard to any rules.
I could watch the fights themselves without expecting anything else, but honestly what is up with the style choices for the animations? They ... are ugly, rushed and create chaotic feeling where it's barely readable wtf is happening on screen. There are no particularly interesting fight outcomes, no interesting solutions and it ends up feeling.. boring.

Watching episode 8 I was bored out of my mind so I think I'll pass. Meh.

A Shibuya Letdown: Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Fails to Deliver
Jujutsu Kaisen season 1 burst onto the scene with stunning animation, a captivating story, and characters you couldn't help but root for. Season 2, however, feels like a pale imitation, leaving me utterly disappointed.

The animation, which was once a highlight, is now inconsistent. While some fight scenes remain impressive, others suffer from choppy movements and awkward stills. This inconsistency throws off the entire viewing experience, making the action feel jarring and underwhelming.

Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 is a frustrating watch. It fails to live up to the high bar set by its predecessor, leaving me feeling cheated ... of a truly satisfying experience. The rushed pacing, inconsistent animation, and underdeveloped characters leave a sour taste in my mouth. This season is a missed opportunity, and as a fan of season 1, I can't help but feel deeply disappointed.

The story was not unique it was predictable for the genre. The art style was nice and well produced, there is money behind the production. Most of the characters where dull. During the First season, this anime had two things that were great and stood out, Gojo Satoru and the end credits sequence with song. I watched the whole first season and could not skip the end credits it was almost the only thing I was looking forward to each episode, that went away in season 2. None of the other characters stand out, it's not very interesting. If you liked things like Bleach, Naruto, ... or Once Piece, this may be your thing. It is a better product then those.

Oh no, what did they do to my boy, my beautiful S1/movie baby boy... Not even gonna touch on the story, I love me some flashbacks. Also I'm happy for all the people who enjoy the new animation style, enjoy. That being said holy smokes to my eyeballs the new animation is bad, not the characters though they flow really well but everything else around them is janky. However the art style is even worse imo. We went from crisp detailed art, richly colored and shaded to this terrible bland minimalism, cough cough budget cutting BS. On top of that why are the panning/moving CGI ... scenes looking worse than something from a PS2 game? If I want to see video game animations I'll just go play Persona 5, or 4, or 3; all of which have better quality animation than JJK Season 2. Like 80% of the scenes are drop dead gorgeous, the background artists went bananas and my hats off to them... but then the camera moves and you're assaulted with blocky 3D polygons that got flattened to 2 dimensions with the grace of a 5 year old smearing crayons on paper. Idk ya'll, I think I'm getting too old for anime. Seems like watching anime and having a large catalogue of beautifully animated shows to compare things to is a terrible double edge sword. The more you watch, the more you notice how they cut corners to save money, except they don't pay that newfound saved money to their slave labor animators, oh no it goes right to the top so it can trickle down baby. Unfortunately I guess One Punch Man now has company on my list of anime that got butchered with a change in art/animation, sigh. 3 points; 1 point for the animators that worked on the characters, 1 point for the background artists, 1 point for the audio people.

- 3 episodes in this new season and all episodes are flashback, started without any setup, we don't know who is telling this flashback story and whose perspective are we watching.
- There is no suspense because we know it's a flashback.
- The plot isn't moving anywhere for 5 episodes (from what I was told).
- We see characters from the movie, so people are expected to have seen the movie to care, I didn't see it and couldn't care less about any of these characters except for Gojo (who we already know is fine in the present time).

You know what this is like? it's ... like starting Naruto Shippoden with a Kakashi flashback that goes on for 5 weeks. Sure, Kakashi flashback does have some good information about end-game villain (Obito), but it doesn't move the plot along and is ultimately unnecessary.
A new season shouldn't be started like this, the director could have skipped it or rearranged it to be at the middle (or the end) of the season, or he could have scattered it all around the season, but his way of doing this isn't working for me.

As I'm not enjoying it, I rate it a 4/10.