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Harleyquin
Posts: 2984 |
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#39
The franchise throwing out curveballs is nothing new, but seeing three major ones in a single episode is something else. The start of the episode could have gone anywhere depending on Toji's next action, but it went temporarily in the favour of the four underdogs before Jougo decided to intervene. Jougo being strong isn't really a surprise, considering the only one he's fought to date is Gojou Satoru which is no indicator of his relative strength to everyone else in the cast. Then viewers who have been champing at the bit regarding the first season's major storyline hook get fed to it with a silver platter, with next episode serving up a pair of potential duels which I'm certain casual viewers wouldn't have imagined without access to the source material. The main duel between Dagon and the incarnate of Toji is the usual feast for the eyes this franchise specialises in as far as action set pieces are concerned. As soon as Dagon dismissed Toji for his lack of magical power, the outcome was only going one way once Toji had a weapon to actually hurt Dagon with. Ironically Old Man Zen'in's intervention hurt the four more than helped, as Jougo might not have entered the domain given the timing of the duel. Sukuna's tyrannical behaviour is nothing new, but I'm curious to see just how strong he's supposed to be against one of (Fake) Getou's strongest subordinates. Although he was just an "insurance policy", he is just as big a wildcard as Toji is in the grand scheme of things. He's just as likely to kill all humans in the area anyway regardless of his skirmish with Jougo. |
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Tony K.
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 11452 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Original discussion started here.
---------------------------------- Episode 39 (S02E15): Fluctuations 2 ---------------------------------- Summary: Pending ---------------------------------- Comments: Pending ---------------------------------- Screen Caps: Pending |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2984 |
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#40
Although it's the same general pattern as the preceding works, the duels never fail to throw out surprises. Even if they don't take up all of the airtime, there's enough action to provide enough entertainment before the next course is brought on with almost no pause. Fushiguro Megumi vs. Zen'in Toji might have turned out anti-climatic in its conclusion, but the process in which viewers are brought to the outcome isn't disappointing. Megumi brought out everything he remembered taking on Sukuna back in season one, and it still didn't help against his father. Some of the physical stunts Megumi pulled off in his duel made me wonder if he'd stopped being human, because even with power some of the stuff he pulled off just to avoid getting hit beggared belief. An interesting conclusion though, although Toji was scum there was just enough in him to stop him from killing his own son. Now that he's out of the picture, that's one less wildcard everyone has to deal with. Megumi getting ambushed by the target Nanami failed to finish off wasn't a complete surprise, yet he in turn is terrified of something when his ability to not die should be keeping him fighting. The second half is just ridiculous. Sukuna vs. Jougo is an absolute mismatch, despite the latter showing last week how strong he is against multiple First-Grade sorcerers. When Getou said Jougo was about 8 or 9 on a generous estimate, the disparity in prowess when Itadori was fed 20 appendages all at once gave the animators the excuse to destroy a few blocks of Shibuya for our viewing entertainment. Sukuna doesn't care for collateral damage, so the cowardly First-Grade paired with Panda might well have regretted his decision to dawdle at the wrong place for so long. I wonder who Uraume is, not sure she's been featured much beyond a few silent screenshots amongst Getou's group. Perhaps we viewers will find out more as the episodes air. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11452 Location: Frisco, TX |
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Original discussion started here.
---------------------------------- Episode 40 (S02E16): Thunderclap ---------------------------------- Summary: Pending ---------------------------------- Comments: Pending ---------------------------------- Screen Caps: Pending |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2984 |
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#41
If rumours about the state of Mappa's animators regarding this show's production are to be believed, we viewers might have to savour what's on screen while we still can as producing output of this quality for consecutive weeks isn't humanely possible. I thought the Sukuna vs. Jougo duel was ridiculous, this week's episode tops that. It's also a harbinger of things to come; if Sukuna successfully defeated this Shikigami and helped award control of it to Fushiguro, then Gojou's prophecy about Fushiguro becoming strong enough to defeat him might well come true. No way of knowing any of that while Gojou remains imprisoned, but Fushiguro needs treatment first before he can test the theory out. Back then, the show stated Itadori was extremely suitable to be Sukuna's vessel. In practical terms, it mean Sukuna had a time limit while in control of Itadori's body and had to accomplish whatever aims he had while he was still in the driver's seat. For the brief time he was in control, that's quite the destructive list of accomplishments he's racked up. We even see his powerful domain officially released for the first time, as well as its characteristics and abilities. Seeing a 140m radius of Tokyo's land area effectively given the same treatment as a tactical nuclear device is a very concise summary of his destructive capabilities; even if there's a technicality that allows victims of his domain to somehow escape. The animators need a break; are they going to get one? One of those episodes which deals with mainly talking heads and exposition would be great to give them a relative period of peace and quiet. They can start with explaining why Nanami is still alive despite resembling Harvey Dent. On the plus side, we finally get an explanation of why his punching bag from several weeks ago didn't die, and why he finally did after this week's episode. |
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Blood-
 Bargain Hunter Posts: 24242 |
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I'm bored. To me, that was an episode full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Sukuna has immense destructive power? Gosh, how interesting. I do not deny the visual virtuosity that went into the battle, I just wished I cared. I'd rather have my emotions dazzled than my eyes. Hopefully, we actually do get a quiet episode next time before the next onslaught of fight, fight, fight.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11626 |
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All I could think of while watching that was
"Oh no, they say, he's got to go Go go Sukuna, yeah Oh no, there goes Tokyo Go go Sukuna, yeah" Ok, not all - I kept being distracted from the battle wondering how the lights kept coming back on. Helluva backup system they've got, I guess. Looked cool though. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15580 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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You know, I have to kind of agree with this. There is a certain level where scale just becomes so large that it takes you out of all the grounded emotions packed into a scene, and I think they kind of hit it in this episode. Like watching a screen with static and we are meant to process that all of those flashing colours is something important. A few episodes back we had the devastating scene where a train was crammed full of monsters that were transformed humans, who proceeded to slaughter a train station full crowd. This was a devastating where this series has made every single loss of human life feel like a gut punch, where one of the strongest characters of the show had to pull out all stops to try and save some of those people. With us being told several months later they would have recovered or something. In this episode we saw a huge portion of a city be torn apart and people killed in ways that happened so quickly and abstractedly, that it kind of just takes me out of everything. I do understand that there is some point in that, where it would drive him insane, and honestly at that point I would have thought it would break him more. And kind of feels really into the maybe they really should kill him if that is the sort of devastation that might happen. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11452 Location: Frisco, TX |
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I think the episode is not only trying to show off Sukuna's strength, but also show how dangerous his overall existence is. The franchise has all this lore and mythos about jujutsu users and curses, but we only have present-day actions and events (as in the last decade or so) to quantify this war that's been going on for who knows how long. As much as they kept building up Sukuna as this big bad wolf, we only got very small pieces of seeing him in action (10-second fight against Gojou, fighting that Special Grade in the prison). But in the last couple of episodes, we get to see just how ruthless and fearsome he truly is. Jougo looked like an amateur next to Gojou, but roasted the other three with no problem. Then lo and behold, even for all the effort against him (which included rivers of lava), Jougo still couldn't manage to land a hit. And with him (Sukuna) fighting Fushiguro's shikigami, he destroyed parts of the city and killed a bunch (hundreds, maybe thousands?) of innocents. We know he has zero regard for life (well, outside of Fushiguro, at this point, but you could even say it's less of a person thing, and more so for whatever devious plans), whereas Itadori is the complete opposite and would rather not kill unless he has to. So when Sukuna finally relinquished the body back to Itadori, all of Sukuna's actions came flooding in, and he (Itadori) knew full well just how much death and destruction his body caused, which he now has to live with. Imagine not being able to control your body while someone/thing uses it to ravage a city and murder a bunch of people, and you can't do a thing about it. That's gotta' be rough on the psyche. And you don't know when the heck it's gonna' happen, again. What if it does, and your body ends up killing someone you actually know or care about? It's a fine line that Itadori is gonna' have to teeter, kinda' like Bruce Banner, but with an Evil Dastardly Conniving Murderous Hulk as the alternate. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11452 Location: Frisco, TX |
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ep. 41 [pending]
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2984 |
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#42
More bad news about the animators and even talk of broadcast delays, so this episode has a very timely feel to it. Many of those animators who vented on social media must surely have empathized with what Nanami was going through most of the episode. Compared to the madness of the last few weeks, this week notably toned down the density of the action scenes, but I wouldn't classify it as a rest week the same way the early episodes of this arc were. I'm surprised Nanami wasn't killed instantly from Jougo's ambush, given the state half his head was. Only thing I can think of is the bleeding was instantly cauterized by the fire, so plenty of pain but no risk of shock killing him slowly. Even if he'd somehow made it back to Ieiri, I doubt he could have been saved because the damage was so significant it would have been permanent. So he gets to go out in a blaze of glory with Mahito waiting to finish him off after he'd been weakened and could give no further resistance. Another duel this week, this time being the long-awaited round 2 between Mahito and Itadori. We know the former cannot use his domain expansion under any circumstance, while the latter is still feeling the physical and mental aftereffects of having Sukuna get his way for an extended period of time. So far, Mahito has the upper hand and if his last comment is correct then Itadori is REALLY up against it since Mahito has figured out what really hurts him mentally and emotionally and won't hesitate to use that trump card if he has to. And it is a trump card, because the last part of the episode plays out before his duel with Itadori takes place and the result has already been decided. We viewers will get to see the process even if the outcome is no longer in doubt. |
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ACｘS
 Posts: 965 |
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42:
Noooo, daddy Nanami 
I know that the production crew at MAPPA are suffering—it was clear as day for episode 40, and based on how much titles the studio has on its plate, it's surprising how the crew haven't timed out—but the production values have improved a bit this time. Definitely not as marvelous as the start of the arc, but it's recovering. The approach for something a bit more mellow and less dynamic helped the situation a bit while emphasizing the mood of the moment (in this case, Nanami's valiant final fight). P.S. I wonder what happened to Choso. I still don't fully understand what really happened to him after his fight with Itadori. |
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Tony K.
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 11452 Location: Frisco, TX |
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ep. 42 [pending]
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2984 |
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#43
How long has it been since viewers watched an episode with this template? Counting back, I think it's been almost two months since we finally got an episode which was light on action and focused almost exclusively on character development. Given what happened last week, what happens this week won't go down with a lot of viewers. What it does give is the overworked animators an effective rest week because the action sequences weren't as long nor as involved as the previous duels. Mahito isn't popular, but he plays the villain's role very well. Sadistic and more than happy to gain any unfair advantage he can get, he holds his own almost as well as Jougo and his peers. If he has a weakness, it is his habitual underestimation of his foes requiring him to pull rabbits out of his hat to get over the line. It adds to the uncertainty of his battles, but makes him a terrible asset for the (Fake) Getou cause. I had assumed the battle with Kugisaki was before fighting Itadori, turns out it was almost simultaneous with Mahito using the double he generated after leaving Jougo to take on Kugisaki. Kugisaki did very well to hold the double off for that long and even execute her resonance move from the tail end of season one to save Itadori (unintentionally). But there was only ever going to be one outcome once Mahito got the surprise attack on her without her defending against it. Kugisaki's backstory hasn't been mentioned at all since season one, so I'd expect many viewers actually forgot why she moved to Tokyo to begin with. A lot of it is in line with what was shown previously, with the extra scene featuring the still-alive Saori working overtime at a desk job done for maximum dramatic effect given what was inevitably going to happen. The scene with the chairs is a reference to what she said to Itadori back when they'd just defeated Chousou's brothers, while Kugisaki holding the side of her face is referenced in the arc's OP (along with so many spoilers from this arc aired to date in hindsight). Bad news from the production notwithstanding, the episodes are still airing on time even though possible delays have already been floated. If they are going to delay it now, it'll be a minor miracle the animators didn't drop tools sooner. If the pacing slows down to what we saw this week for a short period, it might be enough to avert the worst possible outcome and help the production staff with their overloads. It is just three episode remaining, so one last push to help salvage the situation temporarily while the management work out how not to repeat this for future adaptations (and there will be, the franchise has done enough to keep going especially as the source material is supposed to end very soon). |
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smurky turkey
Posts: 2750 |
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It is time for me to throw in the old hat on watching this. I stopped commenting on episodes since I hate to be the whiny one only bringing (mostly) negative comments to the party. The reason for me dropping the show is that it has become a never ending stream of battles that I no longer particularly care for. Despite production issues it still looks great and things are wild, yet I am not feeling anything about it.
Something about the balance between finding the characters fun, the world interesting and enjoying the battles has been lost. There have always been a lot of battles in this show, it never bothered me though and I kept looking forward to the next week. I am sure that upcoming episodes will have more action, slaughter, character deaths and surprises, but I can not think of a single reason to care anymore. I suppose this show is just not for me (anymore). |
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