Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2

Episode 44

Is there a worse possible foot for “Right and Wrong, Part 3” to start on than to remind me of how delightfully funny and charming Jujutsu Kaisen's leads can be, only to juxtapose the kids' clothes-cleaning shenanigans with an absolutely brutal POV shot of Yuji framed from within Nobara's exploded skull? After having had a week to ruminate on it, my stance on last week's episode hasn't changed. If anything, Nobara's unceremonious and rushed death only makes me even angrier with each passing day, so you can imagine my mood when the interior of her mangled eye socket was one of the first sights to greet me this week, and after such a lovely little flashback, to boot.

Thankfully, the rest of the episode is pretty good. This is mostly because it is—say it with me now, everyone—another well-animated fight scene filled with lots of spectacle and mayhem. Todo's arrival brings some much-needed spirit to these dismal proceedings, and the arrival of a trusted friend also allows Yuji to properly express all of the pent-up rage and grief he's been shouldering for the past…what has it been? Thirty minutes?

Anyways, as awful as it might sound to say, the sight of poor Yuji writhing in agony on the floor while Todo tries to get him to man up provided, at long last, a scene that got me to feel something about all of the insane nonsense that has gone down in Shibuya. It still rings a little cheap and hollow, what with some of the nasty tricks that JJK has been resorting to manipulating emotion, but still, a feeling is a feeling. It also makes the resulting smackdown on Mahito that much more satisfying to behold.

I'm honestly running out of things to say about the onslaught of action animation that we've gotten from JJK as of late. Once again, it all looks very good and is very exciting to see unfold. Once again, it is difficult to fully immerse myself in what is onscreen because of how much real-life suffering we know has gone into producing it. Once again, I still find myself begging for just a little more focus and time to reckon with the scope of all of this destruction before jumping back into the fray for the umpteenth time. I don't expect JJK to change its ways, at this point, but again, a feeling is a feeling, and it's my job to let you know how this show is making me feel.

Another scene I appreciated, at least on paper, was the aside to Miwa and PokéMaru, which gives us some long-awaited closure on the emotional cliffhanger created by MechaMaru's death, and the last-minute reveal of his feelings for Miwa. It's another excellently well-produced scene, channeling all of that dubious MAPPA energy into a more inwardly focused kind of spectacle. These are characters that we barely know but all it takes is a couple of strategically deployed moments of pathos allowing us to empathize with them. I just wish the show remembered that it was good at doing that more often.

Also, if you will allow me one final nitpick: Why did we get this scene now, of all times? MM died months ago, from our perspective, and the scene doesn't communicate any other information that feels as if it could only have been delivered right in the middle of this fight, this week. I think the moment would have had a lot more impact before the sudden, violent, and tragic deaths of hundreds of other people, including some beloved main characters. It's just a bizarre pacing decision at the moment, and it's getting frustrating to keep falling back on “I sure hope that choice makes more sense next week!” when we're so close to the end of the season.

Rating:

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is a writer with many thoughts and feelings about anime and other pop culture, which can also be found on Twitter, his blog, and his podcast.