Review of Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2
I don't watch nearly as much anime as I did in my formative teenage years, but whenever a new show pops up that people don't shut up about I try to make an effort to see what all the fuss is about. I did initially try to watch Jujutsu Kaisen as it was airing, got through season 1, thought it was pretty ok, and then didn't feel the need to go back when season 2 came out and thought that maybe the hype would die down. It didn't. So I said fine and made the effort to rewatch season 1 and then all of season 2after it had already aired. Ignoring my thoughts on season 1 (its very average) season 2 throws you into a whole new arc that takes place in the past so it should be given a fresh chance. And upon giving it that fresh chance, I realized that season 2 is just as average as the first season but with higher highs and lower lows. It's as if the author was trying to recreate how it feels to experience Fate Zero but without all the parts that make Fate Zero good. You know, like the interesting characters.
I can understand if you just don't care about a genuinely interesting story how you could just shut your brain off and enjoy the fights. I really do get it. But the show does not present it's in that way so I did not attempt to experience it that way. To boil it down to my main gripes, characters are killed for seemingly no reason most of the time, other than to attempt to illicit a reaction from the viewer (rather than the conclusion of that character's story).
When these characters are killed there is always a post hoc "here's my backstory so please cry now" scene either right before they die (spoiling the moment entirely) or right after they die which lead to me just rolling my eyes. When this technique is typically used, it's to EMPHASIZE the emotions that the viewer is supposed to feel, not to create them from scratch. The characters are all paper thin, even the main character who got pushed aside for a flashback arc after one season with very little development.
Do the fights look good? Yeah they absolutely do for the most part! But every single fight in season 2 is either over something that was JUST introduced, or completely undermined by another story factor, causing it to have zero impact. The show genuinely feels like it was made for people who have seen like 3 anime series in their life, and that's the only explanation I can come up with for it's bizarre popularity.
It is by no means unwatchable, but for a show to be this highly regarded I expect far more than what I was given. But hey who knows, maybe when season 3 comes out it'll give me a whole new perspective.