Review of Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 is undeniably one of the most hyped-up shounen anime in the past couple of years. Before this season aired, there were many posts comparing the "Shibuya Incident arc" of this season to classic shounen arcs like the "Chimera ant arc" from Hunter x Hunter. As usual, while it was airing, words like "masterpiece" and "peak fiction" were being thrown around in the community, as always. Now that the season is over, I can say that Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 was no masterpiece and isn’t peak fiction. It gets some things right and some things wrong, like how most shounen do, whichI will list:

What JJK s2 does right:

1.Animation
As it’s from Studio MAPPA, high-quality animation is expected, and this season delivered on that aspect. There were some quality drops in fights around the middle of the season, but they never take you out of the immersion. Overall, I prefer this season’s animation style compared to the previous one, since the new simplified art style allows for much more expressive character movements. Also the compositing no longer looks like shit.

2.Hype fights
Most of the fights are quite entertaining, as long as they aren’t hindered by something I'll get into later. The powers allow for some interesting battles, and the locations of the fights are used very well in this arc, with most characters utilizing the environment to their advantage.

3.Music
The music in this season is outright incredible, with every music track being unique and fitting perfectly with the scene it’s paired with. There were many times while I was watching where my mind had to switch focus to how great the music was in the moment.

4.Voice Acting
The voice actor who did Mahito is definitely overqualified for his job. His voice is full of emotion and captures the essence of his character perfectly. All the other voice actors did an above-average job at bringing energy and life into their characters.

What JJK s2 does wrong:

1.Convoluted explanations and exposition dumps
The explanations for a character's abilities and how they relate to cursed energy can be quite hard to follow, especially when that character is fighting on screen at the same time. This can hinder the enjoyment of a fight sequence since you need to concentrate all your brain power on reading the subtitles to understand someone’s power, and if you don’t, you’ll have to read it at least three times to wrap your head around most of it. What makes it even worse is that these exposition dumps are said by a narrator that sounds like some old lady they got off the street and not like the gigachad narrator in Hunter x Hunter who at least made exposition dumps cool to listen to.

2.Character Deaths
There are a lot of character deaths in this season with only one of those deaths which I consider to be a properly well written send-off. Other than that, there are three types of deaths that can be seen in Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2.

a)Deaths for Shock Factor
This happens when someone dies just to make the audience go, “Oh shit, that guy just died,” and not because the character necessarily needed to die or should have died at that moment. These shock factor deaths tend to leave the viewer emotionally disconnected from the story.
b)Character revives just to die once again
This happens when a character you believe is dead appears again in the current timeline through some means and then dies again. Depending on how this is executed, it can take away the initial value of the character’s death and lessens the impact of the second death.
c)Flashbacks before death
This happens once to one character and plays out similarly to how they do it in Demon Slayer. They give a flashback to a character before they die as a cheap way to try and make the audience care. The flashback in Jujutsu Kaisen was clearly used before the death because that character did almost nothing the entire season. The flashback also didn’t even give us anything of substance that really mattered. It just showed the character as a child, paired with some sad music, which could probably do a good job at making an emotionally fragile person cry.

3.Underdeveloped cast members
Jujutsu Kaisen is filled with numerous characters, and like most shounen series, there isn’t enough time allocated to flesh out most of them and give them substantial roles. This results in a majority of the cast from the first season not doing much in this season. Some characters even show up to the battlefield only to ultimately do nothing and return home. Even when some cast members do get the spotlight, since they didn’t have much screentime beforehand, it can be challenging to develop a sense of attachment or care for them.

4.Uninteresting villains
The villains of this season are basic and aren’t particularly well-written, with most of them being defined solely by their power and nothing more. The only interesting villain was in the flashback arc at the beginning of the season, but he doesn’t matter anymore, as he had already been killed in the movie and replaced by some evil bad guy who lacks the motivations, personal connections, and charisma that the original villain had.

Overall, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 suffers from the same problems as most other recent shounen series and only really stands out due to its production values alone. It is quite an entertaining watch for battle shounen fans, but for those seeking more like what Jujutsu Kaisen manga fans had been saying this arc had, it’s not here.

Final Scorings
Animation: 9/10 (Mostly great with some inconsistencies)
Sound: 8/10 (Good VA work and cool music)
Story: 4/10 (Generic underground shounen 1v1 fights)
Character: 5/10 (Charismatic but basic in characterization)
Value: 4/10 (Most hyped up shounen arc, although lacking in longevity)
Enjoyment: 6/10 (Fun when not killed by exposition)
Overall: 6/10