(Nitsuj): Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. It’s the final week of Aniween and we’re looking at the second half Jujutsu Kaisen S2.
(Yume): Last week, we saw Gojo get sealed away and the sorcerers have gone into panic mode to save him. It’s all-out battle in Shibuya between sorcerers and curses.
(Seras): Can the sorcerers save Gojo or will he be lost? Let’s find out.
Opening and Ending Theme
(Yume): The second opening for this season is “SPECIALZ” by King Gnu. Out of the two openings fans have called this the better one. While I prefer the first one I can see why everyone prefers this one. The preparations are over and war is upon us. The beat is dark and carries this malice intent behind it like something bad is going to happen and there will be nothing we can do to stop it. The song is slow so you have to let everything sink in on what’s happening and what’s going to happen. Overall, it’s a good song.
(Seras): The ending for the second half is “More Than Words” by Hitsujibungaku. Personally, I didn’t care for this song until episode 19 when it finally syncs up with the anime. The song just has this warm feeling of remembering the past and all the good times you shared with others. Actually, that’s the major theme behind all of these endings but this one seems to do it the best.
Episodes 13-15
(Nitsuj): We start the second half of the anime with Yuji making it underground and coming face to face with Choso. The whole episode is one amazing fight between Yuji and Choso and they go all out here (the speed, the animation, the choreography, the music, and the camerawork. It’s all on point here and MAPPA is showing off). We see Choso can manipulate his blood and use it to shoot high-speed bullets and beams at Yuji who gets pierced a few times (Seras: When did the anime turn into Kekkai Sensen?). When he sees he has no way of winning, Mechamaru tells him to go to the restroom. Choso follows where Yuji set off the fire sprinklers, broke the sinks, and possibly the toilets as well (Yume and Seras: Eww~). This means the whole restroom is overflooding with water and this disrupts Choso’s blood technique. This puts the two fighters on even footing but even without his blood bullets, Choso proves he ain’t going down like a bitch and fights Yuji head-on. He even manages to shoot Yuji in the liver, but Yuji fights through it and continues to fight. Just when it seems like Yuji has the upper hand, Choso blocks his attack and wrecks his arm to bring Yuji down. As Choso leaves the restroom fake memories begin to pop in his head of him, Yuji, and his brothers all being friends (Seras: Weirdest friendship in the anime. Scenes here: https://youtu.be/dfNEBv_m3SA?si=PlaK0jQrPjElzA_n, https://youtu.be/ejRGUitWngk?si=DmI6uujK0txi9GsK, and https://youtu.be/yfutcvSxS4o?si=6YkRVWV5d4_LYczj).
Episode 14 starts with Mei and Ui defeating a curse to reach Geto where we find out that the reason she keeps the kid around is because he’s good at handling domains (Yume: Which are already OP so what does that make him?). We then cut to Nanami, Maki, and a drunkard named Naobito taking on a powerful curse. We get to see Naobito show off where he uses projection sorcery (Seras: And unless you’ve worked in animation or film this is going to be really hard to follow) to predict the moves of his opponents, and become faster than them (next to Gojo, he’s the fastest sorcerer out there. Scene here: https://youtu.be/uOf_EFQGeNs?si=bwpjME1kzCPnO_Nm). They unfortunately get pulled into his domain where he gets the advantage but Megumi enters the domain and counters it with his own. His goal is to open a hole and pull everyone out and just when they’re about to leave Toji shows up (scene here: https://youtu.be/MdN8bh0A5fU?si=5GZn017iSz47MMqw).
In episode 15 Toji turns his attention to the curse. He steals Maki’s weapon (Yume: He is not the one I wanted to see manhandle her) and then starts fighting the curse. He’s fighting on instinct and seeking out the strongest target in the area. Ordinarily, Toji’s subconscious would disappear after the body has exhausted all of its curse energy. But Toji doesn’t use curse energy so he can keep going until the body breaks down (Seras: And since he doesn’t use curse energy he can stick around for as long as he wants). Toji manages to get the upper hand against the curse as everyone watches in amazement as he overpowers the curse with just pure power (that’s the crazy part. He’s not using any curse energy at all. He is beating this curse by being physically stronger than it. If Gojo is the strongest sorcerer out there then Toji is the strongest non-sorcerer out there). Toji finally kills the curse (scene here: https://youtu.be/k18gSPjWDM0?si=RFPrCoohTUNIkUDd) and then turns his attention to Megumi (time for a good father and son talk). Joujo arrives where he easily defeats the others because he’s strong (Seras: Yeah don’t let the guy fool you. Gojo may have made this guy look weak but make no mistake this guy is very strong). He then leaves after sensing Geto’s groupies feeding an unconscious Yuji some fingers. He rushes to their location, kills them (I think), and then turns his attention to Yuji where he feeds him 10 of Sukana’s fingers. Geto theorizes that if they feed Yuji at least 10 fingers in one day then Sukana will be able to control his body with ease. Sure enough, Sukana does gain control of Yuji’s body (Yume: This is either a bad thing for the enemy or a bad thing for the world). We see Geto’s groupies are alive but are too afraid to move as Sukana’s pressure is too much. Even Joujo is afraid for his life (Yume: And he’s the guy who wanted this). Sukana listens to the request of Geto’s groupies who beg him to kill Geto and promise to tell him the location of another finger after he succeeds (Seras: He’s not a dog who will obey you for a doggy treat). Sukana kills them for disrespecting him and then turns his attention to Joujo who begs him to form a binding vow with Yuji to gain physical dominance over him forever. Sukana says that won’t be necessary as he has his own plan in motion and decides to play with Joujo. If he can land one hit on Sukana then Sukana will work under him. Of course by then he’ll have killed all the humans in Shibuya except for Megumi (he’s the favorite. Scene here: https://youtu.be/rYXih2N84QE?si=_lyREcdOOOuiu-89).
Episodes 16-19
(Yume): Things go by fast in episode 16. In the first half, we mostly focus on Megumi and Toji’s battle. Exhausted and outmatched, Megumi struggles to keep up with his old man (Seras: Who is dishing out a beating like the PC culture never existed). Even Megumi’s last-ditch counter isn’t enough to defeat Toji. It’s only until Toji recognizes Megumi that he finally stops and once he sees that his boy didn’t inherit the Zennin last name he kills himself happy that he’s following his own path (scene here: https://youtu.be/BoY9o-9DT3Y?si=PxT55ClW8GE2tasJ. (Nitsuj): He just didn’t want to pay child support). In the second half, we go to another one-sided fight as Joujo tries to do the impossible and hit Sukana. They fight all throughout Shibuya as Joujo gets his ass handed to him by Sukuna (and I thought Gojo was toying with him). In the end, Sukuna burns him alive (Seras: Oh the irony) but he does praise Joujo for being strong and for the first time ever he cries tears of joy (scene here: https://youtu.be/NvcYfsSTzG4?si=LneGrr36126GRB0S).
Episode 17 is holy. . .holy mother of God. The greatest animation spectacle I have ever seen in my life (Nitsuj: Yeah, I’m not gonna sit here and pretend that MAPPA screwed over the animators, but when I see something like this I have to tip my hat to everyone involved. Even if it wasn’t fully completed). Okay, remember that guy Nanami beat the shit out of a couple of episodes back? Well he managed to survive because his curse technique maxes out his luck so he escaped death. He found Megumi and stabbed him, so Megumi unleashes a powerful spirit named Mahoraga to kill him as well as himself. In order to keep Megumi alive, Sukuna fights the spirit giving us an amazing spectacle of animation in the process as the two fight throughout the whole episode and city (scenes here: https://youtu.be/_jZ6WDKgQvY?si=30SGkLgmaHHDX9G6 and https://youtu.be/HQpipG1Pr5Y?si=vnci0RPsJSZ-Xi5r). In the end, Sukuna manages to win and delivers Megumi’s body to the other sorcerers before his time is up and Yuji regains control of his body where he remembers everything Sukuna did (Seras: Including the vicious murders. That’s right, feel this. Take it all in Yuji. This is God). He has a small panic attack but quickly calms down realizing he has to keep fighting and end this otherwise he’ll just be a murderer (scene here: https://youtu.be/y1s-Ga78kTc?si=ctVQxrN8CLjVhcoG).
We begin episode 18 with the feels as Nanami dies by the touch of Mahito (literally). Actually, Nanami’s death really does hit hard as he was one of the most likable and relatable characters in the series. He wasn’t flashy or cocky, he was just a guy trying to do what everyone wants to do, make a difference in the world and live a life he can be proud of before passing the torch to the next guy. He lived a good life and went out like a legend leaving the rest in the hands of Yuji, a person he can trust to get the job done. The rest of the episode is Yuji vs Mahito (Nitsuj: Rematch motherfucker!). As the two fight we turn the clock back where we see Mahito’s double actually ran into Nobara and is fighting her while the real Mahito is fighting Yuji.
In episode 19 Mahito fights against Yuji and Nobara which was a big mistake. The double can’t use Mahito’s transfigure techniques so Nobara will be safe from his touch (Yume: It’ll still be a bad touch regardless). Not only that, but it turns out Nobara is bad news for Mahito as she can also injure him badly. After receiving a beatdown from Yuji, the Mahitos run away and they lure Nobara into a trap where the real Mahito touches her. This in turn leads to a flashback to Nobara’s childhood where she lived in the countryside and thought of herself as the only sane person there (Nitsuj: Sane person? She was the most insane person there). She befriended a girl named Fumi from the city who was picked on because she was different so Nobara always protected her from the bullies. The two girls would eventually meet Saori, an older woman who moved to the countryside from the city. Nobara took an instant liking to her and cried her eyes out when Saori moved away. When high school finally came Nobara said fuck the boonies and went to Tokyo (where she has the craziest classmates you can imagine). After the flashback, half of Nobara’s face explodes and she goes down presumably dead (scene here: https://youtu.be/O18NBGB6u94?si=lgxGQh2taG7Kf_pK).
Episodes 20-23
(Seras): At the start of episode 20 Mahito takes advantage of Yuji’s distraught state and tries to kill him (I like how this would usually be the part where the main character gets consumed by his rage and goes on a berserk rampage destroying everyone and everything to defeat their enemy. But here, it’s just Yuji feeling sad and unable to go on. For the fourth time someone close to him died before his eyes and he couldn’t do anything to save them. That has to mess with him no matter what). Yuji gets saved by Todo (Nitsuj: Oh hey! It’s been a while) who delivers a good speech about what it means to be a sorcerer. A healer shows up and says that there’s a chance Nobara is still alive and takes her away to get medical attention (Yume: If Yuji can survive his heart getting pulled out then Nobara can survive half of her face exploding). Yuji returns to his senses and fights again for his comrades and teams up with Todo to fight Mahito. Speaking of comrades, we see the students of Kyoto and Utahime who were sent on a mission south of Shibuya by Mechamaru in order to protect them as he felt only Todo was strong enough to survive (ouch). We see the Mechamaru badge talk to Miwa as he shares his feelings with her and tells her to live a happy life. Returning to the fight Yuji and Todo work in sync with each other and hit Mahito but their attacks don’t seem to be working on him as he seems to be drawing the full extent of his soul and then some. The same can be said for Yuji and Todo.
In episode 21 Mahito successfully separates Yuji and Todo and it returns to a one-on-one fight between him and Yuji (Yume: Just like it was always meant to be). There’s so much to cover in this fight that trying to talk about everything wouldn’t do it justice, so here are the highlights. First off, Todo rejoins the fight and Mahito actually manages to trap Yuji in his domain while avoiding Sukana leaving Todo to fight. Todo gets one of his hands cut off but not before trading places with Yuji. Mahito awakens to his true soul and gets a body upgrade which quickly gets destroyed by Yuji who punches him so hard that he breaks his soul (Seras: How is that possible?). Then, for the first time we Mahito fear for his life as Yuji stalks his prey like a wolf chasing an injured rabbit (that rabbit is fucked. (Nitsuj): Well if this was Beastars, literally). Before Yuji can finish off Mahito, Geto arrives to end the episode (scene here: https://youtu.be/7emninQUe9g?si=l_qKrKN9CjtO41mZ).
At the start of episode 22 we see some of the side characters who survived the disaster that was Sukana and Megumi’s spirit fight (Yume: It’s amazing Shibuya is still standing) then return to Yuji and Geto. Yuji tries to get Gojo but has no luck and Geto turns Mahito into a ball and swallows it (scene here: https://youtu.be/8YvRVW6v8cg?si=EZ4-0MNQZJ8oib07). Panda and the students from Kyoto arrive to assist Yuji but not even they’re strong enough to win with their combined power (now if you guys die you better apologize to Mechamaru). Choso makes a return where he reveals Geto’s true identity, Kamo Noritoshi, said to be the worst sorcerer that ever lived and the black stain of the Noritoshi clan. One of the things he studied was transferring his soul into other beings (Seras: And apparently he excelled at it given the results). Choso attacks Kamo out of vengeance for tricking him into almost killing his little brother, Yuji (Yume: He still believes they’re siblings. (Nitsuj): Don’t question it, he’s on our side now). Everyone gathers to fight Kamo and this white-haired sorcerer with ice powers who freezes everyone (https://youtu.be/nC8zz95rm8s?si=v_pwmUtyTsnFiZ-P). Just before everyone gets killed by ice they get saved by Yuki.
In the final episode Yuki stalls for time by talking to Kamo. Their conversation takes up the first half of the episode and is pretty hard to follow. From what I can gather Kamo wants to create a world where sorcerers and curses can run wild and everyone will either learn to unlock their curse energy or perish in this new world. Kamo takes his leave with Gojo still trapped in the prison box (scene here: https://youtu.be/SNQLlKMfvCs?si=G9jxbnx20fGE0Xve, mission failed. We’ll get them next time). A few days go buy and Japan’s government is in a panic as over a million curses have been unleashed and are killing. We get to see Yuta make his long-awaited return but his appearance is anything but good news. Gojo gets labeled a co-conspirator in the Shibuya Incident (Yume: HOW! He’s the one trapped in the prison. How is he responsible for what went down!?) and has been expelled from the sorcerer society. Yuji’s execution has been reinstated and he is promptly to be executed by Yuta. We end the season not with a shout or a whimper but on a clap with the future unknown and us not knowing what the true state of society is now or where everyone stands (scene here: https://youtu.be/Z2x6BleL8Wo?si=QEupFvvfuMIDCJAR).
Final Thoughts
(Seras): This season of Jujutsu Kaisen can be broken down into two parts.
(Yume): The first half of the anime serves as a good prequel to whole series. Providing a good backstory into Gojo and Geto’s past. Two friends who were ahead of everyone in their generation and would be the next leaders in sorcerer society. Unfortunately, both would go down different paths that would see the two become enemies. You really can’t blame Geto for becoming an enemy as he wanted to protect the people he cared for more than the world. Try placing yourself in his shoes. If you had to decide between sacrificing your friend or a complete stranger who would you choose? I’m sure everyone would say the stranger because you have no connection to them and want to protect your friend. That’s what Geto is doing, he’s choosing his friends over strangers and I don’t think he’s wrong for doing that. Now the methods and what he’s prepared to sacrifice and do to protect his friends is where the issue lies. It is sad to see the friendship of Gojo and Geto end the way it did but just like in real life friendships unfortunately end due to disagreements or a change in principles.
(Seras): The second half of anime gives us the Shibuya arc and by God did it live up to all the hype that was surrounding it online. It’s sorcerers vs curses and so much goes down here. Gojo gets captured, sorcerers and curses are killed, Geto isn’t really Geto but someone else, Sukuna goes on a rampage of his own, and in the end things will never be the same. Despite most of the curses being defeated it’s still a lost for sorcerers as millions of curses are unleashed, the government is in disarray, Shibuya is destroyed, their strongest sorcerer is captured and has been labeled a co-conspirator, and our main character will be executed because of how dangerous he is. It was a battle decided by who had the most to lose and unfortunately the sorcerers lost the most from this encounter. Despite this the action and use of all these characters was done really well. Some characters unfortunately don’t get enough time to show-off and fight but the characters we got to see fight were badass and didn’t disappoint. Nanami pummeling that one sorcerer, Sukana flying all across Shibuya and causing chaos, Yuji taking on Choso in the bathroom, and then taking on Mahito with Todo. There wasn’t a single moment in this arc that didn’t leave me in suspense, on the edge of my seat with my mouth open and wondering what was going to happen next. It was that good and well worth the wait. I know there were many behind-the-scenes issues with the animators and MAPPA. Supposedly, not everything was completed as the animators would have liked, but this animation is still impressive. I could only imagine what it would have looked like if the animators were given more time.
(Nitsuj): Speaking of animation, just like Seras said it looks great here. What happened behind the scenes was awful and hopefully MAPPA will listen and give them the right amount of time for the next season. Still, from a visual perspective, I think the animation was better this season than the first season The music was great as well. I think the first season had better music overall but the music was still good. It just didn’t stand out to me as much as the first season. And if you were hoping for character development there’s not much of that here. Aside from Mechmaru’s feelings and sacrifice to protect his classmates that’s probably the only real development you’ll see this season.
Final Score
(Nitsuj): My final score for Jujutsu Kaisen S2 is an 8.5/10
(Yume): I give it a 9/10.
(Seras): Man, this is a tough one. I’m going to give it a 9.5/10. I really don’t care for character development and the half point really comes from the behind the scene issues.
(Yume): So combining our three scores we end with a 27/30 and averaging that out the final score for season 2 is a 9/10 with a must watch stamp of approval. Am I correct?
(Nitsuj): I think you nailed it, Yume. If you liked the first season we think you’ll enjoy the second season as it delivers on a lot of the hype surrounding it. Here’s hoping the third season goes well and plenty of time dedicated to it to where everything is right.
(Seras): Until then. Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
(Nitsuj): MUHAHAH-
(Francis Ngannou): Not so fast.
(Nitsuj): Woah! Francis Ngannou! You look. . .so much bigger than you do on TV.
(Francis Ngannou): Thank you. Now I couldn’t help but overhear you undermine my punches.
(Nitsuj): What, you mean they’re even stronger?
(Francis Ngannou): That’s what we’re here to find out. Please hold still.
(Nitsuj): Huh?
*Francis Ngannou punches Nitsuj and knocks out*
(Francis Ngannou): How was that?
(Yume): About the same.
(Seras): Eh, it was worth of shot. Thanks for doing this for us.
(Francis Ngannou): Thanks for having me.