After two years, JJK returns, but not with its youthful main trio of Yuuji, Nobara, and Megumi. Instead, we’re reintroduced into some of the creepier investigative aspects of the series, as a young Iori Utahime and her mentor Mei Mei explore an abandoned mansion rumored to house cursed spirits.
Utahime bursts into every room with an exhortation of surprise, but finds nothing and no one of note. But when she meets up with Mei, she realizes the hallway they’re in is a seemingly endless loop. Utahime flexes her noggin and determines the proper way to escape the loop is for the two of them to run at top speed in opposite directions.
Once they do this, not only does the cursed spirit’s barrier fall, but the entire mansion self-destructs. Utahime is found under a pile of rubble by a young Gojou Satoru, who at this point hasn’t yet swapped his glasses for a mask.
He’s joined by a young Ieiri Shouko, whom we know becomes a doctor, and Getou Suguru, who we know becomes a Bad Guy. But at this time, the three Jujutsu High second-year classmates are thicker than thieves, with a vibe and chemistry very similar to their younger counterparts in the present timeline.
Gojou and Getou are also prone to getting into little tiffs, the latest of which happens in a gym with a basketball. Getou says “survival of the weakest” are their watchwords as Jujutsu sorcerers, but Gojou thinks that’s patronizing bullshit. He’s all about power. In this little exchange, Gojou seems more like the one who’d eventually become a villain, not Getou.
But even if they quarrel and almost come to blows at times, they still clearly work effectively as a duo, because their teacher assigns them to a task of utmost importance to the Jujutsu Sorcerer continuum: they are to serve as bodyguards to the Star Plasma Vessel: a young girl who has been chosen to be Tengen-sama’s next vessel.
The episode doesn’t really get into the morals and ethics of using this girl as essentially a sacrifice are; suffice it to say she is a necessary element in keeping Tengen-sama from going berserk and unleashing hell on the sorcerer and non-sorcerer worlds alike. But she still doesn’t say a word until Getou rings the doorbell to her room.
Doing so triggers a bomb, set by one of the two groups trying to kill the Vessel: the Q Group, who want Tengen-sama to go berserk, and the Star Religious Group, who worship Tengen as a god and are defiantly opposed to him transferring to the Vessel. The bomb blast sends the girl flying, but Getou gets airborne and deftly plucks her out of the sky.
Both he and Gojou are confronted by members of Group Q, who are sorcerers that don’t take kindly to them trying to protect the Vessel. As for the Star Religious Group, they may not be sorcerers, but they have the means to hire one: specifically Fushiguro Touji, Megumi’s dad.
I imagine we’re in for at least one or two cool sorcerer battles next week. Even if it delays the return to the screen of Yuuji, Nobara, and Megumi, I’m enjoying this look back to simpler days when Gojou and Getou were on the same side, even knowing full well that whatever efforts they’ll undertake, there’s still plenty of evil left to fight in the present.
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