Jujutsu Kaisen – 41 – My Neighbor Mahoraga

First, I wanted to address the fact that Studio Mappa has been running its animators absolutely ragged and not paying them what they deserve. I’m joining the chorus of viewers and fans in calling for more realistic deadlines and better pay for the staff of massively talented but massively overworked creatives. If that means longer delays between episodes and seasons, so be it. We can’t have animation houses full of Akiras from ZOM 100.

With all that said, what an amazing episode of television this was, especially when it’s likely it was still being drawn hours or even minutes before it aired in Japan, which is just nuts. One fine sunny day, Gojou basically told Megumi that he had the potential to beat him someday, if he was ever able to subjugate the most powerful shikigami in his Ten Shadows repertoire.

That shikigami’s name is Eight-Handed Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga, and this week, stalked and bloodied by Shigemo Haruta, Megumi summons him as a last resort, promising Shigemo that he’ll die first. It’s pretty clear Shigemo is no match for Mahoraga, but when Sukuna arrives fresh off his win over Jougo, he tells the virtually unconscious Megumi that he still needs him for his plans, so he can’t let him die.

That means Sukuna must defeat Mahoraga, which is no easy feat. Every attack Sukuna throws at him, Mahoraga adapts, becoming faster, stronger, and even growing to kaiju size. It must be said that Sukuna looks like he’s having the time of his life fighting Mahoraga, which tracks since he rarely goes up against someone who puts up a fight. Jougo, for all his smoldering flames, was a pushover by comparison.

As the battle progresses and gets more and more insane, buildings crumble to the ground and large swaths of innocent bystanders are massacred. This culminates in Sukuna using his domain expansion, Malevolent Shrine, which is different from other domains in that it doesn’t create its own space, but exists in the regular physical world, thus increasing its range.

In this domain, Sukuna is able to unleash enough attacks in quick enough succession to outpace Mahoraga’s adaptation. Mahoraga perishes in a cataclysmic explosion that creates a huge expanse of nothingness where Shibuya once stood. When Sukuna returns to the ground, a cowed Shigemo is overjoyed to have survived, but even he ends up slice up like a Christmas ham. I won’t miss him.

Sukuna leaves the battered Megumi he saved with Ieiri, then withdraws back into Yuuji, telling him to “savor” the rush of memories of everything Sukuna did when he was in control. Yuuji is overwhelmed with grief and guilt as all of that hideous imagery washes over him and causes him to vomit.

He then resolves to keep fighting; otherwise he’s nothing but a mass murderer. I think he’s being a bit harsh on himself. He’s a good kid, and what Sukuna did while in his body wasn’t something he could have controlled, or even been expected to control. He was caught up in what happens when any system relies on one person (Gojou) to maintain balance.

That said, with presumably no hostages left alive after Sukuna’s battles, this “Shibuya Incident” has devolved into a complete and unmitigated disaster. The only “wins” that can really be derived are that Yuuji, Megumi, and Nobara are still alive, and most of Tokyo still stands…but for how long?

Jujutsu Kaisen – 40 – We’re the Ants

Megumi can’t compete with Berserk Touji’s speed and power, so he tries to use fleeing hares to cover him while he puts some distance between them and formulates a strategy for victory. Unfortunately, Touji is so goddamn fast and so goddamn strong, he’s able to kill every single one of Megumi’s thousands of hares with flung bits of debris,

Kusakabe, who has Panda assigned to him, is absolutely determined not to get into a fight he won’t survive. He abhors a hassle, and thankfully Panda doesn’t know Shibuya well enough to locate B5 on his own, which is the one place Kusakabe is certain they’ll both get killed. Touji and Megumi continue their cat-and-mouse, with Megumi trying to use office sprinklers and Nue’s lightning to zap Touji, to no avail. Worth some style points, however.

Knowing Ieiri Shouko is somewhere on site to patch him up, Megumi decides to push his limits a bit for an all-or-nothing last-ditch attack against Touji. Of course, even with near-perfect timing he fails, but demonstrating his skills jolts the real Touji, whose body is being borrowed by another curse user, back into lucidity. He realizes this is his son he’s fighting, and when he learns his name is Fushiguro (and not Zen’in), he stabs himself in the brain to break the curse user’s link and end their fight.

That’s probably as close as we’ll get to Megumi meeting his father, because there are much bigger fish trying to fry each other. Taking up Sukuna on his offer, Jougo throws everything he’s got at him, but his attacks and defenses are just as ineffective against Sukuna as Megumi’s were against Berserk Touji. That said, two Special Grades going at it certainly makes for some striking visuals as they tear through downtown with no regard for collateral damage.

Kusakabe, delayed by Getou’s secretary Suda Manami, is the first to sense they all need to get the heck out of there, but they’re too late: as Jougo brings a freaking meteor down on top of him, Sukuna insists everyone remain still until he says so. He finally tells them they can go less than a second before the meteor falls on him, but it still misses, and Sukuna decides to whip out his own flames.

The result is academic; Jougo perishes, and meets his departed friends in a white void, lamenting that he lost and that only Mahito is left. Sukuna even invades this void, but not to continue the fight; instead he tells Jougo that in a thousand years, he was one of the more entertaining fights he’s had, so he should be proud he lasted as long as he did. This moves Jougo to tears.

Then someone named Uraume, perhaps drawn to Sukuna’s presence comes to his side, apparently ready to continue serving him. Sukuna seems pleased to see him at least. I’m not pleased to see ponytail guy, AKA Shigemo Haruta, still alive, but after bashing Megumi’s head in it looks like he won’t be for long as he’s being stalked by a hulking (and pissed) cursed spirit.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 39 – Murder Machine

Rather than escape Dagon’s beach domain through Megumi’s hole, Touji enters and joins the party. Only he’s not quite himself; the Old Lady’s technique was left on after she was killed, so he’s in a continuous state of murderous frenzy, drawn like a guided missile to the strongest one in range—in this case, Dagon. He “borrows” Maki’s staff then gets to work.

It’s a pretty fun (and very wet) battle, but we all knew it would end with Dagon gone and the beach domain with him, and what seemed like a temporarily alliance would break down. After all, this version of Touji likely wouldn’t join forces with the Zenins if he was in his right mind. He isn’t, and his next target is Megumi, apparently the next-strongest.

Just because he tosses Megumi out onto the street and joins him there doesn’t meant Nanami, Maki, and Naobito are in any better a way. In fact, this just isn’t their arc. Were it not for Touji, Dagon would have killed them all. But now that Dagon is dead, Jougo shows up to mourn his comrade’s death, then burns Nanami, Maki, and Naobito to a crisp. Then he senses Sukuna, or rather one of his fingers. Sure enough, Nanako and Mimiko are feeding one to an unconscious Yuuji.

Jougo shows up in a hurry and burns the girls, but they survive thanks to Nanako’s cameraphone. Jougo feeds Yuuji ten more fingers, so Sukuna can be temporarily awakened while Yuuji’s body takes time to repress him. It works, and Sukuna’s first act is to cut Jougo’s arm off then slice off the top of his head for not bowing low enough before him.

The Nanaba sisters raise their heads when ordered to and make their case: if Sukuna kills the fake Getou, they’ll give him another finger. This displeases him, and he beheads Mimiko in an instant. When Nanako screams in anguish, and prepares to attack him with her phone, he slices the top half of her head off, then cuts her into a gory fine dice.

RIP Nanako and Mimiko, trapped between allowing the fake Getou to continue desecrating the man they loved, and having to ask Sukuna for help. I guess they figured it was better to at least try with Sukuna. He wasn’t interested in helping them, but he tells Jougo he’ll fight for the cursed spirits if Jougo can score one hit on him. Like the sisters, Jougo prepares to go for it, because what the hell else is he going to do?

Jujutsu Kaisen – 38 – Mollusk Melee

When we left Mei Mei, she had been sealed in a coffin and buried under a giant gravestone within the domain of one of Fake Getou’s cursed spirits. While she’s able to break out of the coffin in under three seconds, thus avoiding her guaranteed hit of the disease curse, she knows she can’t keep it up indefinitely.

She determines that the attack targets the greatest concentration of cursed energy, so she momentarily diverts all of her cursed energy to one of the two crows in the domain. Then she asks Ui Ui if he’d die for her, and of course he will, because he’s infatuated with her, so he makes his cursed energy loud while Mei Mei turns hers off.

As a result, the spirit puts Ui Ui in a coffin, but in the moments before he’s buried and killed instantly by the disease curse, Mei Mei uses her remaining crow as a kamikaze bullet. In both Ui Ui’s and the crow’s case, putting their lives on the line is rewarded with a boost of cursed energy.

Mei Mei and Ui Ui make it out of Getou’s cursed spirit’s domain, but their reward is having to go up against him directly…but that’s for another week. The balance of the episode deals with Nanami, Maki, and Naobito doing battle against an octopus cursed spirit named Dagon.

Initially, it seems like a weakling. Nanami and Maki are certain the drunk Naobito will be of no help, but are shocked as he makes the first move, sealing the diminutive octopus in a flat frame and tossing him across the platform. A swole octopus man emerges from a great rush of water. The little guy was still in a larval state…but now he’s all grow’d up.

Naobito then exhibits his other superpower: being able to talk someone’s ear off. He has a particular axe to grind about the default settings of 4K HD televisions, specifically the “soap opera mode” that eliminates motion blur and the like. As someone who immediately turns all that shit off when I buy a computer, I felt seen. I like this guy.

But his ranting is germane to the battle, because his technique involves splitting seconds into 24 frames and being able to track and move within and through those frames. Contacting Dagon places him in the same time space as Naobito, only without the tools to operate. In this way, Dagon mops the floor with Dagon.

Unfortunately, Dagon isn’t damaged, either by any of Naobito’s attacks or Nanami’s, despite the two of them being Grade 1. When they and Maki try to launch a three-pronged pincer attack, Dagon uses Domain Expansion, which is appropriately a tropical beach.

Within this domain, Dagon can summon virtually infinite stream of sea creature shikigami. Naobito is able to hold out longer than the others with his anti-domain technique, but eventually all three end up mobbed by the shikigami feeding frenzy.

Maki manages to escape the first wave, already ashamed that Naobito had to save her earlier. But it’s okay, Maki isn’t Grade 1, after all. She’d be a goner a second time were it not for the timely arrival of Megumi, bursting through the wall of the domain and giving Maki a three-section staff to stay in the fight.

As Megumi fights to keep his domain within Dagon’s domain active, he’s an easy target for Dagon’s shikigami, but fortunately Nanami takes care of them for him. He’s missing his glasses and most of his shirt, and Naobito lost his right arm, but both are still able to fight, and do.

Nanami feels good about the current state of affairs, but he knows it won’t last. That’s when Megumi tells him his actual goal isn’t to play tug-of-war with Dagon’s domain, but punch a hole in it, large enough for Nanami, Maki, and Naobito to escape.

Lacking any better options, Nanami makes Megumi promise he won’t leave himself behind alone, he beckons for Maki and Naobito to hurry over. Before Dagon can respond in time, Megumi makes a hole in his domain. But before anyone can jump into the hole, someone else emerges…Touji. That’s…certainly not ideal!

With Yuuji KO’d and in Nanako and Mimiko’s hands and now this situation, the battles keep getting tougher and tougher. A lot will depend on what becomes of Yuuji and how well Mei Mei fares against Fake Getou, because I don’t see a battered Team Nanami being able to make a much of a dent in Touji.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 36 – Hammering In My Head

Mei Mei and Ui Ui had no trouble at all with the curses they fought, while Yuuji and Megumi have to catch a KO’d Ino out of the sky. He’s alive, so Megumi will stay with him while Yuuji heads back to the station. As for the people who did this to him, Granny gets her comeuppance when it turns out Touji’s soul was able to overpower her grandson’s body. She ordered him to kill sorcerers, and Touji starts with her.

Finally, Maki sends Nobara back up to street level with Nitta Akari to assist Ijichi, after word came down that supervisors were dropping like flies. They encounter the kid with the creepy hand-sword and blonde ponytail, whom Nobara assumes got to Ijichi. But the kid is sharper than he looks, and sends his familiar-like cursed tool after Nitta and handles Nobara with relative ease.

I’ll admit that watching Nobara get jobbed in the first time in forever we’ve even seen her fight is not the coolest, nor is watching blondie repeatedly stab poor Nitta in the leg and backside. But at least he pays dearly for these heinous actions when Nanami struts in, ready to rumble. He has no patience whatsoever for word-sparring, and instead just bashes the kid into oblivion when it’s clear he has no useful intelligence.

With the veil that was keeping sorcerers out lowered, Mei Mei and Ui Ui’s next opponent is a bit tougher: Getou, or as Mei quickly realizes, the fake Getou. She’s ready to fight him, but he summons a Special Grade Disease Curse called Smallpox Deity, who is able to use Domain Expansion to shut her in a coffin.

Mei Mei gets a kick out of having her life be seriously threatened for the first time in years. Nanami prepares to head down, and brooks no argument from Nobara when he tells her to stay put: she’s not Grade 1, which is the minimum level needed to fight the guys down there. That includes Choso, whom Yuuji runs into when he arrives at the otherwise eerily deserted station. Nothing’s going to come easy from here on out.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 35 – The Slow Blade Penetrates the Shield

Takuma, Yuuji, and Megumi determine that the ones who lowered the veil keeping sorcerers out is actually positioned outside that veil, from a conspicuous vantage point. That point turns out to be Shibuya Central Tower (AKA Cerulean Tower), where they find and engage the three curse users stationed up there.

Using Megumi’s shikigami Nue to fly them up, Takuma engages the granny and her grandson bodyguard, while Yuuji and Megumi snatch up a swole mustached guy and send him plummeting to ground level.

Takuma demonstrates his ability to summon the powers of the Four Auspicious Beasts by donning a hood and serving as a medium. It’s a nifty ability, but the grandson proves adept at protecting his granny from harm as she chants.

Meanwhile, Mustache guy proves quite a tough cookie, as he suffers no ill effects from the sudden 41-story drop, while hand-to-hand conflict proves just as fruitless. Yuuji even gets scratched by his dagger, and he should consider himself lucky it wasn’t poisoned.

When Granny finishes chanting, her grandson transforms into Touji. In a flashback to 1989, we see her using the corpse of a target’s daughter to get close enough to stab him in the neck. She and Mr. Mustache were “free” back then to do as they pleased, and licked their chops at the prospect of earning a huge bounty from assassinating the newly-born Gojou.

Unfortunately, by the time they’re able to get close to him, his aura and mere gaze are so powerful they have no choice but to retreat. When Gojou was born, it upset the balance between cursed spirits and humans, and virtually everyone else has been paying for that ever since.

Back in the present, Mustache is in no hurry to retire or surrender; not as long as these whippersnappers don’t know his technique. Unfortunately for him, Megumi is quite astute, and correctly surmises that it’s Inverse, which reminds me of how personal shields in Dune repel bullets and knife strikes that are too fast.

Basically, the harder you hit him, the weaker that blow is, and vice-versa. After summoning a horde of hares to surround Mustache so they has time to strategize, Megumi and Yuuji then come at him with full force, to make him think they haven’t discovered his ability.

They then attack him simultaneously with both weak and strong attacks, and in this way they’re able to negate his Inverse and deliver critical damage to him for the first time.

Unfortunately, Takuma fares far, far worse atop the tower, as Touji pulls off his hood and proceeds to mop the floor with him. If he’s even still alive up there, he could use some backup from his underclassmen.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 34 – The Taste of Regret

A word from Gojou and the remnant of the real Getou’s soul still within his body starts to choke the person currently controlling the rest of his body, Fake Getou is impressed, but is able to regain control. The Prison Domain closes around Gojou and shrinks to slightly larger than a Rubik’s Cube. Unless Gojou kills himself (fat chance) the Domain is unusable as it only holds one.

One of now-dead Muta Koukichi’s “Insurance” devices drops into Yuuji’s ear and reports that the device would only be activated if Gojou is sealed. Mei Mei is initially skeptical, but Koukichi manages to convince her. She sends Yuuji out to warn the other sorcerers, holding off two high-grade cursed spirits closing on their position. Meanwhile, the three standby teams start to head into the first veil.

A pair of special grade cursed spirits roam Shibuya with the goal of killing all the assistant supervisors, i.e. suits. Yuuji emerges from the Veil, sees a horde of transfigured humans, and makes quick work of them, saving a handful of non-sorcerers.

He then climbs to one of the highest points in the district and shouts out a warning to everyone at the top of his lungs: Gojou has been sealed. As soon as Nanami hears this, he switches up the plan: he, Ino and Megumi will rendezvous with Yuuji.

As the Prison Domain processes all of the information that comprises Gojou Satoru, the cube is rendered too heavy to hold or move, making it vulnerable. Thanks to another Mechamaru device in the station, Koukichi is able to tell Yuuji that Gojou is immobile…but that likely won’t remain so for long.

Getou has to stay with the cube, so Mahito, Jougo and Choso all head out with one goal: kill Yuuji. Of the three of them, only Jougo wants to awaken Sukuna; the others just want to kill him. There’s also the matter of Mimiko and Nanako asking the Fake Getou to release his body, something he tells them he’s not going to do; he made a promise to them, not a binding pact.

Team Nanami meets up with Yuuji, and Nanami leaves Yuuji and Magumi in Ino Takuma’s care. Ino lays out the stakes: if Gojou dies, not only will the Gojou clan die with him, creating a massive political free-for-all, but the balance of power between sorcerers and curses will be upset, meaning the age of humans in Japan will be over.

One would hope Japan wouldn’t have to rely on one goddamn person to maintain its existence, but here we are. It’s up to Yuuji, Megumi, Nobara, and all the other sorcerers stationed there to rescue Gojou from the Prison Realm, or die trying.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 31 – Imminent Domain

Roughly two thirds of this week’s JJK is given over to the battle between Muta Koukichi in his Mechamaru Evangelion and Mahito, who is a slippery little punk who can expand his appendages and take the form of many animals. This results in an unrelenting feast for the eyes and ears, packed with beautifully detailed and fluid movement and concussive impacts.

However, because Mahito is so nimble and tough, even an Evangelion powered by literal years of Muta’s cursed energy has trouble pinning him down. When Mahito takes off the kid gloves and expands his domain, it looks like that’s all she wrote for Muta, but he has a number of trump cards, including a “Simple Domain” that overwrites and shatters Mahito’s.

It’s a very spirited back and forth, with Muta going full Shounen mecha pilot with his battle cries that synch up with Mechamaru’s. He became a mole so he could get this close to Mahito and Getou, all to protect everyone back home, most importantly Miwa Kasumi, for whom he clearly has a thing. Just as Kasumi voices her interest in visiting Mechamaru to his  dormant doll, we see that Muta has lost to Mahito, rendering her desire impossible.

Because Muta doesn’t prevail, he isn’t able to warn Gojou about the semi-titular Shibuya Incident to take place during a boisterous Halloween festival. Thousands of ordinary folks are gathered near the most famous intersections in all of Japan, when suddenly a giant 400-meter radius barrier comes down, and a large number of the bystanders are sucked up like “water going down a drain”.

Many of the people are made to demand that Gojou Satoru come to save them, even if they have no idea who that is. Grade 1 vets lead small teams of younger sorcerers being eval’d for promotion, including Megumi, Nobara, Maki, Panda, and Takuma (but not Yuuji). They’re on standby outside the barrier, while Gojou steps inside. If Getou’s mood days earlier is any indication, Gojou may wish he hadn’t answered the summons.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 30 – Transformations

It’s been just under a month since the last JJK episode aired, and now we’re back in the present with Yuuji, Nobara, and Megumi. We’re eased back into the “normal” side of their dual lives they lead—the dumb high school kid side, rather than the jujutsu sorcerer side.

One afternoon, Megumi heads home, Yuuji has plans to see the fourth installment of an…er, earthworm man movie franchise, and Nobara, disgusted by the prospect of said movie, goes shopping. They’re as comfortable going off to do their own things as they are hanging out together. But who is that woman at the crosswalk who spots Yuuji and Nobara?

After officially recommending Yuuji, Nobara, Megumi, Maki, and Panda for first-grade sorcerer, Toudou Aoi and Mei Mei have a spirited (and awesomely animated) game of table tennis as they discuss the younger sorcerers’ progress. Unfortunately for Aoi, those who recommend someone can’t be the one who accompanies them on their first first-grade missions.

The crosswalk lady confronts Nobara, and we learn that she’s extremely tall. She turns out to be Ozawa Yuuko, a middle school classmate of Yuuji’s. Back then she was quite short and stout, but in the last six months she’s grown several centimeters and slimmed down. When Nobara catches on that Yuuko wants to see Yuuji again, she immediately calls Megumi—or rather Megumi’s driver, with whom she’s on good terms.

When Yuuko asks if Nobara has any feelings for Yuuji, Nobara is immediate and direct in her denial. When Megumi confirms that Yuuji doesn’t have a girlfriend and tall girls are his type, Nobara keeps stirring the pot and summons Yuuji to the restaurant with a series of extremely curt but effective texts.

Yuuji arrives so quickly that Nobara has no time to warn him that the tall, slim lady before him is Ozawa Yuuko from his middle school. She’s worried about him not recognizing her, which could be devastating to her, but true to Yuuji’s character, he instantly recognizes her despite her wildly different appearance.

We actually see very little of the interaction between them that follows, only the bookends of him recognizing her and walking her to the station. I find that a bit of a shame, though we do get to spend some time in Yuuko’s head as she remembers hating all the guys but Yuuji, and Yuuji saying her manner of eating and handwriting was beautiful.

He saw in her things others and even she herself didn’t, and she’ll never forget that, but even then she wasn’t someone who would choose someone who didn’t choose her. It’s likely their interaction in the present was simply a brief, cordial catch-up, much to Nobara’s disappointment. But I have to think she’ll be back in Yuuji’s life at some point no?

Yuuko’s dramatic transformation is only the first of two in this episode. The B-Part involves Yuuji, Nobara and Megumi being placed under Utahime’s command as they investigated someone who by process of elimination must be the mole passing secrets to Getou Suguru: Muta Koukichi, the sorcerer who controls Mechamaru.

Utahime’s team believe they have Muta cornered in the basement where he dwells in a tub full of blood, covered in bandages and surrounded by IVs. But in a nice bait-and-switch, he’s actually somewhere else altogether, meeting with Getou and the always lively Mahito.

In exchange for his information, Getou has agreed to have Mahito heal Muta’s body with his Idle Transfiguration. After that, however, all bets are off, as once the pact is fulfilled they can go on being mortal enemies. Getou sits back and lets Mahito take on Muta, who summons dozens of puppets to fight for him. Mahito exhibits his maneuverability and versatility and sheer power in smashing the puppets to bits.

However, that bum rush of puppets was only meant to be a distraction; Muta is now elsewhere, and he blows up the building Mahito is in, sending him flying onto the top of a giant dam, presumably somewhere near Kyoto. There, out of the lake rises a colossal mecha version of Ultimate Mechamaru, with Muta in the panoramic cockpit.

We learn that Muta is actually a bit of a triple agent, as his loyalties remain with Jujutsu High, insomuch as he intends to warn Gojou, either directly or through Kasumi, about an impending “Shibuya plot”. With his giant mech he’s able to transmute the time he spent “bound”—over 17 years—into cursed energy.

In this case, he spends about a year to launch a cataclysmic beam attack on Mahito. Whether it will take him out or simply lift the veil and enable communication, and whether Muta’s new healthy body will hold up, remains to be seen. But I’m just glad we’re back in present-day JJK, whether it’s for the after school teen antics and middle school reunions or the table tennis or giant mech battles.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 29 – Like Cheers in Rain

A year after Riko and Touji’s deaths, Satoru continues to develop and refine his abilities, while Suguru looks worn out. He’s haunted by the Star Religious Group’s applause the day Satoru reclaimed Riko’s body, such that both the shower and rain sound like their horrible clapping.

His eyes narrow and darken as his hatred for non-sorcerers stews within him and he struggles to see the point of protecting them. While we know he’s the big bad in season one, it’s still rough to see the acceleration of his descent, particularly as it happens under a preoccupied Satoru’s nose.

After a lighthearted interaction with his kohai Haibara Yuu, who is headed off on a mission, Suguru is aproached by a tall, mysterious blonde: Special-grade sorcerer Tsukumo Yuki. A Jujutsu High apostate, she has her own ideas about how to solve the cursed spirit problem.

Simply put, rather than treat the symptoms—killing cursed spirits when they’re born—she wants to treat the cause: create a world where cursed spirits aren’t born. She sees two ways of doing that: eliminate cursed energy from mankind, and make it possible for all of mankind to control their energy.

Fushigurou Touji was an example of a non-sorcerer who could perceive cursed spirits and energy yet his own had dropped to zero. Yuki wanted to pick his brain so that she could try the first method, but he refused, and then Satoru killed him. That leaves creating a world where everyone can control their cursed energy.

Whether Yuki intended to draw it out of Suguru, discussion of this topic and the fact it starts raining outside (reminding him of the clapping zealots) causes Suguru to suggest that killing all non-sorcerers would achieve the same goal as making them all sorcerers. She agrees that’s a way for sure, but she for one isn’t crazy enough to do it.

When Suguru talks to her at length about his current internal crisis: hating both non-sorcerers and the part of him that harbors that hatred and has those dark thoughts. But Yuki tells him he’s neither of those people…yet. The choices he makes in the future will determine which of those possibilities become his true feelings.

That future comes faster than even Yuki might have expected. Haibara Yuu returns from his mission in a body bag—another sorcerer on the growing pile of sorcerer corpses being created out of deference to ungrateful masses. Then he’s summoned to a village where two twin girls (Nanako and Mimiko, his future supporters) are caged and beaten as scapegoats for cursed spirit attacks.

I don’t know if Suguru sees a bit of Riko in the twins’ faces, or just sees two innocent kids being abused for no good reason, but it’s the last straw for him. Rather than “do something” about the girls, he turns his powers against the villager who mistreated them. It amounts to a massacre of 112 people, and when Satoru learns that Suguru is the culprit, he can scarcely believe it.

In this way, Suguru goes through a three-strikes-you’re-out progression. Losing Riko in that awful, awful way (and learning from Yuki that she was essentially expendable, as another vessel ended up stabilizing Tengen), losing his kohai to a stronger-than-expected cursed spirit, and finally the outrageous injustice of the imprisoned girls.

Wanting to kill all non-sorcerers is obviously not okay. Suguru is not a good guy. But unlike Star Wars Episode III with Anakin, JJK did an excellent job showing his downfall and heel turn. Combine that with the fact he and Getou and Shouko were basically shattered as a friend group, leaving him increasingly isolated.

I don’t know Tsukumo Yuki’s whole plan in speaking to Suguru was to give him her tacit blessing to do things she wasn’t “crazy” enough to do to in order to achieve her goal of eliminating cursed spirits from the world, but she definitely seems like a catalyst to get Suguru into that state of mind. Not that discouraging him at that point would have made a difference.

After the deed, Suguru meets up with Shouko in the middle of bustling Shinjuku, and confirms what he did and why: he wants to create a world without non-sorcerers. Shouko calls Satoru, who speaks to Suguru in the middle of a dense crowd of passersby as cars, trucks, and buses zoom past.

When Satoru says such an undertaking is impossible, Suguru calls him arrogant, as he believes Satoru to be very much capable of eliminating all non-sorcerers should he choose to do so. Saying someone else can’t do it when he can is basically admitting he believes he’s the strongest. But he’s not strong enough to execute his best friend.

Tsuguru learns that a new religious group bought the church that was once owned by the Star Religious Group, dons the traditional robes he’ll wear as the big bad of season one, musses the hair of the liberated twins, takes the stage, and declares that he’ll be taking over and renaming the group. When there is an objection, he brings that person to the stage and smashes them into jelly with a cursed spirit. No doubt no further objections followed.

The last scene in the flashback that has occupied these past four episodes involves Satoru meeting a young Megumi for the first time, and being shocked by how much he resembles his father Touji. He also learns that Megumi is extremely precocious, and has no interest in his father, only in protecting Tsumiki’s happiness.

That’s when Satoru wakes up in 2018, with Juuji, Nobara, and a grown Megumi looming over him in his office, having summoned them there before he nodded off. Now that the three co-stars of season one are here, this season can get started in earnest, flush with the context of the tragedies and darkness of the prior decade that drive Satoru to be the best damn sorcerer he can be, and train the next generation to do the same.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 24 (Fin) – Only So Many Open Seats

When Eso—who like his more monstery-looking brother Kechizu isn’t a cursed spirit but a physical being—unleashes his special attack Wing King, Yuuji grabs Nobara in a princess carry and uses his superhuman speed to flee Eso’s range of attack.

They’re then headed off by Kechizu, who douses them both with his blood. Eso then activates a cursed technique called Decay that ensures both Yuuji and Nobara’s skin will be rotted away until by morning nothing will be left but bones.

We learn that Eso, Kechizu, and their brother Choso comprise The Cursed Wombs: Death Paintings One through Three—the result of either failed or successful (depending on your point of view) experiments in cross-breeding humans and cursed spirits. The three see each other as one and are devoted to one another, as they are all they had when they were sealed away prior to Mahiru stealing and releasing them into the world.

Unfortunately, Eso and Kechizu fucked with the wrong jujutsu sorcerers. Nobara is one of the worst opponents they could have, as she can use her Straw Doll Technique Resonance on the blood splattered on her to turn their curse back on them. Yuuji is an even worse match, as thanks to being possessed by Sukuna he’s immune to all poisons and poison-like techniques.

Nobara makes clear that Yuuji still makes pain, but pain alone isn’t enough to stop the likes of Yuuji. Together the two bust out their own techniques and deliver crippling blows to Eso and Kechizu. Just as last week was Megumi’s time to shine, Jujutsu Kaisen saves its finale for some of Yuuji and Nobara’s most badass moments.

Eso can’t use Wing King unless he releases Decay, but when he fears his brother is near death he does just that, playing right into the sorcerers’ hands. Both he and Kechizu are killed—not exorcised—they are physical beings their bodies remain. Choso senses their loss while playing The Game of Life with Getou and Mahiru.

Yuuji and Nobara win the battle without suffering serious harm. Yuuji asks if Nobara is okay psychologically after killing a physical being. Nobara’s answer is superbly true to her character: when you’re a sorcerer, “these things happen.”

There are only so many people you can save, and as she puts it, only so many open seats in her life for people who will sway her heart. Yuuji just so happens to be the rare person in her life to bring their own seat and sit down. It’s her way of saying Yuuji is one of the few people she cares about, and it’s beautiful.

The two are initially distraught upon finding Megumi passed out under the bridge, and when he wakes up, they’re over the moon with relief. Megumi gives Yuuji the Sukuna finger he secured, but both of them are surprised when a mouth emerges from Yuuji’s hand and eats it. Thankfully, Yuuji’s body is able to withstand yet another finger. Then Nitta arrives and chastises them for not keeping in contact.

Yuuji, Nobara, and Megumi managed to defeat three Special-Grade curses, a feat for which Gojou claims credit for his diligent instruction as he chats with Utahime on her day off. Megumi and Nobara agree to keep the fact Yuuji “resonated” with Eso and Kechizu a secret to protect their bud. Toudou Aoi and Mei Mei officially recommend the three sorcerers—along with Maki and Panda—for promotion to First Grade status.

Maki and Panda spar together as Toge (who I assume is already a First Grade) keeps score; both of them determined not to get left in the dust by the three first year up-and-comers. Nobara then goes on a celebratory shopping spree with Yuuji and Megumi, using Yuuji as her pack mule.

Getou, Mahiru, Choso, and a host of other high-level baddies remain at large to be eliminated, while perhaps the greatest threat remains within Yuuji in Ryoumen Sukuna. A “To Be Continued” at the very end of the episode serves as a promise that at some point Jujutsu Kaisen will return to settle these matters with its trademark blend of bombastic action, heartwarming camaraderie, and rib-tickling comedy. I already can’t wait.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 23 – Swinging for the Fences

The good news: this week gets right down to the business of kicking some cursed spirit ass. The bad news: Nobara gets swallowed up again! It’s like every other battle with Megumi and Yuuji this happens. At least it reveals there’s a third baddie the three sorcerers have to contend with…and this one fancies himself a Chippendale’s dancer.

Megumi sends Yuuji in after Nobara and finishes off the “whack-a-mole” bridge curse by himself…or so he thinks. Its final form is a “bodybuilder” demon that looks identical to the one he and Yuuji faced way back when; the one that required Yuuji to bring Sukuna out to defeat.

Megumi looks back to a recent training session with Gojou, who tells him bunts are all well and good in baseball, but in jujutsu sorcery you’d better swing for the fences. Megumi does using Domain Expansion, imagining a future self you surpass his present limits. While it’s incomplete, he’s able to defeat the spirit with some help from his shikigami.

With the curse defeated, Megumi’s surroundings revert to the river under the bridge. About to pass out from overexertion, he remembers the “live and let live” code he used to live by at middle school. He hated bad people for obvious reasons, but was also disgusted by good people for always forgiving bad people.

His sister Tsumiki was one of those “good people” who disgusted him, but he’s revised his opinion of her since she was cursed, and now simply wants her to wake up. We also learn in an older flashback that Megumi’s father intended him to be a trump card against the Zenin clan, but Gojou stopped his sale to the clan and arranged for him to be trained and work as a sorcerer in exchange for financial support for him and his sister.

While the added dimension to Megumi’s backstory is welcome, it does have the side-effect of stopping the action dead in its tracks. As a result, there’s barely any time left for Nobara and Yuuji’s battle against the cursed spirit “brothers”—one of whom is very self-conscious about his back.

That fight will bleed into next week. The flashbacks and character work on display here suggest Jujutsu Kaisen is content to close out its second cour with this case. With Megumi in no condition to help them, hopefully Nobara and Yuuji can get the job done. Maybe Nitta Akari will show up to lend a hand…

Jujutsu Kaisen – 22 – Crossing the River

Yuuji, Nobara, and Megumi are driven by Asst. Supervisor Nitta Akari (a new face) to Saitama to investigate a string of curse-related deaths involving a malfunctioning automatic door. They arrive at the home of an acquaintance of one the three victims to find they’ve become the fourth victim. With that lead lost, they head to the school all the victims attended.

Nobara is super-excited about beating up a couple punks, who suddenly shrink not in her or Yuuji’s presence, but Megumi’s—turns out he attended the middle school and already beat up all the punks and gang members. A school staff member Takeda arrives and tells the sorcerers that all four victims once bungee-jumped from the Yasohashi Bridge, something of a school custom. Yuuji and Nobara also learn about Megumi has a big sister, Tsukimi.

As Mahito feeds some poor bastard one of the special-grade cursed thingies stolen from Jujutsu High, Yuuji, Nobara and Megumi go to the bridge, but after a nightlong stakeout turns up nothing curse-related, they hit up the konbini for some breakfast, and bump into one of the school delinquents, who has his big sister with him, whom Megumi recognizes is Fujinuma.

It turns out she too went to Yasohashi Bridge one night, and has started to notice the doors of their family’s shop malfunctioning whenever she’s near them. Megumi notes that at least two weeks pass between the four victims first noticing something and their deaths, which means they still have a chance to save Fujinuma, who also tells them that Tsukimi was with them then.

Megumi recedes from the other two to ask Ijichi to have his sister guarded, but the supervisor laments that there’s no one available stronger than second-grade. The only way to deal with the curse affecting the victims both dead and alive is to exorcise it right away, before it activates a cursed technique from within the still living-Fujinuma and Tsukimi.

Naturally, he returns to the bridge alone in order to do this, literally shoving Yuuji and Nobara back into the car with Akari. But they show up beside him anyway, scolding him once again for holding too much back about himself. Megumi doesn’t protest their help, but informs them that the curse won’t appear unless they themselves become potential  victims by “crossing over” the river below the bridge, which symbolizes crossing over into the afterlife.

Once they do so, they’re suddenly confronted with a whack-a-mole-like curse emerging from the stone, along with several other orifices from which other curses could emerge. Then the curse unrelated to the bridge, which Mahito had fed to that poor dude, arrives on the scene. Yuuji volunteers to take it on while Megumi and Nobara handle the bridge curse.

It’s hard to believe this week marks the first time ever our three sorcerers worked on a curse case together. While the case that dominates the runtime seems more like the of-the-week type, I didn’t mind because the three young sorcerers are never not fun to watch bounce off each other, while Nitta “Ding-Dong!” Akari made for an entertaining new chaperone.