Jujutsu Kaisen – 21 – Naisupitchi!

Guy with the sword with a hand for the grip—who I’ll just call “Guy”—is retreating from the academy through an underground tunnel when a severely injured Hanami smashes through the walls. Guy is ready to put Hanami out of his misery when Mahito appears, telling him that as a human he shouldn’t act alone.

Back on the beach, Hanami and Mahito rejoin Jougo and Getou (and … er … Zoidberg? is still swimming in the ocean). Getou explains to Jougo how Mahito was able to get past the academy barrier maintained by a sorcerer named Tengen: by placing a charm made of Mahito’s Cursed Energy on the finger of Sukuna they collected.

Suffice it to say, thanks to the successful raid on Jujutsu High, their plan is right on track, with Getou setting October 31 and Shibuya as the day and the place they want to unleash the “bomb” that is Sukuna. Meanwhile, the higher-ups of Tokyo and Kyoto meet and agree to keep the theft of the special-grade objects a secret among them, still unsure what the enemy is about to achieve.

We then shift to the infirmary where Yuuji and Nobara are visiting Megumi and eating pizza. This is a momentous occasion, because it’s the first time since Yuuji came “back from the dead” that the three friends have been able to simply kick back! So of course “Big Bro Aoi” has to muscle his way in, leading to him chasing Yuuji around the academy campus.

That brings us to the question: What of the Exchange Event? Rather than be cancelled, everyone agrees it should continue, though with the group event of the first day over, most expect the second day to take its typical form: individual battles. However, when the form of competition is drawn from a box, it’s baseball, so we get a baseball game!

I love baseball, particularly the unique style Japan brings to the game, so I was fine with this! Maki, as you’d expect, can both pitch and hit at an elite level, while Nobara can man the hot corner and beat out a grounder. Kamo Noritoshi (who really should be wearing a helmet) uses the opportunity to speak to Yuuji, who until a few hours ago he was trying to murder.

When Nori hears that the reason Yuuji became a sorcerer, he’s surprised to find it largely matches what his own ostracized mother said to him before they parted ways: save a lot of people so they’ll help you in turn, or even just be with you at your end. After a Nobara hit (off a Mechamaru pitching machine) and a perfect sacrifice bunt from Megumi, Maki socks one out of the park, only for the flying Momo to catch it—which is allowed because they’re short on players.

Maki gets her revenge when Aoi steps to the plate, beaning him as he’s telling Yuuji how he hopes he’ll pitch to him someday, which…there’s just no way to say that without it sounding like something else entirely. (Everyone casually saying “Nice Pitch!” when Maki plunks Aoi is *chefs kiss*.) When Yuuji comes to the plate, the two principals discuss the Yuuji conundrum. The strict interpretation of their laws says he shouldn’t exist, and Gojou’s selfishness kept him alive at the cost of many lives.

At the same time, there’s no denying that Yuuji’s being alive has saved lives that would have otherwise been lost. They tentatively agree to simply continue watching him as they weigh the pros and cons. After all, if they kill him for good they can’t undo it…again…I presume! It’s fitting that Yuuji is the one to hit the homer that puts Tokyo up 2-0, which ends up being the final score thanks to Maki’s lights-out pitching.

The show proved that it can animate baseball (or at least baseball-ish) action just as impressively as it does its battle scenes, while the on-screen graphics were full of great jokes, like the fact that Mei totally stole the ripe mango Kasumi was saving from the fridge…and that despite being able to actually say the word “rice”, Inumaki prefers bread for breakfast.

If there’s one mild complaint I have about Jujutsu Kaisen, it’s that the main trio have been apart more than they haven’t. The preview indicates Yuuji, Nobara and Megumi will be working next case together, which is just what I was hoping for as this second cour starts to wind down.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 20 – Purple Boogie Woogie

In a brief but gorgeously lit and colored flashback, Toudou Aoi, only in third grade, is beating the shit out of a high schooler who mocked him. He catches the eye of a blonde sorcerer with a skeletal shikigami, and she asks him what type of woman he likes. Fast forward to the battle with Hanami, Toudou laments that while it’s time to unleash his technique, there’s no time to explain it.

That said, it doesn’t take long for him to demonstrate that technique, known as Boogie Woogie, in which he swaps positions with someone with the clap of his hands. He swaps with Hanami just as he’s about to land in a mass of spiked roots, so Hanami takes the damage. Yuuji was about to punch Hanami, but is about to punch Aoi instead.

Aoi uses Boogie Woogie with great effectiveness, swapping with Yuuji every few seconds to keep Hanami off balance, unsure which of them—with their, let’s say widely varying builds—to prepare for. We briefly check in with Nanami, who holds the record of most Black Flashes in one battle with four, including two consecutive.

As expected, thanks to Aoi’s tutelage, Yuuji’s able to easily break both of Nanami’s personal records, popping off three straight Black Flashe then a couple more for good measure. Hanami then unleashes an attack consisting of a enormous mass of cursed buds, too many of which could put either sorcerer out of commission (as they did Megumi).

Aoi, who claims to have an IQ over 500,000 (which, okay) retreats into his mind palace for a fraction of a second, which takes the form of the same high school drama where he and Yuuji became best brahs, and where Takada-chan is a classmate who turned him down flat. While Aoi initially prepares to defend the onslaught of buds with cursed energy, Takada helps him realize that’s exactly what Hanami is hoping for, so he reverses the energy and the buds bounce harmlessly off of him.

We also learn that Aoi has been strategically moving the battle back to the riverbed where Megumi went down, as before being carried away he told Aoi the three-part cursed staff is still lying the water. Since Aoi’s Boogie Woogie works on anything with cursed energy, he swaps Yuuji for the staff, infuses it with his own cursed energy, and smacks the shit out of Hanami, who suddenly has to resort to their version of Brazo Izquierdo del Diablo.

Just as Hanami’s arm collects all of the life energy of the surrounding forest in preparation for a Doman Expansion, the veil suddenly falls, and Gojou Satoru is floating up in the sky, mask off, ready to rumble.We cut to the other two battles going on just before the veil goes down, as Gakuganji shows Juuzou (the guy obsessed with turning Satoru into a coat rack) how his body serves as an amp for his guitar shredding.

We also catch Utahime about to square off with some cocky human who brandishes a sword with a hand for a grip, as made for him by Juuzou (which is how we learn the prolific cursed craftsman’s name). Utahime proves too quick for him, while Nobara and Mai soon arrive to back her up.

I’d have loved to watch them fight the hand-sword dude three-on-one, but then the veil goes down, and he skedaddles like his life depends on it…because it probably does. Juuzou doesn’t fare as well, as Satoru determines that he should be his first target to obliterate. While he “holds back” he still makes mincemeat out of Juuzou’s arms and legs, keeping him alive for interrogation.

Satoru then sets his sights on the retreating Hanami, determining he’ll have to launch a long-range attack mixing orbs of red and blue cursed energy(?) into one big mean purple blast that almost swallows up Yuuji and Aoi, but doesn’t. It looks like the sorcerers have won the day, but they don’t even know why these bad guys showed up in the first place.

Turns out the anti-Satoru veil and everything else about the attack amounted to one great big diversion, enabling Mahito to steal one of Ryoumen Sukuna’s fingers that was being held on Jujutsu Tech grounds. But assuming the Exchange Event is now over and won’t be started back up, hopefully the Kyoto kids will put their Yuuji knives away, as they all just went though some shit at the hands of their mutual enemies.

Jujutsu Kaisen – 18 – Exchange Crashers

This episode’s got a lot to cover, so we jump right into the middle of the duel between the stuffy Kamo Noritoshi, which is basically a battle of creative blood manipulation vs. shikigami. The battle is not only notable for how awesome it looks, but the fact it takes place indoors, and is the first time in a while we’ve seen Megumi and his menagerie of spirit friends in action.

We also check in on poor delightful Kasumi, who is still in a state of shock over being suddenly bereft of her cherished sword. She gets a call from Mechamaru, but it’s Toge on the other line, officially retiring her when he says the word “sleep”. Like Megumi, there’s a lot of pent-up anticipation to watch Toge operate. Like Momo, he plays a key support role.

The faculty notes Kasumi’s retirement, and Utahime heads off to retrieve her (there are cursed spirits still lurking around). We learn that chief among those is a semi-tamed semi-first grade, which Principal Gakuganji tells Kamo will be unleashed upon Itadori Yuuji as soon as his battle with Toudou is over.

That “ringer” demon turns out to be a complete red herring, as no sooner does Toge spot it lurking in the forest is it decapitated…not by any sorcerer, but by Hanami. That’s right, Big Bad Mahito and his fellow special-grade curses have arrived to start some shit, and they’re accompanied by a bald human.

Before their presences is known to Megumi and Kamo, the former ups his game by calling forth a new shikigami he just tamed, a goddamn glowed-up pink elephant that spews forth a torrent of water which blasts Kamou out of the building, where he’s exposed to the aerial Nue’s electricity.

Kamou restrains Nue in blood bindings, but what had the makings of an all time epic JJK battle is rudely cut short by the explosive emergence of a colossal mass of tree matter. Suddenly all of the cursed talismans burn away at once in the faculty viewing room, alerting the adults that something is off.

That something is off becomes far more obvious when the bald curse user with Mahito erects a veil over the group battle area. Gojou, Gakuganji and Utahime race to the veil’s edge before it is complete, but it doesn’t matter: it’s a veil that will allow anyone but Gojou to enter.

This can be seen as either (or both) a means of keeping Gojou from interfering in Hanami dealing with the sorcerers within the veil, and isolating Gojou on the outside so Mahito can take a stab at the guy Jougo couldn’t beat.

When they’re confronted by the bald guy, now weilding a big axe, Gakuganji sends Utahime off to protect the kids, while he stands his ground and removes the contents of the big black case he’s carrying around. Turns out it’s a Gibson Flying V guitar, which not only means we’re in for some epic shredding at some point, but it’s a battle of axe-vs.-axe. So absurdly awesome.

Yuuji, Toudou, The Zenin twins, Nobara, and Momo are all still on their own, wondering what the heck’s going on, while Megumi, Toge and Kamo find themselves being stared down by a particularly intimidating tree spirit in Hanami, who pledges to heal the earth by purging it of humanity. Their individual attacks have no effect, so they’ll either have to get creative with a collab or wait for help from stronger sorcerers.

After all that built up to the interschool competition, the event has been rendered totally irrelevant, while those who were planning to kill Yuuji must shift their targets to the far more pressing cursed threats. Heck, as the stable-for-now vessel of Sukuna, he looks to be instrumental in pushing back Mahito & Co. Good thing they weren’t able to kill him yet!

Jujutsu Kaisen – 08 – Twisted Sister School

After being entirely absent from the previous episode, Megumi and Nobara stick around for the lion’s share of the eighth. While I understand that plot-wise it makes more sense to unveil Yuuji at the Exchange Event, there’s still a sense of dissatisfaction from the fact the central trio has been apart far longer than they’ve been together, and Megumi and Nobara of them are still in the dark.

The delegation from Kyoto arrives at Tokyo Jujutsu Tech, and their third-year ace Toudou Aoi decides to pick a fight with Megumi, while Zenin Maki’s twin sister Mai restrains Nobara. Toudou decides to beat up Megumi for no reason other than he finds him boring, especially when it comes to his non-specific taste in women. Mai…just wants to shoot a bitch?

Megumi tries his best against Toudou, hoping his ranged cursed techniques will let him keep his distance. But it doesn’t go well, and the outmatched Megumi ends up beaten bloody before Inumaki and Panda come to the rescue. Toudou is content to end the fight there, but it’s clear that Kyoto’s sorcerers-in-training are far crazier and more violent than Tokyo’s (Granted, we haven’t met any of the third-years).

Mai proceeds to shoot holes in Nobara’s brand-new tracksuit, to teach her a lesson in “manners”, but Maki arrives to stop her twin sister from putting any bullet holes in Nobara’s body. Nobara demands Mai leave her uniform behind as payment for ruining her tracksuit, but Toudou whisks her off, as he doesn’t want to be late for the super-tall idol Takada-chan’s handshake event.

Maki confirms to Nobara that she doesn’t have any cursed energy, while Mai doesn’t know any cursed techniques. You’d think that considering together they possess the two qualities that are typically crucial to being an effective sorcerer they’d work together…but you’d be wrong. As for Nobara, she gains a heightened respect for her senpai, affectionately leaning onto her as they walk.

Kyoto’s principal Gakuganji is waiting with his attendant Miwa when instead of Principal Yaga, Gojou enters the room, having intentionally changed Yaga’s schedule so he could have some time along with the Kyoto bigwig. Gojou simply wants to impart his dissatisfaction with the stuffy, tradition-obsessed higher-ups.

Between stronger cursed spirits and stronger students, terms like “special-grade” will lose all meaning, and the fogies aren’t prepared for what happens then. Gojou, on the other hand, intends to be. Miwa comports herself well, but “Inner Miwa” is going completely gaga over Gojou. Akasaki Chinatsu and some excellent character animation really bring a seemingly bit player in Miwa to life. Finally, Toudou gets to meet Takada-chan.

A month passes, and we transition to a movie theater where three high school students ended up killed and their heads severely deformed. One witness spots the apparent culprit Mahito, whom we met on the beach last week. Then Yuuji appears for the first time this episode, along with an older guy wearing Batou-like glasses. Looks like Yuuji is being given one more mission to break him in before heading to the Exchange Event.