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 – 37 – Less Chatter, More Splatter

Yuuji heads for the station where Gojou is being held, but on his way he encounters a huge mass of people getting cut to ribbons by transmogrified humans and other cursed spirits. Being Yuuji, he can’t just run past all this and do nothing, but he also has a job to do, and it’s not this. Thankfully, Inumaki Toge appears and is ready to “salmon, salmon”, i.e. take care of this situation so Yuuji can go to ground…where he encounters Choso.

Even when he exhibited his ability to kill civilians with blood bullets, I’ll admit to having allowed Choso to fly under my radar. After all, he’s not Getou, or Mahito, or Jougo, or even Hanami. But he does have an axe to grind with Yuuji personally. He’s motivated and focused on getting revenge for his brothers, and he achieves first blood…never what you want from a blood manipulation user. Yuuji suffer multiple wounds but is so goshdarn tough he’s still able to get a couple licks in before he’s cornered.

His Mechamaru talisman speaks up again, telling him to go to the bathroom. When Choso follows him he finds all of the sinks and toilets are broken and the sprinklers are on. This dissolves his blood and makes it impossible to use his most lethal abilities: his hypersonic blood beam. Yet even with the odds seemingly evened a bit, he still proves deft at close-range hand-to-hand combat. He can also still use his blood manipulation for other things.

Choso doesn’t take Yuuji lightly. His brothers wouldn’t have lost to just anyone, and even though Yuuji only gets a grand total of three good hits on him, those three hits hurt Choso bad. At the same time, once Yuuji’s liver is pierced, he knows he can’t hold out long, but is resolved to kill Choso or die trying, giving others the opportunity to save Gojou. It’s a knock-down, drag-out fight that brims with evocative imagery, inventive acrobatics, punishing impacts, and masterful use of camerawork, lighting, sound, and color.

Then suddenly, when Yuuji can’t get up anymore, everything goes quiet and the camera goes still. We get a wide shot of him in the bathroom doorway, and hear Choso’s slow, measured steps before he appears from behind the wall like a specter. He’s about to deliver a killing blow, and Sukuna is disgusted. But Choso’s blow goes wide. His head filling with fuzzy VHS-quality memories that never happened, he loses control of his blood manipulation, and he wigs out. It seems Sukuna did Yuuji a solid…I wonder if he’ll ask for something in return.

Choso wanders off in his distressed fugue-like state, allowing Nanako and Mimiko access to Yuuji to “begin”…something. They seem like wild cards, what with the sense of betrayal they must feel towards whatever took over Getou’s body. Whatever they’re up to, Yuuji is in no condition to resist, or even get up.

This was a thrilling, immersive, and hugely entertaining tour-de-force of sight and sound throughout. The only two demerits that keep it from five stars? 1.) Some cheap-looking pans across still shots of the murder mosh in the beginning, and 2.) the narrator chiming in too often to deliver inessential details on the mechanics of Choso’s abilities, which I felt that hurt the flow of the battle.

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.