Thanks for stopping by blog today. I was originally going to cover two episodes, but Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 4 deserves its own post. Cumulatively, this is episode 51. It’s one of the best installments Jujutsu Kaisen has to offer, being the famous and tragic Maki rampage episode. It deserves a full thematic analysis and discussion, but I will only be providing a relatively brief recap and some notes. I hope these are still entertaining and enjoyable to read. 🙂
Spoiler warning 😛
Episode 51: Perfect Preparation
Episode Rating: 10/10
This installment was both devastating and thrillingly beautiful. The audiovisual quality was insane with all the intense drama and action scenes. Since I read this part of the manga in advance, I knew what to expect from this episode, but I still wasn’t prepared for the finished product to be quite so stunning. I know I’m praising this episode highly. Still, before I go on to any specifics, I must get my grumpy complaints out of the way. Well, I really only have one thing to complain about. I agree with those who say that Jujutsu Kaisen completely wasted its female cast. I haven’t read much more of the manga beyond this point, but based on the anime alone, I hold this opinion.
In Jujutsu Kaisen, the female characters are usually killed off or taken out of commission in cruel ways. At the end of the day, I wish Mai hadn’t been murdered and I wish Maki didn’t turn into a killing machine. The story would have been better with more strong female characters like Maki consistently playing central roles in the narrative. This doesn’t mean I dislike Jujutsu Kaisen or anything, though. I have high respect for most of the storytelling of the manga author, Gege Akutami. I can still enjoy the anime as it is; I simply wanted to make my opinion known. Though brutal, this episode still tells an interesting tale. So let’s talk about Maki and her epic revenge quest.
Maki’s father, Ogi Zenin, launched a terrible plot with help from Jinichi Zenin (whose exact relationship to the others I don’t know). Their plan was to execute Mai, Maki, and Megumi Fushiguro with the justification that they were plotting to release Gojo. Of course, they only wanted to kill these children to prevent their clan’s power from passing on to them. When Maki arrived at the storage area for the Zenin family’s cursed tools, she found it occupied by her father, Ogi. The psychopathic man had just sliced Mai, who lay there in a pool of blood. Maki fought for her life against her own father, but was struck down by his sword. Ogi then threw his fatally wounded daughters into a training room inhabited by cursed spirits. He left them to be devoured by monsters.
Maki was unconscious from blood loss, but Mai was not about to let her die. She used reverse cursed energy to heal her sister. But that’s not all she did. Mai also decided to sacrifice herself. In terms of Jujutsu magic, what she did was put all her cursed energy and potential into the form of a powerful weapon, which ended her life. But why exactly did Mai feel like she needed to do this? It gets explained in the scene where Maki and Mai talk for the last time. In some of kind of dreamlike dimension, Maki woke up on a sandy beach on a cloudy day. Mai was there, but she was leaving, wading out into the ocean. She said that Maki would have to continue on her own now. Then Mai reminded her sister that the Jujutsu system is inherently unfair to twins.
In Jujutsu lore, the cursed energy potential of identical twins is equal to half a normal individual’s potential. In other words, Jujutsu “sees” identical twins as one person, so they are forced to split their stats. This puts twins at a major disadvantage. In the case of Mai and Maki, one twin got all the cursed energy, and the other none. Maki got zero. (However, she became one of the “physically gifted” like Toji using a Heavenly Pact.) Mai figured that by removing herself from the equation, she would finally make her sister “complete” in terms of Jujutsu potential. She remarked to herself that she always knew it would come down to this one day, suggesting that this was premeditated to some degree. No matter how bitchy she might have acted, Mai truly loved Maki.
Thus, Mai poured her life into one final act of love and sacrifice: making the perfect cursed energy weapon for Maki. But before she left the world of the living, Mai looked back at her sister on the beach, smiled, and spoke her last words. “Promise me one thing. I want you to break everything.” (Japanese: “Hitotsu dake yakusokushite. Zenbu kowashite.”) She also added, “Zenbu dakara, ne?” meaning “Everything, you hear?” This moment was keenly painful and hauntingly beautiful, especially since the girls saw each other as young children again for a few seconds. The voice actress who played Mai, Marina Inoue, did an excellent job with her character’s last lines.
Maki woke up with Mai dead beside her and began her rampage. I’m going to rush through this section, but these were amazing scenes that were so satisfying and exciting. Maki executed her father first by slicing off his scalp. This caused alarm from the Zenin family, who sent the Kukuru Unit to capture her. The Kukuru Unit was the group of non-curse-users who served the Zenin family as a police force with high skill in martial arts. Maki slaughtered the entire unit. Next, she also destroyed the Hei – a group of Zenin’s most powerful sorcerers. The ones present were: Ranta, Jinichi, and Chojuro Zenin. They were all defeated by Maki and Jinichi was beheaded.
Finally, Maki fought with Naoya, who was the leader of the Hei. The fight was great. It was really satisfying to see Naoya get beaten so hard his skull fractured. After clobbering Naoya and ruining his face, Maki also went to kill her mother. However, she didn’t completely finish off either one. While Maki left, Naoya crawled back to the house for help, only to be finished off by Maki’s mother using a kitchen knife. It was amazing poetic irony for Naoya, the misogynistic patriarchal brat, to be killed by a domestic woman using a household tool. Now that’s stellar storytelling.
(Side Note: Naoya’s death was delightful, but also concerning in terms of Jujutsu lore. When powerful curse users die to someone or something that doesn’t use cursed energy, they sometimes create a curse. So, Naoya could potentially come back as a powerful cursed spirit like Rika. I hope that never happens. Shudder.)
I do have thoughts about Maki’s mother and whether Maki was justified in slicing open her neck. Most likely, I’ll write a second post in the future about Maki and her mother as well as the morality of Maki’s rampage in a broader sense. I think it would take too long to discuss the topic fully in this blog post – but long story short, I believe Maki was completely justified in “cleaning up” the nasty Zenin clan as a whole. Do I wish she had spared some of the women, like her mother? Yes, but I understand that Maki had lost the ability to care. That day, Maki didn’t just kill the Zenin groups who were at home. She also went and slaughtered a total of 36 more Zenin people.
At some point, Maki also met up with Momo, asking her to take care of Mai’s body. When she saw Mai’s corpse, Momo broke down immediately. I nearly cried when Momo did. She had apparently warned Mai not to return to the Zenins for fear of something like this happening. I believe Mai and Momo were very close. It’s truly tagic. In other news, the Zenins will probably be removed from the three great families after this. Even if the clan survived, it would fall from grace and power in the Jujutsu world. That’s about all for my thoughts and notes today.
~Thanks for Reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
Anime Rants 