Hello and welcome to Anime Rants with Mono. 😊 I’ve fallen a bit behind on my episode reviews for this one, so I apologize for the delay. But finally, it’s time to write about Jujutsu Kaisen episodes 52 and 53, or season 3 episodes 5 and 6. I’m excited because these are the episodes that feature Kirara Hoshi, a character I’ve been dying to meet for some time now. We also met Hakari and learned about the history of Panda, who is a sadly underrated character in my opinion. I’ve got lots of good material to rant about!
Episode 52: Passion
Episode Rating: 9/10
The first section of this episode focused on Panda’s history and the tragic death of his creator, Masamichi Yaga. After he created Panda some years ago, Yaga was temporarily jailed by the higher-ups at Jujutsu HQ. They released him because they believed the lie that he didn’t know how he created Panda. An entity like Panda was a big deal because it was generating and sustaining its own cursed energy, which a puppet is not supposed to be able to do. Only living things should be able to do that. Anyone with the ability to create life from cursed corpses could potentially build an army for himself that uses cursed energy. Obviously, this is bad on many levels, which is why it alarmed the people at the top of the Jujutsu world.
Masamichi wasn’t making some dangerous army, but he did have a group of plushie-like cursed corpses that he created. They lived with him like his children. We learned in this episode that some of them were made from the souls of dead children. Takeru, the little lion-like puppet, was one example. The child’s mother was the younger sister of Kusakabe, and she became severely mentally ill after losing her child. The only thing that could bring her comfort was being around Takeru, the cursed corpse made from her son. So, of course, Masamichi allowed Takeru to live with his mother.
Kusakabe felt indebted to Yaga after he helped his sister. He repaid the favor by setting Panda free. Panda was locked up and possibly set for execution following the Shibuya Incident. I suppose that’s because he was an ally of Satoru Gojo, but I don’t know why he was targeted specifically when some others were not. Regardless, Panda was set free and told to hurry and find Masamichi. The higher-ups of the Jujutsu world had finally ordered his death, I assume. Again, the reason for this may have been that he was considered an ally of Satoru Gojo, but I’m not sure.
Unfortunately for Panda, it was too late when he arrived. Masamichi Yaga had been executed by Principle Gakuganji, the old man with the cool guitar. Before he died, Masamichi told the truth to Gakuganji about how Panda was created. The secret was to combine three souls into one cursed corpse and this would result in a stable individual with identity. When Gakuganji asked why he gave the secret away, Masamichi said to think of it as a curse. I suppose it is very cursed knowledge to know how to make a self-sustaining soul out of puppets and dead children. I have always liked Yaga-sensei, and he was definitely a loving father to Panda. So, for me, it was devastating when Panda held Masamichi’s body and cried. 😢
Believe it or not, that was only the first third of the episode. The rest of this installment focused on Yuji at the underground fighting club. This was where he and Fushiguro would find Hakari, the expelled student who ran the facility. The two boys arrived at an abandoned parking deck building and bluffed their way into the fighting ring inside. But only Yuji was allowed to fight. Megumi had to stay in the shadows. Much to Yuji’s surprise, his first opponent in the ring was Panda! Itadori and Yuji then had a mock-fight that looked convincing to the audience. Panda faked being hurt by Yuji’s pulled punches. It was an entertaining sparring match. I think they both had fun.
Since he won a match, Yuji would be allowed to see Hakari. That night, Fushiguro talked with Panda outside the fight club. Panda said he couldn’t get close to Hakari’s HQ on the roof because of some kind of cursed energy technique. While Yuji was going to meet Hakari, Fushiguro and Panda would be nearby trying to get closer. They would probably have to fight Kirara, a third-year student who never left Hakari’s side after he was expelled from Jujutsu High. Panda mentioned Kirara, which threw off Megumi for a moment. “Kirara” is a girl’s name in Japanese, but Fushiguro had heard that the third-year student with Hakari was male. Panda confirmed that Kirara was male and nothing more was said about it. Once we got to see Kirara ourselves, the truth became clear that they were feminine-presenting despite their sex.
All winter, I’ve been excited to meet Kirara because she’s clearly a queer character. As someone in the LGBT+ community myself, I love Kirara in the little bit of the manga I read. I enjoyed the anime version, too. It’s possible that Kirara is non-binary, but I will refer to her with she/her pronouns since I read her as a trans woman. (The two labels are not mutually exclusive, so she could be both.)
I also think it’s worth pointing out that gender-neutral pronouns were used for Kirara in most English subtitles, which is why many assume she’s nonbinary. But if we’re being technical, gender-neutral pronouns are used very commonly even for cis characters in Japanese. For example, Panda calls Yuji “aitsu” meaning “they/them,” and yet it gets translated as “he/him” because English is a more gendered language and Yuji is obviously a young man. The same could be done for Kirara, but we would assume “she/her” since she presents femininely. Also, Kirara uses “watashi” to refer to herself, and this is considered feminine. Just my two cents.
While Panda and Megumi knocked out the guards and approached the roof, Yuji was guided into Hakari’s monitor room by Kirara. Inside was a man who looked significantly older than eighteen to me. (Since he was drinking whiskey at one point, we can probably assume he’s at least 20, the legal age one can drink in Japan.) This was Kenji Hakari, the owner of the fighting club. He described himself as someone who loved passion and risk, calling life itself a gamble. Though “many women” had dumped him for his gambling habit, Hakari insisted that people do not hate gambling. People just hate losing and being ruined by gambling, he said.
I’m not sure how much I like Hakari overall yet, but I do like that he’s ambitious and open-minded. I think he’s open-minded and fair because he’s the kind of person who fell for Kirara despite the transphobia that’s prevalent in Japan. Hakari and Kirara are heavily implied to be in a relationship. As for the ambitious side, Hakari wanted to make this fight club a legitimate business in the future. I admire ambitious underdog characters. Anyway, when he met with Yuji, Hakari was friendly enough. However, after Yuji stupidly said he didn’t know who Gojo was, Hakari realized he was not being honest. He assumed Yuji was from Jujutsu High and was an enemy. Itadori shouted at the wild man to listen, but it was too late. Hakari wanted to fight. To be continued.
Episode 53: Cog
Episode Rating: 8/10
Most of this episode focused on the Jujutsu fight of Kirara versus Panda and Fushiguro. First, Megumi and Panda took out the guards and headed to the rooftop toward the monitor room where Hakari usually stayed. On their way, they encountered Kirara. She immediately knew something was up and feared that Jujutsu High sent Fushiguro and Itadori to kill Hakari. It was a valid fear with all the chaos and executions happening since the Shibuya Incident. Megumi tried to tell Kirara that they were not with Jujutsu High and that they needed help because Satoru Gojo had been sealed. Kirara didn’t believe them at all, leading her to make this epic expression that has become a meme:
Thinking she needed to protect Hakari, Kirara activated her technique and a jujutsu battle began. During the action, Fushiguro and Panda kept trying to convince Kirara, but she wouldn’t stand down. From the dialogue during these scenes, we learned something about why Hakari was expelled. He and Kirara butted heads with the conservative faction of the Jujutsu High staff (which probably included Principle Gakuganji). They didn’t like Hakari’s technique because it was an example of new technology making its way into Jujutsu. Since I don’t know Hakari’s technique yet, I don’t fully understand this, but I assume it’s related to cameras and monitoring systems. The conservatives disliked Hakari and his technique so much they expelled him. Only Kirara stayed by his side and left Jujutsu High with him.
Speaking of techniques, Kirara’s ability was certainly interesting, but also quite confusing to me at first. I barely understand it myself, so I’m not going to try to explain it in much detail. The aesthetics for her ability involve stars – in particular, the stars making up the Southern Cross constellation. The actual technique has nothing to do with the stars. The idea is that Kirara can assign a star to five different people or objects. They must be arranged in a certain order or moving between them is impossible. That’s all the explanation and notes you’re getting on Kirara’s technique. I honestly don’t care much about the superpower aspects of this anime compared to the character dynamics. That being said, learning a constellation was cool.
In the fight that proceeded, there were several good moments. I was happy to see Megumi in action with his demon dog and the other shikigami. The demon dog is so damn cool and the rabbits are cute – but not quite as cute as Panda, as he correctly asserted. I also liked how Kirara referred to the demon dog as “wan-chan” meaning “little puppy.” Anyway, in the end, Megumi figured out Kirara’s technique and used it in a dangerous gamble to take the lead. He successfully pinned Kirara to the ground in a takedown. Just as Kirara was saying Megumi wasn’t cute at all, the first-year released her and did a full bow with his head on the ground. He begged for her to listen.
Kirara was ready to listen, but just then, Itadori went flying past. He’d been punched through the monitor room door by Hakari. As Panda, Fushiguro, and Kirara watched, Hakari repeatedly punched Yuji. For his part, Yuji refused to fight back and insisted on taking the punches unguarded to prove his resolve. Things got worse for Itadori when he told Hakari that he was nothing but a cog in the machine of Jujutsu curse exorcism. This did not go over well with Hakari. He was the kind of person who was opposed to “the machine” or mindlessly obeying the systems at play. In other words, Itadori and Hakari were diametrically opposed. Hakari was not pleased.
By taking at least three unguarded blows and still standing, Itadori did impress Hakari to some degree. It was clear Itadori had passion – the passion of a cog who wanted nothing but to exorcise curses for its own sake. But despite recognizing this, Hakari was still furious. Just then, Kirara resolved the conflict by pointing out that Itadori made Hakari feel passionate. Hakari stopped his agression because in his mind, anything that made him feel alive and passionate was worth investigating further. Thus, he offered to “cut a deal” with Yuji and his group. The fight was over.
The group was interrupted by the sudden appearance of a Kogane. The Kogane is the little flying cursed contraption that appears to announce the rules of the Culling Game or to grant a new rule to someone who earned 100 points. According to the Kogane, a new rule had just been established. Players now have access to information about other players. That includes the player’s name, amount of points, number of rules added, and the colony in which they presently reside.
The full implications of the new rule remain to be seen. But we know the identity of the person who made the rule. He was a man with aqua-colored hair dude named Hajime Kashimo. He is voiced by Ryouhei Kimura, whose performance I am also enjoying as Choubei in Hell’s Paradise right now. Kashimo is likely an ancient entity like Sukuna, since we witnessed him mumbling in anger, “Sukuna, where are you?” This man could be very bad news, but he has a kick-ass character design. To be continued.
~Thanks for Reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
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