It’s time to cover the season’s final two Jujutsu Kaisen episodes. These are episodes 58 and 59 in total, or Culling Game Part 1 episodes 11 and 12. Although I wasn’t quite as impressed with the penultimate installment, the season finale was cool enough to make it worth some frustration.
This season of JJK felt slightly underwhelming to me after the absolute peak of the fourth episode (Maki’s rampage against the Zenin clan). That being said, even if it slowed down, the third season proved highly entertaining from an audiovisual perspective as well as interesting from a story and character writing perspective. I have some notes and recaps below for these episodes, but they are not very expansive compared to the discussions I would like be having. I’d love to write about where I think all the main characters are mentally and how the main story themes are playing out in their battles. But due to limited time and energy, these notes are all I could come up with. I hope they’re still enjoyable.
Episode 58: Tokyo Colony No. 1 – Part 5
Episode Rating: 7/10
Most of this episode focused on Megumi’s fight with Reggie. Since Megumi hadn’t yet mastered his Domain Expansion, he used the physical space he was in – a gym of some kind – to help him form the Domain. Within that dark Domain, he lacked the guaranteed hit effect, but he was able to materialize himself, his clones, and his shikigami anywhere at will because his shadow stretched over the floor and roof of the Domain. At first, Fushiguro was beating Reggie soundly. As Reggie pointed out, it’s convenient to be able to store things in one’s shadow, but Fushiguro’s technique had a big downside. Megumi was forced to shoulder the weight of whatever was stored within his shadow. Reggie realized this eventually and tried to crush Megumi by summoning several cars with his receipt technique. Fushiguro responded by trying to crush Reggie with his elephant shikigami.
The fight continued and at one point, Reggie was forced into Fushiguro’s shadow, where he started to lose consciousness. Luckily for him, he was able to command one of the cars to carry him out of the shadow, which was behaving like a suffocating liquid. Then Reggie summoned a literal shed to crush Megumi. As a result, the floor of the gym broke, and both Jujutsu fighters fell into the pool on the story below. Megumi tried to drown Reggie by dragging him down into the water, forcing Reggie to release his technique or die. He of course released his technique, allowing both of them to come up for air.
The battle wasn’t over yet. Reggie and Megumi approached each other slowly on the side of the pool. Reggie was unable to use his receipt technique now because he was soaking wet. Reggie suspected that Megumi was too weak to summon a shikigami again, and Megumi didn’t deny it. But in the middle of the martial arts fight between Megumi and Reggie, the Demon Dog shikigami pounced out of nowhere. It took a savage bite out of Reggie, fatally wounding him. Reggie pointed out that in any age, jujutsu sorcerers are dishonest. Before he died, he gave his 41 points to Megumi freely, saying he wanted to do a good deed before he passed. It was rather sad, but Reggie died bleeding out into the pool. This battle was cool, creative, and thematically significant, what with the sobering ending reminding us of the darkness of the world of sorcerers.
Meanwhile, Takaba was still fighting Reggie’s henchman, the man who could use his own body parts as explosives. His name was Hazenoki and his design was pretty cool. Though he tried to kill his opponent with explosives several times, Takaba kept surviving. A Kogane then informed Hazenoki that Reggie was dead. The explosives-user stopped fighting and went his own way. As for Takaba, the narrator revealed that he is a dangerously powerful sorcerer with the potential to take on the likes of Satoru Gojo. That’s because his ability allows him to realize whatever he thinks would be most funny. If that includes surviving a close-range explosion unscathed and covered in sauce, then it will happen. The catch is that Takaba doesn’t understand anything about his own power. He’s not the brightest.
Now about Remi. The scene cut to a series of shots of her doing the stupid “shoujo-run.” No actual humans run like that. But that’s the least of my concerns with this scene and with Remi’s infernally immature monologue. The real issue is that Remi’s character is the textbook example of “A man wrote this” – probably while imagining what it must be like to be a standardly attractive woman – instead of interacting with real women of many types and learning about how they really are. I’m disappointed in the writing for Remi, especially since I expect better from Jujutsu Kaisen. As shounen anime goes, it is one of the less misogynistic ones. It also features good character writing most of the time. So when there’s signs of classically sexist writing, it stings extra with this show.
Regardless, Remi eventually found her path crossing with Megumi again. Though it looked like Fushiguro intended to kill Remi at first, he remembered that Tsumiki wouldn’t want him to do this. So, Megumi spared Remi while limping away, cursing his annoying older sister weakly. Tired and injured from the fighting, he passed out in the alleyway. Just then, the “angel” appeared above him. That’s all we get to see of Megumi for now. He was really cool in this episode. I’m proud of him for not killing Remi – not because she’s a woman, but because she’s someone who has no place in the fighting. She’s clearly mentally incapable and far too incompetent to be a sorcerer. Anyway, after this, the perspective will change to the Sendai Colony, where Yuta Okkotsu is fighting.
Episode 59: Sendai Colony
Episode Rating: 8/10
This was a fantastic episode, though the parts with the cockroach cursed spirit were difficult to watch as someone who hates roaches as much as any human can possibly hate them. The first fight was between the roach guy – Kurourushi – and Okkotsu. In terms of visuals, all the fights seemed to vary widely in animation quality; but this first fight in particular seemed rather weak. The reddish-brown swarm of roaches didn’t look right to me. The music was awesome though – for this fight and for all the rest. Yuta defeated Kuroushi by firing reverse cursed energy into the creature’s mouth. It almost looked like he was eating the roach monster’s face. Whatever it was was cool – however, Okkotsu sustained several wounds and was immediately targeted by more enemies.
Now that Dhruv and Kurourushi were dead, the other two strong sorcerers in Sendai both set out to fight Okkotsu. The first was a woman named Takako Uro and the second was a man named Ryu Ishigori. Both were reincarnated Jujutsu users from the past. Uro had the ability to warp and manipulate space itself, which for some reason she calls “sky.” As for Ishigori, he had the ability to fire large amounts of cursed energy like canon-fire from his ridiculous pompadour hair. Both Uro and Ishigori had some good basic character writing, complete with a theme for their fight. Ishiguro’s themes were dessert and eating, while Uro’s theme was slightly more complex, embodying the idea that she needed to live for herself after serving as an assassin/slave for the Fujiwara clan generations ago. Of the two characters, I thought Uro was cooler, but I’m biased against pompadour characters.
At several points during the three-way fight, Yuta revealed surprising powers. He now had the ability of Toge Inumaki to command cursed speech. In addition, when he put on his “engagement ring,” he became connected to the spirit of Rika, which gave him enhanced powers. This connection only lasted five minutes though. Lastly, toward the end of the fighting, Okkotsu’s main technique became clear: he could copy the abilities of others. I’m not sure how it works exactly. But going back to the battle, everyone continued fighting. Three of them tried to open their Domains at once, but they were disrupted by the sudden reappearance of the cockroach spirit, Kurourushi. (It was actually a clone of the original, who reproduced by parthenogensis.)
Despite the interference, Kurourushi was quickly defeated again by the efforts of both Ishigori and Okkotsu. In addition, they defeated but didn’t kill Uro. Her arm was torn off and eaten by Rika. Then she was put out of commission by a Granite Blast from Ishigori. It was now down to Okkotsu and Ishigori. They duked it out in an exciting battle while the theme song for this season played in the background. (“Aizo” by King Gnu is a banger!) I get the feeling that Okkotsu could have wiped the floor with Ishigori quickly after copying the powers of Uro and others. But he was overcome with sympathy for his opponent, who wanted a thrill worth living or dying for. Thus, Okkotsu provided an epic battle. In the end, of course, he was victorious.
Okkotsu didn’t kill Ishigori, but asked for his points in return for sparing him. The pompadour man agreed and Okkotsu went on his way with a total of 190 points. As he walked, Yuta remembered the words he heard from Uro after her defeat. She told him, “Be it sorcerer or cursed spirit, those who surpass the bounds of being strong all have overwhelming egos. They don’t concern themselves with other things. They are calamities.” The unpleasant potential truth is that Yuta Okkotsu will also turn into an egotistical calamity like Kenjaku or even Sukuna. I suspect Okkotsu will fall to the dark side eventually.
Anyway, the episode ends there. I was impressed with the final fight and the vaguely haunting ending. Of course, there’s a lot more discussion to be had, but this is all I can manage at the current time. I will eventually write a review for JJK season 3 and update my page about JJK MBTI types, but it will probably take quite some time. I really appreciate anyone who read or skimmed my blog today. Sayonara until next time!
~Thanks for reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
Anime Rants 