Jujutsu Kaisen
We meet the final part of our trio of new first years here and we get to see that it's not all fun and games. That this anime is not fucking around. We talked a about the opening of the first half of this season but we really need to talk about the closing song. "Lost In Paradise" is maybe the best anime closing song of all time. Fight me. You can take a listen below. Check it out.
"Girl of Steel"
Satoru Gojo: "Right, I'd like you to meet --"
Nobara Kugisaki: "Nobara Kugisaki. You should be honored, boys. I'm your girl."
Manga Chapters: 4 & 5
Arc: Fearsome Womb
Satoru Gojo takes Megumi Fushiguro and Yuji Itadori to Tokyo to pick up the final member of their first year class, Nobara Kugisaki. Nobara is from the countryside and is headstrong and confident to a fault. On their way from picking her up, Gojo sends Nobara and Yuji into a building to exorcize a cursed spirit. Gojo is testing Nobara to see if the "girl of steel" has what it takes to be a jujutsu sorcerer.
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| This is awful |
Nobara Kugisaki comes in like a wrecking ball. Nobara is the third and final first year, joining Itadori and Fushiguro. Her introduction lets viewers know everything they need to know about her. Gojo and the boys find Nobara in Tokyo accosting a model scout who was turned down by a different girl. Nobara is ready to model and isn't shy about asking the agent why he isn't asking her to model too. It's clear that the scout is extremely uncomfortable with this line of questioning, but Nobara does not care. She thinks she has what it takes and that is all that matters. Nobara Kugisaki is loud, brash, strong and extremely overconfident, for better of for worse.
One of the funniest moments of the episode is when Nobara meets Fushiguro and Itadori for the first time. She makes Itadori carry her things. When she looks at them, we get a glimpse of how she sees the boys and it is extremely unflattering. She basically sees them as unserious buffoons. And I mean, she's not completely wrong about one of them, but Itadori is lovable too.
Satoru Gojo is pure chaos and he continues to prove it in this episode. She ramps up Itadori and Nobara, making it seem like he's going to take them on a tour of Tokyo since they are both from the country. Instead, he takes them to a building that houses a curse. He has decided to test Yuji again and Nobara for the firs time. He sends them to exorcize the curse. He gives Yuji a cursed weapon, the Slaughter Demon. A cursed weapon is imbued with cursed energy. He tells Yuji to not let Sukuna out this time. After the two are gone, Fushiguro wants to join them but Gojo holds him back. The strength of curses is based on the population of the place they manifest so higher population centers have stronger curses. Since, Itadori and Nobara are from the country, Gojo wants to see how powerful they really are and if Nobara is crazy enough to be a jujutsu sorcerer.
"Jujutsu Kaisen" is establishing itself right away as having some freaking visually stunning action sequences. Gojo already knows that Itadori is crazy enough to fight curses and he proves that again here. Once he and Nobara enter the building, they split up and Itadori immediately uses Slaughter Demon to start hacking up a curse. Nobara takes out a mannequin curse pretty easy with her hammer and cursed nails but there is a bigger curse that shows up and kidnaps a child. It's great to see the analytical and caring side of Nobara. She's not willing to sacrifice this child for this curse and she knows the curse won't hold up it's end of the bargain. But Itadori crashes through the wall to help out and Nobara uses her straw doll resonance technique. Needless to say, Gojo is very excited to find out that Nobara is crazy too.
We get a bit of Nobara's backstory. She mentions that a woman named Saori moved to her village from Tokyo and Nobara became close with her. Saori was driven out of their village by closed minded people to the point where they defaced her car and house with graffiti which is absolutely wild. It was at that moment that she decided that she was going to live her country life for life in the big city. And she sees being a jujutsu sorcerer as the way to make that happen.
The episode ends with one of my favorite gimmicks which is when they describe a cursed scenario like "Law & Order" style. Within the month, a cursed womb appears over a juvenile detention center and three Jujutsu High students are called in with one dying in the attempt.
A lot of the first season episodes of "Jujutsu Kaisen" end with a Juju Stroll. A (usually) cute little cartoon. This episode features them figuring out dinner and you can watch it below.
Grade: A-
"Curse Womb Must Die"
Yuji Itadori: "Fushiguro, Kugisaki. We will save them."
Megumi Fushiguro: "Mmmm."
Nobara Kugisaki: "Of course."
Manga Chapters: 6, 7 & 8 (pg. 2-16)
Arc: Fearsome Womb
Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushiguro and Nobara Kugisaki are dispatched to a juvenile detention center when a cursed womb is spotted and seemingly takes the inmates hostage. Assistant manager of Jujutsu High, Kiyotaka Ijichi, tells the first year they are only supposed to scout for survivors and get any they find to safety as the curse womb has the potential to give birth to a special grade curse. He advises them that if they encounter the special grade they have two choices: run or die.
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| Your face. |
One of the things I love the most about "Jujutsu Kaisen" is that it is really able to juggle a lot of different tones and it never feels like they are fighting against each other. "Jujutsu Kaisen" has been pretty light up to this point, but things take a turn in this episode.
We are introduced to assistant manager, Kiyotaka Ijichi, in this episode. Ijichi doesn't have an innate technique but is able to conjure some shikigami and can cast barrier techniques. He is somewhat mild mannered and hesitant, particularly where Gojo is concerned. While Ijichi is briefing the first years about what to expect inside the detention center. He mentions the curse inside has the potential to reach special grade. Yuji is still confused about the ranking of curses and seeing how this is the fourth episode of the show, viewers might be confused about that as well. How convenient. Ijichi is annoyed but breaks it down for Itadori (and for us.) The higher the number the lower power the curse. Weaker grade cursed spirits can be taken out by normal household implements. A special grade cursed spirit is the strongest there is and would need to be exorcized by a special grade jujutsu sorcerer. None of these first years are that so Ijichi tells them to evaluate the scenario, see if there are any survivors of the five detainees that are not accounted for and get out immediately if they see a special grade. I think we all know where this is going.
If there is one thing about Yuji Itadori, he is going to save people if he can. This is driven home when he hears the mother of one of the missing detainees pleading to know what happened to her son. They eventually find his deformed body inside and Yuji being Yuji wants to take the body back to the mother even as Fushiguro explains to him how ridiculous that would be and tells Yuji the things that this detainee did that are pretty awful. Fushiguro wants to save people if he can but he understands and accepts that you can't save everyone and maybe some people aren't worth saving at the expense of others or themselves.
This episode has a very horror movie feel to it and you just know from the moment that they three first years step inside this detention center that things are going to go very, very wrong and they do almost immediately. The door to the detention center disappears but Fushiguro conjures a demon dog and advises his colleagues that it will remain aware of where the door is so they can leave. One of the few moments of levity of this episode is Nobara and Yuji fawning over the dog when they learn of this.
Things go from bad to pretty fucking terrible really quickly. An innate domain is deployed. Nobara falls through the floor. Fushiguro's demon dog is killed. The curse appears and it is indeed a special grade. Itadori does what he does and tries to attack with his brute strength and loses a hand. He convinces Fushiguro to go rescue Nobara which Fushiguro does very reluctantly employing Nue and Toad to rescue Nobara who holds her own against the multitude of face curses that attack her. When Fushiguro finds her, she is getting ready to be eaten by the curse but she is still blustering as if she isn't the one in peril. Fushiguro takes Nobara to Ijichi but stays behind to wait for Yuji.
Oy. Yuji. This series puts this kid through the ringer from very beginning and it is a lot. Itadori tries to fight but ends up losing his fingertips. He tries to get Sukuna to appear but the king of curses is not being cooperative. Yuji agonizes about not wanting to die, whether or not this would be a good death. It hurts my heart to watch. Just when things are looking grim, Sukuna takes over. I like that the show is giving viewers a good look at what Sukuna is all about this early. He is completely different from Itadori and it is extremely jarring to see this vessel of pure evil wearing the skin of our good natured himbo protagonist. Sukuna easily dispatches the special grade, torturing him at the same time that he congratulates it for being a special grade. Sukuna uses his Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine to slice the special grade into four pieces. He realizes that this special grade contained one of his missing fingers, hence it's power. Once that is done, he expects Yuji to retain control, but he does not, which pleases Sukuna greatly.
The Juju Stroll for this episode is a light hearted palate cleanser, flashing back to before they entered the detention center. At first they are making fun of Ijichi for bowing when he's talking on his phone, and leads them all to demonstrate that they can hold their cell phones between their head and shoulders leading to disastrous results for Nobara.
Grade: A
Next up, Fushiguro confronts Sukuna and the first years start prepping for a Goodwill Event with the Kyoto School.
What do you all think? Do you love Nobara? Did shit getting real take you by surprise? Let me know in the comments.
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