English Dub Review: Jujutsu Kaisen – Execution

Jujutsu Kaisen finally breaks the silence of over two years since the second season ended with some new content to share! Yes, half of it is a recap, but the other half is new stuff! It’s basically one of those compilation films that is half recap and half new material, much like what Demon Slayer did to hype up its new season, showing the last two episodes of the old one before showing the double length first one. In my case, I haven’t seen the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen in quite some time, and never even watched the last two episodes, so I was a little bummed I wouldn’t get to just see those on the big screen and instead got a truncated recap of everything in the season…minus the Hidden Inventory Arc that they recut into a movie for some reason. Still, both that and the second season are gorgeous in terms of animation, so seeing it on a gigantic movie screen really only enhances the experience, especially for the visual highlights of the season that were the fights involving Sakuna and Mahito. It’s only somewhat dampened by the fact that we know full well that the studio was overworking the animators to the point of mental breakdowns as the season was originally coming out, but uh…hopefully they have made sure that doesn’t happen in the future?

But enough about the recap, we’re here for the two new episodes of material that kick off the third season and the Culling Game Arc, as the fallout of the Shibuya Incident has massive ramifications for everyone. For one, Gojo’s capture and Fake Geto’s identification lead the higher ups to think that they are in cahoots and now Yuji Itadori’s execution is back on the table, leading them to call in the protagonist of the JJK 0 movie, Yuta Okkotsu, to take him down. This is kinda like those later seasons of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure where the old protagonist becomes the mentor to the new one, except for the fact that Yuta was only ever made for a short manga that unexpectedly blew up in popularity, leading to the creation of Yuji for the full series. With Yuta’s help, and Megumi’s reappearance, Yuji is caught up on the new Culling Game instigated by the fake Geto to force sorcerers and cursed spirits into battle. The rules go by super quick in the movie itself but the manga has been around for a few years now so it’s easy to find them, still sucks for people watching this for the first time here. After that, and fighting off the new head of the Zennin clan with the help of Chozo, who helps Yuji realize things about his past, the team head off to talk to Tengen for help, which is where we leave things until January. Go see this if you’re a fan and if you don’t have the cash, see you in January for the full review of the episodes! A great start to a new season but really only a sufficient experience for super fans.