English Dub Review: Jujutsu Kaisen “Passion”
OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
Yuji and Megumi infiltrate a Jujutsu Fight Club run by Kinji Hakari, a suspended former student of Jujutsu High, in order to recruit him for the Culling Game.
OUR TAKE
After last week’s literal massacre of the Zenin Clan at the hands of Maki, it’s probably time for things to slow down just a bit, as we pull focus back to Yuji and Megumi and their own side quest to recruit Kinju Hakari. This will be a little harder than first thought, as he is running a fight club for Jujutsu Sorcerers. Oddly enough, those sorcerers aren’t allowed to use cursed techniques, since while fighters can use them, the audience can’t see them. You might think that would make it difficult to make the fights all that entertaining or different…unless you have a talking, fighting panda as your big event. Yep, we finally get the reintroduction of Panda, who has apparently been working here for a bit. He wasn’t in a ton of the Shibuya arc, so it’s nice to see him getting some focus, though unfortunately it’s more of the tragic kind. His creator, Masamichi, was lured out and killed by Gakuganji for not revealing the secrets to making autonomous Cursed Corpses, though oddly enough shares the info as he lays dying, as sort of a “curse” itself, so we’ll see how the higher ups end up using this knowledge in the future.
Meanwhile with Yuji, his instantly recognizable fighting talent gets him an audience with Hakari right away, though their meeting turns heated when there’s a tip off about something fishy from Hakari’s partner, Kirara Hoshi. Kirara is not only notable for being a transgender character, but in the case of the English Dub, also notable for their voice actor Kayleigh McKee, who not only voices them, but also Yuta and the recently deceased Jinichi Zenin. And if you’ve heard all those characters’ voices (which you would have as they’ve all been in recent episodes), you’ll notice they all sound quite different from one another (and look even more different from each other), which is a clear highlight of McKee’s range as a voice actor. A shame we’ll probably never get them all in the same scene together, but it’s at least nice to see more great talent continuing to emerge from this industry, so I felt like giving McKee her flowers for this achievement. Anyway, more of this plot next week as we reach the halfway point of this part of the arc! Hopefully we leave off on a compelling spot before the break but I guess there’s no promises there.
