English Dub Review: Jujutsu Kaisen “Tokyo Colony No. 1 – Part 3”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Yuji faces Higaruma’s Domain Expansion: Deadly Sentencing and is forced to answer for some of his transgressions, as well as Sukuna’s.

OUR TAKE

The trial of The People v. Yuji Itadori has concluded and the jury have reached a verdict: Not Guilty by order of Shonen Protagonist! Okay, that’s not quite right, but the fight against Higuruma is over and it actually feels pretty similar to how his fight against Hakari went, though more interesting to watch and with the sole focus on this instead of cutting to a fight with Megumi (who we’ll see again next week). Just like with that fight, Yuji essentially just stands on his beliefs and his opponent eventually realizes he’s genuine and relents, agreeing to do the thing he came there to do. In this case though, Higuruma sees Yuji’s character through his ability, which points out something illegal (I assume under modern Japanese law) the target has done, gives them a chance to contradict the accusation or lie convincingly enough, and then gives them a probably fitting sentence. First, Judgeman brings up Yuji entering a Pachinko parlor while underage, which Yuji attempts to lie and say he only went in to use the bathroom, but when the provided evidence contradicts this, Yuji is sapped of his cursed energy for the fight.

That is, until he calls for a retrial, so the next charge is the numerous deaths at Sukuna’s hands in Shibuya. Yuji, feeling guilty and responsible for this, immediately pleads guilty, which gives Higuruma the means to kill him, but once Higuruma learns through Judgeman that Sukuna forcibly took over Yuji’s body, he stands down, acknowledging that Yuji is at least a good person, and agrees to Yuji’s idea of using the points he has accumulated to add a rule to the Culling Game about transferring points, though it seems he’ll be staying out of the fight after that. Which is a shame, since Higuruma is such an interesting and fresh feeling character to this cast and has a pretty interesting power that I would love to see used more, but it might also end up being a bit OP. Still, I hope we see him again at some point before the show is over. And with that, we only have three episodes left in this section of the season before the break, and we’re getting more Megumi, which is nice. Hopefully they can close this section out on a good note that leaves us wanting more! Now if you’ll excuse me, I feel the need to contact my lawyer.