This week’s dub episode of Jujutsu Kaisen was the most stereotypically Jujutsu Kaisen episode to ever Jujutsu Kaisen. We’ve got a flashy fight scene that constantly gets interrupted by the narrator spewing maggibabble. The combatants use their magic to make random stuff happen in a surreal, incomprehensible fight. Blood spews everywhere in a display of gratuitous edgy violence. This episode was both entertaining and frustrating as it indulged in this series’ hallmark quirks. So without further ado, let’s recap this episode and how this episode exemplifies the Jujutsu Kaisen viewing experience.
The episode continues the fight between Reggie Star and Megumi. Reggie uses a magic forcefield and Megumi is able to easily penetrate it and pound the crud out of Reggie in a display of flashy action animation. The narrator explains the magibabble of why Megumi is able to penetrate the impenetrable forcefield, but the busy visuals easily distract from the complicated explanation the narrator gives. Reggie counters by using gravity magic to keep Megumi down. The flashy martial arts have to stop dead in the water for the narrator to spew the maggibabble while both characters are held in place by gravity magic. The narrator explains that too many G’s kill people, like that wasn’t immediately obvious. Megumi decides to summon an elephant to crush Reggie and it seems that using gravity magic that hurts both opponents was a not so smart idea.
Somehow, this fight ends up with our combatants by a swimming pool and Reggie gets his magic receipts wet, making his magic useless. They continue fighting hand to hand and Megumi strikes the killing blow and blood squirts out of Reggie. We see the blood squirt out while Megumi does his manly pose as we are reminded that Megumi is the cool antihero friend who kills and he’s cool because he kills people. Reggie decides to give Megumi points and Reggie points out that he doesn’t really know Kenjaku that well.
Takaba continues his fight against Reggie’s minions until the creature thingies that narrate the rules of the Culling Game explain that Reggie is out of the game because he’s dead. Reggie’s minions decide to call it quits. Takaba tells the villains to take a bath and brush their teeth. He also begs them to give him their points. The narrator points out that Takaba’s superpower is allowing whatever he thinks is funny to come true.
Remi runs in abject terror of Megumi after luring him into Reggie’s clutches. Megumi does an edgy pose, but proves he isn’t edgy enough to kill women, so he spares her. Meanwhile, the narrator explains that there are many other weird and wacky combatants competing in the Culling Game. It turns out that a lot of these characters are just fodder for Yuta to kill. It appears that Yuta is also the edgy friend who kills. We end our episode with the tease of next week’s season finale will possibly feature Yuta returning back to the spotlight after him being out of focus for a great deal of this season.
As I said before, this week’s Jujutsu Kaisen was the most stereotypical episode of the series. There is a great debate between if Jujutsu Kaisen or Demon Slayer does action the best and I think this episode shows a major weakness that Jujutsu Kaisen has. Demon Slayer provides wall to wall action with simple to understand superpowers while Jujutsu Kaisen has superpowers that are made overly complicated while a narrator stops the fight to intricately explain how the superpowers work. This episode could have ditched the narration just let the visuals show that Reggie is using gravity magic.
I know that there are staunch defenders of Jujutsu Kaisen‘s overuse of overcomplicated powers, but I personally think the maggibabble is the albatross bringing the show down. Also, I think I prefer the lighter, less edgy main cast of Demon Slayer. Yes, I’ll do a hot take and say that I think I prefer Zenitsu as a character. to Megumi Yes, I know that my preference of Demon Slayer over Jujutsu Kaisen is going to land me in hot water with fans of the latter, but I’ve enjoyed the high points of this season like the Higuruma fight. Anyway, I’m hoping the finale doesn’t have too much maggibabble or heroes engaging in gratuitous bloodshed to look “edgy” and “cool.”
