Jujutsu Kaisen Shibuya arc- Worker Abuse and Shonen BS.

Written by Rei Caldombra 12/29/2023

There will be direct story spoilers from this arc. This post is also more negative and heated than I usually post. 

JJK’s Shibuya arc is individual moments of awesome surrounded by tons of stuff I think is disappointing or frustrating. It's decent content as a whole but I wouldn't call it great for me. If this didn’t have very good animation for the most part, I would think it's even worse. And sadly, even that positive has been brought down by this anime being a product of horrible working conditions.

Everyone can have their own opinion about if the product should be judged based on the people behind it, and what constitutes abuse, and if they even care what goes on behind the scenes. but for me it matters. I care about how the product came about and what happens behind the scenes. I care that animators are being worked to the point of mental breakdowns and suicidal thoughts. I don’t care how good the product is, horribly exploiting your workers is not ok. For just a second forget about consuming products and have some sympathy for other human beings. There is no product easier to skip out on than a single anime, and skipping out on a studio as a whole isn’t that much harder. The peak of privilege is trying to act like it'll hurt you to skip out on a singular anime when there are 50+ that air every season and plenty of other forms of entertainment. If this idea offends you, please grow up. Stick to the manga and watch other shows where the abuse isn’t as rampant and tangible. Japanese animation studios as a whole need to be better, but this is clearly a step above the rest. I’m thankful many workers at Mappa had the bravery to talk about their situation. Workers publicly airing their grievances is much less common in Japan than in many other parts of the world. I'm sure it was difficult. 

I wish we could see the world line where the animators were happy while working on this and had the time and energy to make it even better than what we got, like many of them desired to. I wish I could have continued watching this season without my enjoyment being tainted by what's going on behind the scenes. That world could exist. But Mappa has poor production schedules and abusive practices instead. 

This is the most important thing I wanted to talk about. Below I do have some more thoughts just about the content itself. Even if the production issues weren’t a thing, I still wouldn’t be loving this arc.

Let's bring up something positive. Nanami’s death scene was fantastic, as was his beatdown of Haruta (Gotta mention how hilarious the reactions to that episode were across social media). Everything with Nanami this arc is great. Beautiful and fitting send off to the character. I wouldn't change anything.

But overall, I can’t say it lives up to the hype people set up, just focusing on the content. Lots of death baiting and attempts at shock value. It spends the first half or so having characters not die from things they really seem like they should have. I went into it expecting serious stakes and tension. That gets damaged by stuff like Ijichi surviving getting stabbed multiple times, having his head slam into metal, then being left to bleed. Then later they decide they’ll go and kill a bunch of characters. To me this is very poorly distributed. How powerful characters are also can feel inconsistent and convenient. We see how ridiculously strong Jogo is in his fight against Sukuna. But if he’s that strong then it’s hard to understand how torching severely damaged and fatigued Maki and Nanami point blank did not manage to kill either of them. I don’t buy it. It doesn't feel consistent. Yes, they have cursed energy and are decently strong but with everything they just went through I don’t buy that Jogo held back so much for no good reason that they survived his direct attack. We saw in the first season that he can burn a normal person to death in seconds. It just feels inconsistent and convenient. Who can survive what and how strong people are feels like it changes to fit whatever they want to happen. In a series that has in universe power scaling and puts importance on people getting stronger, I want their power to be consistent and feel earned. Yuji suddenly being able to do black flashes back-to-back doesn’t feel earned to me. It feels like it kinda just happened because Yuji needed something new for the next stage of the fight to not immediately lose to awakened Mahito. Characters droning on and on during fights, usually saying what's very clearly happening on screen, etc. It's doing the stereotypical Shonen stuff I don't like.

The removal of Gojo did add tension and I think overall was a good idea for the story. But knowing now that he continues to be sealed even after this arch’s conclusion is a letdown. Simply because he is a fun and interesting character. Not only did we lose my favorite character in Nanami, but we largely lost Gojo too. The loss of his presence is strongly felt. Nanami and Gojo together also had a good dynamic, both in terms of how they bounced off each other and how they educated Yuji and the others differently as adult figures. This dynamic being permanently lost is also a letdown. I can understand moving on from that, but I will miss it, even if it’s potential was used up. I do not think Nanami’s loss is truly negative, as he was a great character while he was here, left his mark, and went out in a satisfying way. But with Gojo being sidelined does feel like a loss for the overall vibe of the show. 

Speaking of losses, we lost Nobara? And while her fight was cool and satisfying, I think she went out in a pretty unsatisfying way. It’s pretty wild that they did all the dramatic stuff to make you think she actually is dead, just to say there’s a slight chance she isn’t, then end the season without confirming either. Maki doesn’t even get mentioned again after they said she got healed, I think. I like her as a character and think she had more potential in the story. I think it was a waste to probably kill her off, especially after they already 100% killed one beloved central character in Nanami. I just don’t see myself enjoying the story when its very endearing main trio has been broken. A big part of the comedy and calmer moments being great was the banter between those three. I value the fun side of JJK and losing Nobara is a huge blow to that. And I cannot see a way of that being recovered unless they bring her back and succeed at the challenge of making that satisfying. 

Outside of the fun character moments my favorite this about JJK is the fights. Cool powers, dynamic environments etc. We got plenty of fight scenes this arc, with most of them being very good. Standout being Yuji vs Choso and everything Todo was involved in. Everything Todo related is awesome. His power is used in very interesting ways, and he brings fun energy even to serious situations. But there are mediocre fights too. Dagon is nothing. Bland bog-standard villain that has no value. He is uninteresting, his power is uninteresting, the fight is uninteresting, the animation took a notable dip in quality, and he carries little weight. He got the old guy we just got introduced to killed i guess but that's really it. He maimed Maki and Nanami but that directly did not really impact things since they get maimed again immediately after by Jogo. This is the trademark forgettable Shonen villain for me. The fact that his fight is one of the ones we see the animation suffer in more probably means they thought little of it too. As they were ok with it looking worse off than others. Let's continue the topic of villains.

I grew very tired of Mahito as a villain and am glad he’s finally gone. He just never did it for me. I get what he is about thematically, I’m not trying to act like he is a zero-substance character. I just didn’t enjoy him. I think his sneering villain shtick got old and grating really fast. He also did a lot of talking. He does have some great fun energy he brings to his often very serious scenes. But I think there was too much of him for me. The Japanese voice acting is fantastic though, he made the character much more tolerable.

It’s a shame that Geto (the person), the villain I was most interested in, got axed very quickly. And replaced by a guy who I really don't care for much. While Mahito, the one I didn’t care for as much, got to stick around for much longer. I’m sure that’s fine for people who feel differently, but not for me. I’m glad Geto’s power still lives on, but I was very invested in who he was as a character. Especially after the prequel eps. Another creative decision that I really don’t care for. And on that topic, Toji’s return was super disappointing in execution. He spent most of his screen time being a mindless murderbot. It just wasn’t interesting at all. Some more quick villain opinions- Haruta also kinda annoying and repetitive like Mahito but at least he wasn't here as long and Choso is a great character with awesome powers.

I continue to not feel super invested in the story itself. It’s not awful but I’m not as into it as I’d like to be. It’s harder to go into detail on this because it might be as simple as just not vibing with me. I think it’s just my taste. I’m not trying to say I have better taste than JJK doesn't appeal to. I talk to friends and see people online who clearly feel the story and emotions much more than I do. If you do, great! It’s just not working great for me. 

Last short thought. I feel like the last episode ended on a weird note. Like it rushed that final confrontation to conclude with us not even seeing what happened. We just know Yuji got out of it, rest isn't worth showing now, I guess? Strange and not a big fan. Maybe some repetitive dialogue could've been shaved down so you had a few more minutes.

Sorry for a very negative post but this is how I feel. I hope I don’t sound too tonally angry; I promise steam wasn’t coming out of my ears while I wrote this lol. Please believe me when I say that my criticisms of the content are not just from me being mad about the workplace environment. Many of these criticisms I felt back when I first started watching the show and came right after the peak of my investment in the show (the prequel arc). But worker abuse matters to me and does translate to how I feel about the product. Just in terms of story content, there’s so much this arc I don’t care for. It's not utter garbage, but for each thing I applaud there's at least one thing I boo. Hopefully you enjoyed it more than me. This arc did not live up to the hype fans and the previous arc set for it. 

Am I going to watch the next season of JJK? Definitely not if Mappa doesn’t change for the better. If they do change, maybe. Solely speaking on the content JJK lost a lot of the interest and optimism the prequel arc gave me. And while I'm not spoiled on specifics, I’m hearing that stuff coming later isn’t great. We'll see what the future holds, with it hopefully being more positive. If you want a sequel arc of a popular shonen show that is very good, of consistent quality and is impactful on the rest of the series with no evidence of abuse that I am aware of please watch Dr Stone New World. Thank you for reading.

My Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ReiCaldombra/posts

Previous JJK part where I am much more positive: https://www.blogunderalog.com/blog-collection/blog-post-title-four-r9lde?rq=jujutsu