Džudžucu kaisen

[Watched 2 episodes, first impressions] As the season didn't exactly get off to a dazzling start, I was already worried that I wouldn't find anything truly entertaining. I was wrong. Jujutsu is an incredibly styled hunt for a pretty damn disgusting demon spawn spiced up with a dose of action and grins. Sometimes you just have to laugh of death and deal with cloven hooves with sarcastic vigor. The understated artwork sat well, the characters are classy and I have a lot to look forward to. 3 stars (12/10/2020)

The year before, Japanese audiences lapped up the epic Demon Slayer, and this year they were won over by ghostbusters for a change. I can understand their popularity. This is a shonen, but compared to the canon, it is older, darker, gorier, and the heroes are more advanced. The monsters do not behave completely out of character, it can surprise, it can entertain, it can be pleasantly civil thanks to the (semi) realistic environment, and most importantly practically without the pathos and self-righteous moralizing that are usually characteristic of shonen animes. All this, together with interesting drawings and quality animation, looks really stylishly done. However, that is not enough for me. Although it is very nice to look at, after a while I started to feel more and more with each new episode that the story lacked consistency or any indication of plot development which was directionless. Although the 24 episodes are now behind me, I basically still do not know what the hell was going on, what it was really about, the muddled motivations of the villains, and why I should watch a sequel. Because of the fight scenes? Although there are a lot of them, they are well animated, and initially can surprise you with the result, in most cases their course is monotonous, they lack any real ideas, neither side tries to surprise their opponent with some clever tactics, and only nondescript bloody battles result from that, fizzles out or is resolved with a simple power-up. Which is a real shame. I give it a weak 3 stars with the fact that I will give the second season a chance, but I am not expecting too much. // Edit: So it appears that I was foolishly looking for something more sophisticated but actually the villains are simply aiming for world domination, just like about one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six villains from other shonen anime before them. Thanks a lot, guys… (26/03/2021)