Jan 30, 2024
This is the first time I've ever felt so strongly compelled to write a review. I watched the first season, and though I didn't quite get all the hype, I was decently entertained enough to continue with the series to see if I would eventually get it. I didn't think much of the movie. And while I felt this season had a strong start, by the end I found myself only watching the show out of spite and the sunk-cost fallacy.
(Spoilers ahead)
This show is a contradiction. Fans of it will tell you that it's a "turn off your brain and don't think too hard about
...
it" kind of show, that "not all characters have to be deep and complex" and "not all plots have to be groundbreaking and new". All of this is absolutely true about this show, and yet at the same time it feels like the show is trying to do the exact opposite of that.
"Turn off your brain and don't think too hard about it", how am I supposed to do that when every fight scene is littered with long winded explanations of every single mechanic of cursed technique? It literally feels like every single time before a character throws a punch there's a 30 second narration of some old lady explaining the mechanics of how said punch is gonna work. Not only does this ruin the momentum and enjoyment of the fight scenes, which are supposedly the main appeal of the show, but it also makes what is just supposed to be fun mindless entertainment feel like a quantum physics explanation. How am I supposed to "turn off my brain" when it feels like I have to rewind every ten seconds to understand the mechanics of what's going on. Fans will say that you should just ignore it and enjoy the fights, but if that's the case, why do they exist in the first place? I swear if you took all the monologues explaining how cursed techniques work and compiled them together, it would probably be near three hours long.
"Not all characters have to be deep and complex", this is fine. It works well in gag comedy shows where every character has the one personality trait that they make jokes from. It even works well in shows like this, which is supposedly not meant to be deep. I mean Yuji isn't exactly astonishingly interesting, his defining motivation is that he doesn't want to see people die. Wow, what a good guy. My main issue with this point is if the characters are meant to be shallow and not change much, how am I supposed to feel anything when something drastic happens to them? I genuinely felt nothing when Kugisaki died, nor when Nanami did, because because other than them doing cool things on screen, there's no reason for me to feel emotionally attached to them.
"Not all plots have to be groundbreaking and new", yeah okay, but they should at least exist and make sense. The first season, having the role of establishing the world, had enough plot and world-building to keep me interested. And the start of this season, with the flashback arc, had an interesting plot showing how Geto turned evil, and explaining more of Gojo's backstory. However, as soon as the Shibuya Incident arc kicks in, any resemblance of there being a plot disappears. The plot for half the season is literally just, "these two people ran into each other and now they're gonna fight for two episodes". If you like cool well-animated fight scenes (though as mentioned earlier, the constant technique explanations even ruin these for me) with little to no plot occurring, then I guess you'll like it, not judging your tastes. But as much as I think fight scenes are cool, I do tend to zone out when I watch them. Like it's hard for me to stay focused on the show when all that happens is people fighting each other with little plot relevance. My mind just wanders and I can't pay attention, and that's what literally more than half of this season is. Not only is there little plot relevance, but some of the fights make no sense. The scene that pissed me off the most is when Jogo finds two of Geto's disciples feeding Yuji one of Sukuna's fingers. First of all, after he eats the finger, Sukuna's markings fade. Why? Wouldn't that make Sukuna's presence stronger? Second of all, why is Jogo pissed? Isn't his goal to resurrect Sukuna? After this Jogo feeds more fingers and Sukuna wakes up. Jogo says "I don't want anything from you, my only goal is to resurrect you and kill all humans" and Sukuna is like "Well screw you, my goal is to be resurrected and kill all humans" and they start fighting. What the hell? They literally have the same goals, why are they fighting? I could understand Sukuna just being an asshole, but why does Jogo initiate it and go along with it? I don't care how fancy the fight looks, if the reason for it happening makes zero sense then I can't enjoy it.
What frustrated me most is that at the beginning of this season, I felt like I was getting the hype. That first arc was amazing and I was genuinely excited to see where the show would go. It had its moments, like Gojo's train tracks fight. The stronger moments in this season are what prevent me from giving this season too low of a rating. But overall, by the second half of this season I just couldn't bring myself to care at all about what amounts to four hours of never ending fight scenes with no plot development in between. If that's your thing, then I'm not gonna say you shouldn't enjoy it. But if you at all care about plot or character development then I wouldn't recommend this.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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