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Nov 14, 2024
Jujutsu Kaisen was such a rollercoaster for me. To be honest, I don't really get how something which is so poorly written and with such minimal character development could hook me this hard, but here we are.
Although this is mostly a negative review, I actually love this series, it hooked me like no other, really. This is a spoiler free review.
For the good:
JJK actually has a really cool power system. Like I really fw the whole cursed energy thing, but it becomes way too abstract later. Once he starts having to thoroughly explain each sorcerer's power in great deal he kind of lost me. Domain
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expansions are a super cool idea which demonstrate really well the sorcerer's personality and their own emotions. I think it's just unfortunate that it was someone like gege who wrote it because man, he could have done so much more with it than he did.
Man the characters in this manga are just so cool. I love pretty much all of the main cast, and there are some crazy cool side characters. I especially love Hakari and Maki. Just some bad ass mother fuckers. I probably don't need to go into this too much, but yeah, the characters are really interesting for the most part.
The Hidden Inventory arc is a masterfully written tragedy of epic proportions and I just can't in good conscience give the series anything lower than a 6 because of that. I actually have no idea how Gege wrote such a masterful arc while spouting such dogshit for the rest of the series. It was the only arc where it felt like Gege had a structured plotline where he knew how it would end. It really says a lot about the human condition. Geto is obviously, the epitome of evil. But he isn't inherently such. It was his experiences and trauma which pushed him to that limit. Humans are not born inherently good or bad, it's our conditions which dictate our character.
For the bad:
I mean pretty much everything else, to be honest. There are many things which I can find merit in, but nothing which I would consider to be as outstanding as Hidden Inventory.
Many people praise the Shibuya Incident arc, and while yes, there are many good moments, (Sukuna vs. Mahoraga, Sukuna vs. Jogo, Yuji and Todo vs. Mahito, Toji's return, to name a few), there are also so many detriments to it. I don't really get what the end of the arc was supposed to be, nor did it feel like anything that was set up really mattered in the end. Without getting into spoilers, Gojo's circumstances didn't really matter in the end, and pretty much wasted his character. The nature of Kenjaku's power similarly goes unexplained despite being challenged in many cases. My biggest problem was just with how nothing that happened seemed to matter in the grand scheme of things; it just didn't develop into anything meaningful.
And don't even get me started on the Shonen play by play thing that started in this arc, it pretty much ruined it for me.
As I mentioned, JJK has some really cool characters. I love their personalities and quirks that come with their respective uses of cursed energy. But we just don't get to see the characters really interact with each other past the Hidden Inventory arc. Which ends in chapter 79, mind you. The manga is 271 chapters long. So for almost 200 chapters, we got little to no character interactions or development until the end of the series. For how many characters Gege introduced, I was only really happy with the conclusions of like, 3 of them. We are told that certain characters have relationships with each other, but like, did we even see Hakari and Gojo talk once? Did we get to see the bonding of Nobara, Yuji, and Megumi with each other and Gojo? Did YutaMaki develop past an abusive situationship (Yes I'm salty)? Who is Uraume? Who is Sukuna? Who is Kenjaku? I could go on, but you get the point. I just don't know who any of these people are and why I should care about them. I could easily see JJK being at least 500 chapters with how much he introduced. It just sucks that we'll never see it developed into the manga it should have been.
There are just so many loose ends that were never tied up, it honestly frustrates me. I saw so much promise after the Hidden Inventory arc. I was promised a critical insight into what makes a person who they are, how it plays into determining their role, and the uncertainty which defines it all. I saw so much good in that premise, but sadly, it was wasted. The fact that we'll never see JJK as the manga it should have been might be a greater tragedy than the Hidden Inventory arc, but I digress. Does that make me sound smart?
But yeah. Even though this was a mostly negative review, I still have plenty of positive things I can say about this series. Hidden Inventory is amazing and I can't rate it any lower because of that. That arc alone makes the manga worth reading. It really did hook me like no other. It's just disappointing that the series as a whole ended like it did. It's like seeing your best friend getting addicted to drugs or something. Yeah. That's a good analogy.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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May 15, 2022
I fucking hate Railgun. But not because it is “bad” in the traditional sense. I hate Railgun because it took over my life for a very long time. It was all I could think about. Every day I would go to sleep, having done nothing that day in any way related to the series. Yet, when I lay in my bed, ever hopeful that I would receive a long night’s rest, I found myself drowning in my raildex head-canons, storylines, the vast expanse of the city.
I’ve read stories with more profound themes, more interesting characters, better storylines, and even better waifus, but none, apart from
...
maybe Made in Abyss, have had a more intriguing world-building and power system.
Much like Made in Abyss, Academy City is as much of a character as any of the protagonists. It is both their best friend and their worst enemy. During the day, Academy City is a bustling utopia, with scientific development miles ahead of the world. Its inhabitants make for a charming background, and lead to many dainty encounters between characters. But at night, the empty streets and cold, blue lighting make for a bleak, deprived stage for the series’ many fights. The series uses the nighttime environment of the city to its advantage, setting many of the numerous fights at night. It often feels like the city itself is rooting against the several protagonists of the series.
(By the way, this review will mention many elements of A Certain Magical Index, as many of its plot points are integral to my review)
Since this review is about the Railgun Manga, I’ll mostly be focusing on Misaka and her friends, but I’ll also include segments about the Index protagonists.
Minor spoiler warning from here on out.
As for the protagonists, Misaka is obviously the best one. While she doesn’t receive as much development as some of the Index counterparts, the development she gets is as meaningful as Touma’s or Accelerator’s. Misaka is a strong character with tight morals, which she sticks to throughout her character arc, which mostly revolves around atoning for her past mistakes, and her coming to understand her role in the eyes of her sisters. As one of the city’s strongest, she understandably relies too much on herself, and throughout the course of several important arcs, (sort of) comes to realize her flaws and values less her strength, but values more her charisma.
Which leads me to the series' biggest flaw: arcs often contradict each other, and completely undoes the previous one’s development.
For example, in the Sisters Arc, which I would consider to be the series peak as a whole and as one of the best arcs of all time, Misaka, after previously resisting it, accepts Touma’s help in an extremely powerful scene. She abandons her belief that people should solve their own problems and lets Touma help her.
Yet, in the following arcs, while we see flashes of the person we saw at the end of the sisters’ arc, Misaka still refuses to let her friends into her life, and help her with her problems.
In the doppelganger arc, Misaka once again refuses the help of Kuroko when she leaves her dorm again without telling Kuroko why. I thought the height of the Sisters Arc was Misaka accepting that she can’t just fight all by herself? While yes, Shokuhou gains a more prominent role to remedy this, what is the point of the other three leads existing if this was not the lesson Misaka learns in the Sisters Arc?
I remember finding their role to be especially minimized after the Daihasei Festival Arc. (Which was also really great) After facing potentially the destruction of the entire city, Misaka’s life temporarily returns to normal. This is an arc which introduces amazing characters such as Sogiita and Shokuhou, reminds us why Touma is the best side character in the series, and gives yet another reason for Misaka to be more trusting. Her selfishness was arguably what led to things getting that bad in the first place.
Imagine my disbelief when the following arc, focused on Judgment, ends with Kuroko saving a dog from a fire. Yes. A dog from a fire. This is the kind of the shit you see in shitty cliche American cartoons. Yeah, yeah. You have to develop the other leads at some point, and I respect the author for doing that, but why now? We just saw the emotional and climatic potential the series has to offer, so why now? Being forced to put this arc here is the fault of the author for not doing it earlier in the series, and these ten or so chapters are far too long to waste for such a boring conclusion.
Railgun has possibly the highest peaks of any series. I’d put them up there with the likes of One Piece and Berserk. But where those series have extremely high peaks just like Railgun, the rest of their arcs, while not peak per se, are solid, entertaining action. But Railgun has arcs which I would straight-up consider to be bad.
Along with the previously mentioned dog rescue arc, the most recent flashback arc is just painful to sit through. I would consider Index’s largest flaw to be its egregious amount of fan service. While this is bad in every way possible (there are only so many times you can find a dude walking in on girls changing to be “funny”), the Kamachi at least knows his audience: teenage boys.
While writing Railgun, it’s like he forgot his audience all together. Railgun had effectively turned into a middle school drama, complete with bitch slaps, clique conflict, and overall superficial drama that I would equate to something like Mean Girls. Look. I have no problem with watching two chicks fight; it’s pretty hot. But if this is what I wanted, I’d go watch fucking Euphoria (not the hentai) or some shit. I came to this series for its clever and intelligent use of its masterful world building, not this. This is just one example, but others such as the level 6 upper arc, first half of the doppelganger arc, (while admittedly quite funny) and the anime-only arcs are just awful, and I struggled to get through them. I won’t fault the anime-only arcs though, since this is for the manga. Still. There are some serious stinkers in this one.
But what about those peaks though?
The Sisters arc and conclusion of the Daihasei Festival arc are peak fiction. I’d personally consider the Sisters arc to be my favourite story arc in any form of media.
I honestly have nothing bad to say about the Sisters arc, since this is the arc where Misaka realizes she is directly responsible for the bad things that happen to her. While Misaka’s selfishness becomes a problem for me later down the line, it is justified here. She hasn’t learned why her morals are a bad thing, and is humbled by her inability to change her situation. Until now, Misaka has been able to solve everything on her own and has developed this obnoxious sense of noblesse oblige.
It’s the Sisters arc’s bleak tone that acknowledges how fucked Academy City is. Like any metropolis, there are more working parts than one can actually see. Academy City, while seemingly a utopia, is a corrupt, power-centric dictatorship, where anyone will do anything they can to take advantage of you.
And the antagonists of this arc fit perfectly into that narrative. While they are admittedly pretty sadistic for no reason, they all have their reasons for contesting Misaka’s goals, and are quintessential products of the Academy City system.
So the lesson that Misaka learns is that the city is bigger than she thinks, and she can rely on others. Pretty wholesome.
Touma is the one she leans on. Let me just say that Touma is a very good character in Railgun. I find him to be kind of a weak character in Index, as they took his “unluckiness” to an obnoxious extent, effectively making him a generic harem protagonist.
He works better as a side character for two reasons. In Index, we understand Touma’s powers, and there’s pretty much always a way for him to overcome adversity. This is not so in Railgun. His ability is left unexplained, making him sort of mysterious. He is a sort of rival to Misaka, appearing only when she can’t do things on her own. His fights with Accelerator and level 6 Misaka are miles better than anything in Index, because we don’t know the extent of his powers, and whether or not he will actually win.
A lesser reason, but the element that makes him more likable is Railgun’s concentration of romance on Touma and Misaka. Touma isn’t forced to walk in on big titty nuns and look at loli panties in Railgun. Every moment that he has with Misaka feels like he actually earned it.
Anyways, this is three pages on my Google doc, so I guess I’ll finish it up here. (even though I have a lot more to say) So yeah. I feel like a 7 is actually a pretty generous rating, in the face of its appalling flaws. In the end, Raildex is something special. We’ll never see anything like it again, which is why it's a shame that Kamachi will never see to its full potential.
I guess I’m glad I found something to haunt my daydreams for awhile.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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Apr 30, 2022
If you are a frequent user of MyAnimeList, as I know you are, I can assume two things about you: You are a lifeless husk of a person, living vicariously from each gratuitous rush of serotonin rush you receive from the animes, and you are not on the receiving end of these creatures known ubiquitously as “bitches.” Right now, you can watch the first 3 episodes of the anime called “Kawaii Dake Ja Nai Shikimori-san.” Don’t. It is meticulously designed to feed on us. It weakens our allies, and emboldens our enemies.
Something about this gets to me. I read plenty of romance manga and
...
watch the animes, and have regrettably become accustomed to bathing in my sadness. While the characters of these stories are ultimately unrealistic, they are flawed in some or many aspects; they possess a trait that lets me spite them. Like, some of these motherfuckers don’t even know how to talk. They’d speak Latin better than Japanese to their crush, probably. But Skikimori and her friends just… don’t. They are perfect in every way.
This may sound like a flaw. I don’t even know at this point. I’ve read the entire manga, watched what is out of the anime, and now, I don’t remember what a flaw even is. Shikimori’s prismatic hair flows through each frame like a fucking Kendrick Lamar verse, and Izumi might just be the single cutest thing ever conceived. His blush could reignite the souls of starving children everywhere.
Anyways, rejoice, I guess. Because while watching this will meet you with endless amounts of happiness, warmth, and pleasure, the hours following will be filled with nothing but depression, misery, and existentialism. You'll never be as attractive as the main character. You'll never date such a perfect girl. You beat your meat to anime girls. As your mind is flooded with melancholy, you'll be reminded why you should maybe get your life together. Get up, you idiotic but beautiful and capable young man.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Dec 21, 2021
There is an anime called Takt Op. Destiny. You can go ahead and watch it, if you want. Actually, maybe even the first episode. Or maybe even the first five minutes. After you do that, tell me what you think. Or don’t, because I already know exactly what you’re thinking, seeing as I thought the same thing: why is everyone so cringe? What you have to understand is that the word “cringe” is probably the worst word in English. It’s funny; the word cringe, is itself, cringe. To be honest, I could think of 20 other negatively inclined words that would describe this show, but
...
“cringe” is regrettably the most fitting.
If you want to best experience Takt Op. Destiny, don’t. Just watch some clips of the fights on YouTube or something, cause those are literally all the show has to offer. God I hate the characters. Takt’s entire personality is “I miss Cosette'' and “I must write this song.” Look, it’s not wrong to be passionate about things; even I have my weird obsessions. But when his entire character is writing this song, I’m sorry, he just becomes flat after a while. Although I will admit, his banter with Destiny is actually pretty funny for the first few episodes.
When reading the preliminary reviews for the show, I often saw the term “waifu bait” being thrown around. While I’m not really sure what that means, Destiny very much panders to those seeking a “waifu.” She has a distinct quirk (her obsession with sweets), she’s competent (she does all of the fighting), and she’s cute, if you’re into that. But does this make her a good character? Not really. Her infatuation with sweets is funny at first, but later becomes stale. The same joke recycled over and over again will almost never be funny. But I digress that Takt’s eventual acknowledgement of Destiny and Cosette being different entities was actually pretty touching.
The one character I liked the most is actually the one I have the least to say about. Lenny is a whole-ass bro, through and through. Love that guy. His flamboyance and outgoing nature made for a great contrast against the obstinately stoic Takt. I don’t really have anything bad to say about him, except for what they did to him was a fucking crime. I don’t care.
Now oh man, the villains are even worse. The biggest redeeming quality of this show is that the villains get a relatively short amount of screen time compared to the main cast. I don’t even know if I could finish the show if the fight scenes were extended any more than they already are. I just fucking hate them so much. Especially that bitch Hell. She adapts the worst shounen battle trope ever. You know that one where people find battling “fun?” that’s Hell, but multiplied. Whenever she appeared in a fight, which is pretty much all the fights in the latter half, I just wanted to stop watching. That stupid smile on her face just made me cringe harder than nails on a chalkboard. You know, I’ve found that pretty much all of my least favourite characters find killing, or fighting, or whatever, fun. Bro, can you be any more edgy? Like “my favourite sound is the cries for help my enemies muster when I slit their throats with my stupid fucking roller skate shoes.” Okay, she didn’t actually say that, you get my point. I swear, when Hell was 14, she wrote Billie Eilish lyrics on the walls of her middle school bathroom. Her unhinged “not like the other girls” nature developed into this cumsock-spawn we now know and hate. Enough about that. Just thinking about her just makes me want to vomit.
But what about those fights? Are they any good? Dude, they’re fucking sick. I mean, It’s Mappa and Madhouse; what do you expect? The animation of the fights is obviously S-Tier. The vividly iridescent colours perfectly contrast the grim, apocalyptic American countryside, which make for an immaculate background for the perfectly choreographed climatic fights, which clearly are the crowning achievement of Takt Op. Destiny. All these factors perfectly beget these beautiful action scenes, which are plentiful throughout the show. Unfortunately, these fights are without emotional substance or stakes due to the lack of care I felt towards the participants.
I didn’t even mention people like Anna, Schindler, Sagan, or Titan when discussing the other characters. Why? Cause I want to forget those fuckers ever existed in the first place.
Takt Op. Destiny is at its best when it displays its high-budget, nuts-to-butts action. I don’t care about the people or the world. The D2s could take over everything, and I wouldn’t care. Oh yeah, I didn’t even talk about D2s, whose invasion of earth is the main plot device. It doesn’t really matter though, since they have such little presence and provide such little threat that they aren’t even worth talking about.
In the end, Takt Op. Destiny is like a hot girl with a stupid voice. She’s hot, sure, but she doesn’t ever stop talking about stupid shit with her yappy voice. Whatever, I’m a lonely guy, and I’ll take what I can get. 4 is a generous score. I am a generous man. I digress. (I don’t actually know what that means, but it sounds smart hehe)
Reviewer’s Rating: 4
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Aug 13, 2021
*SPOILER WARNING*
Am I a fool? I never knew what that word really meant. I still don’t. I spew out the word ad nauseum as a generic insult, never thinking too deeply about what I really mean. But what does that mean? Three Days of Happiness seeks the answer to that question. Does it mean to be dumb? Does it mean to be unsuccessful? Is it really just that: a generic insult? Certainly not. A person is not innately a "fool." While the word is too broad to assign an inclusive definition to, I can think of an interpretation: one who creates his own hell.
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And certainly--Kusunoki is a fool.
Kusunoki is a deadbeat who has effectively lost the game of life. But he is a deadbeat because he is a fool. His childish arrogance became a burden, a burden which defines Kusunoki's foolishness. Or so he thinks. Many readers will see a reflection of themselves in the early Kusunoki, and maybe I kind of did as well. His mindset deprecates from “I’m not happy”, to “I’m not meant to be happy”, to “I don’t want to be happy”. While depression often romanticizes itself in ways similar to Kusunoki's, it is Kusunoki's foolishness that let it deprecate so far. Many readers will find themselves thinking the exact same way. And this--this is what it means to be a fool. When Kusunoki was a child, he thought he was destined to be someone great. His slightly above-average intelligence gave him a snobbish ego, which he believes set his expectations too high, eventually turning him into the loser he is today. One thing leads to another, and he ends up in a shop that buys your lifespan.
I’m sure many of us have thought of it at some point, as it’s not too profound of an idea. But Three Days of Happiness gives great care and has cultivated it such a meaningful way. Three Days of Happiness not hold any punches: it immediately hits Kusunoki in the gut, valuing his life at a meager 300,000 yen. But it is not just Kusunoki, who is given a reality check. I think many readers of the novel will find themselves in similar situations; I know I did. We are all forced to realize what we really are. What the reader really is is up to them to decide, but it is this scene in such an early point of the novel that makes you realize what this story is really about. Thinking about it, I’m not sure if I would want to know the true value of my life. I think of it in the same vein as seeing my future. If that value was low, I would probably just give up then and there. And Kusunoki is the same way initially. However, he reluctantly sells his remaining 30 years for the appended value, leaving him with only 3 months to live. From here, Kusunoki comes to realize the extent of his foolishness and the concept of humility.
This leads to the next point. Are foolishness and happiness somehow intertwined? Can you have one, and still have the other? This is the fundamental metaphor of the story, from my point of view. When one’s foolishness diminishes, their happiness will aggrandize. And Miyagi is the proprietor of Kusunoki’s happiness. Miyagi is a girl assigned to watch over Kusunoki for his remaining 3 months. While initially cold at first, Miyagi comes to grow on Kusunoki, and the two eventually become an emotionally inseparable pair. While Kusunoki is initially dejected, Miyagi, unintentionally, comes to help him realize what he should be doing. He creates a bucket list, and while simple, is what he wants to do. These little things are what lead Kusunoki to happiness. Visiting small towns, gazing at the stars, riding a motorcycle in the countryside, buying drinks from vending machines. These are all seemingly insignificant things that once put together form something of gaiety for the pair. This is beautiful.
I read this book almost a year ago now, and this is what I think about almost every day. Little things. I don’t need to live some exuberant life filled with success and riches. I realized I love simply riding my bike around at twilight, sitting around reading all day, playing video games with my friends, watching anime, walking my dog with my dad, and just things that maybe improve my mood just a little bit. Unfortunately for Kusunoki, it took selling the rest of his life to realize it.
I just want to talk about Miyagi for a second. She is beautiful. Not just attractiveness, she is just a really beautiful person. She really showed Kusunoki what it meant to live, and maybe even me as well. Much of the story is just Miyagi showing Kusunoki more and more things about herself. She shares her dreams, aspirations, failures, and her downfall. Miyagi is bound by the lifespan-selling agency due to a debt her mother incurred while Miyagi was young. Due to the nature of her work, while on the job, she is invisible to other people. Miyagi is invisible, yet Kusunoki does not hesitate to talk to her in public. Their happiness is almost reciprocal because Kusunoki enjoys talking to Miyagi, and Miyagi enjoys when Kusunoki talks to her in public, regardless of the fact that he looks completely crazy. But by the end of the story, they are both truly happy. Neither of them care. And that's what life is really about: there is no meaning, so why would you care?
The story presents somewhat of a paradox - Kusunoki is happy, but would he be happy if it were not for the knowledge of his impending death? And this is the only true escape from foolishness: complacency with death. You will die one day, so why care? "Philosophical" debate over analogous pretentious topics such as "the meaning of life" can end at "there is no meaning." You're gonna die, idiot. This book has really stuck with me. The idea of being okay with death is something I’ll probably never achieve. But it presents something broader than that--the meaning of happiness, and the discard of foolishness through a topic seldom covered in the medium of light novels. The beauty of this story is something that I don't think I can define. But there's one thing for certain: if this story can’t be considered beautiful, then I’m not sure beauty exists.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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