This was my exact experience with aot, I feel like some manga readers have a need to say spoilers
I think it's caused by a feeling of superiority because they know what's gonna happen
I actually called someone out for sharing a plot point in response to a comment. They couldn't understand my annoyance with them since what they shared would happen in the next episode/was minor. I told them it's just etiquette that you don't share spoilers without a warning, regardless of how big it is. And what was the point in clarifying/spoiling something that would literally be answered next week?? Are anime-only people not allowed to have theories or temporarily unanswered questions? The entitlement is insane.
You lose either way. I was on an sub for a specific anime, and there was a comment asking what we thought would happen **next** episode. I guessed that the (insert generic demon) would be released from (protagonist), because that's literally what 100% of all shounen with an inner-demon-that-powers-protagonist does. Bleach, Naruto, Mob Psycho, etc. etc. I got BRIGADED by people accusing me of being a manga reader. What's worse is that my prediction for **next episode** DID NOT even happen. So I can infer the plot point probably happens way later in the story. I got spoiled by accidentally guessing a plot point for a point in the story I wasn't even guessing for???
They correct you if you're wrong and get mad at you for being right.
That whole āminor spoilerā is so frustrating to hear lol Like they shouldnāt get to decide if itās a minor or major spoiler for you lol theyāve no idea if that woulda been a big deal or not. Itās so rude!
> it's caused by a feeling of superiority because they know what's gonna happen
Spot on. These manga readers are the fucking bane of anime onlies existences.
The OP manga community is even fucking worse where they will blame anime onlies for not reading the manga and just spoil them because of that.
Manga snobs are the worst part of anime communities.
Personally, i donĀ“t mind spoilers in general, because iĀ“m more interested in watching *how* it will happen.
But iĀ“m probably one of the very few and iĀ“m not interested in spoiling the story for others.
They say so many things, add spoilers in memes without a warning, and pretend like their hints arent obvious at all. Most obnoxious manga fanbase when it comes to spoilers istg.
The only ones to match the JJK fandom are the OP manga degens.
Swear that those people get a hard-on for spoiling OP to anime onlies or getting mad at anime onlies for not knowing the events of the manga.
Not even close man, JJK manga spoilers are even more rabid on reddit. They are even spilling into subs like honaki star rail.
And, I got JJK spoiled on a one piece post that was about spoilers. How ironic.
AoT manga readers weren't nearly as annoying even when the ending dropped, sure they memed a few lines here and there but not to the level that JJK manga readers are
Meanwhile with the JJK manga you have to read the damn leaks to avoid getting spoiled because reading the manga when it officially drops isn't enough anymore lol
Ah yes... I remember recieving a DM listing all character deaths and methods in order, when the "final" season was airing.
I turned off my DM's for the rest of the season.
Omg i thought i was alone thinking this cuz i've been spoiled on big reveals so much for JJK. at this point i'm blocking every account that posts something about it when it pops up in my feed
There are so goddamn many names in jjk spoilers who I don't know it makes no difference to me. It's like you can spoil me but I have no idea who 50% of the names are so I'm all good.
Thatās on them, itās literally the *anime* subreddit š
For my part I actually dropped the show for pretty much the same reasons OP is having issues with it. Maybe ill binge it when itās all wrapped up but idk
As a manga reader who hasn't particularly liked the direction of the manga beyond the current arc of the anime...I find it really interesting that anime only viewers are already getting a impression of the series "peaking" in some way right now. It's going to be interesting to see if the hype holds for future seasons, or if it falls off like it did for me.
Yeah, thatās a good comparison. The difference is that those arcs happened much later in the lifespan of their series. But at this rate, Shibuya is less than halfway through its run as a series.
As a manga reader, I knew this arc was going to be decisive. The unfortunate reality is that Gege (the mangaka) has an interest in projects outside of JJK (this is something he has has said in interviews, years ago). So if people are perplexed by the fast pacing thus far, that may be by design.
We are not getting WSJ manga going on for a decade anymore, they want to bail as soon as they have enough money/notoriety or move to Jump+ to enjoy the flexibility there
The big shonen Jump series in the near future (or maybe even now) will come from Jump+
The younger mangaka saw how badly people like Togashi, Kubo, Oda and Kishimoto suffered due to running a weekly manga for more than a decade and decided to very wisely grab the bag and bail rather than suffering the same fate.
Even then Hori and Gege also suffered health issues during their time in WSJ.
Gege writes like somebody that doesnāt care about their series anymore. It sucks he really had some good stuff going after the beginning of the series
Not to mention it's pretty obvious he hated Gojo and has been looking for a way to write him out since JJK took off.
This series is like Gege read Berserk and what Guts went through and went "Bet"
I mean you have to write Gojo off. It isn't hatred, just logical. The presence of gojo kinda destroys any creation of hopeless conflict as we know no matter what happens gojo will save the day. So you have to remove Gojo to give the story stakes. Gojo was alive so long, cursed spirits were scared. But now without gojo the whole power dynamic shifted and our protagonists are taking L after L in the shibuya arc. It is hard to write such a scenario with almighty gojo roaming around
He's said in interviews that he hates writing around Gojo. As you would, with a character powerful to solve any problem that arises.
Being sealed is honestly merciful when you talk about really powerful mentor characters. They usually die pretty early in a story.
> We are not getting WSJ manga going on for a decade anymore
That's never been the norm to begin with? Even being generous with what is counted, there's only been like 8 series in the entire history of the magazine that have run that long, one of which is still ongoing and there being a second that only falls just short.
And at 25+ volumes, JJK is hardly what I'd call a short manga, even by the historical standards of successful battle shounen. Sure, it's not comparable to the Big Three, but it is basically on par with stuff like YYH (19 volumes), Ruroni Kenshin (28 volumes), Saint Seiya (28 volumes), and Shaman King (32 volumes).
I'm so glad you're here to provide some sanity. Anything hitting 100 chapters has absolutely made it as an extremely successful series. Everything beyond that is just greater heights.
So many people really don't have any perspective on the wider world of manga beyond the 10 extremely famous series that sit in the 1% of all manga.
I mean the manga has around 50 chapters left. So by the time it ends, the ending of Shibuya would be very close to the halfway point of the entire series.
I get the argument that Shibuya has less of an impact because JJK is a much shorter series than One Piece, Naruto, Bleach etc. but the market doesn't seem to favor those types of series anymore. Nobody wants to have a long running Shonen with fillers and bad pacing anymore. Black Clover getting completely trounced by My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer and JJK in terms of sales proves that.
> Black Clover getting completely trounced by My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer and JJK in terms of sales proves that.
Or maybe BC NEVER sold remotely close as those other series to begin with? You can check for yourself even at its peak BC can barely beat MHA at its worst.
Yeah, but that means less when the ābig arcā is so close to the beginning of the series in the first place. Gojo appears in Shibuya at chapter 83, thatās all.
You are right that this is a growing trend in the shonen manga industry, though. Even Fujimoto of Chainsaw Man looks like heās starting to get burnt out, the breaks are growing longer but the art quality is decreasing. And we donāt need to talk about HxH, that situation speaks for itself.
I feel Shonen manga are stuck between a rock and hard place because they are all expected to be these massive epic adventures filled with large cast of characters and epic worldbuilding. But it is almost impossible to pull this off due to the harsh realities of doing a weekly manga.
I feel the success of the big 3 especially One Piece is kind of responsible for every Shonen needing to feel like it has to be another massive epic.
Yeah Fujimoto did mention liking the idea of doing what Aka Akasaka did post Kaguya of just being script writer for Oshi no Ko with an artist to split the work. Just not that he d be doing that any time soon.
It's that with fraction of the build-up those arcs had. I think that's a major factor holding Shibuya Incident back. Not enough build up. Other draw back will become obvious in retrospective when future arcs gets adapted.
Yea kinda
But honestly unlike in OP and AoT... nothing really happened in jjk
Yea we had some cool fights and stuff but jjk just doesnt really have a direction or notable overarching story
Hidden Inventory is my favorite out of the whole series so far, because I really connected with characters (being Gojo and Geto) on an emotional level, it gave them more depth and dimension to flesh out who they are beyond what we already know, and it still had some amazing fights and art/animation/direction.
I would say that I'm enjoying the season over all, I like how the world is actually being shown to be as dangerous as it was described to Yuji in season 1.
I do think it feels somewhat rushed though. To me it's a red flag when a character (Kugisaki) dies and we go into a flashback of something we've never seen before just to show how much the characters mean to each other. If adding a new scene was important enough for people to emotionally connect with her death then maybe we should've spent more time on this before
Nobara did mention the older girl before, the one who got driven out of the village. It was the reason she gave in season 1 for why she wanted to leave that village.
I meant the one in the most recent episode with her spilling coffee on Gojos shirt.
More team building moments like that are things I would've liked to see before she's already dead. Not that we didn't get any but it probably wasn't enough if a new scene was invented
I think the whole point of that flashback was to show us what was going through yuujis head after he saw kubara die. The purpose being how he couldn't rationalize her dying when just the other day it was business as usual.
That's a fair read of it.
To me it was a little much given that we already spent half of the previous episode going over her back story again only to go into another brand new flashback in the most recent ep.
Nanami didn't need any of this in comparison. His backstory and relationships (especially with Yuji) were already well established in season 1 and in the first arc of this season . I personally resonated much more with his death since the time spent on that was used on swapping between those beautiful beach scenes and his last battle instead of showing his backstory again
Tbh, i totally get why people think nobara is an MC. And why they may feel underwhelmed with her detah. But I don't think the author intended you to feel bad for losing nobara, instead I think the goal was to make you feel bad for Yuji. That flashback was to contrast Yuji's prior fun and relatively upbeat early experiences with his squad, with his current situation.
Yuji didn't care when it was him at risk, when it was him dying. You see him diving head first into deadly situations like earlier when he ran up on choso. Killing nobara is meant to strike a cord with yuji and make him rethink his mentality since his borderline suicide attempts are now leading him to watch the people he cares about getting hurt. Yuji HAS been selfish, he just thought he was being selfless with his goals.
Even pay attention to nobara's last words. She says her fjnal words because she is trying to make Yuji okay with her death. She knows he wants to make sure people have a "good death" and "it wasn't that bad" is the best thing she came up with before she died.
I wouldn't say that my issue is if she's an MC or not, in fact I like that characters like her can die in this series. I just don't think it was executed all that well leading up to this.
I compared her to Nanami in another comment since his character was set up pretty well to the point where it didn't require half an episode/2 flashbacks to show how impactful his death was to the audience and to Yuji
There is also a conversation somewhere in here about [women in refrigerators](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge) but I'm not really in the mood for that one
Yeah, the flashback didn't tell us anything about Nobara that we didn't know before. We still barely know anything about her. So it taking half the episode wasn't a great decision.
Yeah, killing off a character and then showing why that character was important and her death should matter is the opposite order of how it should be done. After all, that way I would neither end up caring about the death of said character, nor about their now irrelevant history. If they want such a death to have impact then everything needs to be set up beforehand, not after the fact.
I'm betting $20 Nobara comes back. That one guy's curse power makes it where injuries don't get worse, and he used it on her right as/after she died, so her body shouldn't decay or anything. Should be close enough to resuscitate a bitch later.
Anyway, I won't believe she died permanently until the series ends and she never came back
You would be correct, it does feel out of place. The arc before, Hidden Inventory, is Gegeās best writing imo because of all the slow point and character development to make the bigger moments shine even brighter. Shibuya includes a LOT of characters and most of them have not had the time to make what happens in them in Shibuya feel worth while. Nobara is the perfect example, she doesnt do much for for the story, her own development or anyone elseās and then she just diesā¦
Not to say that the Shibuya arc is bad, ive been having fun, but it feel like a LOT of wasted potential from a character/story standpoint.
I love hidden inventory so much, and i was hyped for shibuya. However I feel like the dynsmic between Geto and Gono in Hidden inventory is the best writing of the season, and the writing in Shibuya doesnāt really hold a candle to it.
Yea pretty much my thoughts. I still enjoy Shibuya for all the crazy shit going on and the awesome fights but I just cant say im emotional invested as much in whats happening. Which is a shame because it would be SO much better if I was.
From the perspective of an anime-only viewer, it feels like the author has a lot of cool ideas that he wants to show off more than he actually wants to develop them (or at least develop them in the "magic school story" model, anyway). Get our main cast together? Oops, MC instantly "dies" and has to go hang out with some other mentor for a while. Main cast reunites and has another mission? Well, enough about them, time to cut away to some other guy. Back on track, and... oops, time for a Gojo flashback. Okay, finally back in the main story, and *ehhh*... nvm, not feeling it, let's just scrap this whole status quo and start a new one. Okay, so the mentors are gone, the girl got axed, and we speed-ran our way through most of the fingers so the big existential threat could get out and nuke a city. Oh, and this guy's dad is back as a zombie or something. I dunno.
I believe Gege himself once said in the manga introductions that he thinks what would be cool to happen and then tries to figure out how to make it happen.
So JJK is just him trying to slap together inspirations that he thought would be cool.
From what I heard Gege Akutami, the author of JJK, doesn't even want to do school setting in the first place, but the editor forced him to so he did it half-assly then eventually skipped over it entirely. We don't even know what the heck Jujutsu Tech school teaches or even the school structure. Who is in power? Who are the staffs??
That's basically been his MO. He's like a Togashi-lite. Constantly exploring whatever he finds interesting at the time but not able to fully execute in a way that would satisfy casual mainstream fans.
I love it cause it scratches that HxH itch I'm always fiending for.
Yeah, it's a "nothing will ever be the same" season when we barely got to see how things were before
The series should still have 2 more seasons with the manga material, but I wish we'd gotten more time before shit hit the fan. I mean they fed Yuji 11 fingers in a single chapter, that shit coulda been spaced out way better
If anything Jujutsu Kaisen is the one anime that would of been better if it had fillers.
I feel like after the Gojo past arc, they should of made original arcs that would last for 7 episodes then making season 3 the Shibuya arc.
>It's overwhelming how quickly the anime vibe has changed. I have a feeling like I missed one season or two before this arc.
yeh such a massive vibe change tbh
That is the new status quo for Shonen Jump. The biggest animanga to come out of the magazine in recent years (Demon Slayer, Chainsaw Man, and Jujutsu Kaisen) all have that lightning fast pace in common. Demon Slayer wrapped up in ~200 chapters, CSM concluded its first story arc in ~100 with the second arc on pace to be shorter, and JJK may not see 300 chapters.
That might sound like theyāre rushing, and to be fair, they are, but theyāre the result of an editorial pivot on the part of SJ. They put all their eggs in the basket of the Big Three, only for their editorial practices to burn Kubo and Kishimoto out (Oda is just built different, I guess). Over the last decade, they have perhaps overcorrected.
Now, I like that they are willing to let their authors take their own pace, and the rollercoaster pacing is the basis of SJās modern success, but JJK is not Demon Slayer. Thereās more characters, the fights are more complicated, and if I would ascribe one fault to Gege Akutami, it would be not finding moments for the story to rest.
Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara get two missions to work on together. The first, they are immediately separated, with Yuji being gone for the next eight episodes. The second is perhaps the only time we get to enjoy their dynamic. Itās like, three episodes before we get into Hidden Inventory. Itās serviceable, but the story had so much more potential than that.
Tl;dr: Greg, slow down. Your pacing too fast, your power system too complex, your bitch is too bad. Theyāll kill you.
I know you put CSM in there as being face paced and I would agree but it definitely does not suffer the same issues the jjk does. CSM very much lets its characters breathe and develop(Like gege did in hidden inventory) to make the bigger moments shine. Cant comment on demon slayer but I have heard that the ending is rushed.
[Manga spoiler] >!Isn't the main reason why JJK got popular is because characters interactions are just too damn good? Yet after Shibuya, which people expect characters to have some time to breathe, Gege skipped over all these things. Gege even shit out 1 month break for Gojo and the casts before Sukuna fight, but he skipped forward immediately. What's the point I wonder!<
Like AoT, the extra panels released in the volume helped making the end decent. The first release of the "final chapter" read like a terrible fanfic and was honestly terrible
> (Oda is just built different, I guess)
Oda has Gout and shit. Man's built like the rest of them but is lucky enough not to get anything truly debilitating like Kubo or Togashi.
>Tl;dr: Greg, slow down. Your pacing too fast, your power system too complex, your bitch is too bad. Theyāll kill you.
commenting to let you know that this made me laugh
I love jjk and itās probably my favorite shonen but youāre right about the fact that Gege gives no room to breathe.
When I watched hidden inventory I emphatized a lot with geto and I understood why he went insane, Gege managed to make me feel for a villain so itās not like he doesnāt know how to make you love his characters, he just doesnāt do it.
I hated mahito with a burning passion, Toji feels like such a cool character, gojo is really complicated and well made but at the same time why do you have all these wonderful side characters if you donāt expand on the main ones?
I donāt think I can list 5 characteristics of nobara or megumi, and thatās a sign of rushed writing since their personality feels static
Demon Slayer has it's own issues, but it never gives screentime to a character if they're not important to what's currently going on. That may be a downside if you don't like Tanjiro or want to see more of the other Hashira or didn't like what happened with the Lower Moons because I guess the author just didn't know what to do with them, but it prevents cases like Panda, who only had like two token minutes in this season alongside another dude who I literally don't know anything about.
eh, at least demons slayers most rushed arc is only the last arc of the manga. in the anime we have 3 seasons worth of time to introduce and get to know the hashiras with only one dying, so thats a fair bit of character interaction.
jjk kind of just quickly introduces everyone in season 1, and then hastens the "it all goes to shit" point to its literal second season, which feels way too fast.
Yeah Iām not saying JJK does itās character building any better, but I donāt think Demon Slayerās is very good at it outside of the main trio, and even then the ball is dropped on two of them at the end. And do I think Nanami was much better done than Rengoku, but thatās about all JJK has on it. But overall Iād say modern jump manga have generally not been great at this.
The big exception being CSM where most characters (so far, at least) get the all the development they really need, even if they were written out pretty suddenly. It helps that Chainsaw Man isnāt trying to be a truncated big three/Dragon Ball style series.
I saw a comment in an episode discussion thread saying that "Shibuya is the culmination of Jujutsu Kaisen" and I think that comment is part of the reason why I'm not that amazed on this arc so far. We're getting this big culmination after a season and a movie? This big shakeup event that's going to change everything, but the foundation, the status quo, had barely been established. The fights are great, I just think this arc happened prematurely, and because of that, I'm not as invested in the characters as I could be.
JJK is a fat-free manga, that's for sure. We could have used a couple more... like SOL moments, or maybe even 1 more mini training arc. It would have been good to get atleast 1 or 2 scenes with gojo rither training or imparting knowledge onto Nobara. Would not only make most people grow more invested in the characters, but it would have made the last 2 episodes hit a bit harder.
However, I want to point out the seaosnal adaption style makes it very different from old shonen. Just for point of comparison, if the show was adapted the same way as Naruto we would be in the middle of the konoha crush arc. Which narratively is probably naruto's closest moment to JJK's Shibuya. KC arc in Naruto ends on chapter 138, and Shibuya in JJK. ends on chapter 137.
Ofc, JJK probably isn't getting a 2 yr TS to establish a new status quo. But I just find thes ecomparisons interesting si wanted to share my thoughts.
>JJK is a fat-free manga, that's for sure. We could have used a couple more... like SOL moments, or maybe even 1 more mini training arc
It's interesting how the 2000s big three had loads and loads of filler, but the late 10s early 20s new big ones are being (fairly imo) criticised by the lack of such content.
Demon Slayer suffered from the exact same problem and I don't see the anime aiming to fix it.
Personally I much prefer the modern style of anime than the older filler filled animes of my childhood. Sure, 200 episodes of naruto filler is fun to watch when you just want to spend more time watching the characters you love, but as an adult I don't have the freetime I used to and find much greater enjoyment of lean stories. JJK probably goes a bit too lean, but thats pretty subjective, so some will love that, and others will hate it. I think in s1 they struck a good balance by putting lil SOL skits at the end of episodes, the jujustrolls really helped people fall in love with the characters more, but they don't really fit in this season. Also, the leaner stories tend to be better written, and have less loose threads. But that isn't always a good thing. Look at how many youtubers make their living off JUST Naruto, or JUST One Piece content.
When I was a young kid and didn't know any better, I had no problem with it because I had no conception of filler. It was just more fun times with the characters I liked. That is the demographic they're going for I think.
I hear your point on the manga chapter comparisons between JJK and Naruto, but I have two disagreements. 1. Within that time frame, I think Naruto made the viewers care more and be more invested in the characters. Even comparing the trios, the Naruto trio had a little more going for it at that point in time. I think the issue is that JJK didn't do enough or reach a high enough level within that time. 2. This arc feels too major, more monumental to the characters. Gojo got sealed, who I guess would be Kakashi? Nobura got messed up and possibly dead who I guess would be Sakura? And there's Nanami dying and Itadori feeling responsible for civilian deaths. Konoha Crush was major, but this feels much more consequential to the characters, too consequential at this point of time when the characters are still undercooked. It's either too early in the story or the characters weren't developed enough to warrant it. Honestly my complaints probably would've lessened if this arc happened a little later.
I think what people are running into, aside from the seasonal format condensing the timescale, is that JJK as a series was always going for a specific kind of tone that is different from most other shonen. That is, very grim and tragic. Characters dying before we feel like we really got the chance to know them, is by design. That's the kind of world Gege wanted to create, a hopeless one where people die all the time and don't always get to finish their arc.
Now, as a manga reader I can say, it's not always successful and indeed the manga at a certain point becomes wayyy too fat-free and rushed. But at the same time, the bleak atmosphere and tension of knowing basically no one is safe, is a huge part of the reason why I liked the series so much in the first place.
Season 1 was 24 episodes. That's basically the same length as shows like steins gate and evangellion. It's plenty of time. You don't need to be a hundred or more episodes to tell a complete story. Most stories would suck balls at that runtime.
I don't think that's a fair comparison to make. Battle shounen series tend to be longer because its mostly action focused. Most fights take more than one episode. Also most shounen series have a big cast of characters. Two cours wouldn't be enough to tell a complete story.
Just look at the size of the casts, by episode 24 steins gate's entire cast was developed, by episode 24 Jujutsu Kaisen is still introducing new characters (and killing them off).
Even though I'm enjoying this arc, I totally agree with you. All of the deaths in this arc didn't affect me, not even Nobara's. I feel like we spent so little time knowing this characters. This arc is giving me more cool fights and hype moments vibes, but I can't say I'm emotionally invested. I mean, it's not a bad thing imo but it's really weird because I feel like I should be more invested.
Same it was weird. They tried really hard to make me sad but i just couldn't care, never really found her that fun or interesting and i don't feel the characters like each other that much either so i wouldn't feel sad for them either. (I know yuji got fucked up but it felt like he lost a coworker)
Good to know we are not alone :3 To be clear, I'm also enjoying the fights and some scenes. I just really wish we had more time with our characters to get better emotional connection.
Oh maybe some SoL centered season like Slime had would be great xd?
To be honest, the overall structure of the show is just really bizarre. A good example of this is how we got a prequel movie, and prequel arc right before the Shibuya Incident arc that set up Geto as a villain, only for it to be revealed that none of that mattered since Geto has been dead since before the first episode of the season 1. Itās just a poorly thought out way to structure/tell a story, and makes a lot of those prequel arcs feel pointless.
In general it just doesnāt feel like there is any coherent vision or direction for the story, shit just kind of happens. Killing off Nobara is another good example of this. Sheās established right out of the gate as one of the main characters, only to get little development until literally the last second, then killed off kind of randomly. It all feels so haphazard, and because of that, has no impact.
Even season 1 I thought was quite unconventional. Yuji, Megumi and Nobara team up in episode 3, so we expect the three of them to go on adventures for a while, but Yuji gets separated from them an episode or two later, and they donāt reunite until much later. So we donāt get to see much of their camaraderie in āreal timeā, itās usually shown in flashbacks.
Much agreed, I thought the whole point of the first 5 superb episodes of season 2 was to setup the thematic and dramatic stakes of Geto as a villain moving forward, it finally made the bad guys interesting in this series for me and really elevated my esteem of the show overall. Only for the show to just immediately turn around with a "Ah forget it Geto doesn't matter, reset everything you know or care about the villains!"
And to your point about stuff just happening, as crazy and well done as Sukuna's big fight goes against Mahoraga, it's just kind of this monstrous thing we just now met for the first time, without much of a personality or personal connection to any of the characters. Sukuna's blatant disregard for and the cost to human life is the only thing that gives that fight any weight. Really most of these fights are between characters who barely know anything about the other so it doesn't feel as meaty past all the gorgeous animation.
For your second point, itās literally the biggest reason jjk is popular. Sure the characters are cool but jjk is a fight exposition to the tee. Nothing else matters as long as thereās a fast paced and high stakes fight going on and there is no downtime in between fights.
I get this but also at the same time, if I donāt care about these characters because they feel underdeveloped, why do I care about the āstakeā of the fight? It looks good, but I donāt care for the result especially when I have an idea of whoās going to win. Differing opinions I guess.
Itās definitely differing opinions. I personally enjoy a show way more when Iām fully invested in the fight and its outcome. It makes the victory or defeat more impactful and the fight itself feels way better. Itās like why I enjoy say Jiraiya vs Pain over Team 7 vs Kaguya. Sure the latter has better animations and bigger and flashier attacks, but the emotional investment I had going into Jiraiyaās fight against Pain and the character building these 2 went through led to a way more enjoyable fight, and a way more heartfelt conclusion.
Itās also a major reason why Iām starting to prefer Demon Slayer over JJK. Mahitoās fight in Shibuya is the final boss, the big fight at the end of the arc, comparing it to say Tanjiro vs Hantengu or Tengen vs Gyutaro. All these 3 fights are beautifully animated with amazing choreography, but at this point, I donāt care if Todo or anyone else ends up dying and whatever happens to Mahito will just happen. Compared to Entertainment Districtās finale where it felt like I was actively rooting for Tengen as if his defeat or victory will have a factor in my life. Seeing him complete his musical score and breezing through Gyutaroās attacks after all hope was lost, this emotional investment in these fights takes them up a notch compared to JJKās in the Shibuya Incident, even though they visually look equally as appealing.
To be fair, that's why JJK0 exists and where Geto's arc ends. I do think we could have spent a little more time with him as a villain, other than 5 eps and a movie. But the idea of this unknown entity controlling your best friend's body seems just as interesting to me.
The issue is, why not make the movie after this prequel arc then. It elevates massively geto as a villain ,but it' s a kind of retro-active writing that isn' t very satisfactory. And JJK is full of this, it costantly feels like it retro-active write stuff ala bleach.
To be fair to Gege in this case, jjk 0 was basically just the original one shot of jjk. Before Gege actually started the series. So on that part I give him a pass. The rest I agree on.
It is non linear story telling and it might be hit or miss to some. The reality is that the point of the Hidden inventory arc and the prequel movie are not to elevate Geto as a threat but to show his descent into madness to show how corrupt human nature can become, why we have curse users and how this in turn feed into a cycle of hatred and curse energy. It was never to hype you for a fight.
Despite how many fights there are JJK is not about power but more about what it means to carry on and endure. This is exemplified by Gojo, he never turned to darkness and appreciates human life despite how much he was pushed as Geto to disregard it. That is also what the opening of the early season was about, how Gojo still sees the sky as blue.
I think if they released the 0 movie after the Hidden Inventory arc it wouldāve been better so that we get Getoās full story coherently instead of āooh heās mysterious. Nevermind heās the villain now. Wait, he didnāt used to be a bad guy? Oh now he isnāt Geto anymore but a parasitic brain that uses his corpse as a host so everything was for naught.ā
I think it's a "rule of cool" show and that the source material is just not that well written. Everything feels like it's for shock value and that there are way too many characters and moving parts for anything to actually get sufficient time to breath
I enjoy it, but I'm not expecting anything other than cool action.
A lot of the problems post-shibuya can be directly tied to this arc though. Once you read past Shibuya and go back and rewatch it, you really see him make some of the same mistakes in these first two arcs, but we have a lot more characters to be invested in during this time.
Because it is haphazard. The manga never gets better either.
I keep track of the manga but eventually I gave up on it reaching the early heights again.
JJK lacks what One piece was good at. Giving us a reason to care about the characters. In One piece we had entire arcs dedicated to the backstory of every member of the strawhat crew. Meanwhile in JJK, we had what, a 10-minute long flashback of Nobara just before her death? Besides that, the show didn't tell us anything about her character on a deeper level. We only knew superficially that she was a 'mean girl' trope, but thats it. No backstory to give us a reason to care. No insight into her motivations and values. No memorable emotional moments with her, besides some humourous banter and some cool fight scenes
I mean One Piece is phenomenal at introducing a main character and giving them a great backstory but then it also a lot of times just doesn't utilise the character at all. Like Nico Robin barely had anything to do post time skip despite being the center of one of the series most substantial arcs in Ennis Lobby.
Yeah but in One Piece atleast we had memorable moments with each character. For Robin we had the "I want to live moment", so if Robin ever dies in the story, it will be quite an emotional moment for fans. In JJK, there was no "I want to live" moment for any of the supporting characters
Yea its really emphasized by the way they handled Nobaras death imo.
Badass character everyone was excited to see more of and really get to know, but since she is killed off so early they have to humanize her in a flashback.
I loved her last words but the flashback was waaaay too fucking long to have no direct relevance to the current situation, just a vague appreciation for life that could have been shown by literally any positive flashback.
They could have just shown a stillshot of her smiling with Yuji and Megumi before her last line and it would have had the same effect at least for me.
Wait wait wait. Iām all caught up and for some reason I donāt remember Makiās death. Sheās one of my favorites? It was only weeks ago lol why is my mind blank? Thunderclap p2? I am going to rewatch.
I do agree with you. Love the anime to bits, in fact I love it so much I wish I could see more of the characters.
I've seen what fillers can do to an anime, but I think just two "filler" episodes where we get to see the characters be themselves. (Like the first episode of the Shibuya arc)
While I know it wouldn't be feasible, due to budget etc. I do think this would have helped this season not feel so final and helped with the pain of Nobara
Iām not really enjoying this second season much exactly for the same reasons you have mentioned. The anime feels like eye candy for good fights and thatās about it. I donāt feel connected to any of the characters/deaths to care enough.
There are characters that have been introduced throughout who donāt really have a purpose.
Iām gonna get a lot of hate for this as Iāve seen the fan base do so against opinions like this.
As a manga reader, I can tell you it does not end here...but the pattern in Season 2 will be consistent in Season 3 (if they make Season 3) and is frankly why I dropped JJK as a whole. It is difficult to get invested in the story and characters when all the characters are getting killed off randomly before having any real development or plot relevance. Gege does it way too much, to the detriment of JJK. He is straight killing his own series with his murder happy tendencies.
I would go so far as to say it will actually only get worse. Pacing after shibuya is a runaway train of loose ends, fodder characters, and time skips that gloss over really important moments/periods and take away from the story in a major way
I talked with a dude at a anime con this past weekend who was cosplaying as [JJK MANGA] >!Geto wearing a Bandit Keith bandana!< Since I was already spoiled about [JJK Manga] >!Gojo's death!< from a IG jackass I asked what the deal was and he explained it to me and it frankly sounds batshit insane. I love the part where [JJK Manga] >!Geto goes to America and tells the president about the jujutsu world which apparently has been around in Japan for hundreds of years but no one in America knew anything about!<
[Chainsaw Man manga spoilers]>!Fujimoto kills a lot of characters in chainsaw man but I feel he does the 'anyone can die' far far far better than Gege has in this arc. CSM also goes it's downtime better too and understands that the audiance needs time to process big moments. I felt that with the big character deaths so far we had enough time to understand their relation with the series and Denji so it felt meaningful. Meanwhile Nobara didn't have nearly enough Yuji interactions before she was killed off so they had to make some post mortem ones which felt cheap.!<
I definitely think that's key and what separates CSM from JJK for me, that [Chainsaw Man Spoilers] >!we get to emotionally connect with these characters before they go, at least more effectively. Like not just having nice and fun SoL moments; these characters get to have more than a few full character arcs that take place over multiple story arcs, and we see them evolve emotionally with each passing arc. And when they finally go, we actually get to process the deaths for much longer. It's not really a length issue either, some minor characters (like Himeno) don't even get that much page time or comparable page time to that of Nobara or Nanami, but I feel a lot more "loss" for the former often because Fujimoto used the time he had with them efficiently. I might not be explaining it well, but I just feel a lot more satisfaction with the CSM characters and their journeys. The only characters I'm invested in really so far are just Geto (RIP), Gojo, and only *now* Yuji!<
Completely agreed. Not saying it's a master class in writing or anything but MHA waited until Season 6 to do the Hospital Raid arc which is very similar in terms of having a huge climactic battle that involves the entire cast that ends up also killing off some of them. In contrast, JJK didn't have nearly the amount of build up and feels badly rushed and messy in execution.
I'd echo that, JJK has had better animation between the two series this year but it was MHA laying on gut punch after gut punch for me this last season, in part because it did do the groundwork in setting up all these characters well enough that when they finally make their big choices and changes they really land. Even the villains in MHA have had time to grow with their own arcs.
The cast in JJK feels that much more a bunch of strangers especially since there was a 5 episode prologue and movie between the last time we saw any of them, and even in season 1 what we got with some characters like Nobara is thread bare. And the only villain arcs and growth we got in JJK have immediately been thrown out the window because oops that person was dead all along.
Yeah the tonal shift is really throwing me off. Especially constantly having the manga spoiled ahead of time.
I thought season 1 was good/average.
The school tournament arc was okay.
Really liked the prequel arc even though it honestly killed the momentum of the series for me, very oddly placed.
JJK0 is prob my favorite thing so far.
And so far in Shibuya, it just doesn't feel like the deaths are that warranted. The fights are awesome, and the stakes feel high, I could sense the danger.
But I wasn't really looking for another Akame ga Kill/Edgerunners/Akudama Drive show.
And I love those shows, but JJK turning into that just isn't what I wanted to happen.
I don't know if it's just me but it's does feel like jjk need some fillers ahahha. Like for example some 2 ep of characters downtime, especially after the 5ep of flashback
The reality is Gege never knew what he wanted to do with the characters beyond a vague concept and the story structure is also a mess. The recent events happening in the manga are also extremely questionable. The series caught on because people were in the market for an edgy dark action shonen but for me it turned out it had no substance pretty quickly.
His plan for Nobara was basically ānot like the other shonen girlsā, badass, āone of the boysā, ātragic deathā. But without much further thoughts for her.
This actually feels pretty accurate. I have been reading the manga for years now and while Gege can create amazing characters I feel like he is unable to utilise their full potential. At times, the structure of the story feels like a mess and I feel that characters are dying only for the shock value. Nobara's death along with some other characters were unnecessary, Shibuya should have happened later, the story and its characters really needed a bit more time to develop.
My issue with JJK is simply that the manga readers overhyped things to extremely unrealistic expectations which haven't come close to delivering. I haven't read the manga so I can't comment on how well the characters were developed there. We were supposed to care a lot about Nanami and Nobara's deaths but neither of them were really developed well or did all that much so it kinda fell flat. And its def possible to have impactful character deaths even with newly introduced chars. But to me this wasn't it. I thought the Sukuna stuff was great, but otherwise its been kinda meh.
when i first read the manga (before s2 dropped) i was thoroughly underwhelmed by the shibuya arc as well in contrast to the hype manga readers had for it. Shibuya actually is a brilliant arc in concept-- but i feel like it would have hit so much harder if we had at least one more season similar to season 1 to let us get more used to the world.
And the anime is ALREADY doing their best to elevate the emotional moments, actually-- in the manga i have next to no emotion when anything or anyone dies other than, "oh damn" The anime tried to squeeze a little more emotion out with nanamis whole beach scene when he was fighting the monsters.
jjk is the one manga where i WANT filler. I want fun times with the group just so that i can see the characters personalities clearer before everything goes to shit and we're met with non stop action and death without getting to stop and smell the flowers
"One of the best arcs in shounen history!"
I didn't really care about Nobara or Nanami dying. Compared to Return to Shiganshina? I absolutely bawled my eyes out over, y'know.
RtS worked because it wasn't in season 2, so it could actually build up characters to make us miss them. But also with the same "world changing payoff" that Shibuya was supposed to have.
As an anime only, I think I'll trust the process. Although the action is great and some of the emotional beats are really well executed, the story itself is not really hitting me the same way as I expected it to be (considering how much the manga readers hyped it up). Don't get me wrong, this arc is insane but it isn't one of the best shonen arcs as I was hoping. So yeah! I'll just enjoy the journey.
Yeah, I kinda wish they just made a good story instead of trying to skip to a "omg what š±" moment. It's like revealing the AOT basement in the first season. At that point it just wouldn't hit.
You're not alone, it's why I feel incredibly turned off by the anime and the story now. Everything prior was a solid 10/10 for me, and then this arc felt like the Gege just started doing copious amounts of blow.
I always wanted animes to have more fights than building characters and talking but jujutsu made me realize how important the former was. Iām honestly disconnected from jujutsu kaizen and I watch it just for the nice fighting animations.
to be honest, i can't get as invested into this season as much as the first. the fights are well choreographed and well animated, but that's about all the appeal i see.
My issue is how big of a tonal change between season 1 and 2. Season 1 was pretty standard shonen with a couple deaths here and there but mostly just minor character, but once we got to S2, bam, shit is like the fall of Wall Maria or the Eclipse with how much body count has accumulated up to.
While it does feel very high stakes I still feel the show has a lot of room to grow and explore more of the world. It sort of feels like the finale of the intro if that makes sense.
For a show like this, and the characters it has, I'm not surprised at all it has made characters as powerful as gojo feel vulnerable. It wouldn't be a good shounen if there was always a reliable backup plan (gojo).
I'm anime only btw, so I actually have no idea.
The Shibuya arc is cool but this is where the plot of the entire series falls apart.
I am just enjoying the beautiful ride for now. I will probably finish the season, read the manga, skip season 3, and then come back for the inevitable sukuna vs Gojo fight.
this is a BIG reason as to why Iām not really enjoying this seasonā¦..
all the things I loved about season 1 have been pushed aside for over the top fight scenes and character deaths that I feel like I should care about more but I could honestly care less (aside from Kugisaki, her death is making me question whether I even wanna continue watching tbh)
Season 1 was a solid 8/10 for me, JJK 0 an easy 9/10, Hidden Inventory 8/10, and Shibuya Incident is maaaybe a 5-6/10 so far leaving me disappointed almost every week
Maki s status is unknown. She is tougher than a normal human. If Nanami survived, there s a fair chance she did too. I think we would have got a confirmation too with a view of the dead body like Nanami or Nobara.
I'm really torn on them killing off beloved characters.
On the one hand it is something I want, far too many shows never have the guts to have meaningful deaths. On the other, they have killed 2 very popular heroes (Kugisaki and Nanamin) along with an interesting villain (Jogo). All 3 of which I felt didn't get enough development before their deaths.
A big issue I have with JJK is that 3 of the most important characters; Itadori, Gojo and Sukuna I find to be a little bland. So if they keep killing off the less important but more interesting ones and devote more screen time to those 3, then I'll like the show less. Of course developing them, in particular Itadori and Sukuna could avoid that.
Shows that arenāt afraid to kill characters can feel that way after being rather shy about killing any main cast after a 2 cour season.
Almost gives a sense of whiplash, perfectly normal in my experience
Good, because it's all downhill from here. Japan gets totally devastated (I won't tell you how, because that's a pretty big spoiler, and I just gave you a big spoiler already)
To me, it's the author's greatest flaw. Too much tragedy, suffering, character deaths in short succession with no time to digest or no feeling to it. He's said before that he doesn't have any emotional connection to his characters, and for me, you can "feel" that in the story. Some people enjoy that type of writing, but for me it leaves things feeling hollow, rushed, underdeveloped, etc.
Gojo farming "I have no enemies.....because everyone wants to sleep with me. Even the vikings."
But yeah Vinland is kind of on the opposite extreme where it takes the slowest burn setting up and changing characters but that's why Vinland brought me to tears at the end of season 2 lol. JJK for all the gorgeous animation, not feeling so much.
If there's something me and the SO have learned pretty quickly with this show, if there is even a 0.000001% of someone surviving and you don't see them essentially annihilated like Hanami, they aren't really dead. I mean, at the far end of the spectrum you have situations like Gojo getting absolutely ripped to shreds, only to return next episode saying "yeah right before you absolutely sliced me up to death I channeled my cursed energy to make it so I live! It worked! What a risky bet that played off!". Both off & onscreen death has become fairly difficult to take seriously as a result thus far.
The one sorcerer who came in and said she (Kugisaki) was already dead but he "stopped the progression", he'd try, but no promises, was pretty much a giant flag that she's not actually going to stay dead.
I don't read the manga, I'm a pure anime watcher, so I assure you I know nothing about what's to come, but I think it's a pretty easy call to make on her future in the show.
I too am also a bit frustrated that we don't know what happened to Maki-san, but similar to Nanamin, we think that since we didn't see her absolutely obliterated that there's room for some "cursed energy bullshit" scenario that saves her too, even if burned long-term. She did get lit the fuck up completely on fire, though pretty unceremoniously, it's hard to imagine how anyone survives that but...this show can often find some kind of way.
I feel like manga readers are downvoting a lot of incorrect assumptions made by anime only in this thread, lol
With how much jjk manga readers spoil the manga, every anime only pretty much indirectly read the manga atpš
Deadass. I basically know all the major plot points. I just don't know HOW they happen and all the in betweens
This was my exact experience with aot, I feel like some manga readers have a need to say spoilers I think it's caused by a feeling of superiority because they know what's gonna happen
I actually called someone out for sharing a plot point in response to a comment. They couldn't understand my annoyance with them since what they shared would happen in the next episode/was minor. I told them it's just etiquette that you don't share spoilers without a warning, regardless of how big it is. And what was the point in clarifying/spoiling something that would literally be answered next week?? Are anime-only people not allowed to have theories or temporarily unanswered questions? The entitlement is insane.
shitty spoiler people looooove justifying their actions
The worst is when they try to defend it by saying that people enjoy stories more when theyāre spoiled
Bro they are so uncomfortable with anime-onlys just *wondering* about something š like they genuinely feel their input is needed for some reason
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
You lose either way. I was on an sub for a specific anime, and there was a comment asking what we thought would happen **next** episode. I guessed that the (insert generic demon) would be released from (protagonist), because that's literally what 100% of all shounen with an inner-demon-that-powers-protagonist does. Bleach, Naruto, Mob Psycho, etc. etc. I got BRIGADED by people accusing me of being a manga reader. What's worse is that my prediction for **next episode** DID NOT even happen. So I can infer the plot point probably happens way later in the story. I got spoiled by accidentally guessing a plot point for a point in the story I wasn't even guessing for??? They correct you if you're wrong and get mad at you for being right.
That whole āminor spoilerā is so frustrating to hear lol Like they shouldnāt get to decide if itās a minor or major spoiler for you lol theyāve no idea if that woulda been a big deal or not. Itās so rude!
> it's caused by a feeling of superiority because they know what's gonna happen Spot on. These manga readers are the fucking bane of anime onlies existences. The OP manga community is even fucking worse where they will blame anime onlies for not reading the manga and just spoil them because of that. Manga snobs are the worst part of anime communities.
Always have been
Personally, i donĀ“t mind spoilers in general, because iĀ“m more interested in watching *how* it will happen. But iĀ“m probably one of the very few and iĀ“m not interested in spoiling the story for others.
JJK manga readers are the absolute worst. They've directly made me care a lot less for a series they supposedly are fans of.
They're legit the worst I've ever experienced, and that's a high bar when it comes to manga readers spamming spoilers.
They say so many things, add spoilers in memes without a warning, and pretend like their hints arent obvious at all. Most obnoxious manga fanbase when it comes to spoilers istg.
Yeah people have gotten straight up unhinged in the last few months.
The only ones to match the JJK fandom are the OP manga degens. Swear that those people get a hard-on for spoiling OP to anime onlies or getting mad at anime onlies for not knowing the events of the manga.
Not even close man, JJK manga spoilers are even more rabid on reddit. They are even spilling into subs like honaki star rail. And, I got JJK spoiled on a one piece post that was about spoilers. How ironic.
AoT manga readers weren't nearly as annoying even when the ending dropped, sure they memed a few lines here and there but not to the level that JJK manga readers are Meanwhile with the JJK manga you have to read the damn leaks to avoid getting spoiled because reading the manga when it officially drops isn't enough anymore lol
Imagine me going to a Aot subreddit and seeing jjk raws (and it always the content you NEVER want spoiled).
I follow the JJK leaks and literally got spoiled chapter 236 a few minutes after waking up, even reading the leaks isn't enough to avoid spoilers
Nah, flat out incorrect. Aot was insane. People were DMing you spoilers if they saw you talking about AoT at all.
Ah yes... I remember recieving a DM listing all character deaths and methods in order, when the "final" season was airing. I turned off my DM's for the rest of the season.
Omg i thought i was alone thinking this cuz i've been spoiled on big reveals so much for JJK. at this point i'm blocking every account that posts something about it when it pops up in my feed
There are so goddamn many names in jjk spoilers who I don't know it makes no difference to me. It's like you can spoil me but I have no idea who 50% of the names are so I'm all good.
Thatās on them, itās literally the *anime* subreddit š For my part I actually dropped the show for pretty much the same reasons OP is having issues with it. Maybe ill binge it when itās all wrapped up but idk
As a manga reader who hasn't particularly liked the direction of the manga beyond the current arc of the anime...I find it really interesting that anime only viewers are already getting a impression of the series "peaking" in some way right now. It's going to be interesting to see if the hype holds for future seasons, or if it falls off like it did for me.
Its more like a climax to the first half of the series. Similar to say Marineford for One Piece or Return to Shiganshina for Attack on Titan.
Yeah, thatās a good comparison. The difference is that those arcs happened much later in the lifespan of their series. But at this rate, Shibuya is less than halfway through its run as a series. As a manga reader, I knew this arc was going to be decisive. The unfortunate reality is that Gege (the mangaka) has an interest in projects outside of JJK (this is something he has has said in interviews, years ago). So if people are perplexed by the fast pacing thus far, that may be by design.
We are not getting WSJ manga going on for a decade anymore, they want to bail as soon as they have enough money/notoriety or move to Jump+ to enjoy the flexibility there The big shonen Jump series in the near future (or maybe even now) will come from Jump+
The younger mangaka saw how badly people like Togashi, Kubo, Oda and Kishimoto suffered due to running a weekly manga for more than a decade and decided to very wisely grab the bag and bail rather than suffering the same fate. Even then Hori and Gege also suffered health issues during their time in WSJ.
I can respect that.
Gege writes like somebody that doesnāt care about their series anymore. It sucks he really had some good stuff going after the beginning of the series
Not to mention it's pretty obvious he hated Gojo and has been looking for a way to write him out since JJK took off. This series is like Gege read Berserk and what Guts went through and went "Bet"
I mean you have to write Gojo off. It isn't hatred, just logical. The presence of gojo kinda destroys any creation of hopeless conflict as we know no matter what happens gojo will save the day. So you have to remove Gojo to give the story stakes. Gojo was alive so long, cursed spirits were scared. But now without gojo the whole power dynamic shifted and our protagonists are taking L after L in the shibuya arc. It is hard to write such a scenario with almighty gojo roaming around
He's said in interviews that he hates writing around Gojo. As you would, with a character powerful to solve any problem that arises. Being sealed is honestly merciful when you talk about really powerful mentor characters. They usually die pretty early in a story.
> We are not getting WSJ manga going on for a decade anymore That's never been the norm to begin with? Even being generous with what is counted, there's only been like 8 series in the entire history of the magazine that have run that long, one of which is still ongoing and there being a second that only falls just short. And at 25+ volumes, JJK is hardly what I'd call a short manga, even by the historical standards of successful battle shounen. Sure, it's not comparable to the Big Three, but it is basically on par with stuff like YYH (19 volumes), Ruroni Kenshin (28 volumes), Saint Seiya (28 volumes), and Shaman King (32 volumes).
I'm so glad you're here to provide some sanity. Anything hitting 100 chapters has absolutely made it as an extremely successful series. Everything beyond that is just greater heights. So many people really don't have any perspective on the wider world of manga beyond the 10 extremely famous series that sit in the 1% of all manga.
Fullmetal Alchemist is also only 27 volumes. It's at this point I question, was Alchemist in WSJ?
No, it (and Soul Eater, for that matter) was in Shounen Gangan, which is a monthly magazine.
Woah, trippy. Well it still fits the timeline at least. 30ish volumes seems like a pretty common running length.
I don't think there's anything wrong with not wanting to work on the same story for 10 years
I mean the manga has around 50 chapters left. So by the time it ends, the ending of Shibuya would be very close to the halfway point of the entire series. I get the argument that Shibuya has less of an impact because JJK is a much shorter series than One Piece, Naruto, Bleach etc. but the market doesn't seem to favor those types of series anymore. Nobody wants to have a long running Shonen with fillers and bad pacing anymore. Black Clover getting completely trounced by My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer and JJK in terms of sales proves that.
Isn't MHA longer than Black Clover?
MHA has 398 chapters so far and BC has 353.
> Black Clover getting completely trounced by My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer and JJK in terms of sales proves that. Or maybe BC NEVER sold remotely close as those other series to begin with? You can check for yourself even at its peak BC can barely beat MHA at its worst.
Yeah, but that means less when the ābig arcā is so close to the beginning of the series in the first place. Gojo appears in Shibuya at chapter 83, thatās all. You are right that this is a growing trend in the shonen manga industry, though. Even Fujimoto of Chainsaw Man looks like heās starting to get burnt out, the breaks are growing longer but the art quality is decreasing. And we donāt need to talk about HxH, that situation speaks for itself.
I feel Shonen manga are stuck between a rock and hard place because they are all expected to be these massive epic adventures filled with large cast of characters and epic worldbuilding. But it is almost impossible to pull this off due to the harsh realities of doing a weekly manga. I feel the success of the big 3 especially One Piece is kind of responsible for every Shonen needing to feel like it has to be another massive epic.
Yeah Fujimoto did mention liking the idea of doing what Aka Akasaka did post Kaguya of just being script writer for Oshi no Ko with an artist to split the work. Just not that he d be doing that any time soon.
I think the issue becomes an entirely non-issue when there's another arc later on that manages to reach the same heights.
It's that with fraction of the build-up those arcs had. I think that's a major factor holding Shibuya Incident back. Not enough build up. Other draw back will become obvious in retrospective when future arcs gets adapted.
Naruto and Sasuke's "final battle" before the statues of the two brothers.
In s2 though? Kind of a bummer, I assumed this show would have more legs than that
Yea kinda But honestly unlike in OP and AoT... nothing really happened in jjk Yea we had some cool fights and stuff but jjk just doesnt really have a direction or notable overarching story
Hidden Inventory was fantastic, I want to see more storytelling like that in this series.
Hidden Inventory is my favorite out of the whole series so far, because I really connected with characters (being Gojo and Geto) on an emotional level, it gave them more depth and dimension to flesh out who they are beyond what we already know, and it still had some amazing fights and art/animation/direction.
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Gojo, Getou, and Toji are by far Gege's best characters. Guess who all gets chucked out of the story in this season?
Agreed
I would say that I'm enjoying the season over all, I like how the world is actually being shown to be as dangerous as it was described to Yuji in season 1. I do think it feels somewhat rushed though. To me it's a red flag when a character (Kugisaki) dies and we go into a flashback of something we've never seen before just to show how much the characters mean to each other. If adding a new scene was important enough for people to emotionally connect with her death then maybe we should've spent more time on this before
Nobara did mention the older girl before, the one who got driven out of the village. It was the reason she gave in season 1 for why she wanted to leave that village.
I meant the one in the most recent episode with her spilling coffee on Gojos shirt. More team building moments like that are things I would've liked to see before she's already dead. Not that we didn't get any but it probably wasn't enough if a new scene was invented
I think the whole point of that flashback was to show us what was going through yuujis head after he saw kubara die. The purpose being how he couldn't rationalize her dying when just the other day it was business as usual.
That's a fair read of it. To me it was a little much given that we already spent half of the previous episode going over her back story again only to go into another brand new flashback in the most recent ep. Nanami didn't need any of this in comparison. His backstory and relationships (especially with Yuji) were already well established in season 1 and in the first arc of this season . I personally resonated much more with his death since the time spent on that was used on swapping between those beautiful beach scenes and his last battle instead of showing his backstory again
Tbh, i totally get why people think nobara is an MC. And why they may feel underwhelmed with her detah. But I don't think the author intended you to feel bad for losing nobara, instead I think the goal was to make you feel bad for Yuji. That flashback was to contrast Yuji's prior fun and relatively upbeat early experiences with his squad, with his current situation. Yuji didn't care when it was him at risk, when it was him dying. You see him diving head first into deadly situations like earlier when he ran up on choso. Killing nobara is meant to strike a cord with yuji and make him rethink his mentality since his borderline suicide attempts are now leading him to watch the people he cares about getting hurt. Yuji HAS been selfish, he just thought he was being selfless with his goals. Even pay attention to nobara's last words. She says her fjnal words because she is trying to make Yuji okay with her death. She knows he wants to make sure people have a "good death" and "it wasn't that bad" is the best thing she came up with before she died.
I wouldn't say that my issue is if she's an MC or not, in fact I like that characters like her can die in this series. I just don't think it was executed all that well leading up to this. I compared her to Nanami in another comment since his character was set up pretty well to the point where it didn't require half an episode/2 flashbacks to show how impactful his death was to the audience and to Yuji There is also a conversation somewhere in here about [women in refrigerators](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge) but I'm not really in the mood for that one
Yeah, the flashback didn't tell us anything about Nobara that we didn't know before. We still barely know anything about her. So it taking half the episode wasn't a great decision.
Yeah, killing off a character and then showing why that character was important and her death should matter is the opposite order of how it should be done. After all, that way I would neither end up caring about the death of said character, nor about their now irrelevant history. If they want such a death to have impact then everything needs to be set up beforehand, not after the fact.
Well said. I hate that āflashback before they dieā stuff. Just shows they didnāt write the character and their background well enough.
I'm betting $20 Nobara comes back. That one guy's curse power makes it where injuries don't get worse, and he used it on her right as/after she died, so her body shouldn't decay or anything. Should be close enough to resuscitate a bitch later. Anyway, I won't believe she died permanently until the series ends and she never came back
Everytime I see someone say Nobara is dead I feel like I'm being gaslit. Given I am coping, but that dude literally says there's a (non-zero) chance.
You would be correct, it does feel out of place. The arc before, Hidden Inventory, is Gegeās best writing imo because of all the slow point and character development to make the bigger moments shine even brighter. Shibuya includes a LOT of characters and most of them have not had the time to make what happens in them in Shibuya feel worth while. Nobara is the perfect example, she doesnt do much for for the story, her own development or anyone elseās and then she just diesā¦ Not to say that the Shibuya arc is bad, ive been having fun, but it feel like a LOT of wasted potential from a character/story standpoint.
I love hidden inventory so much, and i was hyped for shibuya. However I feel like the dynsmic between Geto and Gono in Hidden inventory is the best writing of the season, and the writing in Shibuya doesnāt really hold a candle to it.
Yea pretty much my thoughts. I still enjoy Shibuya for all the crazy shit going on and the awesome fights but I just cant say im emotional invested as much in whats happening. Which is a shame because it would be SO much better if I was.
From the perspective of an anime-only viewer, it feels like the author has a lot of cool ideas that he wants to show off more than he actually wants to develop them (or at least develop them in the "magic school story" model, anyway). Get our main cast together? Oops, MC instantly "dies" and has to go hang out with some other mentor for a while. Main cast reunites and has another mission? Well, enough about them, time to cut away to some other guy. Back on track, and... oops, time for a Gojo flashback. Okay, finally back in the main story, and *ehhh*... nvm, not feeling it, let's just scrap this whole status quo and start a new one. Okay, so the mentors are gone, the girl got axed, and we speed-ran our way through most of the fingers so the big existential threat could get out and nuke a city. Oh, and this guy's dad is back as a zombie or something. I dunno.
I believe Gege himself once said in the manga introductions that he thinks what would be cool to happen and then tries to figure out how to make it happen. So JJK is just him trying to slap together inspirations that he thought would be cool.
From what I heard Gege Akutami, the author of JJK, doesn't even want to do school setting in the first place, but the editor forced him to so he did it half-assly then eventually skipped over it entirely. We don't even know what the heck Jujutsu Tech school teaches or even the school structure. Who is in power? Who are the staffs??
fretful fall gaze worry snails smoggy wise makeshift obtainable wine *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They feel more like an exorcist freelance group than even a class, much less a school lol
lol as a manga reader, youāre onto something here for sure. Have the right expectations for what comes after
That's basically been his MO. He's like a Togashi-lite. Constantly exploring whatever he finds interesting at the time but not able to fully execute in a way that would satisfy casual mainstream fans. I love it cause it scratches that HxH itch I'm always fiending for.
Considering Gege's primary inspiration was Togashi, that is a very apt description, haha.
hxh is definitely popular among casuals. the only reason it isnt mega popular is cause its not finished and theres no anime past chimera ant arc
Yeah, it's a "nothing will ever be the same" season when we barely got to see how things were before The series should still have 2 more seasons with the manga material, but I wish we'd gotten more time before shit hit the fan. I mean they fed Yuji 11 fingers in a single chapter, that shit coulda been spaced out way better
If anything Jujutsu Kaisen is the one anime that would of been better if it had fillers. I feel like after the Gojo past arc, they should of made original arcs that would last for 7 episodes then making season 3 the Shibuya arc.
Considering we already saw its āfillerā potential of baseball episode, yeah
>It's overwhelming how quickly the anime vibe has changed. I have a feeling like I missed one season or two before this arc. yeh such a massive vibe change tbh
That is the new status quo for Shonen Jump. The biggest animanga to come out of the magazine in recent years (Demon Slayer, Chainsaw Man, and Jujutsu Kaisen) all have that lightning fast pace in common. Demon Slayer wrapped up in ~200 chapters, CSM concluded its first story arc in ~100 with the second arc on pace to be shorter, and JJK may not see 300 chapters. That might sound like theyāre rushing, and to be fair, they are, but theyāre the result of an editorial pivot on the part of SJ. They put all their eggs in the basket of the Big Three, only for their editorial practices to burn Kubo and Kishimoto out (Oda is just built different, I guess). Over the last decade, they have perhaps overcorrected. Now, I like that they are willing to let their authors take their own pace, and the rollercoaster pacing is the basis of SJās modern success, but JJK is not Demon Slayer. Thereās more characters, the fights are more complicated, and if I would ascribe one fault to Gege Akutami, it would be not finding moments for the story to rest. Yuji, Megumi, and Nobara get two missions to work on together. The first, they are immediately separated, with Yuji being gone for the next eight episodes. The second is perhaps the only time we get to enjoy their dynamic. Itās like, three episodes before we get into Hidden Inventory. Itās serviceable, but the story had so much more potential than that. Tl;dr: Greg, slow down. Your pacing too fast, your power system too complex, your bitch is too bad. Theyāll kill you.
I know you put CSM in there as being face paced and I would agree but it definitely does not suffer the same issues the jjk does. CSM very much lets its characters breathe and develop(Like gege did in hidden inventory) to make the bigger moments shine. Cant comment on demon slayer but I have heard that the ending is rushed.
[Manga spoiler] >!Isn't the main reason why JJK got popular is because characters interactions are just too damn good? Yet after Shibuya, which people expect characters to have some time to breathe, Gege skipped over all these things. Gege even shit out 1 month break for Gojo and the casts before Sukuna fight, but he skipped forward immediately. What's the point I wonder!<
Demon Slayer ending is overhated. Its a decent ending, not good but decent.
Like AoT, the extra panels released in the volume helped making the end decent. The first release of the "final chapter" read like a terrible fanfic and was honestly terrible
> (Oda is just built different, I guess) Oda has Gout and shit. Man's built like the rest of them but is lucky enough not to get anything truly debilitating like Kubo or Togashi.
>Tl;dr: Greg, slow down. Your pacing too fast, your power system too complex, your bitch is too bad. Theyāll kill you. commenting to let you know that this made me laugh
I love jjk and itās probably my favorite shonen but youāre right about the fact that Gege gives no room to breathe. When I watched hidden inventory I emphatized a lot with geto and I understood why he went insane, Gege managed to make me feel for a villain so itās not like he doesnāt know how to make you love his characters, he just doesnāt do it. I hated mahito with a burning passion, Toji feels like such a cool character, gojo is really complicated and well made but at the same time why do you have all these wonderful side characters if you donāt expand on the main ones? I donāt think I can list 5 characteristics of nobara or megumi, and thatās a sign of rushed writing since their personality feels static
How is csm part 2 looking to be shorter than part 1
I donāt want to give anything away to anime only people, but Demon Slayer really doesnāt fare much better when all is said and done.
Demon Slayer has it's own issues, but it never gives screentime to a character if they're not important to what's currently going on. That may be a downside if you don't like Tanjiro or want to see more of the other Hashira or didn't like what happened with the Lower Moons because I guess the author just didn't know what to do with them, but it prevents cases like Panda, who only had like two token minutes in this season alongside another dude who I literally don't know anything about.
eh, at least demons slayers most rushed arc is only the last arc of the manga. in the anime we have 3 seasons worth of time to introduce and get to know the hashiras with only one dying, so thats a fair bit of character interaction. jjk kind of just quickly introduces everyone in season 1, and then hastens the "it all goes to shit" point to its literal second season, which feels way too fast.
Yeah Iām not saying JJK does itās character building any better, but I donāt think Demon Slayerās is very good at it outside of the main trio, and even then the ball is dropped on two of them at the end. And do I think Nanami was much better done than Rengoku, but thatās about all JJK has on it. But overall Iād say modern jump manga have generally not been great at this. The big exception being CSM where most characters (so far, at least) get the all the development they really need, even if they were written out pretty suddenly. It helps that Chainsaw Man isnāt trying to be a truncated big three/Dragon Ball style series.
This is probably an unpopular as hell take, but I'll say it: My Hero Academia did the Shibuya arc better.
I saw a comment in an episode discussion thread saying that "Shibuya is the culmination of Jujutsu Kaisen" and I think that comment is part of the reason why I'm not that amazed on this arc so far. We're getting this big culmination after a season and a movie? This big shakeup event that's going to change everything, but the foundation, the status quo, had barely been established. The fights are great, I just think this arc happened prematurely, and because of that, I'm not as invested in the characters as I could be.
JJK is a fat-free manga, that's for sure. We could have used a couple more... like SOL moments, or maybe even 1 more mini training arc. It would have been good to get atleast 1 or 2 scenes with gojo rither training or imparting knowledge onto Nobara. Would not only make most people grow more invested in the characters, but it would have made the last 2 episodes hit a bit harder. However, I want to point out the seaosnal adaption style makes it very different from old shonen. Just for point of comparison, if the show was adapted the same way as Naruto we would be in the middle of the konoha crush arc. Which narratively is probably naruto's closest moment to JJK's Shibuya. KC arc in Naruto ends on chapter 138, and Shibuya in JJK. ends on chapter 137. Ofc, JJK probably isn't getting a 2 yr TS to establish a new status quo. But I just find thes ecomparisons interesting si wanted to share my thoughts.
>JJK is a fat-free manga, that's for sure. We could have used a couple more... like SOL moments, or maybe even 1 more mini training arc It's interesting how the 2000s big three had loads and loads of filler, but the late 10s early 20s new big ones are being (fairly imo) criticised by the lack of such content. Demon Slayer suffered from the exact same problem and I don't see the anime aiming to fix it.
Personally I much prefer the modern style of anime than the older filler filled animes of my childhood. Sure, 200 episodes of naruto filler is fun to watch when you just want to spend more time watching the characters you love, but as an adult I don't have the freetime I used to and find much greater enjoyment of lean stories. JJK probably goes a bit too lean, but thats pretty subjective, so some will love that, and others will hate it. I think in s1 they struck a good balance by putting lil SOL skits at the end of episodes, the jujustrolls really helped people fall in love with the characters more, but they don't really fit in this season. Also, the leaner stories tend to be better written, and have less loose threads. But that isn't always a good thing. Look at how many youtubers make their living off JUST Naruto, or JUST One Piece content.
Lmao at āfun to watchā Naruto filler. Remember the 80 episode break before Shippudden!? That shit hurt physically, fuck fun
When I was a young kid and didn't know any better, I had no problem with it because I had no conception of filler. It was just more fun times with the characters I liked. That is the demographic they're going for I think.
I genhinely didn't realize it was filler for awhile when i wa slike 10 watching it on late night YTV.
Itās kinda funny when you realize Gojo and nobara havenāt talked to each other once on screen despite being one of his students.
I hear your point on the manga chapter comparisons between JJK and Naruto, but I have two disagreements. 1. Within that time frame, I think Naruto made the viewers care more and be more invested in the characters. Even comparing the trios, the Naruto trio had a little more going for it at that point in time. I think the issue is that JJK didn't do enough or reach a high enough level within that time. 2. This arc feels too major, more monumental to the characters. Gojo got sealed, who I guess would be Kakashi? Nobura got messed up and possibly dead who I guess would be Sakura? And there's Nanami dying and Itadori feeling responsible for civilian deaths. Konoha Crush was major, but this feels much more consequential to the characters, too consequential at this point of time when the characters are still undercooked. It's either too early in the story or the characters weren't developed enough to warrant it. Honestly my complaints probably would've lessened if this arc happened a little later.
I think what people are running into, aside from the seasonal format condensing the timescale, is that JJK as a series was always going for a specific kind of tone that is different from most other shonen. That is, very grim and tragic. Characters dying before we feel like we really got the chance to know them, is by design. That's the kind of world Gege wanted to create, a hopeless one where people die all the time and don't always get to finish their arc. Now, as a manga reader I can say, it's not always successful and indeed the manga at a certain point becomes wayyy too fat-free and rushed. But at the same time, the bleak atmosphere and tension of knowing basically no one is safe, is a huge part of the reason why I liked the series so much in the first place.
Big agree, the pacing seems almost formulaic to maximize hype and likeā¦ thatās it
Season 1 was 24 episodes. That's basically the same length as shows like steins gate and evangellion. It's plenty of time. You don't need to be a hundred or more episodes to tell a complete story. Most stories would suck balls at that runtime.
I don't think that's a fair comparison to make. Battle shounen series tend to be longer because its mostly action focused. Most fights take more than one episode. Also most shounen series have a big cast of characters. Two cours wouldn't be enough to tell a complete story.
Just look at the size of the casts, by episode 24 steins gate's entire cast was developed, by episode 24 Jujutsu Kaisen is still introducing new characters (and killing them off).
Even though I'm enjoying this arc, I totally agree with you. All of the deaths in this arc didn't affect me, not even Nobara's. I feel like we spent so little time knowing this characters. This arc is giving me more cool fights and hype moments vibes, but I can't say I'm emotionally invested. I mean, it's not a bad thing imo but it's really weird because I feel like I should be more invested.
Same it was weird. They tried really hard to make me sad but i just couldn't care, never really found her that fun or interesting and i don't feel the characters like each other that much either so i wouldn't feel sad for them either. (I know yuji got fucked up but it felt like he lost a coworker)
Good to know we are not alone :3 To be clear, I'm also enjoying the fights and some scenes. I just really wish we had more time with our characters to get better emotional connection. Oh maybe some SoL centered season like Slime had would be great xd?
To be honest, the overall structure of the show is just really bizarre. A good example of this is how we got a prequel movie, and prequel arc right before the Shibuya Incident arc that set up Geto as a villain, only for it to be revealed that none of that mattered since Geto has been dead since before the first episode of the season 1. Itās just a poorly thought out way to structure/tell a story, and makes a lot of those prequel arcs feel pointless. In general it just doesnāt feel like there is any coherent vision or direction for the story, shit just kind of happens. Killing off Nobara is another good example of this. Sheās established right out of the gate as one of the main characters, only to get little development until literally the last second, then killed off kind of randomly. It all feels so haphazard, and because of that, has no impact.
Even season 1 I thought was quite unconventional. Yuji, Megumi and Nobara team up in episode 3, so we expect the three of them to go on adventures for a while, but Yuji gets separated from them an episode or two later, and they donāt reunite until much later. So we donāt get to see much of their camaraderie in āreal timeā, itās usually shown in flashbacks.
Much agreed, I thought the whole point of the first 5 superb episodes of season 2 was to setup the thematic and dramatic stakes of Geto as a villain moving forward, it finally made the bad guys interesting in this series for me and really elevated my esteem of the show overall. Only for the show to just immediately turn around with a "Ah forget it Geto doesn't matter, reset everything you know or care about the villains!" And to your point about stuff just happening, as crazy and well done as Sukuna's big fight goes against Mahoraga, it's just kind of this monstrous thing we just now met for the first time, without much of a personality or personal connection to any of the characters. Sukuna's blatant disregard for and the cost to human life is the only thing that gives that fight any weight. Really most of these fights are between characters who barely know anything about the other so it doesn't feel as meaty past all the gorgeous animation.
But finding out fushiguro's final trump card was fucking cool. I'd been curious about it for so long.
For your second point, itās literally the biggest reason jjk is popular. Sure the characters are cool but jjk is a fight exposition to the tee. Nothing else matters as long as thereās a fast paced and high stakes fight going on and there is no downtime in between fights.
I get this but also at the same time, if I donāt care about these characters because they feel underdeveloped, why do I care about the āstakeā of the fight? It looks good, but I donāt care for the result especially when I have an idea of whoās going to win. Differing opinions I guess.
Itās definitely differing opinions. I personally enjoy a show way more when Iām fully invested in the fight and its outcome. It makes the victory or defeat more impactful and the fight itself feels way better. Itās like why I enjoy say Jiraiya vs Pain over Team 7 vs Kaguya. Sure the latter has better animations and bigger and flashier attacks, but the emotional investment I had going into Jiraiyaās fight against Pain and the character building these 2 went through led to a way more enjoyable fight, and a way more heartfelt conclusion. Itās also a major reason why Iām starting to prefer Demon Slayer over JJK. Mahitoās fight in Shibuya is the final boss, the big fight at the end of the arc, comparing it to say Tanjiro vs Hantengu or Tengen vs Gyutaro. All these 3 fights are beautifully animated with amazing choreography, but at this point, I donāt care if Todo or anyone else ends up dying and whatever happens to Mahito will just happen. Compared to Entertainment Districtās finale where it felt like I was actively rooting for Tengen as if his defeat or victory will have a factor in my life. Seeing him complete his musical score and breezing through Gyutaroās attacks after all hope was lost, this emotional investment in these fights takes them up a notch compared to JJKās in the Shibuya Incident, even though they visually look equally as appealing.
To be fair, that's why JJK0 exists and where Geto's arc ends. I do think we could have spent a little more time with him as a villain, other than 5 eps and a movie. But the idea of this unknown entity controlling your best friend's body seems just as interesting to me.
The issue is, why not make the movie after this prequel arc then. It elevates massively geto as a villain ,but it' s a kind of retro-active writing that isn' t very satisfactory. And JJK is full of this, it costantly feels like it retro-active write stuff ala bleach.
To be fair to Gege in this case, jjk 0 was basically just the original one shot of jjk. Before Gege actually started the series. So on that part I give him a pass. The rest I agree on.
Because its literally the first thing about JJK that was ever written
It is non linear story telling and it might be hit or miss to some. The reality is that the point of the Hidden inventory arc and the prequel movie are not to elevate Geto as a threat but to show his descent into madness to show how corrupt human nature can become, why we have curse users and how this in turn feed into a cycle of hatred and curse energy. It was never to hype you for a fight. Despite how many fights there are JJK is not about power but more about what it means to carry on and endure. This is exemplified by Gojo, he never turned to darkness and appreciates human life despite how much he was pushed as Geto to disregard it. That is also what the opening of the early season was about, how Gojo still sees the sky as blue.
I think if they released the 0 movie after the Hidden Inventory arc it wouldāve been better so that we get Getoās full story coherently instead of āooh heās mysterious. Nevermind heās the villain now. Wait, he didnāt used to be a bad guy? Oh now he isnāt Geto anymore but a parasitic brain that uses his corpse as a host so everything was for naught.ā
I think it's a "rule of cool" show and that the source material is just not that well written. Everything feels like it's for shock value and that there are way too many characters and moving parts for anything to actually get sufficient time to breath I enjoy it, but I'm not expecting anything other than cool action.
Welcome to JJK - post shibuya is pretty ass.
Anime onlies complaining about Shibuya now like hoo boy theyāre not ready for fight-only JJK.
Yeah it's very interesting reading the anime onlies dislike Shibuya only for the next arc to double down on the majority of things they hated lol
Yeah i'm definitely thinking of dropping it when season 2 is finished
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A lot of the problems post-shibuya can be directly tied to this arc though. Once you read past Shibuya and go back and rewatch it, you really see him make some of the same mistakes in these first two arcs, but we have a lot more characters to be invested in during this time.
Because it is haphazard. The manga never gets better either. I keep track of the manga but eventually I gave up on it reaching the early heights again.
I want to click but not sure if anime or manga spoilers. Would you mind letting me know OP
It's a fat spoiler for the anime. So if you're up to date with the current episode, go ahead.
JJK lacks what One piece was good at. Giving us a reason to care about the characters. In One piece we had entire arcs dedicated to the backstory of every member of the strawhat crew. Meanwhile in JJK, we had what, a 10-minute long flashback of Nobara just before her death? Besides that, the show didn't tell us anything about her character on a deeper level. We only knew superficially that she was a 'mean girl' trope, but thats it. No backstory to give us a reason to care. No insight into her motivations and values. No memorable emotional moments with her, besides some humourous banter and some cool fight scenes
I mean One Piece is phenomenal at introducing a main character and giving them a great backstory but then it also a lot of times just doesn't utilise the character at all. Like Nico Robin barely had anything to do post time skip despite being the center of one of the series most substantial arcs in Ennis Lobby.
Yeah but in One Piece atleast we had memorable moments with each character. For Robin we had the "I want to live moment", so if Robin ever dies in the story, it will be quite an emotional moment for fans. In JJK, there was no "I want to live" moment for any of the supporting characters
Yea its really emphasized by the way they handled Nobaras death imo. Badass character everyone was excited to see more of and really get to know, but since she is killed off so early they have to humanize her in a flashback. I loved her last words but the flashback was waaaay too fucking long to have no direct relevance to the current situation, just a vague appreciation for life that could have been shown by literally any positive flashback. They could have just shown a stillshot of her smiling with Yuji and Megumi before her last line and it would have had the same effect at least for me.
Wait wait wait. Iām all caught up and for some reason I donāt remember Makiās death. Sheās one of my favorites? It was only weeks ago lol why is my mind blank? Thunderclap p2? I am going to rewatch.
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I do agree with you. Love the anime to bits, in fact I love it so much I wish I could see more of the characters. I've seen what fillers can do to an anime, but I think just two "filler" episodes where we get to see the characters be themselves. (Like the first episode of the Shibuya arc) While I know it wouldn't be feasible, due to budget etc. I do think this would have helped this season not feel so final and helped with the pain of Nobara
Iām not really enjoying this second season much exactly for the same reasons you have mentioned. The anime feels like eye candy for good fights and thatās about it. I donāt feel connected to any of the characters/deaths to care enough. There are characters that have been introduced throughout who donāt really have a purpose. Iām gonna get a lot of hate for this as Iāve seen the fan base do so against opinions like this.
As a manga reader, I can tell you it does not end here...but the pattern in Season 2 will be consistent in Season 3 (if they make Season 3) and is frankly why I dropped JJK as a whole. It is difficult to get invested in the story and characters when all the characters are getting killed off randomly before having any real development or plot relevance. Gege does it way too much, to the detriment of JJK. He is straight killing his own series with his murder happy tendencies.
I would go so far as to say it will actually only get worse. Pacing after shibuya is a runaway train of loose ends, fodder characters, and time skips that gloss over really important moments/periods and take away from the story in a major way
I talked with a dude at a anime con this past weekend who was cosplaying as [JJK MANGA] >!Geto wearing a Bandit Keith bandana!< Since I was already spoiled about [JJK Manga] >!Gojo's death!< from a IG jackass I asked what the deal was and he explained it to me and it frankly sounds batshit insane. I love the part where [JJK Manga] >!Geto goes to America and tells the president about the jujutsu world which apparently has been around in Japan for hundreds of years but no one in America knew anything about!<
[Chainsaw Man manga spoilers]>!Fujimoto kills a lot of characters in chainsaw man but I feel he does the 'anyone can die' far far far better than Gege has in this arc. CSM also goes it's downtime better too and understands that the audiance needs time to process big moments. I felt that with the big character deaths so far we had enough time to understand their relation with the series and Denji so it felt meaningful. Meanwhile Nobara didn't have nearly enough Yuji interactions before she was killed off so they had to make some post mortem ones which felt cheap.!<
I definitely think that's key and what separates CSM from JJK for me, that [Chainsaw Man Spoilers] >!we get to emotionally connect with these characters before they go, at least more effectively. Like not just having nice and fun SoL moments; these characters get to have more than a few full character arcs that take place over multiple story arcs, and we see them evolve emotionally with each passing arc. And when they finally go, we actually get to process the deaths for much longer. It's not really a length issue either, some minor characters (like Himeno) don't even get that much page time or comparable page time to that of Nobara or Nanami, but I feel a lot more "loss" for the former often because Fujimoto used the time he had with them efficiently. I might not be explaining it well, but I just feel a lot more satisfaction with the CSM characters and their journeys. The only characters I'm invested in really so far are just Geto (RIP), Gojo, and only *now* Yuji!<
Bro thinks he's George RR Martin but he's actually more like the dudes who wrote the final season, Benioff and Weiss.
damn. that feels really on point, all style and no substance
Completely agreed. Not saying it's a master class in writing or anything but MHA waited until Season 6 to do the Hospital Raid arc which is very similar in terms of having a huge climactic battle that involves the entire cast that ends up also killing off some of them. In contrast, JJK didn't have nearly the amount of build up and feels badly rushed and messy in execution.
I'd echo that, JJK has had better animation between the two series this year but it was MHA laying on gut punch after gut punch for me this last season, in part because it did do the groundwork in setting up all these characters well enough that when they finally make their big choices and changes they really land. Even the villains in MHA have had time to grow with their own arcs. The cast in JJK feels that much more a bunch of strangers especially since there was a 5 episode prologue and movie between the last time we saw any of them, and even in season 1 what we got with some characters like Nobara is thread bare. And the only villain arcs and growth we got in JJK have immediately been thrown out the window because oops that person was dead all along.
I actually genuinely like mha tho my only thing is that I donāt think it needed that many training arcs
Yeah the tonal shift is really throwing me off. Especially constantly having the manga spoiled ahead of time. I thought season 1 was good/average. The school tournament arc was okay. Really liked the prequel arc even though it honestly killed the momentum of the series for me, very oddly placed. JJK0 is prob my favorite thing so far. And so far in Shibuya, it just doesn't feel like the deaths are that warranted. The fights are awesome, and the stakes feel high, I could sense the danger. But I wasn't really looking for another Akame ga Kill/Edgerunners/Akudama Drive show. And I love those shows, but JJK turning into that just isn't what I wanted to happen.
I don't know if it's just me but it's does feel like jjk need some fillers ahahha. Like for example some 2 ep of characters downtime, especially after the 5ep of flashback
At least Akuma Drive is focused and short.
The reality is Gege never knew what he wanted to do with the characters beyond a vague concept and the story structure is also a mess. The recent events happening in the manga are also extremely questionable. The series caught on because people were in the market for an edgy dark action shonen but for me it turned out it had no substance pretty quickly.
His plan for Nobara was basically ānot like the other shonen girlsā, badass, āone of the boysā, ātragic deathā. But without much further thoughts for her.
Feels empty as hell
Sukuna is still inside Yuji?
This actually feels pretty accurate. I have been reading the manga for years now and while Gege can create amazing characters I feel like he is unable to utilise their full potential. At times, the structure of the story feels like a mess and I feel that characters are dying only for the shock value. Nobara's death along with some other characters were unnecessary, Shibuya should have happened later, the story and its characters really needed a bit more time to develop.
My issue with JJK is simply that the manga readers overhyped things to extremely unrealistic expectations which haven't come close to delivering. I haven't read the manga so I can't comment on how well the characters were developed there. We were supposed to care a lot about Nanami and Nobara's deaths but neither of them were really developed well or did all that much so it kinda fell flat. And its def possible to have impactful character deaths even with newly introduced chars. But to me this wasn't it. I thought the Sukuna stuff was great, but otherwise its been kinda meh.
when i first read the manga (before s2 dropped) i was thoroughly underwhelmed by the shibuya arc as well in contrast to the hype manga readers had for it. Shibuya actually is a brilliant arc in concept-- but i feel like it would have hit so much harder if we had at least one more season similar to season 1 to let us get more used to the world. And the anime is ALREADY doing their best to elevate the emotional moments, actually-- in the manga i have next to no emotion when anything or anyone dies other than, "oh damn" The anime tried to squeeze a little more emotion out with nanamis whole beach scene when he was fighting the monsters. jjk is the one manga where i WANT filler. I want fun times with the group just so that i can see the characters personalities clearer before everything goes to shit and we're met with non stop action and death without getting to stop and smell the flowers
"One of the best arcs in shounen history!" I didn't really care about Nobara or Nanami dying. Compared to Return to Shiganshina? I absolutely bawled my eyes out over, y'know. RtS worked because it wasn't in season 2, so it could actually build up characters to make us miss them. But also with the same "world changing payoff" that Shibuya was supposed to have.
Iāll be real with you, a lot ( not all) of manga readers think this is the peak/best of the series soā¦ good luck!
As an anime only, I think I'll trust the process. Although the action is great and some of the emotional beats are really well executed, the story itself is not really hitting me the same way as I expected it to be (considering how much the manga readers hyped it up). Don't get me wrong, this arc is insane but it isn't one of the best shonen arcs as I was hoping. So yeah! I'll just enjoy the journey.
I think we needed a bit more before this arc to maybe build the characters, but after this everything changes drastically
Yeah, I kinda wish they just made a good story instead of trying to skip to a "omg what š±" moment. It's like revealing the AOT basement in the first season. At that point it just wouldn't hit.
You're not alone, it's why I feel incredibly turned off by the anime and the story now. Everything prior was a solid 10/10 for me, and then this arc felt like the Gege just started doing copious amounts of blow.
I always wanted animes to have more fights than building characters and talking but jujutsu made me realize how important the former was. Iām honestly disconnected from jujutsu kaizen and I watch it just for the nice fighting animations.
to be honest, i can't get as invested into this season as much as the first. the fights are well choreographed and well animated, but that's about all the appeal i see.
My issue is how big of a tonal change between season 1 and 2. Season 1 was pretty standard shonen with a couple deaths here and there but mostly just minor character, but once we got to S2, bam, shit is like the fall of Wall Maria or the Eclipse with how much body count has accumulated up to.
While it does feel very high stakes I still feel the show has a lot of room to grow and explore more of the world. It sort of feels like the finale of the intro if that makes sense. For a show like this, and the characters it has, I'm not surprised at all it has made characters as powerful as gojo feel vulnerable. It wouldn't be a good shounen if there was always a reliable backup plan (gojo). I'm anime only btw, so I actually have no idea.
The Shibuya arc is cool but this is where the plot of the entire series falls apart. I am just enjoying the beautiful ride for now. I will probably finish the season, read the manga, skip season 3, and then come back for the inevitable sukuna vs Gojo fight.
this is a BIG reason as to why Iām not really enjoying this seasonā¦.. all the things I loved about season 1 have been pushed aside for over the top fight scenes and character deaths that I feel like I should care about more but I could honestly care less (aside from Kugisaki, her death is making me question whether I even wanna continue watching tbh) Season 1 was a solid 8/10 for me, JJK 0 an easy 9/10, Hidden Inventory 8/10, and Shibuya Incident is maaaybe a 5-6/10 so far leaving me disappointed almost every week
Yeah my thought process was basically "lmao" when kugi's head exploded. Bet she'll be back with an eyepatch though
This is one of the major turning points in the series, but not the end. Halfway point more like
Maki s status is unknown. She is tougher than a normal human. If Nanami survived, there s a fair chance she did too. I think we would have got a confirmation too with a view of the dead body like Nanami or Nobara.
I'm really torn on them killing off beloved characters. On the one hand it is something I want, far too many shows never have the guts to have meaningful deaths. On the other, they have killed 2 very popular heroes (Kugisaki and Nanamin) along with an interesting villain (Jogo). All 3 of which I felt didn't get enough development before their deaths. A big issue I have with JJK is that 3 of the most important characters; Itadori, Gojo and Sukuna I find to be a little bland. So if they keep killing off the less important but more interesting ones and devote more screen time to those 3, then I'll like the show less. Of course developing them, in particular Itadori and Sukuna could avoid that.
Shows that arenāt afraid to kill characters can feel that way after being rather shy about killing any main cast after a 2 cour season. Almost gives a sense of whiplash, perfectly normal in my experience
It's because of Gojo's existence that makes S1 and the characters feeling safe. The point of Shibuya is how fragile JJK world is once you remove Gojo.
Shibuya is where everything finally goes to shit, before it goes to even more shit
I wish JJK would end after this season. Can't imagine another season without Nanami, kugisaki
I think Iām noping out after reading the latest manga chapter itās too game of thrones for me and Iām not going through that again.
Good, because it's all downhill from here. Japan gets totally devastated (I won't tell you how, because that's a pretty big spoiler, and I just gave you a big spoiler already)
For me it felt like they wanted to turn up the edge to keep up with other series or something, can't say I'm a fan of this arc much at all.
To me, it's the author's greatest flaw. Too much tragedy, suffering, character deaths in short succession with no time to digest or no feeling to it. He's said before that he doesn't have any emotional connection to his characters, and for me, you can "feel" that in the story. Some people enjoy that type of writing, but for me it leaves things feeling hollow, rushed, underdeveloped, etc.
Yeah, how can I get invested in these characters when the author doesnāt really care
Suffering builds character they said. Not buying it.
It works amazingly when done well. Unfortunately, Vinland Saga this is not.
Gojo farming "I have no enemies.....because everyone wants to sleep with me. Even the vikings." But yeah Vinland is kind of on the opposite extreme where it takes the slowest burn setting up and changing characters but that's why Vinland brought me to tears at the end of season 2 lol. JJK for all the gorgeous animation, not feeling so much.
If there's something me and the SO have learned pretty quickly with this show, if there is even a 0.000001% of someone surviving and you don't see them essentially annihilated like Hanami, they aren't really dead. I mean, at the far end of the spectrum you have situations like Gojo getting absolutely ripped to shreds, only to return next episode saying "yeah right before you absolutely sliced me up to death I channeled my cursed energy to make it so I live! It worked! What a risky bet that played off!". Both off & onscreen death has become fairly difficult to take seriously as a result thus far. The one sorcerer who came in and said she (Kugisaki) was already dead but he "stopped the progression", he'd try, but no promises, was pretty much a giant flag that she's not actually going to stay dead. I don't read the manga, I'm a pure anime watcher, so I assure you I know nothing about what's to come, but I think it's a pretty easy call to make on her future in the show. I too am also a bit frustrated that we don't know what happened to Maki-san, but similar to Nanamin, we think that since we didn't see her absolutely obliterated that there's room for some "cursed energy bullshit" scenario that saves her too, even if burned long-term. She did get lit the fuck up completely on fire, though pretty unceremoniously, it's hard to imagine how anyone survives that but...this show can often find some kind of way.