The new season of “Jujutsu Kaisen,” opens up with the theme song “Aizo” performed by King Gnu. Not only is the music high quality, but from the intro, there is clear a inspiration from late 19th to early 20th century expressionism art with the first image we see being a direct reference to “Forest and Sun” by Max Ernst. This serves as a clear implication that this season will be much darker compared to the first two. Another piece referenced in the intro is “The Scream” by Edvard Munch which is a piece representative of human despair and the turmoil of modern life serving as another sign of the direction they want to take season three.
What I also liked about the new season is how far the animation quality has come. “Jujutsu Kaisen” has always had consistently good animation quality, even from season one, it has always had a style that felt unique to the show. One of the recent episodes in particular was mostly just exposition, but it still had the same quality as the show’s most significant conflict in season two.
At it’s core “Jujutsu Kaisen” is primarily about exorcising cursed spirits and these spirits are usually exorcised by jujutsu sorcerers. What I liked is how although the core idea mostly stays the same, the characters change from their core ideas. Yuji Itadori, for example, had a more unrefined, immature fighting style which made sense as he was still an inexperienced sorcerer.
But as you see him in season three, his demeanor is more serious, his fighting style is more controlled, less erratic, and you can see the visual scars on his body showing his experience.
What I also liked about the new season was how much darker themes are explored compared to the first season. Season one set up what the jujutsu world is and the antagonists that come with it while season three showed us how far these antagonists are willing to go to achieve their goals. With the creation of the “Culling Games” a battle royale with the purpose of weeding out the weak from the strong.
The way the story is paced as of now it’s almost set up as if it’s for something even bigger than just the “Culling Games.”
What makes season three so good was also the pace in which they released new episodes. By releasing new episodes weekly rather than adding all the episodes at once, it creates constant anticipation for the next episode that comes up. An issue I’ve always seen with many Animes is the need to release everything at once but since they don’t need to rely on that type of schedule there’s always a craving for the next episode that drops.
