I Watched JJK Season 3 Early... WOW!

Nearly half of my entire audience is from the USA, and the rest is split among countries that the new Jujutsu Kaisen Shibuya X Calling Games movie has not yet released in. However, since I'm one of those pesky tea drinkers from the United Kingdom, I have had the privilege of watching the first two episodes of Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 earlier than the rest of the world. In this video, I'm going to be breaking down the entire thing, including a scene-by-scene review of Episodes 1 and 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3, all of the changes they made to the manga, all of the improvements and extensions, as well as things that I didn't like. Yes, believe it or not, it wasn't all perfect. Anyway, make sure to like the video, subscribe to the channel, and let's dive straight into it, starting with a very, very brief run-through of the Shibuya compilation. The movie started with Yuji's mental breakdown that happens right after Sukuna Jujutsu's his Kaisen all over Shibuya. We then go back to Gojo's fight in Floor B-5 in a very fastly cut recap, and then we get to see him sealed once again. Now, considering MAPPA wanted to squeeze like 15 whole episodes into a 40 minute recap, they had to cut every key moment down massively, which makes it feel very weird and disjointed. To be honest, this movie was 1000% a money grab and really does not work well on its own at all, but it was a very fun experience to see it on the big screen, and we got to see Episode 1 and 2 of Season 3 early, so it's not like I'm gonna sit here and complain about it. The full version of Specials then played over a heavily cut-down montage of every fight until Megami vs. Toji. We then watched Megami summon Maharaga and witnessed the Blu-ray cut of Sukuna vs. Maharaga with the original OST for that fight on the big screen, which was literally the definition of absolute cinema, and yeah, it had my legs shaking in my chair. MAPPA then proceeded to torture us even more by making us watch Nanami and Nobara's death scenes yet again, before blasting the Season 2 ending OST and blitzing through Yuji and Todo vs. Mahito until it was finally time to show Yuta's declaration that he will kill Yuji Itadori, and with that, Season 3 Episode 1 of Jujutsu Kaisen began. Season 3 Episode 1 actually begins with Yuji Itadori trying to wash the bright red blood from his hands, which we can actually see in the original trailer. And yes, the massive red hands in the trailer were just symbolic of Yuji's blood-soaked hands and confirms that they do not belong to Junichi Zenin. I'm sorry, We then cut to a sequence of Yuji parkouring around the city's rooftops as Yuta stalks him from the opposite building. Yuji hitches a ride from a massive winged curse that we also see in the trailer, and no, it's not Rika. He then ends up right at the top of the skyscraper, before suddenly the giant arm holding Yuji gets sliced off, and the cursed spirit gets obliterated by an unseen force that is soon revealed to be Yuta Okotsu. Yuta then slams Yuji back down into the and pins him to the stage of a theater with his katana. Now, I know what you must be wondering right now, like what the hell is going on, because this is definitely not how Yuta's entrance was in the manga, but it all makes sense once this scene ends with a big title card announcing the official beginning of Jujutsu Kaisen's Culling Games arc, and we then skip back to before this ever happened. That's right, the first scene of JJK Season 3 is a, you must be wondering how I got here, that happens halfway through Yuta vs Yuji. After going back to the start, we actually meet Naoya Zenin for the very first time in the anime, and we see the entire scene of him being a cocky dick in front of his bum ass brothers, before being royally humbled by the news that Naobito Zenin's will declared Megumi Fushiguro, the king of all bums, as the new Zenin clan head, instead of Naobito's son Naoya, and this was under the condition that Gojo was to ever be killed or incapacitated, which of course, well, you know, he's uh, Naoya then just sulks like a little kid in an anime only scene of Maki's mum tying his sandal laces for him, because he's too incompetent and misogynistic to do that himself, and he then declares he will use Yuji Itadori as bait to lure in Megumi and then kill them both. Gojo and Yuji then have their beautiful heart to heart scene on the steps, and I absolutely love the symbolism of the red bloodstained glass above them, as well as the scene that follows of Yuji walking down the steps to leave, but every time he actually makes it down to the bottom, the scene simply resets with him at the top again. Now obviously, this is just him walking down the stairs, but the scene makes it look like he keeps going back to the top, which kind of symbolizes the cycle of curses in a way. Yuji then collapsed on the bridge, no, he collapsed his hands on the bridge, he collapsed his hands on the bridge, and we get this awesome scene where a massive group of huge curses break the bridge so that it becomes a fully vertical road that Yuji simply runs up and leaps from like he's Spider-Man. I actually noticed that in this scene MAPPA used a lot more CGI in the forefront of the scene than they usually do for JJK, it's normally just the backgrounds. It actually reminded me of how they animated Chainsaw Man Season 1, but I think it looks completely fine and actually really good to be honest. This also is not the only scene that they got a bit braver with 3D CG in in this episode, because later on, Yuta's big purple bundle of cursed energy is also just a massive 3D structure. There's this awesome scene of Yuji running around baiting an army of massive cursed spirits into chasing him, before leading them into a tunnel where Chozo is waiting to cut them all down with the best looking piercing blood we have ever seen in Jujutsu Kaisen's anime so far. Seriously, the difference in visual quality from Season 1 and 2 to this, even in just these small fights, is actually ridiculous. Yuji has another awesome moment where he saves Chozo from a machamp looking spirit that had snuck up behind him, before Yuji and Chozo have a little conversation right as Naoya pulls up. But Naoya's entrance in this scene is genuinely incredible and very easy to miss if you're not paying attention. You see, while Yuji and Chozo are actually talking, there is a blurred out bridge in the background behind them. One moment there is no one on the bridge at all, and the next, Naoya completely silently appears there as a very small blurry figure in the background, which I thought was a really awesome detail. He soon introduces himself and begins aura farming on Chozo by blitzing him with punches as he turns to flick his hair at the camera which is just so unbelievably unnecessary for MAPPA to be doing all this for a bum like him. Gassing up Naoya to be this insanely strong sorcerer who can mid-diff God of War Yuji and Chozo at the same time though, was only for the purpose of making Yuta Ogotsu's entrance all the impressive. There is this incredible shot of the entire city suddenly being overflowed with Yuta's purple cursed energy, and we get the awesome scene of Yuji, Chozo and Naoya literally crapping their pants. Yuta does his little superhero landing and for some reason MAPPA decided to make Naoya glaze the hell out of Yuta, almost as if Naoya was scared for his life here. This entire scene is expertly directed, because as Yuta and Naoya have a casual and carefree conversation in the Yuji and Chozo whisper to each other in the background and they both genuinely look like they are frozen solid out of fear. Chozo says his part about Yuta being the same type of sorcerer as Gojo, and that Yuji will definitely die if he fights, so he needs to run and leave Naoya to him. Eventually Yuji runs and Yuta chases right after him, but instead of continuing the fight from this moment, we then just cut back to the end of that opening sequence where Yuta's pinning Yuji down to the theatre stage. Honestly I was really not a big fan of this choice because we never actually saw how Yuji and Yuta went from running right next to each other to being indifferent bloody skyscrapers that are literally hundreds of meters away from each other. I don't know, I thought it kind of just didn't really flow well and doing this made it feel unnecessarily disjointed. However, the animators do an amazing job of accurately portraying Yuta's objective in this fight, and that objective was of course to get a clean hit on Yuji's heart and then immediately revive him with reverse curse technique. The way Yuta is effortlessly keeping pace with Yuji's attempts to dodge and run away while also making it clear that he is massively holding back in order to try and get a clean strike on Yuji is done amazingly in this theatre fight and I think it looks really good. Another thing I was not a big fan of though is that when explaining that Yuta's monster strength comes from his overwhelming cursed energy, unlike Yuji whose monster strength comes from his, well him just being physically built different, MAPPA actually replaced the scene of Yuji throwing a car at Yuta and then Yuta throwing it right back with this theatre scene. Yuji breaks out of the theatre from the roof and Yuta then follows which is when we see the massive 3D CG structure of Yuta's overwhelming cursed energy compared to Yuji's little blue sparks that pale in comparison. In fact the whole kind of scene reminds me of what Ryu says about Yuta's cursed energy, it literally looks like a water tank around him. Yuta then yaps on about having more cursed energy than Gojo but how Gojo never runs out and all that kind of yappy stuff, and Yuji yaps on about how unlike a normal sorcerer where you can predict their attacks based off where on their body they focus their cursed energy, Yuta is impossible to read because he's always at max cursed energy all over his body all at once. The best part of this scene though is definitely the hilarious visual of Todo who seems to be meditating one-legged in a waterfall like he Kung Fu Panda or something. We get this moment from the trailer of Yuji grabbing a knife and the little flashback of Gojo talking about how to imbue cursed energy into a but it all proves pretty ineffective as Yuta just kind of slices Yuji across the middle, and then Yuji does manage to break Yuta's sword which makes him back off for a second. And this moment is when we see Rika in the anime for the very first time since Jujutsu Kaisen Zero as she emerges from the darkness behind Yuji and keeps him still with just a couple fingers so that Yuta can stop playing around and SLIDE THE SWORD IN REALLY SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY WHAT THE FU- The main event of episode 2 is of course Chozo vs Naoya, aka one of the best animated fights in all of Jujutsu Kaisen wait what the fu- yeah I'm not gonna lie this one is one of the best animated, directed and compositive fights in the entire series so far for absolutely no reason at all other than to gas up Naoya and Chozo. But I guess when you think about it, gassing up Naoya and Chozo will pay off later when they end up in those fights, if you know you know. The fight starts in the tunnel with some cool yellow lighting, and when I say fight what I really mean is a raging misogynist just beat on a 150 year old pensioner for no reason other than love of the game. I don't know what was more impressive to be honest, Naoya landing more punches in 5 seconds than Mike Tyson has probably ever thrown in his entire career, or the fact Chozo ate all of those punches with minimal damage. I know a lot of people didn't like the fluid frame blending found in JGK Season 2 and so they'll probably complain about a lot of this fight, but as someone who also didn't like how loose things got in certain Season 2 moments, I can at least speak for myself when I say this fight genuinely looked peak. My problem in Season 2 was that there was way too much detail lost in the art which was partially because of the whole MAPPA time crunch situation, but now that MAPPA are under a little bit less strain, the actual art and compositing look way better than in those sloppy Season 2 moments. Anyway the scene of Chozo using Flowing Redscale's stack to track Naoya's movements and react to him was way cooler than in the manga, and the giant blood tidal wave that followed looks so damn cool. The lighting in this scene and the way Naoya's projection sorcery technique is portrayed with that blue outline also look great. The end result was also a massively extended and way better than the manga fight, with everything suddenly becoming very desaturated in the final moments. Hearing the narrator explain that Supernova was a Chozo specialty brought about by his 150 years of refining his technique as a little bodiless blob of, well, s*** definitely made that moment way cooler than the manga. Naoya dashing towards Chozo to end up on his knees was so satisfying and I love how by the end of that fight all of the yellow tunnel lights were broken, leaving only an eerie reflection of light from the pool of blood they were sanding in. The lighting just made the entire scene that much cooler than the manga. Yuta casually turning the corner behind a terrified Chozo was so ominous, and I love how when Yuta hit him he went flying into the stone pillar instead of just falling over like he did in the manga. Seeing Naoya coughing up blood from Chozo's poison as Yuta stood over him offering to heal him in exchange for reporting Yuji's death was everything I imagined it would be, especially the way Naoya's voice actor expressed the frustration of having someone like Yuta look down on him. It was such a satisfying and well-directed scene that you honestly would just have to go and watch for yourself to truly understand how good it is. Anyway, Yuji's little flashback was very cool, but the scars on Kayori's forehead were so damn faint that my anime-only friend didn't even realise they were there, because this is a massive plot twist in JJK that now all of the dumb TikTok readers are gonna completely gloss over and then take to the internet to misinform them about what's happening here. Especially because earlier on Chozo says, hey Yuji, your dad would have had scars on his forehead. Yeah, but it's not his dad, bruv, that's his mum. Look at Kayori, obviously mum. Right, sure, Jin looks kinda femboy-ish, but he's a dude, alright, and he is not Kenjaku. It's the mum. It's Kayori. She's got scars on her forehead. Please, sorry, I'm just like really done with JJK misinformation at this point. Anyway, the campfire conversation was done really well, and thank god Yuta looks so much better in the anime than he does in that goofy-ass manga panel, bro. I hate how people use that for agenda, ah, it's gross. The pitch-black background was hella cool, the little flashback to Gojo going to meet Yuta was also dope, and Megumi and Yuji's little catch-up session was also really heartfelt and kinda frustrating to watch, given that Megumi was kinda just saying exactly what The most unexpected, hype, and totally awesome moment of the entire damn movie, though, happened during this very conversation. As Megumi explains the calling games to Yuji, and that his sister Sumaki is tied up in it, we see this incredible montage of the key calling games players. We see Kashimo standing staring out of a giant window. We see the blurry and bloodstained suit of Higuroma Hirumi. We see Ryu Ishiguri laying on a rooftop smoking a cigarette. We see a single frame of warped sky where Uro is surely floating. We see a cross-legged Regi star sat in the shadows. And finally, we see Sumaki. Well, yeah, uh, Sumaki. She's in a wheelchair having finally woken up from her cursed coma. And all of this plays out while the glorious OST plays in the background. It was genuinely so exciting to see all the fan-favourite characters of the calling games for the very first time in the anime on the big screen, even if it was just for a moment. The only weird part of this entire sequence is when we randomly cut to Yuta's face for literally 2 frames, and then to Yuji's face for literally 2 frames, and then back to Megumi. Megumi wasn't even saying anything that deep when it happened. It felt so out of place that I literally thought my cinema had just made a mistake in, like, the tape or something. Anyway, Chozo hilariously interrupts by just spawning in out of the darkness, and explains that he can find the door to Tengen with his brother-detecting abilities. Cause, y'know, his curse-womb-death-painting brothers are in a vault which is in the same place as Tengen, for some very plot-convenient reason. The gang then all get back together again at Jujutsu High, which is where we get our very first ever look at post-Jogo Maki in a lovely little romantic scene between her and Yuta. The others then ask Yuji who the hell this Chozo guy is, to which Yuji says, older brother, and Chozo then hits everyone with the but y'know, in a much more excited and less evil-y way. They go to meet Tengen, who is voiced by JJK's female narrator, and the episode and movie ends. Well, not before giving us a rundown of the Culling Games rules, in which they literally just print the manga panels on the screen and then show them for less than 3 seconds each. Now, I don't know about you, but I remember these panels being, like, literally paragraphs long, so how the anime-only's are going to read through all of this, I have no idea. I've read these pages thousands of times before, and I still was not able to sit there and read through it all in the cinema. I don't know why they blitzed through it that quickly, I hope they explain it later, cause, like, damn, the misinformation in JJK is about to get a whole lot worse if that's all they're gonna show. Anyway, my overall thoughts of the movie is that it was an absolutely shameless money grab that no one would ever want to watch outside of a movie theatre because episodes are way better and it just generally sucks ass. But being the massive JJK nerd I am, I loved every single second of it because I got to see, y'know, the first two episodes of season 3. The animation, the art, the overall quality really does feel like it's gonna be the best it's ever been since Hidden Inventory, and I can't wait to see the rest of the season. So, as always, make sure to like the video, subscribe to the channel, check out the membership options, and I will see you in a bit.