ANI-MOVIES, *Jujutsu Kaisen 0: The Movie

Gege Akutami's hit manga-turned anime series, Jujutsu Kaisen, was at first a one-volume manga titled Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical School which was later renamed Jujutsu Kaisen 0 as it was a prelude to the ongoing series. The original 2017 was adapted as an anime movie instead of making it part of the official show, so you can view this prequel to the TV series separately on its own without first having watch the show, even though there are some hints that appear throughout the film that make you want to explore the rest of this universe. The film is an adaptation of the entire one-shot comic, so you can see how this plays out as sequence of chapters instead of a steady 3-act movie as some it does suffer from pacing issues and entire concepts get brought up that are completely dropped later on to keep the film under 105 minutes. The story focuses on a completely different protagonist instead of the TV main character Yuji Itadori and how this other character was introduced into the world of the Jujutsu Society. TV series director Sunghoo Park is also the head of this film, and it is still under the studio Mappa's production.

Yuta Okkotsu is a timid teenager that gets constantly harassed by bullies, but what they didn't know is that he is cursed by the spirit of his childhood friend Rika who manifests as a raging demon whenever Yuta is threatened. This gets the attention of the secretive Jujutsu Society made of sorcerers who use their powers to keep mankind from the lethal Cursed Spirits that plague Japan, and they have Yuta enrolled in Jujutsu High in the first-year class of their up-and-coming students. Yuta's new classmates are strange enough including a bad girl with a blade, a strange boy who only speaks using rice ball ingredients, and a talking panda, although it's later revealed that each of them is under their own curse that they've managed to weaponize. Yuta learns to use his curse and bond it to a katana sword to help him attack rogue Cursed Spirits that haunt vacant places throughout the country. Suddenly, the story shifts into a completely different direction when a rival school of sorcerers lead by Geto, a dropout from Jujutsu High who formed his own school, and now his students are planning a turf war by unleashing an army of curses upon the country on Christmas Eve. Yuta's teacher Gojo who regularly covers his eyes with sunglasses or a headband leads the strike against Geto's forces, but it turns out the entire attack was a ruse for Geto to lure all the Jujustu High alumni away from the school so he can absorb Yuta's spirit of Rika. Geto however didn't really count on how quickly Yuta had adapted to his curse and eventually defeats the egotistical villain leaving Geto to supposedly be finished off by Gojo as it turns out the two of them were classmates long ago. There is a post-credits scene where Gojo later on meets up with Yuta in Africa setting up potential plots.

Jujutsu Kaisen O is a fair enough single feature on its own that doesn't demand you to have extensive knowledge of the anime series, although it doesn't hurt much either. The TV series probably did a better job introducing the world of Jujutsu sorcery then the movie did because the film is more focused on Yuta's PTSD and how he's getting used to new teachings. Mappa added a little taste of their own brand of humor that wasn't in the original manga adding some more fan service and heightens up the fight scenes. The battle sequences are amazing and is one of the most shonen of all shonen power battles in anime movies, leagues above anything out of Dragonball. The casting is okay, especially Lex Lang(the best Dr. Doom!)as the charismatic pantomime antagonist Geto who gives his most Machiavellian performance. Existing fans of the TV show were more than content with the movie's backstory of some of the secondary characters who take center stage in this production. If this film is your introduction to the Jujutsu Kaisen universe, then it's a good enough first step into a larger world.