Jujutsu Kaisen is Alright

So I bit the bullet and watched Jujutsu Kaisen. Admittedly, I'm not nearly as big of an anime nerd as I was back when I was a tween/teenager, I'm a lot more picky about my anime these days... that being said, I am not immune to hot anime guys and after seeing a bunch of Satoru Gojo merch at Hot Topic I caved and watched to see what it was all about, especially since I already heard it was a pretty good anime.

After episode one, I told my boyfriend that it reminded me a lot of Bleach and Soul Eater - not a bad thing, of course, I enjoyed Bleach and Soul Eater (to an extent), it was just an observation and it's no surprise that Jujutsu Kaisen, a shounen anime, had elements that reminded me of two other shounen anime that I previously watched. With that in mind though, I do remember them explicitly referencing Zangetsu from Bleach and the Rasengan from Naruto in one scene later on, so they're definitely taking inspiration from Naruto and Bleach.

It does kinda show too, with some fight scenes having the flow disrupted for the sake of an exposition monologue of some sort, especially in earlier episodes. But it's fine, they gotta explain the worldbuilding and how curses work and how combat involving curses work somehow. As long as it isn't as egregious as Naruto's constant flashbacks, it's fine, I'll deal with it.

With that aside, this show is pretty solid. I like the concept, I like the worldbuilding, I like the characters. I especially like how Nobara Kugisaki is written so far; as soon as she was introduced as the only girl in the main group, I was worried she'd be a poorly-written tsundere character who's only in the story to act as the main character's love interest and/or be the subject of a love triangle between the main three characters. 

Thankfully though, that doesn't seem to be the case. She's written to be her own character, there are no romantic undertones or overtones so far, and she stands on her own as a solid independent character who still has much to learn. Also she's fucking insane I LOVE HER SO MUCH. If you saw Itadori & Nobara vs Eso & Kechizu then you know what I'm talking about. She will do whatever it takes to win, even if it means mangling her own body in some way. I love her, she's so cool.

Oh, yeah, and Gojo's alright too. His whole thing is that he's the strongest Jujutsu Sorcerer, he has really pretty eyes, and I think his eyes are linked with his powers because he only shows his eyes when he's in a serious fight? If that has been explained in the anime then I might've missed it somehow.

I know the manga is much further along than the anime, but I've decided to stick with just watching the anime so far. Maybe once it's concluded I'll check out the manga and see how different it is. 

Overall my verdict on Jujutsu Kaisen so far is: It's alright! It's got a few pacing issues, but that's not an issue unique to this anime. The animation itself is also really well done! Worth a watch if you're into shounen.