For the record I watched every episode in both seasons.
And I’ve been watching anime for 25 years. I’m a child of the 90s/early 00s anime so I kinda have very high standards.
It has sooo much potential. The animation is sooo beautiful, the music is great and all the characters are super cool and are likable even the villains! I kept watching for all those reasons and even tho it has the bones of great anime it lacks the meat and spirit.
The powers and levels are confusing at times and everything happens so fast the little information we do get gets lost bc you’re trying to keep up.
They introduce so many characters but we never really get to focus on any of them for long enough to fully get invested bc none of the characters are fully fleshed out.
——For an example (1st ep - spoiler- ) ——
we meet the main protagonist visiting his grandfather, who I guess means a lot to him? (i wouldn’t know bc the show never even shows any interaction with his grandfather outside of the first 5 mins but then he dies and his last dying wish for Itadori is to “help others”. Which becomes Itadoris whole motivation in the show. But To me, this feels hollow bc I didn’t really get to see his bond with his grandfather showcased. Every time he even has a flash back of his Grandpa it’s always the same dying scene. Which again with out more it doesn’t really move me.
——End of 1st ep spoiler —-
Almost every “bond/relationship” the characters have is told in retrospect rather than in real time. And it’s always told in between battles which normally wouldn’t be the problem. But the battles take way more screen time than character development, relationships, exposition, etc. I’d say if each episode is 24 mins, removing credits the show is 15mins fighting & 4 mins exposition. It’s just way too much action and not enough substance. I don’t know if the manga is the same but it’s almost as if they believe exposition and character development is “filler” which isn’t. So Bc the pacing is too fast and they rush through characters development, I’m not as invested in in them. There are quite a lot of deaths in this show but I have yet to even shed a tear (and I’m a cry baby) and
its bc we don’t get to spend enough time with the characters before they’re jumping to the next character and then one character won’t show up for 6 episodes and then they expect me to care when they die?
I’ve seen many great anime that has beautiful character development, world development, action and pacing with only 24 episodes. And then I’ve seen wonderful anime with 600+ episodes and even tho there’s Tons of filler- I love each and everyone of those characters, I am fully invested and I feel like I know them. , I know how they’d respond or react bc the mangaka took time to really fully flesh them out and Jujutsu Kaisen fails in this.
I continued watching till the end in hopes of it getting better and I can see the shows nearing the end so it won’t.
Lately I notice alot of these newer anime’s focus more on visuals and action over substance and I guess if you are an action junky you’ll def love this show.