And, in yet another manga series reviewed simply because it
was new on the shelves at my library, I bring you the official Yaruki Man-Manga
review of Gege Akutami’s “Jujutsu Kaisen”.
Ordinary high school student Yuji Itadori is kind and
simple, but also very strong. Several
sports teams have attempted to recruit him, but Yuji is fine using his
after-school time filling out a space in the local occult research club. I think it was a bit unclear as to whether or
not he actually believes in such things, but he is soon left with no other
option when one of their cursed items turns out to be real and the breaking of
its seal releases monsters that attack them.
Yuji and his friends find themselves saved by a jujutsu
practicioner named Megumi Fushiguro (male), but not without a cost. When Megumi finds himself overwhelmed, Yuji
winds up devouring the cursed object, a finger of evil curse god Ryomen Sukuna,
in order to take its curse energy into himself and use it to fight back. This not only gives him the ability to take
on curse monsters hand-to-hand, but also the split personality of the evil god
himself.
And, if that wasn’t enough, that curse energy being inside
him means that, when he dies, the curse energy also dies. Guess who has to hunt down the other 19 (yes,
19-Sukuna had four arms) fingers in order to contain them…and then be executed?
(Side note: On my first read-through, I thought the name
Ryomen Sukuna sounded familiar. It turns
out that I’d seen him referenced way back in Ken Akamatsu’s Negima about a
decade ago. So points for using
somewhat-recognizable Japanese folklore that isn’t too mainstream.)
This series reminds me a lot of early Bleach with its wacky
characters, seemingly simple premise, sense of comedy, magic system and even
its art style. But there’s also the
“using evil to fight evil while slowly being taken over by it” concept like
you’d find in Seraph of the End or Black Clover or Gleipnir, with a touch of
the Cardcaptor Sakura-esque “gotta catch ‘em all” concept and the “potentially
doomed/condemned protagonist”.
Yuji makes for an enjoyable main character who accepts
things being as they are, but is also not a complete idiot in the process. Think Luffy, but with the physical strength
of Chad and the immense untapped potential of Ichigo.
Bleach itself was a pretty okay read that felt novel and new
back when it first released in English (although wasn’t that around the same
time we were reading Shaman King?), and this series so far seems like basically
the same series with some different window dressing.
Not that that’s a bad thing, mind you. But I suppose we’ll see if Jujutsu Kaisen also
slowly declines into just the heroes rushing off into serious battle after
serious battle with no time for levity in-between threats.
(And, may I just say that Bleach really shone as an
anime? I believe it may have been my
first introduction to the Funimation English dubbing deities that are Michelle
Ruff, Stephanie Sheh and Johnny Young Bosch.)
