With its prequel having been awarded the anime of the year in 2021, Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 is on everyone’s watchlist right now. The Jujutsu Kaisen manga series, written and illustrated by Gege Akutami, has 18 volumes and counting. The studio behind the anime adaptation is MAPPA and the director is Sunghoo Park.
What Happened In The First Season Of Jujutsu Kaisen?
Yuji Itadori, a high school student with superhuman abilities, encounters a sorcerer named Megumi Fushiguro who informs him of a cursed talisman located somewhere in his school. Later that night, Yuji’s friends, all part of an Occult club based in the school, unknowingly unseal the very cursed talisman Megumi had warned about.
The cursed item, a rotten finger, attracts evil curses to the school. In order to save his friends, Yuji swallows the finger. This transforms him into a host for the demon, Ryomen Sukuna, an ancient powerful curse that wreaked havoc on the world during his reign.
Yuji momentarily turns into Sukuna and faces Satoru Gojo who proclaims himself the strongest sorcerer and swiftly mops the floor with Sukuna. Gojo realizes that if Yuji manages to eat the remaining fingers before dying, they can destroy the talismans and thus, Sukuna’s spiritual form, in one fell swoop.
He makes a difficult proposal to our hero — Itadori can either die at once or collect the remaining cursed fingers of Sukuna and then die.
Yuji agrees and becomes a sorcerer himself. During his stay at the school, he makes two friends – Megumi and Nobara. They eventually become a team and go on missions together. On one such mission, they encounter a special grade curse. They fail to measure up to it and decide to flee.
Yuji eventually stays back and turns into Sukuna so he can exorcise the special grade curse. Sukuna makes short work of the enemy, then heads to where Megumi is. The two initiate a battle which culminates in Sukuna ripping Yuji’s heart out. Yuji seemingly dies and takes Sukuna’s temporal form with him.
Yuji, however, wrestles with the curse and returns to the world of the living. Only Gojo and a select few know that Yuji is still alive. The former places the latter under the guidance of Kento Nanami, a former salaryman.
During the period when the rest of the world does not know about Yuji being alive, he befriends Junpei, a boy who desires power in any shape or form to escape the bullies who torment him in school.
They come into conflict when Junpei’s mother dies and he tries to seek revenge. Mahito, a special grade curse that resembles a human, kills Junpei and instantly detects Yuji as the host of Sukuna. They have a fight where Yuji surprisingly holds his own. Nanami joins our hero and is able to overwhelm Mahito who flees the scene through the sewers.
Itadori, now having faced off against a special grade curse with his own strength this time, makes his way to the location where the other students are participating in an exchange event between two prefectural schools.
He reveals his resurrection at this event but does not get the ovation he was expecting. He forms a brotherly bond with Aoi Todo, an eccentric third year at Kyoto Jujutsu High School.
Both the schools have a competition where they test their skills against each other. The event is short-lived as it is invaded by Hanami, a nature-worshipping special grade curse, and Mahito. The students and staff present at the school manage to repel the invasion. However, Mahito succeeds in stealing some artifacts from the school’s storage facility.
Later, Yuji and Nobara are sent on a mission where they come across two Death Paintings, human brothers who have both curse and human blood. Yuji and Nobara manage to kill them while Megumi exorcises another special grade curse. They are nominated for first grade sorcerer status due to their achievements.
This is where the first season finale concludes.
Plot Of Season 2:
We’re speculating that season 2 of the anime adaptation will be based on the Shibuya Incident story arc. Spoilers ahead!
Geto and the other curses lay a spiritual screen over Shibuya, and the sorcerers from the Jujutsu schools arrive at the place to defeat them. Gojo picks off the cursed spirits one by one and destroys Hanami. In the chaos, he is caught in the trap Mahito and the others laid for him, and gets sealed away in a pocket dimension.
Megumi and Yuji fight curse user Jiro Awasaka, while Takuma Ino confronts Ogami. The cursed spirit Jogo finds Yuji and forcefeeds him the remaining fingers of Sukuna. Yuji then gives way to Sukuna who fights the special grade curse and kills him.
The ancient cursed demon also saves Megumi from Mahoraga, the most powerful shikigami. Nanami falls to Mahito while Yuji watches helplessly. Nobara also seemingly dies due to Mahito’s powers. Yuji and Todo fight together against Mahito and defeat him.
Kenjaku, an ancient sorcerer who controlled Geto all along, arrives at the scene and absorbs the weakened Mahito. He reveals that he’s been jumping across bodies for thousands of years to implant Binding Vows.
This awakens thousands of new powerful sorcerers throughout Japan. It is the first step to creating a world infested with cursed spirits and other evil forces similar to what happened during the Heian period.
Second Season Characters:
- Yuji Itadori
- Satoru Gojo
- Megumi Fushiguro
- Nobara Kugisaki
- Ryomen Sukuna
- Toge Inumaki
- Kento Nanami
- Panda
- Aoi Todo
- Maki Zenin
First Season Episode List:
- Episode 1: Ryomen Sukuna
- Episode 2: For Myself
- Episode 3: Girl of Steel
- Episode 4: Curse Womb Must Die
- Episode 5: Curse Womb Must Die II
- Episode 6: After Rain
- Episode 7: Assault
- Episode 8: Boredom
- Episode 9: Small Fry and Reverse Retribution
- Episode 10: Idle Transfiguration
- Episode 11: Narrow-minded
- Episode 12: To You, Someday
- Episode 13: Tomorrow
- Episode 14: Kyoto Sister School Goodwill Event – Team Battle, Part 0
- Episode 15: Kyoto Sister School Goodwill Event – Team Battle, Part 1
- Episode 16: Kyoto Sister School Goodwill Event – Team Battle, Part 2
- Episode 17: Kyoto Sister School Goodwill Event – Team Battle, Part 3
- Episode 18: Sage
- Episode 19: Black Flash
- Episode 20: Non-Standard
- Episode 21: Jujutsu Koshien
- Episode 22: The Origin of Blind Obedience
- Episode 23: The Origin of Blind Obedience II
- Episode 24: Accomplices
When Is Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Release Date?
Jujutsu Kaisen was a commercial success. Leaving aside its phenomenal digital viewership, the sales of just one volume of Blu-Ray/DVD boxset of the anime series hit 22,701 copies in its first week in Japan. This is significant because Blu-Ray/DVD is pretty expensive and its sales are a contributing factor to how fast an anime is green-lit for a sequel, or if it will ever get one.
Jujutsu Kaisen anime Vol. 1 Blu-ray and DVD ranked #1 for Oricon Anime sales week January 18-24 with the Blu-ray selling 14,935 copies and DVD 7,766 copies for a total of 22,701 copies. A great first week. pic.twitter.com/lIvyjCflwF
— Jujutsu Kaisen (@JujutsuKaisen) January 26, 2021
It has been officially announced that the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen will be handled by MAPPA. The launch date is set for 2023. Since we have not been given any news on a specific premiere date, and anime comes out in three major release windows of Winter, Spring and Fall, it can be aired beginning in January 2023, or in April 2023, or in October 2023.
UPDATE: At the Jump Festa ’23 event, it was revealed that this show will return to Japan in July 2023. Sadly, the manga’s creator Gege Akutami also hinted that the series would be ending in 2023.
How Many Episodes Will The Second Season Have?
There hasn’t been any definite news on Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 and that includes the information on the number of episodes it might have. However, since the first season had 24 episodes, it wouldn’t be a far-fetched idea that the sequel might also have the same number.
Is The Season 2 Trailer Out?
No official trailer for the sequel is out. The release date for the said trailer hasn’t been confirmed either, although we know the anime will be launched sometime in 2023.
Two trailers of the anime series received significant traction a few months ago. These trailers were for Jujutsu Kaisen 0, the movie that was released in Japan in 2021. Some excitedly mistook it for the second season, but it wasn’t so.
The film was not adapted from the original manga, but from a standalone version of the anime illustrated by the same mangaka. It’s set in the same universe and focuses on a flashback that involves certain characters from the original manga. The movie was directed by Sunghoo Park who worked on the first season of Jujutsu Kaisen.
Will There Be A Season 3?
Very likely. Readers of this manga know that the next volumes of the book are packed with thrilling action sequences and enticing subplots. MAPPA is likely to go all out in animating the manga series with reduced gaps between seasons, possibly as quickly as the subsequent volumes hit stores.
The studio had been busy with the production of the Jujutsu Kaisen movie that aired on December 24th of 2021. The flick wasn’t available globally back then and was only out in Japan. It hit the US on 18th March 2022.
Fans from other countries like India signed online petitions to bring the movie to their local theaters. It worked for movies like “Weathering With You” in the past. And sure enough, Jujutsu Kaisen 0 was officially released in India on 30th June 2022.
Where To Watch Jujutsu Kaisen?
You can watch season 1 on HBO Max, Crunchyroll or VRV. If you’re a Netflix user in India or Japan, you can watch the anime on said streaming platform. However, if you live in the US, Netflix does not have the rights to stream the show in the country. You can find a way around this by using a VPN and changing your Netflix region to access the content.
Conclusion:
Jujutsu Kaisen is an action-packed shounen anime television series that has jaw-dropping animation sequences along with a decent plotline. Shounen anime is a mixed bag to a casual fan of the medium. It’s got a reputation for exaggerating everything from simple character emotions to dialogues courtesy of the main characters.
Hardcore shonen anime enthusiasts defend a lot of these tropes and pass them off as the portrayal of realistic adolescent personalities by main characters who are typically aged between 11 and 17 years old.
Whichever side of the spectrum you are on in regards to this genre, Jujutsu Kaisen is a show that transcends those cliches and tropes. The plot isn’t exceptional, but the animation and the execution of the story is sublime. We’ve come to expect nothing less from MAPPA.
Another interesting aspect of the show is that the female characters are written very well. Generally, poster shows that represent the shounen medium like Naruto, Fairy Tail and Bleach have one thing in common – less than likable female characters. They’re all great shows, but a few blemishes like these have always tarnished their legacy.
However, we seem to be at an era where that is changing. We’re seeing this with not just Jujutsu Kaisen — the newer generation of shonen anime seems to have good female characters, each with their own unique traits, goals and ideologies. It truly is a good time to be a fan of this genre.
