Of all the big shonen anime out there, Jujutsu Kaisen hit me different, it's popularly known as JJK for short. The anime id do intriguing, It doesn't just want you to watch it; it grabs you and doesn't let go. Yeah, it has all the usual stuff like a cool main character, insane fights, a power system that makes sense. But it's so much more than that. For me, it's a show that wraps some really dark, real ideas in the most amazing animation you've ever seen. It's about how heavy power can feel and how lonely it is to be strong.
I'll start with Yuji Itadori, like every jjk fan will. Most shonen heroes want to be the best, but Yuji? He just wants to help people. He wants everyone to have what he calls "a proper death." That's pretty heavy! His optimism is familiar at first, but the show just constantly beats him down, he doesn't get to train for years, he's thrown into a nightmare and has to make impossible choices. He's a good guy in a world that punishes you for being good. That feels way more real to me than a lot of other anime protagonists. It's a struggle I think we can all understand on some level.
But the character that really made me think was Satoru Gojo. He's the strongest, Everyone says it. But the show makes you see that his strength isn't a gift; it's a trap reason being because being that powerful doesn't connect him to people rather it isolates him. He's all alone at the top, and he has to protect everyone who is weaker and could be gone in an instant. All his goofy, childish behavior? That's not just for laughs, It's a mask to hide loneliness, It's how he deals with being so lonely. That idea really got to me, It flips the whole "I want to be the strongest" dream on its head. What's the point if you lose your connections to everyone else?
And the fights... oh man, the fights. The animation is just unreal, It's like watching art in motion. But it's not just pretty to look at. Every fight tells you something about the characters, when Yuji and Todo team up, you can feel their crazy friendship in how they move together. When Megumi lets loose, his shadows take over the screen and you see how he's fighting himself on the inside. The action is incredible, but it always has a point, It makes you care.
In the end, Jujutsu Kaisen made sense to me because it's not afraid to be dark. It's brutal and honest about how ugly life can be but it also finds these moments of light like the weird friendships, the dumb jokes that make the darkness worth fighting through. It asks hard questions about life, death, and what one person's worth is. It doesn't give you easy answers, It's a wild, beautiful, and often sad ride that just feels real.
My personal ratings on the anime will be 8.5/10
All images are screenshots