I saw something like this on twitter, I couldn’t quite put my hands on what it was until I read about it on X but I agree. Their is an emotional disconnect that happens when watching Jujutsu Kaisen, and the one where Maki Zenin wipes out the entire Zenin clan is probably the clearest example of it. On paper, this should have been one of the most powerful and emotionally charged moments in the series. An abused and underestimated character returns with overwhelming power and dismantles the very system that oppressed her. That’s the kind of narrative moment that, in most anime, hits like a truck. Instead, me at least, it felt like incredible animation but emotionally, almost nothing. It felt like a knock off of Naruto where Itachi kills of the Uchiha clan.
The idea of Maki rejecting the Zenin clan and destroying it is narratively brilliant. It fits the themes of toxic tradition that run through JJK. The problem is execution and build up to that very episode, the emotional groundwork, the sheer speed at which the Zenin hierarchy was introduced and discarded was nuts. For this moment to land, we were supposed to feel the weight of Maki’s suffering, the cruelty of the Zenin clan, the death of mai, her sister but the show never really made us live with those things long enough. we perhaps needed more than a few flashback panels of her childhood suffering. We needed to see the Zenin clan as a living entity with internal politics that didn't just revolve around being the bad guys. Their was no development, jjk doesn’t make you fall in love with side characters like that. Before this episode, Maki often felt like a background presence. She had moments her fight with Miwa her brief flashbacks to the Zenin family, but these were fragments. We were told the Zenin clan was awful. We were told Maki was abused. We were told she was ostracized for lacking cursed energy. But we rarely experienced that reality with her in a sustained way. So when she returns and systematically eliminates the entire clan, it plays more like a plot event.
Compare this to deaths and revenge arcs in other anime. When Jiraiya died in Naruto, it hurt because we had lived with him for years. When Neji died, even if you debate the writing choice, you understood who Neji was, what he represented, I dare say in demon slayer I cried when nezuko did not burn in the sun.
That’s the pattern in Jujutsu Kaisen. Side characters are sketched with strong concepts but rarely emotional. One death they got right was Nanami, he is one of the few exceptions. Nobara’s “death” moment also did not carry weight, people have even forgotten about her, hell even the characters in jjk have forgotten about her
Another issue is pacing. Like OMG JJK moves very fast. Characters enter, get a backstory in a few lines, have a fight, and are removed from the board.So when Maki appears this season after being relatively quiet and suddenly ends an entire clan in one episode, it feels abrupt.
Maki destroying the Zenin clan should have been a legendary, goosebump-inducing, emotionally overwhelming scene. Instead, for many viewers, it was a visually elite sequence that lacked emotional resonance. You admire it. You don’t feel it.