Another trio of “mini-reviews” of things I sadly missed out of giving proper time to over the past few months, this time a trio of anime! Admittedly as much as I enjoyed the eye candy that was Jujutsu Kaisen’s Culling Game season I doubt my overall review would’ve been that much longer really, given it’s all-action approach…
I got completely burnt out by JJK’s previous season after it descended into non-stop action. Really well animated action, don’t get me wrong, but given the premise of the “Culling Game” I wasn’t convinced we weren’t in for more of the same, but somehow I was right but also far more entertained?
After the opening episodes showed the return of technically the original protagonist in Yuta Okkotsu and how he got the main protagonist Yuji Itadori out of his tight spot, we then switched to an episode that was entirely talking about the “Culling Game” that was to take place in various pockets of Japanese cities, which boiled down to over-arching villain Kenjaku wanting to kill all the most powerful sorcerers in one swoop to build up a bunch of “cursed energy” and force humanity to evolve and essentially wipe them out, or something like that. Basically, it was a reason to get our main characters into areas with newly introduced powerful characters to have a big fight-athon, and a big fight-athon we did indeed have! Though before that there was one episode which saw the entire Zen’in clan wiped out by clan member and character-of-note Maki after her twin sister Mai is killed by their father, in a rather bloody and exhausting 30 minutes. This included fun villain Naoya, who was only introduced three episodes earlier, which was kind of a shame. After that and two episodes where Yuji and other series mainstay Megumi successfully recruit two new sorcerers in the cocky Hakari and his love interest Kirara, which is what happens when you kill or incapacitate a good majority of your supporting cast in the previous arc, the games begin.
A screenshot mid-action… is about the only kind of screenshot you can make with JJK now!
The first battle sees Yuji take on a man called Higuruma, who was once a justice-obsessed defence lawyer who grew to dislike the unfair legal system and uses his curse, “Judgeman”, to force people into a trial. It was actually a really fun and interesting power and felt more like an episode of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure where you wonder how Yuji was going to get out of it, only it swiftly descended into a naturally excellently animated fight where Higuruma used his gavel as a weapon, so… Yeah. Still a fun character though! The last few fights involving Megumi were also naturally well animated but were less interesting, opponent and new-ally-wise, but the double-length finale featuring Yuta taking on two crazy-powerful sorcerers in the Sendai Culling Game Colony was… well, once again a long, amazingly animated fight scene with mostly newly introduced characters, but at least his two opponents had fun looks and personalities before naturally getting taken out in spectacular fashion.
Basically, Jujutsu Kaisen: The Culling Game Part 1 lived up to my expectations of pretty much non-stop city-based shonen battles brought to life with great animation, and if that’s all you’re after then you certainly get it!
The second season of My Hero Academia: Vigilantes is a weird one as it seemingly dropped a lot of the slice-of-life side of things and instead focused on the hero-ing, including a lengthly flashback for a character from the main show/series. Let’s take a look!
Our main duo of Koichi “The Crawler” Haimawari and Kazuho “Pop” Haneyama spent the first couple of episodes at an idol showcase, which was followed by an episode focusing on regular policeman Tsukauchi and his friendship with the legendary All Might, with the set-up for the season being Koichi’s quirk evolving from just gliding on things to being able to stick to things and even fire small kinetic blasts, and on a villain identified as “The Scarred Man”, who has a speed-type ability linked to a familiar looking ex-hero called “O’Clock”. Not willing to steer away from the obvious for too long Episode 5 reveals that the Quirkless vigilante who was mentoring our duo under the guise of “Knuckleduster” is in fact the former O’Clock, who lost his powers at some point in the past and is now watching some young villain use it instead, drawing him out of the retirement he only just settled on (though he doesn’t get in contact with Koichi or Pop this time round) Oddly Episodes 6 to 8 focus on the backstory to the pro hero and heavily-featured original series character Eraser Head, featuring his struggling school life, his first pro hero experience and the loss of a close friend forcing him to focus. It’s good but very odd, as in terms of the anime the main series has now ended and Eraser Head’s big role in the story done, so unlike in the manga (where this came out before the original series ended) here it seemed a little bit like a waste of time? Especially that many episodes anyway, even if it was well done.
Oh man, I wonder what will happen to him in the main show?! … Oh yeah right. This was less of an issue when the manga was releasing, obviously…
The last bunch of episodes focus on the American hero “Captain Celebrity” and his farewell party before he goes home being the focus of an attack by the Scarred Man, who sends “Bombers”, creatures that explode when commanded if that wasn’t obvious, which leads to several fun scenes featuring Koichi and Celebrity, and even an appearance from fully-powered All Might himself, which is nice to get a reminder of how he was before he lost his Quirk completely. We also get some scenes between Knuckleduster and the Scarred Man, who is identified as “Number 6” by the familiar-voiced man down the other end of his phone, with ‘duster using his knowledge of his own Quirk to fight the villain even-handed. The final episode does a two-year time jump and sees Koichi still as the vigilante “The Crawler” and happy to still fight crime with Pop, even if more adult responsibilities are beginning to get in the way. Then we get a tease of the Big Bad behind everything (in both series as it turns out!) All For One, who is observing some experiments that will no doubt come into play for the next arc.
Overall it was still a fun slice of MHA but three episodes focused on a main series character’s backstory and the final confrontation being much of the second half of the story means all the more comedic, slice-of-life segments/episodes that broke up the previous season were absent in favour of more core superhero action, which is either a plus or a minus depending on what you enjoyed most about the series the first time round. I didn’t mind it, but will admit I didn’t enjoy it as much as Season 1.
The third thing is this quick catch-up trio of Anime is the fourth and final (?) My Hero Academia film, “You’re Next”, which unlike the other ones I didn’t get a screener to see before its release so I had to watch it on blu-ray like some sort of common pleb! (That’s a joke! Don’t judge me!)
So if you’ve seen any of the recent Shonen Jump! Films (that aren’t adapting an actual manga arc like Demon Slayer) then you’ll know exactly what to expect here. There’s a new helpless character introduced that our main protagonist befriends, a new character helping the helpless character with some cool new powers and a villain that turns into a giant CG blob at the end of the film for everyone to fight. It actually couldn’t be any more paint-by-numbers, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t fun to watch, just that nothing caught you by surprise. Our new helpless character is Anna Scervino, who has the Quirk “Overmodification” that increases the power of other’s people’s Quirks but only if they’re compatible with her, those that aren’t only receive painful feedback instead. She was part of a rich European family who hired a man called Giulio Gandini whose Quirk can neutralise hers and allow her to live a normal life where she can’t causes people pain by touch, but sadly the family is attacked by a mafia crime family called Gollini Family, led by Valdo Gollini, who kidnaps her so she can help him (turns out he’s compatible, luckily enough!)
An evil version of a Superman-like character is one of the classic clichés that MHA never really touched in the manga, so nice to see it pop up here!
Giulio survives the encounter but less an eye and an arm, and in a previous conversation Anna begged Giulio to kill her should anyone begin to misuse her or cause her more pain by overusing her Quirk, so Giulio’s first appearance here is actually trying to assassinate Anna, who was on the run from the Gollinis but ends up recaptured by them as Deku, who was on the scene at the time, stops him. Valdo soon shows his face and to the surprise of everyone it’s the same as All Might’s (roughly anyway) and he then turns his floating yaught into a massive floating fortress that gobbles up the surrounding city and all the classic Class 1-A heroes that we’ve followed across the series, sending them into Valdo’s fantasy world. Valdo declares himself “Dark Might” and claims to be the next saviour of Japan, much to the actual All Might’s chagrin, and as it turns out Giulio also gets sucked in, soon making up with and revealing his and Anna’s backstory to Deku and co. Cue lots of fighting, some screen time for as many of the characters as they can fit into 90 minutes, and the aforementioned big final fight that soon devolves into a spectacular finale with a mutated Dark Might at the centre.
“You’re Next” doesn’t reinvent the Shonen Jump! Anime film wheel but it does tick all the boxes in a satisfying manor, which honestly if fair enough for a good night in.