Expectations versus Reality
Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution is finally in theaters and acts as a sneak peek of what’s to come for Jujutsu Kaisen in Season 3. Unfortunately, Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution’s release fell short of expectations. What was supposed to be an almost two-hour debut of the highly anticipated Culling Game arc, in reality, felt more like a patchwork attempt at building anticipation for the upcoming season that certainly left me feeling slighted as I was leaving the Violet Crown Cinema on the Downtown Mall.
The movie is broken up into two sections, the first being information that was already revealed in Season 2 back in 2023. The section involved taking portions from the Season 2 Shibuya Incident arc and putting them together into a series that was meant to give context for the latter period of the movie, but the attempt fell short of serving as context and instead made the whole ordeal feel even more convoluted. I remember my girlfriend looking over at me at one point and asking, “What’s happening?” and I found it hard to give her a proper answer.
The section leaves out some of the most iconic fight scenes and comedic breaks while choosing to include brief, data-heavy sets of dialogue that were supposed to further explain the rules of the culling game, a nationwide event where those who choose to take part must kill other participants for points, and serves as the main arc of Season 3. The section was very obviously cut up to fit run time, but my question is: If run time was a factor, then why did the producers choose to cut some of the best scenes of Season 2 but chose to include sections with almost 5-second pauses to build “dramatic effect”? Also, because the movie was originally written for a Japanese audience, some sections require reading large portions of text, which offered an English translation but only gave you a few seconds to read what equates to paragraphs of information, leaving you feeling even more lost than before.
The latter portion of the movie slightly redeemed itself with the introduction of characters who will come to play a substantial part in Season 3. Characters such as Naoya Zen’in, making his debut for the first time in the anime, and the return of fan favorites like the special-grade sorcerers, Yuta Okkotsu and Yuki Tsukumo, return as familiar faces from previous seasons and movies in the franchise.
The section includes some of the best animations that I’ve seen for the genre in years, but the storytelling just needed more work. But how much work would be necessary for a series that is infamous for the amount of narration it receives in the background?
After the showing ended in the nearly empty theater at Violet Crown, I asked a group of guys sitting in the front row how they felt about the movie, with one answering, “It’s supposed to build hype for the next season.” While I understand that an ongoing series has to continuously seem interesting to keep the momentum for the show going, I wish they had done that without it seeming like a blatant marketing ploy. If you’re a diehard fan of the series, you will feel some enjoyment at seeing the new scenes from the Culling Game arc. But if you have very little experience with the series thus far, then this isn’t the movie for you.
