AniManga: Jujutsu Kaisen

 

First let me say I'm pleasantly surprised to see Bleach return to serialization. It was one of my top three manga's twenty years ago. I didn't like how the original story-line ended. It felt unfinished. I'm curious to see how the new arc develops.

 

Now with that p.s.a. (public service announcement) out the way, let's talk about the current manga in my top three. Jujutsu Kaisen, is written and illustrated by Gege Akutami. It been in serialization since 2018. The 24 episode anime ran from Oct. 2020 - Mar. 2021. If I had to describe the series in one sentence, I would say... "It has martial arts battles like Naruto, crazy powers like Dragon Ball Z, with plot twists and originality of Hellsing". It's off the chain.

The foundation of sorcery is control of cursed energy. All living beings release cursed energy. It's the build up of negative thoughts and emotions that's unconsciously leaked into the environment. When there's a strong convergence of negative energy it results in the birth of a cursed being. These cursed creatures or invisible to human eyes but can still kill, and consume humans. Cursed energy can also be imbued into objects such as weapons, places or jewelry. 

The most powerful cursed being was Ryomen Sukuna. He was so powerful it took the entire sorcery world to defeat him. All that remained of Sukunas' body were his twenty fingers (he had four arms) containing his cursed energy. The fingers were spread in various places throughout the world. Some were collected by sorcerers, others collected by curses, while the rest were lost.

The story revolves around a high schooler named Yuji Itadori. He goes from being a normal student to a fugitive in the dangerous world of Jujutsu sorcerers. Through a series of unfortune events Yuji ends up eating one of Sukuna's fingers to save his friends. Once Yuji ate the finger he became the host for Sukuna. Sukuna's goal is a world where curses rule and humans are servants. The more fingers Yuji consumes, the stronger Sukuna's possession over his body becomes. To help Yuji control Sukuna's possession they send him to a sorcerer school to learn how to control cursed energy. Aside from being able to see and exorcise curses, Jujutsu sorcerers can use it to recover from fatigue or heal wounds. 

The Jujutsu world is torn asunder once curses learned Sukuna had a vessel and could be revived. The majority of  the Jujutsu sorcerer's decided to execute Yuji. Most of the powerful curses hunted him for capture. Yuji spends the majority of the time fighting curses, other Jujutsu students, teachers, and rogue agents with nefarious agendas. The battles are intense and  exceptionally detailed. (They get busy!)  It's a fast paced, original story with good character development a lot of plot twists and dark humor. If you're looking for something new to read, u should definitely check out Jujutsu Kaisen. If u like the manga support the artist and tell a friend to tell a friend. 

Until Next We Speak, Be Well 

Tha One an Only

Awesome Anime

All work and no play makes Vinum a cranky artist. So to combat the stresses of daily living I've been playing sports and watching some awesome anime. The series Freezing I spoke about in an earlier post just ended and to be honest the manga is better than the anime. 

I've got sucked into watching Hellsing Ultimate OVA cuz I liked the first Hellsing series and wanted to see if there was a difference. The new Hellsing closely follows the original manga. It's aggressive, violent, gory (guro style) and damn good action. Hellsing (The Holy Order of Protestant Knights) is an organization that investigates paranormal activity in England. They deal with Vampires, Ghouls and any other unnatural threat to the crown. 

The organization is led by Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, a tough masculine woman with a sharp sword. Their secret weapon is the first and most powerful of all vampires, the vampire king named Alucard. He joined the Hellsing organization after being defeated by Integra's ancestor Arthur Van Helsing over 100 years before the series takes place.

The Hellsing organization finds out the remnants of a Nazi group called Millennium still exists and are intent on reviving the Third Reich by creating a legion of vampires. Millennium, Hellsing, and the Vatican section XIII (section 13) Iscariot clash in an apocalyptic three-sided war that encompasses the globe. 

There are ten episode of the series but only the first seven are released. What makes it interesting to watch (aside from the big guns and monsters) is the dialog and real historical tidbits about  World War II, the Vatican and the Nazi's they use in the story-line.

The only downer in the series is how they throw in juvenile humor at points to lighten the mood and make the complex subject matter and gratuitous violence more digestible. In my humble opinion the story doesn't need the comedy cuz its a poor distraction from the plot. I posted the trailer and a compilation clip of the first 7 episodes combined below.