Jujutsu Kaisen Movie: Shibuya Jihen Tokubetsu Henshuu-ban x Shimetsu Kaiyuu Senkou Jouei

My rating here is purely based on the Recap portion. My Full Review is on ANN (https://4NN.cx/.231876) If you've seen the trailers, you're probably aware this comes packaged with a recap of the entire Shibuya Incident. On paper, this seems like a way to catch up viewers who haven't seen this arc in preparation for the new episodes. Here's the thing: the movie is only 83 minutes, barring the credits, and 41 minutes are the new episodes. So the recap portion of this covers 18 episodes in 42 minutes. If you're expecting a coherent re-telling of this arc or a chance to rewatch your favorite actioncuts uninterrupted, prepare to be disappointed. Most of it is cut so fast that the scenes bleed into each other. You get fragments of these viral moments, expecting to know how it plays out already. It's less like a compilation and more like scrolling through someone's live-watch thread of Season 2. Having said that, this approach was interesting to experience once. While it's a mess of a summary, it's edited almost like a two-episode AMV. Seeing Jogo's beatdown cut to the beat of “SpecialZ” or “more than words” playing for the rest of Mahito's fight was pretty cool to see. This makes the one time they don't do this stand out: for the first time, you get to see Yuji's Crash-Out in front of the crater WITHOUT King Gnu going “You are my Special “in the background. I actually liked that moment in the show, because it felt like Sukuna hijacked the editing room to continue trolling Itadori at his lowest moment. At the same time, his sense of dread hits differently when you get to just stew in his thoughts. Moments like this might be worth it for die-hard fans, but don't worry if you show up late: the two eps we've got are already a cinematic experience.

This JJK movie happens to recap the Shibuya Incident Arc and give a preview for the next season of the anime. While the new content happened to be pretty good, I feel as though the recap was a big miss. Out of the 2 big fights, they kind of just rushed over one of them and would be one of the few times I would use the term "over-animated". It genuinely was hard on the eyes due to the fact that they tried to take a fight and cut it down to probably about an 1/8th of the original time. There were a couple ofscenes in the movie of minor fights that weren't needed for such a short recap, and they arguably cut out the best scenes in the 2nd fight. I happened to think around this time that the movie wasn't worth going to, but after the recap ended, we finally got some good content. This start of the Execution Arc is going to be about the first 2-3 episodes of the new season, so you're not going to miss out on anything by missing the movie. It's really entirely up to you whether to watch this; if you're a diehard fan by all means enjoy it in theaters. If you're a casual watcher, just wait until the season actually comes out and avoid major spoilers in the meantime.

From my Letterboxd review: “I don't care that this was a shameless recap; Yuta girlies, it is our time!!!” I completely understand why people were disappointed with this; it was just another one of those anime recap movies with a little preview of the upcoming season, and we only got the briefest mention of Hakari, but if you go in knowing what it is (like I did), it’s a fun opportunity to enjoy JJK on the big screen! I made a point to go out and see this because Yuta is my favorite JJK character, and as such, I am particularly excited for this upcoming seasonand, thus, enjoyed the second half of the film thoroughly. That being said, I honestly appreciated the recap because, while I remembered that the Shibuya Incident was emotionally tough to get through, it was honestly even crazier than I remembered, and now that I can go into the new season refreshed, I think I’ll have a better appreciation for where Yuji is going to be mentally in this upcoming arc. If you’re looking for what we all got out of Infinity Castle Part I or Reze Arc from earlier this year, you’re not getting that, but if you want to just really immerse yourself in the JJK visuals and soundscape, you’ll probably have a pretty alright time!

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