Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Review

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is a prequel to the manga and anime series Jujutsu Kaisen. This prequel shows how Yuta Okkotsu joined Jujustu High and must face a great threat towards Japan.

Yuta (Kayleigh McKee) is a 16-year-old who’s embedded with the spirit of his dead childhood girlfriend, Rika Orimoto (Anairis Quiñones). When Rika kills Yuta’s high school bully Yuta gets an offer from Satoru Gojo (Kaiji Tang) a teacher at Jujutsu High School. Satoru promises to help Yuta control Rika and use her to help people. However, Yuta and Rika become the target of Suguru Geto (Lex Lang), a powerful sorcerer who wants to kill all humans.

I went into Jujutsu Kaisen 0 blind. I have never seen the anime or read the manga. It was a film that was clearly made for the fans because there was a level of assumed knowledge and investment from the audience.

On a story level Jujutsu Kaisen 0 was easy enough to follow: Yuta enrols at a magic school, learns about the secret world of magic and curses, and must face a big bad sorcerer. It was like a Japanese version of Harry Potter, but Harry Potter had seven books and eight films to tell its story: Jujutsu Kaisen 0 tried to jam a lot of stories in an hour and 45 minutes. It felt like an anime series that was being condensed.

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 was structured like an anime series, especially for its first half. Many parts of the film could have been broken down into episodes. The first episode could have been about Rika killing the bullies, Yuta dealing with the fallout, and Satoru convincing the boy to enrol at the school. The follow-up episodes would have been Yuta getting to know his fellow students and going on early missions. The first half of the film was meant to be a chance to know the supporting characters and how interact with Yuta but Jujutsu Kaisen 0 just does a cinematic speed run. Yuta doesn’t spend much time with the students and yet he declares them his friends and he would do anything to protect them. It looked like the film was missing a step.

There were ideas in the film that would have been explored in the manga or a series. An example of this was two 15-year-old sorcerers who had sided with the villains. It was hinted that they had a tragic backstory that could have made for a great episode but it only had a fleeting appearance in the film. The teachers from the school had badass moments during the big battle in Tokyo which would please fans of the series but they were barely characters in the film.

Another way the film felt more like an anime series was the tonal shifts. The film starts as a grim horror story, before turning to some zany comedy when Satoru introduced Yuta to the class. There were hefty amounts of melodrama and triumphant moments where Yuta had to show bravery in the face of adversity. This is par for the course for many anime series but the longer run time of a series can make the tonal changes more gradual.

Where the film excessed was its horror influence. In this universe negative energy builds up in places that have lots of bad memories, like schools and hospitals. If there is enough negative energy then it leads to the creation of monsters and they were grotesque creatures. This concept led to some twisted moments and ideas. This gave Jujutsu Kaisen 0 a sense of atmosphere and dread. There was also a good amount of action and violence which will appeal to the cross-section of anime and horror fans.

I watched the English language dub. The voice acting was fine, except for McKee as Yuta. McKee was voicing a teenage male character and she gave Yuta a really wimpy voice. Yuta had a lot of psychological trauma but he sounded more like a child than a teenager.

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 was a film that was made for fans of the franchise. Newcomers may struggle with investing in the characters but there is enough world-building that it might encourage them to check out the rest of the franchise.