Jujutsu Kaisen just went to an even higher level...
I wrote an article 2 weeks to this day about the 39th episode of the Jujutsu Kaisen anime. In that article, I was talking about how JJK went to the next level due to the Toji vs Dagon fight and subsequent devastating injuries caused by Jogo to Maki and Nanami, whilst also setting up the fight between Toji and his son, Megumi.
Well, since then, it’s only gotten crazier.
Running through episode 40 really quickly, we finally get the Toji vs Megumi fight and it lives up to all expectations. Toji absolutely batters Megumi from pillar to post and doesn’t really stop until the very last second, where his soul reappears and he realises that he is fighting his son. He has a flashback in his mind of his conversations with the Zen’in clan, telling them to not sell Megumi for too low a price. When he returns to the present day he asks Megumi the most important question; “What’s your name?” and he responds with Fushiguro. This instantly makes Toji delighted and he shoves the cursed tool in his head, killing the reincarnated version of himself. The amazing thing is that Megumi still doesn’t know who Toji is and will possibly never find out, despite that being such an amazing moment for the fans to see. We then get Sukuna vs Jogo, which is AMAZING and shows Sukuna’s unbelievable level of power, as Jogo gives him a fine amount of competition but in the end is obliterated. Megumi is also hurt pretty badly by Haruta which is where episode 41 starts off.
Megumi is crawling through the streets of Shibuya, with Haruta walking behind him, when he starts trying to begin a 10 shadows technique ritual to summon Mahoraga - a Shikigami who has never been able to be tamed by any user of the technique in history. Megumi clearly had it in mind to try and use Mahoraga to kill Haruta, but as soon as Megumi takes a huge punch, but Sukuna of all people decides to save Megumi’s life for some reason that I’m sure will become apparent in the future and has to deal with Mahoraga, and oh my word this fight is absolutely incredible. Mahoraga’s ability is essentially to read every single attack thrown at him, and can adapt to these attacks instantly. This is one of, if not the very first time that Sukuna’s slices have been able to be seen by an opponent and he is genuinely fascinated and delighted about this. It’s as if he is finally seeing an opponent that can give him a great fight and he simply can’t believe it. Sukuna tries for a good while to damage Mahoraga with his attacks but he can’t do it, and has to rely on his domain expansion to finish the job, with a guaranteed hit meaning that Sukuna had to finish it with one hit before Mahoraga could adjust to the domain, which he seemingly did. In the process of this fight, Shibuya is essentially 100% destroyed. Every building, the Train Station, the streets, everything. Sukuna also runs out of time in control of Yuji at the end of this fight and therefore leaves Yuji with every single terrible event flying through his memories and sends Yuji into disbelief. He is so disgusted that he is sick everywhere and starts desperately hitting the ground and destroying his own hands. He promises to help everyone by fighting as much as he can, otherwise he will simply be viewed as a murderer as Sukuna was in control of his body when everything happened. The episode ends with a shot of Nanami’s half burnt body walking towards the screen and the cliffhanger ends there.
What an episode.
Unfortunately I am aware of what happens in the next episode, in regards to Nanami, and I’m absolutely gutted since he is one of the better characters in the series. Yuji’s moment at the end is heartbreaking and I think Megumi has a great character moment here but in my opinion the episode should be praised most due to the Sukuna and Mahoraga fight. The way it’s animated and the behaviour of Sukuna is genuinely amazing and gives him so much more personality as a villain than he already had. It’s a stunning watch and genuinely left me unable to react to everything that happened after it in the way that I would’ve otherwise. I was just too shocked by how much that fight delivered. Despite some sadness here and there in this arc, the fights and action moments we’ve had just makes it an absolute blast to watch and I can’t wait for next week, even though I’m not even sure if It’ll be released due to the stuff going on with the animators right now. Regardless though, JJK is by far the best new generation manga/anime series. It’s just so good I can barely describe it.