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A review by evgeniya
Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 21 by Gege Akutami
adventurous
dark
funny
informative
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
well, it was a bit frustrating to get through this volume, but it is funny to look back on my notes just to see myself ranting about a lot of things. i will mention some of those here, but i don't think it's worth it to spend to much time on the things that i didn't vibe with, rather than the things i loved.
first of all, i'm glad that yuta didn't kill ishigori and uro, i feel like there's so much more we can explore with both of them, especially uro. i was afraid that gege just wasted those characters, but i guess i should've expected them to survive, since we haven't heard the announcement of the points being added to yuta's score. and now, here i can mention one thing that frustrated me, and it's the lack of uro and the exploration of her character, her past. this could've been such a cool little side story to get into, even in the last volume, while yuta and her were fighting. but yuta decided not to press the issue and it's really disappointing, because i feel like that's exactly where gege decided to drop it entirely. a lot of these culling game chapters are so weird to me. like, i'm having a lot of fun watching everyone fight and seeing new characters and learning their abilities (gege's creativity really shines there), but. look... gege is great at creating characters and giving them interesting power sets, but honestly... i'm getting kind of tired of them introducing new characters, teasing some interesting or actual plot relevant stuff, and then never go into detail about any of that, whilst fighting one of The Main Boys, losing the fight, and then disappearing from the narrative just as quickly as they were introduced. like, can we please just go back to actual plot progression? we're still nowhere near saving tsumiki, let alone learning more about her or what the actual objective of the game is, or even saving gojo and taking care of kenjaku. not to mention we still don't know how nobara, inumaki, todo, and a whole bunch of other people are doing. it's just... a lot. i know it's a battle manga, but can we please make it so the battles happen for a reason and not just because? i know everyone's trying to kill each other to gain points and that's kind of a reason, but then again, why? why anything? i love slow burn, but not when it's so tedious and almost pointless. it was exciting at first, and i genuinely enjoy most of the fights because gege is really good at drawing them and making them interesting, the fight choreography is always great and i have lots of fun reading through it, but then the manga guy got introduced and i'm just like bro come ON, we really don't need any more characters or more pointless fights right now. and to look back on uro here, she literally came back to life after many centuries only to find out that patriarchy is still working. and got dropped right that second. by a man. that was so fucking foul. and frustrating. i want THIS type of stuff explored, not the man with a canon on his dead or a dude that's struggling to publish his manga. though his technique was kind of cool and i liked getting into it, but that didn't make that part of the volume, with hakari and him, any more interesting.
panda losing every part of his family, from his father to both his brother and his sister, and turning into a mini panda, was really freaking sad. and underwhelming. panda's sister was being left a big mystery for so long while also being the strongest of his cores (i think?) only to be instantly defeated by kashimo. misogyny is so real. and look, it's not like i really care about panda as much as i care about some of my favorite characters, like yuji or megumi, for example, it just sucks to see all the og characters being taken out and replaced by all the 'cooler' new ones. what's the point of having an original cast when almost all of them get replaced with someone else by the end? not all the character arcs need to end in death. "the three different souls keep an eye on each other to help keep panda stable. now that he's lost two of them, what will become of him?" gege, you monster. so what if i cried? i'm only human. but you know, at least hakari was there to save the day! this is his and kashimo's volume through and through. (that volume cover is fucking incredible btw, it's one of my favorites, for sure.)
the fight between hakari and kashimo! that's exactly when gege won me over once again. that was so much fun, i couldn't get enough. hakari especially is a lot of fun to watch, he's such a unique fighter and his technique + domain expansion combo is fucking broken. it was a lot to take in at first, with all the info dump, but it actually turned out a lot less complicated than i first thought it was when i was reading that one damn page with every single thing that could happen in idle death gamble, there was a whole presentation for it. "as you read on, feel free to skip over the explanation of hakari's cursed technique. just imagine something like a hands-on game in his domain, and if he hits the jackpot, he gets super strong." i should've listened to gege right then and there instead of trying to sit there and comprehend what the hell i was reading. god, but how stressful would it be to get stuck in hakari's domain? because first, he's boosted his energy by confusing you with his rules, then you get a giant pair of doors coming at you with different colors and you start to think about what he said earlier about those colors and levels, and realize that you probably should've paid a much better attention to them. i would've been so fucked, because my memory is shit and there's no way i could remember all that and think about what to do on the spot, while actually playing/fighting. and that doesn't even mention the fact that there are manga characters acting out scenarios in front of you, which would also be distracting as hell, especially if you recognize said characters. like, i'm half convinced that about 60% of hakari's domain is just psychological warfare. i'm terrified of him. i don't care about any of the big bads, hakari would be the end of me, personally. but the again, i just can't get over how fucking cool he is. like, with an automatic reverse cursed technique on top of his broken ass domain and him being fucking immortal for like four minutes when he hits a jackpot, and his physical strength/combat skills to match, it's no wonder gojo said that he would be just fine on his own. yuta is amazing, but so is hakari. and why aren't the good guys winning when they have those two on their side?
i'm so curious about kashimo's cursed technique though. he's so strong already and he didn't even use it yet. but he said it can be used only one time, so it has to be insanely powerful. don't know if he can match sukuna, i don't really think he can, but i am really excited to see them fight, if it ever comes down to it. as long as he's not in yuji's body at the time, i don't think i can take the pain of seeing that.
i didn't expect to see maki this volume, but i am so damn happy, because it's been so long. and noritoshi is with her! a team-up i never knew i needed. i'm very excited to finally see a swordswoman/archer duo in an action sequence, because i rarely see that kind of dynamic, surprisingly, plus both of them are physically powerful with their hand to hand combat, so this is by far the most exciting duo in the culling game for me. and the ceremonial 'chopping off your hair after going through a traumatic event' queer representation gege has given us this chapter is very much appreciated as well. good for them for cutting ties with their toxic ass clans, they deserve so much better than that bullshit.
first of all, i'm glad that yuta didn't kill ishigori and uro, i feel like there's so much more we can explore with both of them, especially uro. i was afraid that gege just wasted those characters, but i guess i should've expected them to survive, since we haven't heard the announcement of the points being added to yuta's score. and now, here i can mention one thing that frustrated me, and it's the lack of uro and the exploration of her character, her past. this could've been such a cool little side story to get into, even in the last volume, while yuta and her were fighting. but yuta decided not to press the issue and it's really disappointing, because i feel like that's exactly where gege decided to drop it entirely. a lot of these culling game chapters are so weird to me. like, i'm having a lot of fun watching everyone fight and seeing new characters and learning their abilities (gege's creativity really shines there), but. look... gege is great at creating characters and giving them interesting power sets, but honestly... i'm getting kind of tired of them introducing new characters, teasing some interesting or actual plot relevant stuff, and then never go into detail about any of that, whilst fighting one of The Main Boys, losing the fight, and then disappearing from the narrative just as quickly as they were introduced. like, can we please just go back to actual plot progression? we're still nowhere near saving tsumiki, let alone learning more about her or what the actual objective of the game is, or even saving gojo and taking care of kenjaku. not to mention we still don't know how nobara, inumaki, todo, and a whole bunch of other people are doing. it's just... a lot. i know it's a battle manga, but can we please make it so the battles happen for a reason and not just because? i know everyone's trying to kill each other to gain points and that's kind of a reason, but then again, why? why anything? i love slow burn, but not when it's so tedious and almost pointless. it was exciting at first, and i genuinely enjoy most of the fights because gege is really good at drawing them and making them interesting, the fight choreography is always great and i have lots of fun reading through it, but then the manga guy got introduced and i'm just like bro come ON, we really don't need any more characters or more pointless fights right now. and to look back on uro here, she literally came back to life after many centuries only to find out that patriarchy is still working. and got dropped right that second. by a man. that was so fucking foul. and frustrating. i want THIS type of stuff explored, not the man with a canon on his dead or a dude that's struggling to publish his manga. though his technique was kind of cool and i liked getting into it, but that didn't make that part of the volume, with hakari and him, any more interesting.
panda losing every part of his family, from his father to both his brother and his sister, and turning into a mini panda, was really freaking sad. and underwhelming. panda's sister was being left a big mystery for so long while also being the strongest of his cores (i think?) only to be instantly defeated by kashimo. misogyny is so real. and look, it's not like i really care about panda as much as i care about some of my favorite characters, like yuji or megumi, for example, it just sucks to see all the og characters being taken out and replaced by all the 'cooler' new ones. what's the point of having an original cast when almost all of them get replaced with someone else by the end? not all the character arcs need to end in death. "the three different souls keep an eye on each other to help keep panda stable. now that he's lost two of them, what will become of him?" gege, you monster. so what if i cried? i'm only human. but you know, at least hakari was there to save the day! this is his and kashimo's volume through and through. (that volume cover is fucking incredible btw, it's one of my favorites, for sure.)
the fight between hakari and kashimo! that's exactly when gege won me over once again. that was so much fun, i couldn't get enough. hakari especially is a lot of fun to watch, he's such a unique fighter and his technique + domain expansion combo is fucking broken. it was a lot to take in at first, with all the info dump, but it actually turned out a lot less complicated than i first thought it was when i was reading that one damn page with every single thing that could happen in idle death gamble, there was a whole presentation for it. "as you read on, feel free to skip over the explanation of hakari's cursed technique. just imagine something like a hands-on game in his domain, and if he hits the jackpot, he gets super strong." i should've listened to gege right then and there instead of trying to sit there and comprehend what the hell i was reading. god, but how stressful would it be to get stuck in hakari's domain? because first, he's boosted his energy by confusing you with his rules, then you get a giant pair of doors coming at you with different colors and you start to think about what he said earlier about those colors and levels, and realize that you probably should've paid a much better attention to them. i would've been so fucked, because my memory is shit and there's no way i could remember all that and think about what to do on the spot, while actually playing/fighting. and that doesn't even mention the fact that there are manga characters acting out scenarios in front of you, which would also be distracting as hell, especially if you recognize said characters. like, i'm half convinced that about 60% of hakari's domain is just psychological warfare. i'm terrified of him. i don't care about any of the big bads, hakari would be the end of me, personally. but the again, i just can't get over how fucking cool he is. like, with an automatic reverse cursed technique on top of his broken ass domain and him being fucking immortal for like four minutes when he hits a jackpot, and his physical strength/combat skills to match, it's no wonder gojo said that he would be just fine on his own. yuta is amazing, but so is hakari. and why aren't the good guys winning when they have those two on their side?
i'm so curious about kashimo's cursed technique though. he's so strong already and he didn't even use it yet. but he said it can be used only one time, so it has to be insanely powerful. don't know if he can match sukuna, i don't really think he can, but i am really excited to see them fight, if it ever comes down to it. as long as he's not in yuji's body at the time, i don't think i can take the pain of seeing that.
i didn't expect to see maki this volume, but i am so damn happy, because it's been so long. and noritoshi is with her! a team-up i never knew i needed. i'm very excited to finally see a swordswoman/archer duo in an action sequence, because i rarely see that kind of dynamic, surprisingly, plus both of them are physically powerful with their hand to hand combat, so this is by far the most exciting duo in the culling game for me. and the ceremonial 'chopping off your hair after going through a traumatic event' queer representation gege has given us this chapter is very much appreciated as well. good for them for cutting ties with their toxic ass clans, they deserve so much better than that bullshit.