3 out of 5

Directed by: Sunghoo Park

Capably expanding on its manga source material, and better tonally / conceptually connected to the episodic stuff than that work – the manga published as Jujutsu Kaisen 0 was material created before the ongoing series; the anime obviously has hindsight benefits it can lean on – Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is, Mappa style aside, a rather generic goody-goody-protag versus ubra-evil-antag anime, with motivations on each side often as one-dimensional as needed to support that. But the animation is simply unbeatable, and a familiarity with the characters here helps fill in some of the gaps with that formula (also acting as a good summary of the sometimes over-complicated lore of JJK), and sets up Geto for being the main baddie in season 2, somehow refreshed after his battle here.

Because that’s the gist: before Itadori, also-super-powerful-rookie Yuta is taken into the high school under the tutelage of Satoru Gojo, with the curse that gives the kid his power much desired by the power-hungry Geto. Yuta is the goody-goody (with a tragic past – his curse hurts people!), and JJK 0 gives us fun training sequences as he gets up to speed; meanwhile, Geto plots for an all-out assault that takes up the film’s back half.

Yes, you’ve seen echoes of this plot in Itadori and in the show; Mappa, director Sunghoo Park and writer Hiroshi Seko mask that incredibly well by expanding the small story into a film, giving them room for better fleshing out the interactions with characters we know, and fully seating Yuta within the world. The fights are also excellently paced so as not to tire, with stake appropriately anteing up along the way.

While lacking the cooler hooks of Itadori’s story, and some of the more bombastic storytelling approaches of the show, the streamlining of the JJK concepts and set beginning and ending of the tale make this a satisfying and stylistic – if secretly generic – film.