Highlights
- Mappa did an excellent job adapting Jujutsu Kaisen, though at the cost of mistreating employees.
- Changes and additions were made between the anime adaptation and the manga, with notable differences explored.
- The anime-only scene with Aoi Todo was either loved or hated, but popular due to Todo’s popularity.
With the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen over, fans can safely say by now that Mappa did a stellar job with the adaptation (though the cost to their employees wasn’t worth it). Once they found their footing Mappa did such a high-quality job of adapting the breakneck pace, style, and flair of Jujutsu Kaisen.
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However, between the anime adaptation and the manga in general, there are a few noticeable changes, revisions, or additions that Mappa seems to have made. So, let’s go over some of the most prominent examples.
Updated December 31st, 2023 by Jacob Buchalter: Now that Season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen is over and viewers and reeling from everything that happened in it, let’s take a look back. Mappa, despite their mistreatment of employees, was very faithful in their adaptation. The quality of animation and overall retelling of manga events in this Season was 10/10. That said, not everything can (or should) be a perfect 1:1 recreation, and there are some noticeable differences between both formats. Let’s take a very close look at these differences and really talk about them at length.
Disclaimer: Massive spoilers for the first few episodes of Season 2 ahead. The Season is over now, so watch it first and come back to this.
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22 Gojo’s Massacre Of The Transfigured Humans
Combining The Long-Winded Explanation With Some Great Visuals As Well
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The last section of Season 2 of the Jujutsu Kaisen anime adaptation either perfectly adapted or improved upon the source material manga in almost every way. One of the best examples (of which there are many) is Satoru Gojo’s battle against the Disaster Curses in B-5 of the Subway Station. Gojo’s thought process is expanded upon, his method of killing Hanami was even more brutal than the manga, and they just added more context wherever applicable.
This added context is probably the most beneficial when Gojo uses his Domain for 0.2 seconds in order to freeze everyone in place and take out all the transfigured humans before they recover from the influx of information. In the manga, there’s this whole explanation of what Gojo did here, why he thought it would work, and how he went about the task (as well as 1-2 panels showing it). In the anime however, it’s a long well-animated scene showing just how absurd it would be to actually kill this many transfigured humans in such a short span of time.
20 Sukuna Vs Mahoraga
Or To Be More Accurate, Sukuna Vs Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga
The Sukuna Vs Mahoraga battle during the Shibuya Arc is honestly one of the better ones in the entire series. A lot of the Cursed Techniques in Jujutsu Kaisen are relatively confusing, and there is a good chunk of battles where it’s hard to really tell how both combatants’ Techniques are interacting with each other. But, while Sukuna is taking out Mahoraga (to save Megumi), things are pretty simple. Sukuna is trying all sorts of things on Mahoraga to figure out its ‘gimmick’ and he does figure it out pretty quickly.
From there, Sukuna makes relatively short work of the ‘strongest Shikigami’. In the anime however, this scene is a lot less about Sukuna testing things on Mahoraga and figuring things out, and more about Sukuna happening to figuring it out while fighting and brute forcing his way through. Granted, the animation during this scene is incredible and great eye candy all around. But, if an anime watcher was asked an hour after watching this episode what exactly happened during this fight, it’s likely they’d have a hard time describing it.
19 ‘That Scene’ With Aoi Todo
And It’s All Anime-Original
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Depending on the viewer’s sense of humor, this anime-only scene with Aoi Todo is either their absolute favorite scene in the whole Season or it’s one of their most hated. This anime-only scene is absolutely Mappa’s way of ‘sending off’ Aoi Todo in one last big hurrah, as after this point his Technique Oogie Boogie is no longer usable. From the point where Todo’s locket (which holds a picture of both his favorite Idol Takada and his ‘brother’ Itadori) opens after hitting the ground, the next 40 seconds or so are anime-only, and it’s hilarious.
Sure, it’s a bit ‘out of left field’ in terms of tone compared to the manga, but considering how popular Aoi Todo is, nobody is really complaining.
17 Hunter Itadori Calmly Cornering His Prey, Mahito
A Tragic Hero Wolf About The Consume The Most Twisted Rabbit Of All Time
And now, let’s talk about Mahito. For a Cursed Spirit, this thing got almost as much screen time as the main character did this season (possibly even more). However, he’s gone now after Kenjaku absorbed and immediately used his Technique.
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But, in Mahito’s last moments, his true ‘humanity’ came out, as the Cursed Spirit dropped all semblance of pride while trying to desperately escape from Itadori. In the manga, there are a couple of small panels and one wide panel that show this ‘hunter vs the hunted’ symbolism. But, in the anime adaptation, so much more was added to this scene to make Mahito’s pathetic struggle even more pathetic, to show just how cold Itadori has become, and to also show how long Itadori had to actually finish off Mahito before Kenjaku would have even shown up.
Mappa Really Added To The Scene With Motion & Audio
Riko Amanai’s story in the ‘prologue’ for JJK’s second season is so incredibly heart-wrenching. The unfairness of being born as the next Star Plasma Vessel is an unfortunate situation that’s only trumped by what eventually happens to Riko as a result. And for manga readers, that moment where it all seems like it’s going to be alright, only for a single explosive sound to tear everything down, has only become an even harder moment to watch thanks to the anime team intentionally ‘sewing the rug’ for viewers to walk on only to immediately pull it out from under them.
The shot composition, the ending song being used as a feint that the episode is ending happily, and the sound design all make it that much tougher to watch this tragic death underneath Jujutsu High. Truly, the adaptation team took a look at this moment in the manga and thought “How can we make this hurt even more?” and then managed to do just that.
15 Utahime & Mei Mei’s Mansion Adventure
More Time Spent On Characters Like Utahime Or Mei Mei Is Always Welcome
It’s always nice to see more of Utahime and Mei Mei in general, and this is especially true for Utahime as she’s barely ever given any substantial screen time. In fact, her actual Cursed Technique isn’t even elaborated on until much later in the story. So, when the JJK anime proceeded to actually deep dive into the mansion incident that caused a bit of a scandal thanks to Satoru Gojo, it was a nice bit of fluff leading up to the Star Plasma Vessel mini-arc.
Not only does this give fans a bit more time to get used to the idea of Mei Mei being a big part of season 2 (and she is), but it’s also a great way to show that Utahime isn’t helpless and actually knows what she’s doing.
14 Mechamaru Vs Mahito
Feels Like A Straight Up Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Battle
Yet another scene that brings on the waterworks, Mechamaru’s big fight against Mahito is so absurdly well-animated in the adaptation. The original manga did a great job with the paneling and overall choreography of this fight, but the anime only improved on it.
Whether it’s the extra attention given to Mechamaru’s Pigeon Viola attack, the added scene of the last-ditch cockpit Mechamaru’s holding off Mahito, or the framing of Miwa’s tragic confession that she wants to visit the real Mechamaru, it all adds so much.
13 Volume 0 Was The Original ‘Pilot’ For The Series
Jujutsu Kaisen was initially planned as a short story or single publication but the immediate popularity of Volume 0 is what caused it to become a full series. An easy way for fans to figure this out is through the fact that Volume 0, featuring Yuta Okkutsu as the main character instead of Yuji Itadori, was originally titled Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical School, but was then changed to Jujutsu Kaisen 0 long after the fact. After being fully picked up, Jujutsu Kaisen 0 was then written as a prequel to the events of Jujutsu Kaisen.
But, for readers of the manga who didn’t know all that, reading Volume 0 first just felt like an introduction to the third years (especially fan favorite Maki Zenin) before Yuji appeared, and it was a relatively natural progression. However, the Jujutsu Kaisen anime chose not to adapt Volume 0, starting at Chapter 1 instead. Overall, this was an inoffensive change, as fans just lost out on some extra characterization of the third years. But then, they came out with the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 movie, and the production of this blew the original manga chapter out of the water.
12 More Line Detail In The Manga
No Adaptation Will Be Able To Completely Replicate The Manga Linework
There aren’t many anime adaptations that manage to translate the same or a similar amount of line detail as their source material manga had, it’s just too much work for any animation studio to do. Mappa already does a stellar job translating the unique artstyle of Jujutsu Kaisen into an anime format, but it’s not perfect.
There’s just no way (most of the time) to fully translate every single line from a still page to moving frames without exponentially increasing the budget of the anime or giving up on something else in return. This is all to say that there are a lot of moments in the manga where the sheer amount of linework really adds to the gravity of a scene, and the anime just achieves a similar (but not exact) feeling by combining different stimuli (sound, color, movement, etc).
11 3D Visuals & Camera Movements In The Anime
For Better Or For Worse
This next one applies to many different anime adaptations of popular manga series, and it’s the fact that an anime can play around with the camera a lot more than a manga typically can. This is because there are ways in various animation/VFX software for the user to place an imaginary camera and then move it around a scene. Granted, the times Mappa uses 3D for this show are exceedingly small, but when they do they also try to maximize the camera angles and perspective in those moments since the opportunity presented itself.
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That said, the 3D in Jujutsu Kaisen’s anime adaptation is a bit hit or miss. In particular, the scene where Mahito has a gusher of blood spilling out of him at the end of his fight with Itadori and Nanami looks pretty rough once viewers take an extra look at it. They didn’t seem to rely on 3D all too much during the Shibuya Arc (and likely won’t in future arcs either), but Mappa absolutely played around with the ‘camera’ plenty instead.
10 Some Small Character ‘Makeovers’
As If Satoru Gojo Wasn’t Pretty Enough Already
Coming up next is by far the weirdest change, and that’s the fact that Mappa ‘prettied’ up some of the characters in Jujutsu Kaisen. Certain characters like Satoru Gojo or Nobara Kugisaki had their facial features modified just a touch. In Gojo’s case, they made him look a bit more stereotypically ‘feminine’ with thinner eyes, a longer nose, and sharper features. And with Kugisaki they sort of just gave her a bit of lip gloss, made her eyes a tad larger, and added some more noticeable eyelashes.
It’s a shame because both of these characters had this very passive ‘unhinged’ look to them that worked well with the idea of Jujutsu Sorcerers needing to be at least partially insane to do what they do.
9 Sudden Violence Doesn’t Hit As Hard In The Anime
The Second Half Of Season 2 Improves On This
The Jujutsu Kaisen anime made a few characters just ever so slightly more ‘stereotypically’ pretty. Another change was that its violent or horrifying moments don’t give viewers quite as much whiplash as they do readers of the manga. When something happens from one manga panel to the next, and it’s something drastic, there are a lot of ways to make the reader ‘feel’ that impact. For example, if a character is talking in one panel and then in the next, their entire head is gone, a manga, just by default, will typically make that transition feel exceedingly quick.
The reader in these scenarios usually has to take a moment and typically feels like they missed something, which can really add to the gravity of certain moments. For the most part, the Jujutsu Kaisen anime translates these moments wonderfully. But, the anime adaptation is A+ overall, they do suffer a bit from not having some of these moments hit quite as hard. However, it’s worth mentioning that the Shibuya Arc absolutely improves upon this, as one moment involving Nanako and Mimiko Hasaba is just as tough to watch as it was to read.
8 Yuji Itadori Eats Sukuna’s First Finger In Two Different Ways
The Manga Gives Itadori More Of A Logical Reason For Eating It
Finally, it’s time to talk about story changes rather than slight visual modifications. The initial few episodes of the Jujutsu Kaisen adaptation made many microscopic changes, with each new episode getting closer and closer to a 1-to-1 translation of the manga. The first episode, in particular, had the most noticeable divergences. The biggest change, at a glance, is of course the way Itadori consumes the first Sukuna finger as it’s almost entirely different in the anime.
In the manga, Megumi mentions Itadori would need to possess Cursed Energy to kill a curse, so Yuji immediately eats the Sukuna finger in response without thinking much of it, surprising Megumi before he can even process what just happened. In the anime, he’s about to be crushed in the jaws of the Curse and has to eat the finger in a last-ditch effort to survive, with Megumi watching him as it slowly falls into Yuji’s mouth.
7 The Anime Gives Some Cursed Techniques A Unique Visual Flair
Very Subtle, But Noticeable Nonetheless
Communicating the properties of something that’s supposed to be ‘unnatural in reality’ is so much easier using sound, motion, and a mix of different visuals than it is with pure linework. That may sound obvious, but people don’t seem to give mangaka the credit they deserve for managing to communicate the weight, feel, or power of supernatural effects with just their artwork alone.
In Jujutsu Kaisen, mangaka Gege Akutani uses heavy blank ink and flowing lines to portray most Cursed Techniques in the setting. But, in the anime, they use much thicker lines to show that these powers are very different from everything else in the natural world. It’s a smart change on Mappa’s part, as with Itadori especially, the Cursed Energy around his fists looks so radically different in terms of style that viewers can’t help but see the energy as ‘otherwordly’.
6 Less Pop-Culture References In The Anime
Though The Kamehameha Scene In The Anime Proves That They Didn’t Remove Every Reference
Honestly, there are a lot of little references to games, shows, and other media spread throughout all of Jujutsu Kaisen. Now, Mappa did keep a lot of these references in, but not all of them. One of the funniest ones (once again) happens in the first chapter AKA the first episode. In it, Itadori is introduced as the supernaturally strong boy that he is, and he’s up against the track-and-field coach in a competition with the stakes being Yuji joining the track team as the prize once the coach ‘assuredly’ wins.
Among the whispers, the Occult Club president mentions that there’s a rumor that Itadori is a previous winner of the iconic Ninja Warrior series. It was a hilarious reference, and it gave readers a reference point of how everyone else in the story saw Itadori’s natural abilities. But, in the anime, this reference is nowhere to be found.
5 Jogo’s Diner Scene
The Anime Makes This Already Uncomfortable Scene Even Longer
Next up, let’s talk about the Special-Grade Cursed Spirits that show up partway through Jujutsu Kaisen’s first season. Namely, Jogo, Mahito, Hanami, and Dagon. Early on, Suguru Geto meets with these Cursed Spirits in a diner to discuss their plan (which is hilarious because only Geto is visible to the average person). But, as Jogo gets more and more annoyed throughout the course of the conversation, he starts to expel a lot of heat.
Once the topic of discussion is over, Jogo decides just to slaughter everyone in the diner as a way of ‘showing’ Geto that he can fight Satoru Gojo. In the manga, this scene happens quickly and is an easy-to-understand way of showing how absurdly strong Jogo is as a curse. In the anime, they elongate this scene, making it intentionally uncomfortable to even watch, which actually does a better job of showing the viewer that these curses (and Geto) place no value on human lives.
4 How Exaggerated The Megumi Vs Sukuna Battle Is
A Bit Of A Taster For How Exaggerated The Fight Of Sukuna Vs Mahoraga Would Eventually Be
Now, in terms of exaggeration, the Jujutsu Kaisen anime does it a fair amount. Usually, it’s pretty subtle or small, but in the case of the fight between Megumi and a Sukuna-possessed Itadori outside of the Juvenile Detention Center case early on, they sort of turned it into a Super Saiyan battle rather than a fight between Jujutsu Sorcerers.
In the manga, Sukuna launches Megumi high into the air and then spikes him down into the apartment complex. But, in the anime, Sukuna punches him so hard that he skids off two different rooftops, and then gets punched through what looks like five separate concrete walls. The end result of the fight is the same, but the anime implies that Megumi has some absurd durability when that’s always been Itadori’s thing. Cursed Energy can only do so much, and five concrete walls seem like a bit of a stretch as far as protecting someone. Still, this pales in comparison to the level of absurdity the adaptation added to the Sukuna vs Mahoraga in the Shibuya Arc, and that fight was already over the top to begin with.
