Jujutsu Kaisen, Vol. 0: Blinding Darkness
Ratings16
Average rating4
Recently my friend recommended the Jujutsu Kaisen anime to me. I had a week off of work, so I was like nice, something to see.
This story is amazing. The whole thing is a lot of fun, it has dark elements, the characters are interesting, it has these random ridiculous moments that made me cry-laugh, with animation that was just gorgeous. (The OP song is also a banger.)
This manga volume is basically a prequel, a little story set in the same universe. In this world people's negative feelings can manifest as curses; creatures out there to seriously harm people. Some are small, weak and stupid, they make your back hurt and your sleep restless. Some are huge, though. They outright kill people.
So some, the ones who have access to a sort of magic, have to protect the general public, while acting in secret. They even have special schools to teach people.
Yuta is the new kid, though he is not there because he wants to be a hero; his dead childhood friend, Rika, returned as a curse and while she just wants to protect him, it basically makes everyone around him get hurt. The school is his only chance to be able to live a normal life.
For some reason, I expected the art to be much worse. It's actually pretty nice and Yuta's face is extremely expressive. I have read an interview where the artist claimed he can't draw women and that's what I call bullshit. There is a female character in this who has a pretty prominent role and she is so cute. It has some double spreads that are fascinating and of course it's full of bizarre creature designs. (Even if some monsters look like walking vaginas. That looked funny.)
Another thing specific to this is the fact that characters are not sugary sweet, but also the author doesn't feel the need that he needs to tell a bleak story that has no joy, which is a pretty popular thing in Western comics now. Either UWU ADVENTURE TIME or Batman, but with more death. This one found the perfect balance.
The teenagers are not damn annoying. Normally I like my characters to be adult and yes, the adults in JJK are amazing, but even the kids are likeable. Yuta is a well-meaning, vulnerable person who is struggling to form relationships. It also has a talking panda, called Panda. I like that.
I'm not sure how well the major concepts are explained to people who know nothing about the story. I'm not sure I would recommend this to be read before getting familiar with the world, but it was still a really nice read and a lot of fun.
I'm definitely going to with this eventually, as I need more and the second season of the anime won't come until at least next year.
