A Couch Potato’s Review of Jujutsu Kaisen

A Couch Potato’s Review of Season 1 of Jujutsu Kaisen

It’s been a while since I’ve been taken by any Shōnen anime from television, and I have to say it took longer for me to actually begin to enjoy what I was watching because, well… I wasn’t entirely sure what the hell was going on with the protagonist or the cast of character that he was being introduced to in the first five episodes.

The story has a pretty cut and dry premise for its introduction. Itadori Yuji (voiced by Junya Enoki who I vaguely remember from Sword Art Online) is another high school student with unusual physical prowess and seemed to be more in his own world than in the world at large and also who had an unusual interest in the paranormal and occult than being the jock that one of the high school coaches wanted him to be.

From there it launches into the usual events you’d expect from a teenage manga/anime. He comes in contact with some unusual and extremely powerful artifact — which gets unwrapped from his protective “seals”, the cursed (demons, super-powered/unearthly beings) wreck havoc on the world, he comes in contact with the jujutsu sorcerer Fushiguro Megumi (voice by Yuma Uchida who I remember from various Gundam series and Fruits Basket) fights these cursed and in his weakness against these learned previously that to get more power, he needs to eat the powerful artifact — in this case one of the fingers of Ryomen Sukuna (voice by Junichi Suwabe who I remember as Tseng from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children) the King of Curses (King of the Cursed more like it) — and victory is had saving Yuji high school friends from an ugly death at the hands of the Cursed.

The major problems that I was having when it came to the first 6 episodes was that it felt more like a hot mess of trying to use other methods to hook teenagers into watching it. For example, Yuji was the sort of over-confident boor much like I found in the less than 5 episodes watching Uzumaki Naruto in the Narutoanime. And the foreshadowing for Yuji was so heavy-handed, I was immediately reminded of Kurosaki Ichigo from Bleach who has a closer association to the Shinigami world than he knew in the first handful of seasons. And the teacher of the Tokyo Technical College — Gojo Saturo (voice by Yuichi Nakamura of many shows I’ve watched) reminded immediately in look to Hatake Kakashi with the personality of Jiraiay (or the Pervy Hermit) both of Naruto fame. Even Kugisaki Nobara (voice by Asami Seto) was the typical Type-A hard-ass female type trying to prove that her nuts are bigger because they’re on her chest

About the only character at this point that was keeping my attention was Megumi’s and because he was a secondary character that I wasn’t sure was enough to keep me watching through the next 18 episodes. It wasn’t until Episode 6 and the incident following the Adolescent Detention Center that the characters started demonstrating their own qualities without trying to hook other fans from other animes.

Yuji loses his over-bearing boorishness thanks largely to the Detention Center incident and begins demonstrating it more as questioning his abilities, to confidence that comes from action and pressuring into self-improvement. He still has many of the super-mode/Big Man on Campus of the school-like qualities of being the super-powered protagonist that’s carrying a demonic-like god. I couldn’t ignore the fact that he was clearly drawn in the same way as Bella Swan was in Twilight to allow fans to insert themselves into the story, at least it wasn’t completely off-putting enough for me to say, “screw this noise, I’m out of here.”

Even Saturo’s character lost the perviness and turned into an almost surly senior student-teacher against the faculty of both the Tokyo and Kyoto Branches of the Technical College and seems to have even more power than either Yuji in human form or Sukuna when he’s inhabiting Yuji’s body. If anything, he reminds me of many of the godlike characters I remember from my comic book reading in the late 70s and early-to-mid 80s.

About the only character whose powers came with a price was Inumaki Toge’s (voiced by Koki Uchiyama) Cursed Speech. This made sense for him, but disappointing for the cast of characters as all of their powers didn’t seem to come with the same sort of Power at a Price trope his did. During the first season it was clear they were either godlike (like Saturo’s), reaching god like through training (like Yuji’s) or were pretty much set in stone as the rest of the menagerie of characters introduced during first season.

There were a number of rocky moments that I had in the following episodes all the way up to the season finale. First is the fact that the Bullying PSA in high school is rapidly becoming a farce for the Kids are Cruel/Teens are Monsters tropes and came off more banal and detracting than story contributing.

The back stories for all the characters in the season was also done so heavy handed that it’s practically sledgehammered throughout the whole story-arc involving the “Goodwill Event” between the Tokyo and Kyoto School competition. I know this is important, but this shouldn’t be coming at the audience one after another after another.

The stereotypical character introduction and developing story line for Todo Aoi (voiced by Subaru Kimura). This was one character I wished I never had to endure through.

The fan-service episode involving baseball, which while I understand was clearly filler, was the sort of filler as a nerd reminded me keenly of being a baseball “widow” with my mother as my younger brothers were clearly the jocks of the family.

Bottom Line: While the villains in this (aka the Cursed) are almost two-dimensional and a vehicle to introducing the protagonists from the school, they have enough of the necessary elements to keep me entertained. Particularly as a litmus for the heroes/protagonist to bounce off of. It entertained me to no end to see that the faculty of the Kyoto school were manipulating the students in a way that’s usually delivered in Seinen anime rather than Shōnen, along with the probability of this turning into a lore sort of series that will enthrall me as I try to figure out the world that Itadori Yuji lives in, with the following caveat: if this show ends up with a story line like the Bount Invasion from Bleach, I’ll be out of there faster than you can say, “hell to the no”.

The streamer observations continue…

Entry 07/01/2021 09:37:20 AM: Mentat 1655

Shower thought time…

There is a strong logistical problem with being a variety streamer that I’ve seen. I’m going to break this down into two parts: The first is a breakdown of the audience based on categories that I have encountered since I’ve been registered on Twitch back when it was still Justin.TV. The second being addressing possible ways of handling the first through branding and programming. And by programming I mean the games and the genres that the streamer might feel compelled to sit and stream.

Groups

The six groups I have encountered in my wanderings that are as follows:

1. Channel Changers you know the types. They’re the ones that would normally sit on the couch with remote in hand and flip through the channels endlessly in a state of agitation and boredom and looking for something to catch their attention long enough to slake the feeling of boredom they’re experiencing because they don’t want to do something else. While this group might throw a follow much the same way as having a list of favorite channels programmed on their remote, they’ll usually stop by if either the game or the streamer or even both has tweaked them enough to stave off their ever-present boredom.

2. The Game Loyalists much like the channel changers — are looking for a streamer that they can be loyal to based on whatever criteria they have and the games they’re playing… Heavily on the games they like playing. This particular group is both extremely easy and extremely difficult to maintain — even more than the channel changers because if the streamer has stuck to a game based on this group, if the streamer were to change programming to something else, not only can they act betrayed, they will lash out directly at the streamer and sludge the streamer through word of mouth to their friends to unfriend and unfollow the streamer because of that betrayal.

3. The Grazers these are the people that wander from category to category and streamer to streamer based on the whims of the moment, and will stick around long enough to give the illusion of being “loyal”. This will change rather quickly when they see the limited programming of the streamer, as they will start suggesting game they enjoy it will invariably start with the question, “have you ever played…” Depending on the flexibility of the streamer; will continue to suggest the same game or another, sometimes even blackmailing the streamer to play the game for their follow. These sort of people can quickly disappear — even unfollow — if the audience shows less interest in the game, and especially if the streamer is inflexible to the suggestions of playing a game outside of their intended genres/programming. I remember covering this form of audience member here under the fourth bullet point: Take suggestions for new games (or subjects) sparingly.

Another form of grazer are the game players. They just look for streams to play games with instead of going into a completely random and unknown groups in the game. They’re not usually as disruptive as other grazers looking to coerce people into playing their games, nor are they as disruptive about it as show-offs, and even be won over much like Game Loyalists

4. The showoffs: while I would like to think they this group would fit in with the Grazers as Showoffs and Grazers have much in common, it dawned on me that there’s a key difference between the two. Much like the grazers (above), they will wander only one category and from streamer to streamer to show off their prowess in the game either through playing the game — especially if the streamer has opened up the option of playing with viewers, or if the streamer’s knowledge of the mechanics of the game are woefully lacking. Showoffs will usually request to join the game and then play to flex their prowess in the game or will attempt to spout information of the game mechanics of configurations that demonstrate the game’s META in some way or another. Sometimes they might stick around if they think they have something to teach, however like grazers Showoffs will quickly leave if the player has more knowledge or prowess in the game or the audience shows more skill and knowledge than they do.

5. Streamer Loyalists small at best — this one is the one that I freely and liberally admit that I’m part of. That being the sort of group that is attracted to the charm and personality of the streamer and will be loyal to the streamer based on either the physical, emotional and/or even mental qualities that they project. I strongly believe and endorse trying to attract this sort of group because not only can they often give the streamer the sort of core base for a community, they are often the ones that the streamer can bounces ideas off of for expanding their branding and programming. Only problem I’ve encountered with this group is that there’s only a small part of it that will be honest and tell the streamer their perspective and opinion on something; especially if the streamer is having a form of existential crisis with what they’re attempting to project. The rest will — regrettably — do everything in their power to ignore the crisis like a mother telling their child nothing is wrong and will either throw bits, subs or donations at the streamer to make the crisis go away. And if they can’t throw money, they will throw compliments in an almost enabling manner to deny the thought that there is something wrong with the streamer and that he shouldn’t be sharing those problems with them as a method of working them out. It’s a mixed bag between those that want to help the streamer expand, and those that want everything to stay status quo when they joined and followed the stream.

6. The Lurkers that lurk for the sake of lurking the final minority group that I’ve actually encountered don’t seem to fall under the other three groups, and will be there to just lurk. They lurk because of both the game and the streamer and while they might rarely announce their presence they’re usually just there for the background noise going and it’s neither disruptive nor contains any friction that would cause them to leave. While this group might throw the streamer a follow don’t often count in the streamer’s viewer numbers because Twitch more often times than naught will be treated as Fake Engagement and their numbers are either stigmatized, or marginalized at best. And while streamers have an unspoken rule of accepting this group because of the rules of Twitch that cover calling out lurkers or bringing attention to them, at the same time Twitch jumps through all sorts of exception hoops set up to make them count but not count in the grand scheme of things when it comes to their Affiliate and Partner programs.

And while there’s no strongly defined lines for these groups, these categories can be used as a guideline to determine what sort of audience you’re wanting to attract — and more importantly keep — as a self-employed streamer.

Branding & Programming

The fact of the matter is, there’s no easy answers for this sort of consultation and any recommendation for how to pull each of these groups — even with the fluidity of these categories is going to come off as either a rumination or a miasmic mess given the lack of sleep I’m running on today. With that in mind, any of the ideas I might have and share should be weighed with the same grain of salt that the Fake Buddha Quote implies.

I know from experience that small variety streamers have many strikes against them when it comes obtaining a loyal audience core because out of the six groups, they have to rely heavily on finding the streamer loyalists to creating that audience base. Changing games often within a stream and during the week can often drive off the Channel Changers and the Game Loyalists because changing games (and interests) that often will cause them to find someone that is less prone to changing based on whim and need.

As a way to counter this problem when you’re starting as a streamer, perhaps stretching the schedule out to instead of daily changes to perhaps either spanning through several days to even weekly instead. Because, one of the things that I noticed in my wanderings through small streamers is the lack of consistent scheduling going on when it comes to their variety programming. In one instance, I’ve seen one picking stream games and ideas almost at random and working on the concept that if you throw enough shit at the wall something might stick.

Another issue based on an all-over-the place-schedule for streamer opens them up to grazers and showoffs and can actually cause a streamer quite a lot more issues if there are a bunch of grazers visiting with many different interests in games. I remember for example one streamer that tried to placate his audience (mostly grazers), and ended up having something like 300+ games that he had in his steam account that he played once and never touched them again. Ironically I stopped by to check him out a few months later and while I was lurking heard him routinely mention having all those games that have never been played and with empty promises and words about playing those unplayed games. Needless to say, I never looked back again.

I still stick by what I said in Self-Employment and the Wonders of Streaming: Part I, when it comes taking suggestions sparingly. Look at taking suggestions as an opportunity for something in the future, and if you want to reinforce the thought about being flexible through them up, just be very careful of saying yes routinely to new games, especially if they require money to playing them.

After that? *shrugging* it boils down to the very things I have beaten the dead horse on that I learned when as a political activist and lobbyist:

• Be Honest and Truthful
• Be Trustworthy and Kind (and if you can’t be kind when it comes to dealing with an issue, at least be compassionate)
• Be upfront and forthcoming
• Be respectful
• Be steadfast with your ideals (and that ideal is the brand you’re attempting to convey by your presence, as well as your demeanor)
• Be loyal to your audience and brand
• Know the difference between networking and self-promotion,
• Learn how to juggle your time wisely and apply yourself to that time. and lastly
• Learn the limits of your personality, and continue to push that limit to being better than you were yesterday

Amusingly the “be” qualities listed were taught by an organization I had little part in (Boy Scouts of America). Regardless of their history and their issues — truth is truth and did shape the way I approached politicians when I was lobbying for LGBT rights as well as how I deal with my business interactions outside of the Internet.

That’s it.. I’m waffling… Until the next time.