Jujutsu Kaisen is a name that is very familiar nowadays, it is a work that for a few years now has earned an incredible appreciation on the part of fans of the Shonen genre. But beyond the popularity of the original work, with its adaptation to anime its fame has increased a lot, and we are not only talking about the fact that it increased the sales of its manga, but that it is already one of the most followed and valued series of the year.
The first thing to understand is that this anime, like many of its genre, has a good amount of stereotypical elements for the type of series it is. It is something that I sensed, but as I was watching the anime I was able to confirm it. This series uses fairly typical anime and manga schemes, but still works and is liked by most of the public.
To take an example, here we have a trio of quite diverse characters with opposite personalities, mainly to create a great contrast between them. Another common element would be Sukuna, the evil entity of the protagonist that allows him to introduce moral conflicts. Also the group of mysterious villains, who serve enough to create tension and uncertainty. Nor could an academic event be missing, super useful to introduce new characters. In addition, this anime contains many gruesome and shady elements of those characters that tend to cause a sensation among fans. And I could continue here naming a lot of typical elements that it uses, but what I am clear about is that this anime lacks a bit of freshness and novelty in many sections, but luckily it executes each of these very well.
The characters in this anime do not manage to be something really new, but even so they have their peculiarities. One of them has to a certain degree of madness that it even seems a requirement to become a sorcerer, they face life following their convictions and with a fidelity that is almost surreal. These kinds of attitudes could be mistaken for arrogance, but it's also because of how young the characters are. But in other characters, it may not be more than the result of the alienation caused by the abnormal life they lead and the kind of gruesome situations they have to face.
This honest and determined mentality is one of the peculiarities that makes the characters have tremendous charisma. However, there are times when they err on the side of being a bit flat. It is true that this series only adapts a small part of the original work and we have not been able to know the characters in depth. But for now, we have only been able to see the superficial part of the characters, with the occasional one that does prove to have some depth.
What can be talked about a lot is the impressive scenes that this series has. Jujutsu Kaisen has a very high level of production that the MAPPA Studio has dedicated to it, which is reflected in the solid drawings and their magnificent animation. The design of the characters is also one of the most marked points of this series. They reflect very well the diversity of the characters and the humorous, moody or carefree touch that some of the characters can. But above all, they are extremely attractive, in terms of their artistic section, I was impressed.
However, this series is on the lips of all these last months is largely due to its animation, it knows when to show off and it takes advantage of the action scenes with mastery. Its director, Seong-Hu Park, is already becoming known for the fluidity he shows us in fights. One of its most successful resources is to represent very detailed realistic choreographies and in this anime we were able to see quite a few. As some characters fight with punches and kicks, and some of them even with weapons, this choice was more than successful.
However, there are other moments where the series decides to simply focus on visual spectacularity. The dizzying animation takes over for these cases, and that is supported by vibrant visuals and dynamic camera angles that rotate across the stage. And the result of all this is shown in exciting scenes and with a lot of screen impact. In addition to this, added to the animation we have a powerful soundtrack that goes according to the characters.
And now the question, how is it that people like this anime so much? What is the key to its success? In summary, what happened is that MAPPA knew how to adapt very well one of the most popular current shonen of recent years and did so with all the love in the world, affection that we saw reflected in an excellent animation quality for the television format. In addition, they have been able to take advantage of each of the action scenes and adapt them respecting their original work.
Although I think it is necessary to answer in a simpler way what has happened with the success of Jujutsu Kaisen: They have gone well, because they did things well. Who would have thought that with his great work in animation he would become so popular, I say this because many series are very popular, but they have disappointing animations. Jujutsu did things well, and he took advantage of the first arcs of his original work in his scenes as much as he could, without damaging it in the process, a work more than admirable.