This episode we get to meet the girl of the group, Nobara. A feisty and loud-mouthed girl from the countryside, attending Jujutsu Tech simply because she wanted to leave her rural hometown so badly. With Gojou saying that you have to be at least a little crazy to deal with curses, Nobara definitely fits that category with a reason like that.
I’m pretty sure a lot of people have said this already, but the JJK trio really reminds me of the Naruto trio. Their personalities aren’t totally one to one, but you can really see the similarities here, even with Gojou to an extent as Kakashi. I mean…the hair and covering of the eye(s). Itadori is just a less annoying Naruto, Nobara is literally just Sakura and fights with Naruto/Itadori, and Fushiguro is as stoic and quiet as Sasuke but slightly better. The more I look at them the more I can’t unthink it and I can’t help but laugh. I mean, they’re already better than Team 7 but I hope there’s more to them that’ll make them stand apart.
Even then, I’m not really a fan of Nobara. I love having strong, independent female characters that are strong and can defend themselves, but Nobara just doesn’t do it for me. I’m not into the whole…well, bitchy attitude, for the lack of a better word. She really had a high and mighty attitude at the start when finding out Itadori was a newbie, and I am glad that she was able to turn that around at the end. Still, her personality isn’t my favorite right now so I’m hoping that she’ll grow on me.
Her abilities are really cool, using a hammer and nails like she would with a voodoo doll, which she then did use later. Not really a weapon choice you see much of, or at all, but actually makes a lot of sense since they’re dealing with curses so it’s a cool idea. It’s also cute that there’s a little heart on the end of it. Gotta make your weapons cute~ <3
Gojou’s explanation for him testing Nobara was pretty interesting. Even though she is skilled already and has defeated curses before, the ones from the city aren’t necessarily at the same levels as ones in the countryside. And it makes total sense, as the curses in cities can be bigger, or stronger, and much more plentiful because of the population size. Being in an area where there’s all kinds of people dealing with their own issues and emotions, all clumped, it’s no surprise that the curses coming from all of that would be very different from the ones in rural areas where there’s much fewer people around. So this really was a great test for Nobara and she did struggle for a bit until Itadori came in to help with his cool knife.
Nobara’s backstory was pretty simple, and just…okay? Meeting Saori as a little girl really changed her and she hopes to see her again in Tokyo, which sounds like an impossible feat. It’s not weird that a city girl would have such a big impact on an impressionable child, but Saori being forced to move felt a little weird. I can understand small communities like these having a close-knit relationship with all the people around them, but I think it’s a little much for them to discriminate against the one family from the city so much that they had to move out. The whole drama felt a little forced to me and now I’m wondering if there’s more to the Saori situation or if that’s really it. If it is, it’s kind of disappointing. And while Nobara finding Saori sounds impossible, we’re probably going to find her anyway and she’s probably going to have a curse on her or something, I can smell it.
It was an okay episode, the fight scene as usual was fun and while Nobara and Itadori argue a lot, they did work well together. In fact, Nobara fits into the group really well with how weird and loud she is. And I do admit that the post-credit scene was pretty funny.
HOWEVER! That ending! First of all, that embryo thing looked absolutely disgusting and again I have to appreciate that Jujutsu Kaisen makes their monsters look grotesque and gross. I don’t like looking at pictures of fetuses and all that shit so the next episode is probably going to make me nauseous. Second, apparently someone is going to die from the first-year trio?! Seriously? I’m not sure if the show is baiting us or whether that’s actually going to happen. I can’t imagine it’ll be Nobara since she was just introduced, and Itadori is the main character…so Fushiguro? But a death so soon? I know there’s another guy in the OP that looks about their age and I was wondering who he is, so will he replace one of them because they’ll actually die? If that’s the case…well, holy crap I’m excited. It’s a ballsy thing to do so soon and I’m wondering if it’ll actually be a good idea, so let’s look forward to that.
I’m banking Fushiguro dying like you are. He has no backstory and seems less important than Itadori and Nobara.
As far as I’m concerned, Jujutsu Kaisen is already better than Kimetsu no Yaiba, which IMO was massively overrated with the only thing it had going for it being the visuals by courtesy of Ufotable. Jujutsu Kaisen has a superior combination of setting and worldbuilding so far as well as a better trio of main characters than Tanjirou, Inosuke, and Zenitsu. Tanjirou is just a typical good guy. Inosuke is a stereotypical boarish brute, and Zenitsu is an insufferable whiner and coward. The character motivations for Itadori and Nobora are already established within 3 episodes, and they already have more spunk and personality than Tanjirou and his friends.
That’s an interesting take but I’m going to have to respectfully disagree. I really enjoyed Kimetsu no Yaiba quite a bit, though I do recognize that it has its flaws (that I pointed out in my reviews). This is my own personal take, but the theme of family really touched my heart as it always does and I loved the relationship between Tanjiro and Nezuko. Sure Tanjiro is a “good guy” but he has a level of sympathy and maturity that I feel most shounen protagonists don’t have, which is why I love his character so much. I just think he’s admirable for the things he did and the way he thought.
I like Zenitsu but understand why a lot of people don’t, and I can’t really say much about Inosuke since I’m more or less indifferent about him. In my opinion the JJK trio are weaker, but we’re only on the third episode and we still need way much more time to get to know them on a deeper level because, at least to me, they’re still a little shallow and surface level.
But I’ll be honest, at least I can say that I’m not too big a fan of the typical loud silly comedy of either trio so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Still, I’ll respect your opinion and I’m glad you’re enjoying Jujutsu Kaisen so much already. I’m liking the show as well but I’m hoping it’ll offer something more to get me much more into it, and it sounds like next episode might be the start of that.
Jujutsu Kaisen looks like a very good anime. Is this going to be in my watchlist? Probably yes.