An Autist Reviews: Premature Death (JJK Season 2 - Episode 5)
*All Reviews Are Spoiler-Free Aside From Any Spoiler Sections*
*This is a bare-bones/lite review made after only a single viewing. (Hence there not being any replay rating)*
Geto isn’t really in a good place right now. Luckily it’s not like he’s on the path to becoming the worst Curse User of the modern era, right? Oh look, Gojo’s mastering his technique and a mysterious sorcerer is here to put Geto on the straight and narrow… she’s here to do that, right? Oh well, there’s nothing that could possibly go wrong, no deaths or tragedies awaiting, no massacres. Nobody is going to die this episode. Right?
I’ll be honest, I was expecting more from the finale of the Gojo’s past arc, but you won’t hear me calling this episode bad. It did get emotional, it did really dive into Geto’s downfall and what caused it. It pretty directly adapted the manga and cut basically nothing, just expanding things, although I feel like they could've done more to expand things like the Haibara situation, etc. The episode feels pretty down to earth and well paced, with exceptions here and there such as the village and Haibara things, sorry, not spoiling you, but these still managed to feel impactful in some way. Still, nothing in this episode was done to such a perfect extent as to make me want to cry, which is a damn shame because if anything other than Riko’s death could’ve done it, it would’ve been this episode’s everything. We meet Yuki, she’s amazing, her exposition is pretty well done, specifies that Toji is weird and rare, etc. Honestly aside from the fact that some of the stuff is poorly paced I’d say my biggest gripe is the 2D animation for the final confrontation of Geto and Gojo, with the background characters looking like dogshit. The dialogue also just generally had some issues here and there that I can’t overlook. Still, if anything it’s probably the animation that brings this episode down. Oh, Gojo’s automatic infinity was also not properly explained since it makes it seem like it’s not thanks to his Six Eyes, which is misleading, so that’s annoying. Still, I can’t say I disliked the writing here, it was pretty damn good, the story overall was pretty damn good too, so I really have no complaints in all honesty aside from it could have just been done better, not even by a lot, and it would have made all the difference.
Acting was incredible, I liked Yuki, although I’d have gone with a deeper voice for her, Geto’s breaking was phenomenal and seeing how happy he is once he’s become evil is just amazing and infectious in a sick way, Gojo’s pain over Geto is well done, the pain of Nanami, the casualness of Ieri, it’s all just great. Geto’s narration is also fantastic, and honestly, what more can I say except goddamn the acting in this series has yet to be a let down. Could it have been better? Probably in some way or another, but damn was it incredible and I don’t really have any faults with it.
Okay, let me explain my choices for the effects rating here, because to call the effects of this episode worse than even episode 1’s is pretty ballsy, but I have my reasons. In episode one it was the animation that sucked, it caused a lot of problems and it soured my taste of the entire episode, but here it’s basically everything else. The music is done really well, although it’s overbearing at some points, the voice effects are good but at times it feels like voice effects are needed but aren’t used, such as when Geto is talking with the clapping ringing in his ears, behind a window, in the goddamn rain, and it sounds crisp as can be. The 2D and 3D animation are great with my only real 2D gripes being some of the off-model stuff being iffy and that goddamn final confrontation of Gojo and Geto, which should’ve been a standout of this episode but is instead likely my least favorite part. The 3D animation is great overall but the hallway scene with the blood just kinda looks off, so I knocked it down a point. The set pieces aren’t bad here, but they are largely boring or very limited or cheap in how they’re made. There are plenty of good ones, but really this is yet again that final confrontation significantly pulling the rating down more than anything else. The designs are great, no real complaints, but Gojo’s eyes aren’t how they should be in some scenes, so, sorry, but I can’t excuse that. There is barely any action in this episode, or anything that could be called action, more accurately, but the fact that we see no haibara fight, we don’t see the village incident, and the civilians in the damn background of that final fucking confrontation look like shit, I’ve gotta knock some fucking points off. Missed oppurtunities abound. Also, the jumping and cutting during the village scene and the final confrontation got on my nerves real fucking quick, and I count that is not only action, but also cinematography, so let’s start talking about shoehorned metaphors. A candle is going out, Geto has two shadows but now only one, look, two hallways, look at how great our symbolism is, praise us senpai. I swear to god who allowed all that. Also, that jumping between Geto and Gojo with cars passing by and getting zoomed in on them is just fucking infuriating and a pain to the senses. Speaking of senses, the clapping in Geto’s head was fucking fantastic if at times overbearing, that combined with generally at times annoying background/foreground sounds really grating on my poor autistic mind and the fucking cars of the final confrontation, yeah, the sound rating is going down to an 8 dammit. But hey, now I’m done with what really brought this fucking episode down, so, there we are. I want to move the fuck on now, my ears hurt just thinking about those damn cars and that fucking clapping.
All in all, I’m saddened that this episode wasn’t the heartbreaking masterpiece I expected, but, as per usual, this is the Gojo’s Past Arc, I wasn’t honestly expecting any of it to be god tier, so the fact that we got a single 10/10 episode is surprising enough and enough of a flex for Mappa to take home. Next episode is not something I thought was going to be animated, so it’s nice to know that we’re taking a step in a more comedic direction for a short while before hopping into the Hell that will be the Shibuya Incident arc, but let’s go over the episode here quickly. The story was great but some of the writing was poor, the acting was perfect, the animation was great yet not perfect but the cinematography and the sound design really pulled down the episode as a whole in a pretty unforgivable way sadly enough despite so much of it being well done. All in all, not a bad episode, but if I rewatch any of this first arc, it’ll be episodes 2 and 3, not 1, not 4, and not 5, no matter what I have nice to say about them. Sorry.
Total - 9
Plot - 10
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Story - 10
Pacing - 9
Dialogue - 9
Narration - 10
Exposition - 9
Adaptation - 10
Enjoyment - 9
Twist/s - NR
Resolution/s - 8
Ending/s - 10
Acting - 10
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MC/s - 10
SC/s - 10
BG/s - NR
Narrator/s - 10
Animation/Effects - 8
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Music - 9
Voice Effects - 9
2D Animation - 9
3D Animation - 9
Set Pieces - 7
Designs - 9
Action - 8
Cinematography - 8
Sounds - 8
Replay - NR
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Re-Enjoyment - NR
New Details - NR
-=- If you want to see more of my reviews, some of my craziness, my thoughts on stories I've experienced but not reviewed, and the important libtard things I share around because I'm a filthy liberal snowflake, check out my Instagram page @maxtheautist -=-
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