When a shonen anime releases its first film, it’s all the time an enormous deal. These debuts are sometimes thrilling adventures of debatable canon which have the potential to herald new audiences and provides followers the push of seeing beloved characters in a brand new medium. It doesn’t matter what the plot finally is, it’s simply enjoyable to see these characters we’ve spent weeks watching stretch their animated legs and get into some stunning chaos with the assistance of an even bigger funds.

So it was inevitable that Jujutsu Kaisen would get a film after its nice debut as an anime due to Studio MAPPA. But Jujutsu Kaisen 0 manages to shock, due to its forged, and the way effortlessly it showcases the perfect of what creator Gege Akutami’s supernatural world has to supply.

The movie, a prequel set earlier than the occasions of the anime adaptation, follows the collection’ acquainted premise: an limitless secret battle via Japan between highly effective energy-manipulating Jujutsu sorcerers, and sinister supernatural “Curse” spirits that lurk simply exterior of human notion. But in shifting protagonists from Jujutsu Kaisen’s main hero—the overpowered, lovably silly Yuji Itadori—to 0’s meek, timid Yuta Okkotsu (voiced in Japanese by Neon Genesis Evangelion legend Megumi Ogata, and by Kayleigh McKee in English), the brand new film performs up the already disturbing and tragic components of its world in a extra private approach that Yuji’s hyperconfident viewpoint doesn’t all the time permit. In the anime and manga, Yuji eagerly jumped into the Jujutsu world from the proverbial deep finish after an opportunity encounter with the highly effective Curse spirit Sukuna. In 0 we meet Yuta after he’s already lived in concern of the supernatural for years, following the traumatic loss of life of his childhood love Rika (Kana Hanazawa/Anairis Quiñones), which additionally remodeled her right into a Curse bonded to Yuta—one which viciously assaults anybody who brings him hurt.

Yuta and Rika’s relationship is the center of Jujutsu Kaisen 0, and it’s the important thing factor that units him other than Yuji. In only a handful of scenes, their romance feels very actual in a approach that love plots in shonen series hardly ever do, and each the writing and efficiency of the characters give the possibility for Yuta and Rika to play off one another extraordinarily properly. Seeing them collectively in flashbacks makes the current day scenes the place Rika monstrously defends Yuta all of the extra tragic, making you’re feeling for his or her cut-short romance. For a collection that’s by no means afraid to immediately take an absurd tone shift at random moments, there’s a stunning quantity of heat and tenderness that Jujutsu Kaisen 0 presents for its two leads and their doomed love.

Afraid as Yuta is to let Rika out and tear aside something in her approach, there’s one thing cathartic in watching him channel the ability she wields to chop Curses to items. As a Curse, Rika’s a sight to behold, and the moments the place she’s unleashed spotlight how placing and gross Akutami and MAPPA’s Curse designs actually are. Once you see her rip one other Curse to shreds, there’s no query as to why Suguru Geto, the movie’s villain, would need her energy for himself. 0 levels Geto’s presence in such a approach that he can’t assist however seem like a god to each his followers and Yuta and his allies, and each his actors—Takahiro Sakurai and Lex Lang—give him a wonderfully haughty, boastful voice that shines via in a chilling efficiency.

Akutami created what would change into often called Jujutsu Kaisen 0 in 2017, a yr earlier than Kaisen correct launched and took off as one of many greatest manga collection round proper now. Under the title Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical School, the four-part miniseries launched characters who would later change into necessary heroes in their very own proper in Jujutsu Kaisen, that now play equally necessary connective roles in 0. Primarily within the film, this connection is made via three senior college students we met within the anime collection’ first season, the place they had been leveraged as one thing of a comic book aid effort throughout a time when levity was sorely wanted for Yuji and his pals. There’s Maki Zenin (Mikako Komatsu/Allegra Clark), who sees Curses with empowered glasses and fights them utilizing magically imbued weapons; Toge Inumaki (Koki Uchiyama/Xander Mobus), whose highly effective Curse-enhanced voice means he can solely safely communicate when he lists out rice ball substances; and Panda (Tomokazu Seki/Matthew Rudd) rounds out the trio along with his loud, dumb allure, and is, properly, lengthy story brief… a speaking Panda.

The movie treats these characters like an enormous deal given their significance to the anime at giant, however they actually shine once they’re simply allowed to be goofy youngsters, and Yuta begins to bond with them when he’s thrust into this unusual new world. While their appearances right here received’t utterly dazzle followers of the collection like their debuts within the anime, the moments these characters do have are nonetheless fairly nice, and every of them will get loads of time to show why they’re so lovable and compelling. Maki specifically brings a enjoyable, abrasive vitality to all of her scenes and has such confidence that it’s exhausting to not like her much more.

The most necessary returning character of all, nonetheless, is fan favourite Satoru Gojo, an absurdly highly effective Sorcerer who, once we meet his barely youthful self in 0, has determined to take Yuta underneath his wing. Like within the anime itself, Goji is numerous enjoyable in 0; actors Yuchi Nakamura and Kaiji Tang effortlessly make Gojo each extraordinarily assured in his skill whereas additionally hilariously aggravating due to that—and he will get one of many movie’s finest, most sumptuously animated fights. More importantly, Nakamura and Tang reach making this youthful model of Gojo nonetheless really feel considerably weak as soon as he crosses paths along with his outdated buddy Geto. It would’ve been simple to only make this prequel all about them slightly than Yuta, however Kaisen 0 correctly retains the 2 males aside for a lot of the movie, and the moments the place they get to work together carry a tragic eager for the straightforward days once they had been simply a few dudes who had the potential to be nice collectively, had they not each gone down such tragically totally different paths.

At the top of the day, “confidence” actually is the phrase to explain Jujutsu Kaisen 0. Beneath its fashionable motion and gross monsters, there’s a infectiously good vitality that makes it simple to like and exhausting to dislike, even when it will get extraordinarily gory or simply utterly excessive. It loves itself, and Jujutsu Kaisen 0 does sufficient with its characters and world to rekindle (or start) that spark of falling in love with the franchise yet again.

Jujutsu Kaisen 0 hits theaters on March 18.

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