I wanted to wait until this season of Jujutsu Kaisen was entirely wrapped up before talking about this because I thought if I didn’t, the point of the article would be completely obliterated. You see, many weeks ago during Yuuji’s fight with Choso, I slapped down my bet on the table that the subsequent fights in the series wouldn’t be very well animated. Yuuji vs Choso was choreographed well, animated smoothly, and above all it was a long, drawn out fight with low amounts of pausing and talking. It was the kind of animation usually reserved for when the MC fights a final boss in shounen or has one last training fight with his longtime rival. But what happened after that you ask? More amazing fights. Week after week after week of high level anime fights that looked extremely budget and time consuming. Even for an action shounen the frequency of conflict in this arc seemed almost temporally impossible for animators to keep up with. As we found out over the course of the season, that assumption was practically correct.

This season received so many complaints, not about its content, but about MAPPA’s scheduling practices and employee treatment. Multiple staff members complained online about their near-impossible deadlines and ridiculously long hours. All of this for not much added compensation of course. Honestly, this was the first time I’ve ever watched an anime that truly made me feel a bit guilty for watching it. I can read fucked up doujins or watch some wild ass hentai on repeat. Expression is just expression. But when I know the people creating such art are suffering to do so, the situation grows a bit hazy. Kinky and I constantly joke “oop, there goes somebody else skipping lunch. Oh look at that smooth punch! Another animator just died in the office.” Overtime though they felt less like joke comments and instead simply accurate statements describing a situation where a studio is pushing workers too hard. I still remember the one guy who saw some slightly negative comments about an episode he worked on, which resulted in a weird meltdown where he apologized profusely and said he doesn’t deserve to work on Jujutsu Kaisen anymore. It’s fantastic to have passion for creating beautiful animations (and that goes double for fights as I’m a sucker for those) but it shouldn’t come at the expense of the mental or physical health of the animators.

I guess you could say this hype train had no breaks.

Even down to the damn last episode of the series, Jujutsu Kaisen continued to have sick fights. It’s hard to believe now that I thought Yuuji vs Choso would be the peak of the season. I hope that the backlash from fans will reach MAPPA HQ and cause some change, but considering how well this season performed (and the acclaim I’ve seen it receive so far) those previous outcries may fall on deaf ears. Did you watch Jujutsu Kaisen this season? Were you aware of the controversy surrounding the working conditions? Have you ever felt guilty for watching something due to some external context about it? Exorcise some spirits, catch up on this series, and try not to think about the suffering its production cycle inflicted in the comments below!