‘Jujutsu Kaisen 0’ Film Review: Anime Prequel Offers Solid Action for All Plus Easter Eggs for Fans

thewrap.com:

battle shonen manga comic-book source material. This new feature-length prequel doesn’t deliver much more than what the anime series already has: a satisfying, faithful, and hormonal action-drama about teenage “jujutsu” martial-artist sorcerers/exorcists and their ongoing (in the manga comics, at least) quest to destroy monstrous sentient curses and cursed objects.Set about a year before the events depicted in both the anime and the manga, “Jujutsu Kaisen 0” presents a self-contained story about Yuta Okkotsu (voiced by Megumi Ogata in the Japanese-language version), a young jujutsu sorcerer who’s haunted by the cursed spirit of his childhood sweetheart Rika (Kana Hanazawa), who died in a hit-and-run accident shortly after exchanging engagement rings and lovers’ vows with Yuta.Yuta’s one-and-done narrative might help uninitiated viewers to understand the series’ appeal since he, like the series’ main protagonist Yuji Itadori, has a mysterious symbiotic relationship with a powerful and apocalyptically dangerous cursed entity.

There are also a few allusions and cameo appearances by characters, objects, and events from the anime that will probably satisfy initiated fans only.

These well-timed callbacks can be satisfying, but they also illustrate this new movie’s limited appeal.Like the anime series, “Jujutsu Kaisen 0” sometimes feels too much like a Cliffs Notes adaptation, despite also featuring more interaction between the supporting characters and the lead protagonist than the original manga.

There are a number of characters to keep track of, and they only tangentially help to develop the main hero’s story. So it’s not surprising that Yuta barely learns how to weaponize his relationship with Rika –who usually appears as a.