I recently watched Jujutsu Kaisen: Execution, which covers the Shibuya Incident and the beginning of The Culling Game. This movie takes the series in a much darker direction than before, and it’s both impressive and difficult to watch.
The movie has two main parts. The first takes place in Shibuya on Halloween night, where cursed spirits create a massive trap using barriers to seal the entire area. Their goal is to capture Gojo Satoru, the strongest sorcerer, and they succeed. What follows is basically a war zone: multiple sorcerer teams fight to save civilians and rescue Gojo. Buildings get destroyed, people die, including characters we’ve known, and the villains win. With Gojo sealed away, everything changes because the strongest player is gone.
After Shibuya, Japan falls into chaos. The jujutsu world’s leaders make serious decisions: they mark people like Yuji and Yuta Okkotsu for execution. Then an ancient sorcerer named Kenjaku announces The Culling Game, which is a forced competition where people with cursed energy must fight or die. This is where Yuta, my favorite character, finally appears in the story. He’s been training far away from home and has become significantly stronger, but now he’s marked for execution as The Culling Game begins.
What makes Yuta my favorite character is his development from the first movie to this one. In Jujutsu Kaisen 0, he was very insecure and isolated, struggling with grief over Rika’s death. Now he’s one of the most powerful sorcerers alive, confident yet still kind and protective of others. The movie shows him facing complicated situations. He makes strategic decisions while keeping his beliefs. There’s a specific scene where Yuta makes a choice that goes against expectations, which demonstrates that real strength means doing hard things even when misunderstood.
This movie does something rare: it shows the good guys losing badly. The Shibuya section reveals what happens when heroes are outsmarted. The movie shows actual costs and consequences. When characters die, you see how it affects others. When Yuji faces Mahito, the curse who killed his friend, it’s deeply personal, not just another fight scene. The stakes feel genuine because characters can actually die and plans can fail.
The animation is exceptional, especially during the Shibuya battles that span multiple building floors, subway stations, and crowded streets. Even the geography makes sense. Character decisions have real consequences because mistakes cost lives, and risks don’t always pay off.
However, this movie is heavy. Bad things happen to good people. The tone stays consistently dark throughout the movie.
This movie works for viewers who want serious storytelling where actions have consequences, characters face moral questions, and heroes don’t always win. For Yuta fans specifically, watching his evolution into a top-tier sorcerer makes it really interesting to watch. Although, in case you have watched previous seasons of anime, the movie might primarily be a recap for you, I highly recommend you watch it anyway. My rating is four out of five because of excellent animation and character development.
