Jujutsu Kaisen is rearing for a return with its recent season 4 announcement trailer, and it confirms that one of the franchise’s best fights is only going to get better. The shōnen is renowned for its battles being explosive emotional roller-coasters—something MAPPA’s exceptional adaptation has shown an uncanny ability to elevate.

This has never been truer than during the Culling Game arc, which is brimming with dynamic and emotionally hefty battles. The arc was partly covered by Jujutsu Kaisen season 3, and season 4’s trailer is a perfect anticipation builder full of rapidly flashing events from its latter half.

There are some tantalizing tidbits in there, like the long-awaited return of Gojo, but some moments are easier to miss. Sandwiched in are a few brief sequences from one of Jujutsu Kaisen‘s most gripping fights ever: Yuki and Choso pairing off in an effort to take down Kenjaku. The fight was set up as early as season 3, episode 3 (“About the Culling Game”), and it promises to be an absolute highlight of Jujutsu Kaisen‘s fourth season.

How One Of Jujutsu Kaisen’s Best Fights Became Its Most Divisive

Despite some controversy over its ending, Yuki and Choso’s faceoff with Kenjaku is one of the series’ best battles in terms of art, stakes, and choreography. While practically every fight in Jujutsu Kaisen is emotionally loaded, the specific dynamic at play here is particularly notable.

Fans will recall that Yuki and Choso volunteered to stay behind within Tengen’s barrier in order to protect her against Kenjaku’s attempt to seize and consume her. Choso’s stakes in the fight are massive: he’s provided not just the opportunity to face his mortifyingly abusive father, but to save the remaining Cursed Wombs.

Meanwhile, Yuki stands at an interesting crossroads, having always served as a foil to Jujutsu society’s prevailing ideology—this is her first chance to really show off her technique and what she’s capable of. Finally, for Kenjaku, acquiring Tengen is a crucial step in his plan to merge and evolve humanity; afterward, he would only have to wait until the Culling Game ends to finally execute it.

All of this sets up an incredible climax to the arc, and mangaka Gege Akutami delivers on every front. It’s one of Gege’s peak achievements in battle writing: fluid, clearly drawn, excellently paneled, and well-written. Not to mention, it’s loaded with suspense and misdirection that makes it an incredibly hype read. Everyone is pushed to their absolute limits, and Yuki and Kenjaku in particular have a deeply visceral throwdown.

Avoiding spoilers, the main reason this fight isn’t remembered so fondly is because of its divisive conclusion (and debatable mishandling of certain characters). Were it not for those factors, it would be remembered as one of Jujutsu Kaisen‘s best fights.

How Jujutsu Kaisen Season 4 Will Elevate A Legendary Battle

However, Jujutsu Kaisen season 4 is going to elevate this fight even further, and the evidence is right there in the trailer, even in the handful of seconds viewers are shown. For example, the fight kicks off with Choso trying to surprise Kenjaku with Piercing Blood, which Kenjaku emotionlessly dodges. The same plays out in the manga panel-for-panel, but there’s a chilling quality to seeing it actually animated: it provides weight, trajectory, and urgency—and Kenjaku just evades it with dead eyes.

The combat in general will be incredible. Choso’s mastery of Blood Manipulation has already been expertly animated in previous seasons; Yuki’s Cursed Technique is notoriously abstract, and the screen will provide it with the motion and exaggeration it demands; meanwhile, Kenjaku’s techniques are rich, varied, and strangely elegant in their own respect.

As all three go harder than ever, everyone is pushed to the brink of death. Combine that with the aforementioned stakes for every fighter (and the world at large), and it becomes clear how pivotal voice acting (and sound design in general) is for adequately portraying the desperation of the situation—something very clear in the few voice clips from the trailer.

That desperation is the motor of the fight, and it’s vital to the fight’s context: whatever choices its combatants make, it’s all against the backdrop of desperation that underlies what will arguably be the anime’s most consequential fight yet. MAPPA is a master of emotional intensity, and a fight with such high stakes demands their unique touch.

Fortunately, the trailer for Jujutsu Kaisen season 4 shows they already know what makes this fight so special, and an anime adaptation will be all this fight needs to go from good to god-tier.

Release Date

October 3, 2020

Network

TBS, MBS, CBC, Tulip Television, BSN, tys, NBC, HBC, RKK, i-Television, SBS, IBC, BSS, MRO, OBS, TUF, RSK, TUY, tbc, RKB, SBC, KUTV, RBC, UTY, RCC, MRT, atv, MBC

Directors

Ryohei Takeshita, Masataka Akai, Chie Nishizawa, Daisuke Tsukushi, Tomomi Kamiya, Kakushi Ifuku, Ken Takahashi

Writers

Hiroshi Seko

• 

• 

  Yuichi Nakamura

  Satoru Gojo