Warning: The following contains minor spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen: The Culling Game – Part 1, now streaming on Crunchyroll.

When it comes to classic, beloved shonen, there are certain… barriers to entry, though nothing that should detract from their enduring legacy. It’s the “little” things, like the number of episodes, pacing, and production quality – factors that stem from a time when shonen were produced very differently. There were no seasons; they would just run continuously until they ran out of material to adapt, at which time they’d either go on hiatus or burn more of the midnight oil (that’s the whimsical way of saying overwork), producing filler arcs until there were enough chapters. Additionally, the evolving production quality meant that shows looked very different in Episode 1 than compared to Episode 200 or so, which could also deter anyone who is first and foremost drawn to the later art quality of a long-running show.

Of course, shonen has changed quite a bit since the 90s or the 2000s. If anything, sometimes it feels like you’re at greater risk of the animation quality going down after the first season, though this is thankfully rare. One-Punch Man never achieved the same level of attention in the cultural zeitgeist after Season 1, a decline most would attribute to the dwindling animation quality after the anime changed hands. Or, to a much less egregious degree, take My Hero Academia, a show whose detractors would assert that it declined in quality after Season 3. Personally, I think this is just because its early seasons set a gold standard for what a long-running shonen could look like – one that was unfortunately hard to maintain to quite the same level. Regardless, it was still a fairly consistent and wonderfully written series, and one that especially stepped up during its final seasons (though I’m obviously a bit biased on that count).

I bring all of this up because now we have Jujutsu Kaisen, and although it is by no means new (having started airing in 2020), I’ve only recently come to realize just how much I love – and have loved – this series. Season 1 already started strong, from narrative to animation and especially music, but I’m not sure I’ve seen an anime so consistently increase in quality each season – at least not that I can think of off the top of my head. I’m too busy thinking about The Culling Game – Part 1, the long-awaited third season that has officially cemented Jujutsu Kaisen as not only one of my favorite shonen, but one of my favorite anime, period.

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