It almost borders on ecchi sometimes, just with dudes.
Every Thursday the new episode of Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 drops, and every Thursday the social networks riot. Reasons are different: sometimes people are upset by the animation choices, sometimes, however, they more than appreciate the liberties that animators took while adapting one of the most interesting manga arcs of the series into the medium.
This week the audience decided to focus on the latter.
The Shibuya Arc of the Jujutsu Kaisen manga is filled with action and it gathers all of the most loved characters in one place. One such character is Kento Nanami, or Nanamin — the main husband material of the whole show.
And the animators at Mappa, it seems, were ready to sign their marriage certificates, because Nanamin in the last episode looked not just good. He looked overly hot.
In comparison to his previous appearances, he got significantly more buff — his body got meatier; some of his actions, compared to manga, were exaggerated in their severity and viciousness. Jujutsu Kaisen's adaptation is one that follows the manga pretty closely, yet the scene with the fight between Nanamin and Haruto got much more visceral, delighted the viewers with some thought-provoking shots, and made Hourly Nanami account on Twitter finally reach 100,000 followers.
It's not the only scene that was made deliberately more suggestive and nearly obscene by Mappa in this season. Remember that moment at the beginning of Shibuya Arc with Gojo sitting on Jogo's arm? It wasn't in the manga. Or, rather, the way it was portrayed in the manga wasn't the same. And don't get us started on Toji.
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It's not the first case of animators openly making the characters look more desirable in the manga adaptation. One such case is Mob Psycho 100's portrayal of Reigen, with Bones choosing certain angles and including certain shots that were not even suggested in the manga. Yet that allowed Reigen almost win the title of Tumblr Sexyman in 2022 just before the release of Season 3 of the series, and top some of the MILF and DILF Twitter polls at the same timeframe.
Some creative liberties that the animation studio takes while adapting the manga may include certain exaggerations in the design and the storytelling may put emphasis on different points. Jujutsu Kaisen's adaptation doesn't take much of them; and if the liberties that the studio takes make the characters hotter, then we're more than okay with that. After all, there are not many shows with male fanservice. So maybe JJK can become one?