The Digimon Reference You Might Have Missed In The Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Premiere

"Jujutsu Kaisen" is finally back. The anime phenomenon takes battle shonen anime tropes of friendship, rivalry, believing in yourself, and the goofy humor found in those shows and blends them with horror aesthetics and creatures in a way no other mainstream anime is doing. Sure, "Demon Slayer" deals with demons, and gore and creatures were always the bread and butter of "Attack on Titan," but "Jujutsu Kaisen" knows how to properly be spooky, while still being goofy and fun as hell.

That approach continues in season 2. After a successful first season that introduced the world, the characters, and the villains, the franchise has gone back in time. First, there was "Jujutsu Kaisen 0," the fantastic prequel movie which introduced a fan-favorite character and enriched the world. The movie also showed the end of the friendship between Gojo and the villain Geto. Now, "Jujutsu Kaisen" season 2 is doubling down on the past, taking us further back in time to show Gojo's high school days and how Geto turned to the dark side.

In the first episode, Geto and Gojo are charged with finding and sacrificing a girl in order to keep a powerful entity from "evolving" into a destructive force that could destroy the secret world of jujutsu sorcerers. But before they can do that, everyone's favorite anime teacher with the bluest eyes, Gojo (here a student), does everyone a favor and explains the plot in a way only a '90s kid could: with "Digimon" references.

Trying to make sense of the plot to prevent the entity known as Tengen from evolving into a possible threat to humanity, Gojo turns to "Digimon." As he explains, "It would be fine if [Tengen] turned into MetalGreymon, but we can't have him becoming SkullGreymon. So we have him start over from Koromon."

If you're not well-versed in the lore of "Digimon," or haven't rewatched the show in the last 20 years, this may not mean very much to you, but the moment Gojo referenced is actually one of the best parts of that franchise. 

In "Digimon," we meet a group of kids transported to a digital world where they bond with strange creatures known as Digimon. As they bond, the Digimon get access to evolutions (unlike Pokémon evolutions, these are temporary) that make them stronger. Problems arise when protagonist Tai starts forcing his DigiPartner, Agumon, to evolve and become stronger, resulting in Agumon becoming the dark and angry SkullGreymon, which attacks even his friends. When SkullGreymon's energy runs out, he reverts back to Koromon, the previous form of Agumon. 

This is a turning point in the series, when the kids learn the cost of using their Digimon partners just to fight, and when they learned to have patience and trust in each other. 

This is the beauty of "Jujutsu Kaisen." In the same episode, we have an opening scene straight out of a haunted house horror movie, with POV camera shots and long takes that raise the tension. We also get very goofy moments like the Digimon reference as we explore Gojo and Geto's budding relationship through small interactions, like the two joking around playing basketball in the school gym. This is reminiscent of the first season delivering gruesome moments of supernatural horror and also this hilarious baseball scene.

The "Digimon" nod also teases a future development for Geto. When we first met him, he was not only a bad guy using his powers against friends and foes, but he is a dead body being controlled by some outside entity. Like Skullgreymon, he became a misguided puppet, a dark evolution, and seeing him get there will be emotionally devastating.

"Jujutsu Kaisen" season 2 is streaming on Crunchyroll with new episodes streaming Thursdays.