A post on twitter by @xdxderen7 went viral with a video accusing the staff of the second season of the anime series adaptation of the manga Jujutsu Kaisen in Gege Akutami of “copying” a variety of scenes and animation styles from different anime franchises like “One Piece”, “Tengen Toppa Gurren Laggan”, “JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure”, ”One Punch Man“, “Neon Genesis Evangelion” and many others. The video is made up of a collection of fragments that show a comparison with the “supposed” original scene.
The following comment was also left:
A collection of scenes from “Copy-Kaisen”. The team that fools all anime fans. You should never forgive them. I can’t forgive them for stealing my favorite scenes.
The user also mentioned the desire for this video to reach more people, something that ended up happening, as it already has more than 3.4 million views accumulated.
Copykaisen Anime Collection
パクリ廻戦 アニメ集They mock all the anime fans
彼らはすべてのアニメファンをひどく傷つけたNever forgive them
彼らを決して許さないでくださいI can never forgive them for stealing my favorite animation
私は好きなアニメを盗んだことを決して許せない pic.twitter.com/eOqUNOYyJF— 卡卡喬喬 (@xdxderen7) December 26, 2023
The user in question has a lot of resentment for the production of Jujutsu Kaisen 2 and this is evident in your interaction with other users who defend the studio MAPPA and its animators. The main concept discussed in these exchanges of arguments is usually that of “homage”. In fact, there is a line tenuous in between “copy” It is “homage”, and it is common for this line to be drawn for convenience.
Unconditional fans of the series that is being attacked will certainly say that everything is a “homage”; while others will claim that it is a “copy“.
Returning to the main subject, if the sequences shown in “Jujutsu Kaisen“Are they really copies or homages, it depends a lot on the conditions of production. It’s possible that the same animators who worked on the original scenes were now back to work on Jujutsu Kaisen. Considering the problems of working conditions in the studio MAPPAit would be understandable that these animators, faced with the pressure to finish quickly, choose to recycle their previous work.
Of course, lively discussions arose online:
- I can’t say for sure, but why do they make the copies so obvious? Wouldn’t it be appropriate to copy just enough so that no one would notice?
- It seems like it’s difficult to create choreography for a fight, and the animators simply recycle what they’ve done before.
- Foreigners often praise Jujutsu Kaisen as a work of art, and this makes sense considering how much they copy from other successful anime.
- There is no doubt that the scene taken from the live-action film is a reference. MAPPA probably doesn’t give animators enough time to think about scenes and draw them, and they just have to repeat what they’ve done in the past.
- If the animator or director were the same, it wouldn’t be a copy. However, it is complicated to think that there were so many coincidences and that they led to all these comparisons.
- Producing storyboards is an art in itself, it requires a lot of mental work and, of course, a lot of time. Excuses such as “tributes” are an easy way out for the lazy artist or, in this case, the exploited artist.
- It’s a franchise that was a copy from the manga, what did you expect?
- It’s totally different from Chainsaw Man, there the scenes were made from scratch and were “true homages”. Here I only see a dishonest copy.
- It’s becoming a habit to trace and copy other scenes made by more recognized projects, perhaps animators are losing their shame.
- Well, then Jujutsu Kaisen references and pays homage to many other titles. There is nothing new in this statement. We could say the same about all the copies that were made in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure and One Piece, right?
- Shonen anime do this kind of thing all the time.
- I have no problem with making some kind of homage, but this is directly a copy in design, timing and choreography, there are too many coincidences. Really regrettable.
- They are called “references”, something very common in any type of animation, it is not copying or cheating. Even with little production time available, this is called “using resources”.
- They are “references”, not “copies”, not “thefts” or anything like that. Learn the difference and stop hating current series just because they became popular. The animators put a lot of work and effort into this, despite the horrible conditions at MAPPA.
