Crunchyroll accused of making Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 "unwatchable" as Shibuya arc starts

Following the premiere of the Shibuya Incident Arc in Jujutsu Kaisen season 2, fans worldwide were left vexed by the animation as they deemed the anime's fight scenes to be unwatchable. Given that Jujutsu Kaisen is a Shounen anime, fight scenes are some of the most important visuals in an episode. Thus, when fans noticed ghosted and dimmed fighting scenes, they did not approve.

That said, following the release of three episodes from the arc, the official Twitter page of the anime released some visuals that hinted that it wasn't MAPPA but possibly Crunchyroll that was at fault. The images were from the scenes that looked terrible during the airing. However, they weren't dimmed or ghosted. This led fans to theorize that Crunchyroll released the poor-quality version of the episodes on purpose.

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Jujutsu Kaisen season 2: Fans left vexed at Crunchyroll for poor quality episodes

During the premiere of Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 Shibuya Incident Arc episodes, fans were able to observe that the anime's fight scenes were getting ghosted and dimmed, thus lowering the animation quality. While fans were angry at it, they believed that MAPPA was at fault.

However, with the recent post from the anime's official Twitter page, it is clear to them that an un-ghosted and undimmed version of the episodes also exists. Thus, fans were led to believe that streaming site Crunchyroll was at fault as they must have deliberately released the poor-quality version of the episodes.

Following that, fans started to ask Crunchyroll to release the un-ghosted and undimmed version of the episodes by creating a petition and a hashtag "#Release_JJK_without_ghosting."

That said, fans weren't certain if Crunchyroll would do anything about their demands. While many fans believe that the streaming service does listen to them, none of them thought the staff members cared enough to take action. They derived this idea from the fact that the streaming service does not upload better versions of anime episodes when they are available. Instead, they do not make any changes to the library.

Some fans even stated that if Crunchyroll were to release the Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 episodes again, they would watch the entire season again for a better viewing experience.

That's when some fans came to Crunchyroll's defense. They believed that Crunchyroll did not deliberately release poor-quality episodes, but it was the anime studio MAPPA that had shared good-quality still images for the episode's promotion. Given how the anime industry works, this theory seemed more realistic.

The same can be observed when one compares a trailer and an actual episode of an anime. The difference in quality is very evident, hence fans were led to believe that the same had occurred in the case of Jujutsu Kaisen season 2.

That's when one fan theorized that the whole Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 debacle was created by the MAPPA itself, especially its CEO Manabu Otsuka. Following the release of an anime, the series releases a Blu-ray version of the same. Given that the anime released by MAPPA are in majority of high quality, fans were led to theorize that the anime studio had deliberately released a poor version earlier, so that they could later sell a high-quality version for Blu-ray.

If there were no differences between the two versions, no one would purchase the Blu-ray version, hence the studio must have chosen this back-handed strategy. Nevertheless, at the moment, fans will have to wait to see what Crunchyroll and MAPPA do following the Jujutsu Kaisen season 2 backlash.