Jujutsu Kaisen Pays Brilliant Tribute to Kill Bill in Its Most Jaw-Dropping Episode Yet

If you love your anime laced with buckets of crimson and a side of movie references, the newest episode of Jujutsu Kaisen is probably going to blow your mind (and maybe your socks clean off). The episode, 'Perfect Preparation,' just aired, and let’s not beat around the bush: MAPPA is paying massive, bloody homage to Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill — and they aren’t even trying to hide it. This is as direct a riff as you’ll get outside of someone literally pasting Uma Thurman’s face on a shonen character. No subtlety, just carnage.

Blood, Blades, and Betrayals: The Setup

Let’s set the scene. In the latest JJK outing, Maki decides it’s payback time for the Zenin Clan. Betrayed, left for dead, and swinging a blade that everyone in the building should be terrified of, she basically reenacts The Bride’s revenge against the Crazy 88 from Kill Bill Vol. 1. The mood, the violence, even the way the camera (well, the anime camera) follows her — it’s all straight out of Tarantino’s playbook.

Full Circle: When Tarantino Nodded to Anime First

Here’s where it gets oddly poetic. Jujutsu Kaisen is referencing Kill Bill, but Kill Bill was already riffing on anime in the first place. If you remember (or just Google it, I won’t judge), the original Kill Bill: Volume 1 had a jaw-dropping anime sequence when it told O-Ren Ishii’s tragic origin story. That segment? Created by Production I.G., a studio best known for Ghost in the Shell and a bunch of horror anime.

Tarantino himself went to Japan specifically for that scene, letting a 15-minute animated bloodbath give us all the backstory we needed — parents butchered, vengeance sworn, and a child on the path to becoming a Yakuza boss. Bleak, yes, but also cool as hell. So if you’re keeping score, Tarantino borrowed from anime, and now anime is borrowing right back from Tarantino. Symmetry! (Or just the world’s most stylish echo chamber.)

Details for the Curious (or the Skeptical)

• Kill Bill: Vol. 1
  • Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
  • Main Cast: Uma Thurman (The Bride), Lucy Liu (O-Ren Ishii), David Carradine, and others
  • Original Release: 2003
  • IMDb Score: 8.2/10
  • Rotten Tomatoes: 85%
  • Box Office: $180 million (worldwide)
  • Produced by: A Band Apart
  • Currently streaming on: Apple TV, Fubo

  How MAPPA Turned Things Up to 11

  So how exactly did MAPPA (the animation studio behind JJK) and Gege Akutami (the original manga creator) push the homage past 'cute reference' and straight into 'look what we can do’ territory? A bunch of ways, actually:

  The anime’s battlefield is all traditional Japanese architecture, complete with sliding doors and upper-level balconies — straight out of the 'House of Blue Leaves' from Kill Bill. Then, during the action, everything snaps into high-contrast black and white, and the blood turns inky and bold, just like Tarantino’s workaround for censors (that, let’s be honest, ended up looking about fifty times cooler than it probably needed to). Maki even glares at her enemies through her blade, a clear mirror of how Thurman eyed the Crazy 88 before breaking their limbs and their spirits.

  One more nerdy note: the usual Jujutsu Kaisen soundtrack gets swapped out for a much more mid-2000s, fast-paced, rhythmic action score — pure Kill Bill vibes. If you don’t spot it, you’re either new to Tarantino movies, or you were looking at your phone during the episode. (Be honest: you do it sometimes.)

  'Perfect Preparation' is pretty much Tarantino’s House of Blue Leaves scene, but with sorcerers and even more creative violence. If you ever wanted proof that the cycle of nerd inspiration never really ends, well, here it is, painted in very dark red.

  Where to Watch

  If you want to see for yourself, Jujutsu Kaisen is streaming on Crunchyroll in the US.