Even Pandas Cry + Fever. Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 5 Review!

In the previous Jujutsu Kaisen episode, we witnessed a short film in the form of the Zenin Clan Massacre as Maki wipes out her whole clan after her twin sister, Mai, sacrifices herself to awaken Maki’s full Heavenly Restriction.

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 5 is titled, “Fever”.

Chapters Adapted

This episode adapts Chapter 147: “Even Pandas”, Chapter 153: “Underground Fight Club”, Chapter 154: “Sneaking In” (pages 1-5), and Chapter 155: “Fever” (pages 1-14), where the episode title is from.

This is a total of nearly 2.5 chapters and 57 pages, a rather slow-paced episode compared to the previous one and it will move all the action to the next episode, meaning this one works more as a setup.

We also break down the staff for this episode here.

Even Pandas Cry

The entirety of Chapter 147 is adapted 1:1, a contrast to the previous episode and in a way, you can see why Gosso’s approach of taking risks in adaptations works.

Because if adapted 1:1, the manga scene feels too fast and we are not given enough time to absorb the scene.

However, in spite of this chapter being adapted as a short cold open, a lot happens and a lot is felt.

We see Yaga’s imprisonment during Panda’s birth.

Gakuganji interrogated him and asked about whether or not he knew about how Panda was even made, a Cursed Corpse that, unlike any other type of Cursed Corpse or Cursed Puppetry, is able to produce its own Cursed Energy beyond the finite amount provided by the Sorcerer.

This sets up the whole one-chapter storyline, that the real reason for Yaga

It is here we learn that Yaga is secretly labelled a Special Grade because Yaga could produce his own army of self-empowered, independent-thinking Cursed Corpses.

In the manga later on, as explained by Kenjaku in his fight against Choso in Chapter 203: “Blood and Oil, Part 2”, a special grade sorcerer is someone capable of wiping out a nation singlehandedly.

Satoru Gojo’s Limitless, empowered by the Six Eyes, Yuta Okkotsu’s Copy that can mimic any powerful technique, Suguru Geto’s Cursed Spirit Manipulation that can control millions of Cursed Spirits without strain, and Yuki Tsukumo’s Star Rage strong enough to make her a literal black hole.

Yaga and Geto have more in common with the destructive potential of their personal armies.

But Yaga only wants to help people and he gets deeper into trouble when he performs another taboo:

By placing the soul information of a deceased human body, Takeru, he is able to bring back the boy in the form of a Cursed Corpse, who takes the place of that boy but is not the same person.

This was done to give Atsuya Kusakabe’s sister comfort after having lost her son too soon, which is why Kusakabe owes a debt of gratitude to Yaga that allows him to save the imprisoned Panda.

This now brings us to Yaga facing his debts.

After leaving Tengen’s forest, where he keeps all his Cursed Corpses safe and able to live for themselves, Yaga walks at night, expecting an assassin from Jujutsu Headquarters.

However, Gakuganji steps in to finish the job, ordering the assassin to leave.

The uniform being similar to the Zenin Clan’s fighters shows that Jujutsu Headquarters uses the Three Sorcerer Families for their covert operations, not students or staff from any of the two Jujutsu High Schools, likely the Kamo Clan that heads the Conservative ruling faction.

Every time Gakuganji touches his guitar, the lights turn on and off, which leads to Yaga’s offscreened death, giving the scene a more horror vibe.

We cut to a moth going to a light, fitting the meaning of Yaga’s name, “Evening Moth”.

A moth going to a flame, ending in his death.

In the cold, heartless world of Jujutsu, where life and death are equal, harsh truths, Yaga’s compassion and kindness that seeks more of itself, by creating more life, more warmth, more beauty beyond anyone’s control, ultimately ends his life.

Finally, it is only at this point, the point of death, that Yaga reveals the truth behind his Cursed Technique.

We already know a part of this from Panda’s flashback in Season 1 but yes, Panda’s sentience is attributed to the existence of three soul cores in his body but there is more.

Through Takeru’s existence, the formula is completely revealed here.

The soul cores contain real soul information taken from physical, real people.

Additionally, the Corpse must have three compatible soul cores for them to observe each other.

In Panda’s case, it is Panda and his siblings, the power-type “brother” Gorilla and the “sister” Triceratops.

That “perception” is important for a conscious, independent self to be formed as the self must be perceived and that usually requires the existence of the Other.

Yaga gives this as a Curse to Gakuganji, knowing that among the Jujutsu Elders,

An Actually Problematic Tone Shift

This is where the biggest fumble of the episode comes in: an actual tone shift.

The previous episode lacked that when you have the context that the Zenin Clan Massacre, all of Perfect Preparation, was based on Kill Bill, meaning the black comedy and irony via tone shift and happy go lucky music was on point and on purpose.

With this episode, we face the most common culprit of the tone shift: the anime opening.

Now, those who have not fully processed Aizo’s actual tone would think they were led into a positive anime opening but in reality, Aizo is actually a mess of emotions, filled with a desire for punishment, catharsis and destruction, hence why most of its lyrics are “love me, hate me, kill me”.

Contained in all these feelings is a desire to be satisfied.

However, even then, the cutaway to the opening is already a tone shift because we are not given time to mourn Yaga.

It feels like the episode wants to get the Panda stuff out of the way, in spite of how much the opening dedicates a significant amount of space to a mere 7 minute segment unrelated to the meat of “Fever”.

It is understandable why the episode placed the earlier “Even Pandas” chapter here, which is to connect to Panda’s involvement in the Culling Game and to give more exclusive focus to Gosso’ real priority in Perfect Preparation.

However, such a plan could have been given some flexibility, perhaps in the form of more anime-only scenes.

Although the anime presented Yaga’s death with more creativity than the manga could, it still felt way too fast.

A chapter may be 19 pages but the manga is still and allows readers to linger on with their time.

The purpose of the anime is to trap the audience in a confined space and time, which is where the final scene of this episode will do wonders.

Yet for the first segment, a powerfully emotional one-off narrative, the anime’s background work was still too limited in spite of how well-presented everything was.

By cutting right away to the opening, the momentum was shifted and it forced the viewer to not process Panda’s grief and shift right away to the longer Part 2 of the episode.

The First Rule of Fight Club

There are technically three rules for the Underground Fight Club.

First, no one talks about Fight Club. Get the reference?

Second, no running away and third, no Cursed Techniques because the crowd needs to see action so hiding and running are bad for business and Cursed Techniques are obviously invisible to normal humans.

It seems Hakari knows Megumi or has assessed him as a bland type, so he tells his men to let Yuji in instead.

Once Yuji was in the clear, Megumi and Yuji plan out their next steps while walking to the destinaton.

We are treated once again to some nice photorealistic backgrounds and motion that emphasizes Gosso’s taste for cinematic realism.

Yuji vs Panda 

To contrast Gosso’s normal serious, cinematic realism, we get Yuji vs Panda, a fight with a more unique animation style that emphasizes just how goofy the interaction is.

This is thanks to Obrian Bennie adding so much motion to the first half and the last portion of the fight being by Yooto following the Kameda style of animation that is so over the top and full of rapid smear frames, on top of overdramatic reactions from the crowd, basically anything from Mob Psycho 100.

The style of animation is somewhat commentated on in a meta fashion as one of the Fight Club staff commented that Yuji was fighting in 3D.

While again the way this episode had Panda lose his dad and shift to this goofy ahh moment somewhat dims the emotional beats of the cold open, in another perspective, this is the story giving Panda “comfort” as Yuji and Panda are just playing for the crowd.

Every time Yuji tries to land the hit, we get the “anime or manga effect” of “light touch”, showing that Yuji was never serious.

Then Yuji takes it up a notch as he leaps in the air to bring the action to the crowd, which is what gets him an audience with Hakari.

That Hakari and Yuji Long Take

The episode ends on a 5-minute long take of Yuji meeting with Hakari in the monitor room of the Fight Club.

It starts off simple, with Yuji

The use of rotoscoping in this scene makes everything feel tense.

The long take not only puts you in the room with them and traps you in a certain space and time but also adds tension.

When there is a long take like this, something wrong is clearly happening.

The first half makes us comfortable, especially as Hakari gives his speech about gambling, about how it is not gambling that people hate, not even the risk but the “lose and ruin”.

We also see how the current turmoil of Shibuya, with the higher-ups in a panic, will create a space for someone like Hakari to emerge as a new middle power in Japan.

Hakari’s goal is to make the Underground Fight Club a new center of power to show off Jujutsu to the public, thereby exposing Sorcerers, which goes against the Jujutsu Regulations.

Funnily enough, that is exactly what happens with the Hakari Provision mentioned in Jujutsu Kaisen Modulo Chapter 10: “Majority Vote”

Thanks to the use of rotoscope, the body language work on Yuji was done so well that such that fans even feel that this scene has the same vibes as an abusive household.

The humor mixed with subtle apprehension, with his awkward stances, really sells the tension.

Yuji actually fumbles the minute he asks who Satoru Gojo is.

This is easily Yuji’s dumbest move and it really shows, ironically, how he was overthinking the cover.

Yuji’s honest personality was already enough to make Hakari feel secure but he had to erase his strong connection with Gojo rather than just know him like any regular person.

That being said, it is also clear that Yuji was sniffed out the minute he went to the door.

This is also why it is a good thing the Kirara segment is moved to the next episode as we are focused solely on the long take with Hakari and Yuji.

You can feel the unease build in every frame as his weak pretense slowly crumbles until he finally bungles it.

Then we get the phone call as final confirmation for Hakari that Yuji is sus.

This leads to Hakari beginniong his fight with Yuji, which shows bits of the foldings doors of Private Love Train, Hakari’s Cursed Technique that is usually applied in his Domain Expansion, which we will see in Cour 2.

Perhaps the doors are like slashes to cut or bind targets but we barely see its use since Yuji dodges quite well.

The fight was extended quite well in terms of timing, showing the battle in the air, as well as Yuji’s superhuman strength, or more precisely, his acrobatic skills and how he jumps out of holds that seemed impossible to escape.

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 6 is titled, “Cog” and has been released on February 5, 2026.

This will conclude the Perfect Preparation Arc and covers the rest of Chapters 154 and 155, Chapter 156: “Twinkling Stars”, Chapter 157: “Cog”, where the title is from, and Chapter 158: “Judgment” for a total of 4 chapters and 76 pages, with plenty of focus on action.

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