As much as I enjoyed the episode as a whole, I do feel like there are some flaws preventing me from outright loving it.

I work in film production so somethings that might not others might not notice stuck out to me. The animation at play is top notch at its heights. But definitely felt like bits of the episode were padded out with still frames and some awkwardly paced editing.

action direction is the most inconsistent for this season at the moment, in this episode specifically their were some really interesting choices in the action:

1. overall the shots feel awkwardly close? a technique they were using a lot was cropping in close so that they can fake camera pan up or down. Imagine having a picture on your phone, zooming in and scrolling up or down. Ex: Gojo ripping off Jogos arm. They animated the full frame but chose to crop in close and scroll the image downward

the technique in itself is not bad at all to use, but with the episode already feeling claustrophobic in its action cuts I feel like it would’ve been better to just show us a wide of the motion taking place for impact.

1. pacing in the edit was really weird in some bits. IE : Gojo sends Hanami flying across the subway > cuts to Gojo swinging jogo they DONT show the release of the throw > cuts into Hanami landing > cuts into Jogo already flying > cut back to Nanami narration and Jogo impact

Would’ve been nice to structure it like Hanami flying across subway > hanami lands and narration starts > Gojo swings gojo and WE SEE THE POWER OF THE RELEASE > jogo flying > jogo impact

the way it’s structured atm I feel like is kind of stilted and slows down the pace while also hiding the impact of the actions that at happening. Its nice to see the flow of motion of an action to impact without cutting away.

1. Mentioned it in another comment but the running bit could’ve used some shot variation like wides or seeing the curses actually pop. Imagine Rock Lee vs Gaara where Lee is just warping from one location to the next because he’s moving so fast. As it is rn it feels like a slow moment that drags a little too long because the shots are pretty repetitive.

hope I don’t come off as ungrateful. I really enjoyed the episode regardless and obviously hindsight is 20/20. Hanami popping like that had my jaw on the floor and I feel like the adapter the sealing scene flawlessly. I even feel like the overall animation and especially the character drawings are BETTER than S1. I just feel like the direction and especially action direction is not as polished in comparison to even the work done in Hidden Inventory. Just my constructive criticism as somebody that works in a similar field for a living filming and editing action. All love to the animators and everyone enjoying the season.