patricide

What makes a good prequel?

In his 2018 magnum opus, Why Shrek 2 is a Perfect Sequel, Schafrillas Productions defines a perfect sequel as one that does the following

Expands the universe in meaningful ways

Continues the story in a new, compelling way

Introduce new, compelling themes, or expand on the themes of the original

Leave an undeniable impact on the franchise

It's an attractive definition, simple, appealing, an almost mnemonic catchiness to it.

This definition will be discarded.

Both prequels and sequels are inherently restrictive narrative spaces. In writing a sequel, we already know with absolute certainty the backstory, or the Before. Schafrillass's rules are not unaware of this, and in that restriction hone their focus: the expansion of both the universe and the themes, building on what came before rather than from the ground up - continuation of the story because there is a story that necessarily must be continued.

Conversely, when reading or writing a prequel, we are acutely aware of the conclusion, or the After. This is a unique story which must wrestle with the challenges of the audience already knowing the ending. We can't continue a story when everything we see takes place before it starts, and any expansions to the world will naturally have to answer "well, where was all this before?" Writing a story such as that is exceedingly more difficult than writing any other.

Except I lied to you, and there is nothing unique about the "difficulty" of writing a story where the audience already knows the ending. There is a well known and well regarded term for when the audience knows something the characters in a story don't. Dramatic irony. This tool is the backbone of most tragedy and horror stories, and it's one that good prequels will use to great effect.

Then, the rest of Schafrillas's points exist not in reference to the restrictions of writing a sequel, but the fruit of it. When one story exists in reference to another, it can freely reap of its themes and motifs, purposing them and repurposing them to suit its needs. However, this potential is a double-edged sword: just as the story is enriched, it must in turn enrich the source material, or it risks feeling stale and stagnant.

From these restrictions and general needs for any stories in a shared universe, I believe we can begin to construct our own guidelines for what a good prequel looks like. Ideally, a prequel must:

Engage in Dramatic Irony and provide the reader with a sense of suspense.

Expand and enrich the characters present.

Elaborate on the world and answer unanswered questions.

But in order to explain why Kagurabachi is a bad example, I'd also need a good example. A universally beloved prequel arc considered one of if not THE best parts of its story. One that hits all the marks of a good prequel I laid out earlier. One that every anime flashback arc for the past decade has been trying to be.

Oh yeah.

Engage in Dramatic Irony and provide the reader with a sense of suspense.

If you read or watch Jujutsu Kaisen in release order (the CORRECT way to do it), then going into Hidden Inventory, you know three things.

Satoru Gojo is the Strongest Sorcerer Alive, a completely uneclipsable ideal of what it means to wield Jujutsu.

Megumi Fushiguro's father is dead

Suguru Geto is Jujutsu Hitler

And so, when you get to Hidden Inventory, these facts are felt PALPABLY in your mind. You know that, no matter what happens, this can only end with Toji dead and Geto as Jujutsu Hitler.

Then, we meet another character, seemingly rounding out our trio of leads for this part - Riko Amanai, the Star Plasma Vessel. Meant to be given to Tengen in order to preserve the Barrier funneling cursed energy into Japan. We don't know much about Tengen at this point, but what we do know is that we don't know Amanai. And characters who appear in flashbacks who you don't know don't tend to have a very high life expectancy.

And that makes all the scenes of Gojo fighting randoms or just hanging out on the beach terrifying. The whole time Toji isn't on screen, you're wondering, "where's Toji?" He becomes the allegorical bomb under the table, a prescient and looming danger, making even the most innocuous scenes ominous.

2. Expand and enrich the characters present.

Prior to Hidden Inventory, there's a very present blank space in Geto and Gojo's characterization. The two have an implied history in JJK 0 as people who were once quite close, but have drifted apart in a rather serious way. Hidden Inventory shows us this blank space: both the history and the drifting apart. We see them fighting together as a team, bickering in a way that suggests closeness and history, and playing off of each other in meaningful ways.

Take, for instance, The Basketball Fight

The game of basketball is an invention by the anime, but it still exists in my mind as the Basketball Fight regardless. Gojo got cocky on a mission and forgot to put a Curtain up, letting non-Jujutsu sorcerers see the aftermath of a fight. Gojo's not that concerned about it... but Geto. Suguru "I don't need a Monkey like you in my world" Geto, says this.

And suddenly we see the person that Gojo mourned that day.

But in order to properly give this moment its flowers, we also have to acknowledge how Gojo's behaviour went contrary to our expectations. In Hidden Inventory, Gojo is... well he's a total brat. And not in the intentional way he's a brat during the events of JJK proper, but in a very unruly and free-spirited way. This Gojo would not have stood between Yuji and execution, or helped Yuta to find peace with the vengeful spirit of Rika Orimoto. You get the distinct impression that he's only good out of convenience - that he could just as easily forsake the pain of looking out for the weak and walk the road of Ryomen Sukuna. It gives weight and intentionality to the person he is in the present.

3. Elaborate on the world and answer unanswered questions

While Gojo is my world, he is not THE world, and the worldbuilding of Jujutsu Kaisen has a reputation for being underdeveloped. But underdeveloped does not mean undeveloped, and Hidden Inventory does some things to elaborate on what is present. Most importantly of all: Tengen

Tengen was first mentioned in Chapter 45, as the one who maintains the protective barriers around Jujutsu High. Chapter 66 and the rest of Hidden Inventory is when Tengen really gets properly explained.

Immortality. Sustained through intermittent sacrifice. And the product...

Is the backbone of modern Jujutsu Society.

Now, we may not get the extent of what Tengen's barriers are doing in this initial flashback, but it's important to keep some cards close to your chest. What we DO get, however, is enough to know who Tengen is and what purpose they serve.

Hidden Inventory also further clarifies a big question of the magic system: Maki Zen'in. Ever since JJK 0, a question lingers in the viewer's mind, and that question is Maki. She can't use Jujutsu, but she is staggeringly powerful - not as strong as the strongest sorcerers, but considerably superhuman, especially given she's not amplifying herself with Cursed Energy. Yuji gets directly compared to her, and thus inversely, her to Yuji.

Yuji can huck a Shotput 30 yards and dent steel throwing it like a baseball.

We also know, as of Goodwill, that some Jujutsu Sorcerers are born with a Heavenly Restriction: a trade where they obtain great power at enormous cost themselves, imposed on them at the time of their birth.

In Toji, we see what that Heavenly Restriction looks like fully manifest - as well as glimpses into the way those who have this power are treated. Not only does Hidden Inventory elaborate on past events, it sets the stage for what's to come.

And that's the true, essential strength of Gojo's Past: in just 14 chapters, it not only recontextualizes what we've seen, but it sets the stage for what's to come. Both the ensuing Shibuya Incident and the later Perfect Preparation and Culling Games arcs are widely informed not only by the events of Hidden Inventory, but by the audience's knowledge of them.

Kagurabachi Part 2 currently consists of 9 chapters, and is still ongoing. Time will tell how it paves the road for the story going forwards. But in the mean time, a part of a story ought to be able to stand on its OWN merits, and not merely promise to one day be good. Does Kagurabachi Part 2?

Does Kagurabachi Part 2 engage in dramatic irony and provide the reader with a sense of suspense?

No. In fact, I'm not even sure that Hokazono knows he wrote a prequel, because he keeps trying to to surprise his audience. The latest chapter, 123, attempts to will they/won't they on both Chiaki hooking up with Kunishige, and the Enchanted Blades actually getting created, two things we know necessarily must happen because these things happening is the premise of the story. But beyond that, you know that little tidbit I dropped about Riko Amanai's time being characterized by the fact that we know she won't make it to the end? Well, it turns out Kagurabachi had a character just like that too!

Mashiro appears spontaneously in the start of Part 2, after having never been seen or even mentioned for all of Part 1. He is characterized by being Shiba's friend and lackey, although perhaps "characterized" is generous (we'll get to it in a minute). And so, when he goes to the Irishima Peace Talks, after the story has already told us that the Seitei War is a guaranteed factor, we can predict how it will end.

The story, seemingly unaware of this fact, attempts to fake us out.

This panel is an insult to your intelligence, and it should inspire blinding rage in you. To even show us the Irishima Peace Talks is to do a disservice to the obviousness of their inevitability, but to attempt to do a "the villain walks out of the dust cloud of an attack that we thought would kill them" in a FLASHBACK SEQUENCE is to accuse your audeince of having not paid attention.

2. Does Kagurabachi Part 2 expand and enrich the characters present?

Quite the opposite, really, the characters in Kagurabachi never feel smaller and more stagnant than they do when the appear in a flashback. I have two specific targets I want to focus in on right now, though: Kunishige Rokuhira and Seiichi Samura.

The sequence above takes place shortly after Shiba tells Chihiro that his Father forged blades for the Seitei War, and that he's a hero who saved Japan. It functions as a direct response to that statement, and though we don't yet know about the Malediction, it serves to lampshade it obliquely. The status quo that exists may do so because of blades that Kunishge forged, but it also only exists because of the blood they spilled.

Innocent blood.

With the knowledge of the Malediction, our understanding of who Kunishige is slides fully into place. This is somebody who forged a weapon of mass destruction, entrusted it to an ally - no, a friend, his brother in law even, and had that blade used to eradicate a society. And the weight and wrongness of this action still lives with him today, as a lesson he chooses to impart to his son, so that perhaps his hands may be less bloodstained than his father's.

The visceral wrongness of the Malediction doesn't just affect Kunishige, though. It extends outwards, to other characters entwined with the Enchanted Blades.

Seiichi Samura is an immediately dynamic character. When we meet him, he appears absolutely carefree. He does so living in a temple, bearing scars on his eyes from where he gouged them out. It is immediately obvious that there's something going on with this guy, though the extent of just what his fucking deal is is obfuscated even from himself.

Slowly, though, the pieces start to fall into place.

At first, we are led to believe that Samura blinded himself out of guilt for the Seitei War, and is going to hunt down each and every Enchanted Blade wielder for their role in what transpired.

It's more specific than it initially seems.

Eventually, we find out that Samura is motivated specifically by the Malediction. That this is what drives him, this is what made him leave it all behind, this is what he gouged his eyes out for.

Except that's not actually the case.

Even when he first met Akemura Soga, before the Malediction, and perhaps before the Magatsumi was even forged, Seiichi Samura had already gouged his eyes out.

And Kunishige was already well aware of what his life as a swordsmith meant, long before he was typecast into it, in a period of his youth where he could've chosen to do literally anything different.

Every time we go into these characters' pasts, the Malediction means less and less. This wasn't an earth-shaking act, whose visceral horror fundamentally changed everyone involved. In fact, it meant very little to them personally. If anything, Kunishige's stance in this flashback is considerably less pro-swords than he is in Chapter 1,

seeing the abhorrent violence they cause but speaking little of their ability to protect,

as though THAT were the lesson he had taken away from the Malediction.

Yeah OK so I should probably talk about that elephant now.

Ever since Part 2 began, Kagurabachi has been exceedingly weird about race. Ever since we learned about the Malediction, we also learned about the Kamunabi's own in-universe response to and justifications for the Malediction and the events leading up to it. This is, in execution, diegetic genocide apologia.

As of Part 2, not a single piece of information we received about the Malediction or Shokoku itself was incorrect or untrue. The government agency was telling the truth about the genocide one of their soldiers perpetrated during a peace talk. The Shokokuans COULD freely manipulate Datenseki, and the Enchanted Blades WERE a necessary escalation of force. The islanders DID appear out of literally nowhere with hostile intentions.

But it doesn't stop there, because in addition to making the diegetic genocide apologia canon, Hitlerzono also took time to canonize actual genocide apologia.

The Mikaboshi allowed to live and flee let the grudge fester and sought revenge later.

Very explicit revenge.

Not only has the story slowly eroded the Malediction of all its meaning, it has created a world in which every argument one could use to justify it is explicitly true.

"But Toe Sucker! Hokazono's ACTUALLY a genius saying that even this literal embodiment of all genocide apologia doesn't deserve genocide!"

I don't believe you. At every chance, he has walked back on the meaning of the Malediction, making it smaller and less important. Even if I did, that would not be a good story. It ceases to even attempt to say anything of meaning, beyond the barest, basest of liberal panderings, a blind allegiance to the status quo.

"But Toe Sucker! The Mikaboshi Royal Family was overthrown by the time of the Malediction, it was actually the successor government that Soga eradicated!"

That's not a solution, that's a scapegoat. We have a word for people who justify violent regime changes in material-rich nations by telling you that the leadership are grudge-filled rapists who want to destroy everything you value and don't represent the will of their people, and that's bloodthirsty imperialist warmongers. But I'm sure Lockheedzono was going somewhere with this Saving Private Ryan adaptation.

3. Does Kagurabachi elaborate on the world and answer unanswered questions?

No. What Kagurabachi tells us is that everything we knew about the world was entirely correct, and moreover, that it was all there is to know. It actively shrank the world to write it this way, and it was written this was irregardless.