A western release for Jujutsu Kaisen 0 has finally been announced.
Crunchyroll has confirmed that it will handle the film's North American release. The highly anticipated prequel movie will premiere in over 1500 North American theaters on March 18, with tickets being available for pre-sale on Feb. 25. The film will be available with its original Japanese audio track with subtitles, or with an English dub. Special IMAX screenings are also planned. In addition to North America, Crunchyroll is also planning to release the movie at an unspecified date in United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, France (with CRG events), Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Netherlands, French-speaking Africa and Latin America. Crunchyroll also released a new trailer for the movie.
Jujutsu Kaisen 0 takes place one year before the events of the anime series. Since the story is set before Yuji consumes Sukuna's cursed finger, the prequel instead focuses on Yuta Okkotsu, a young man who is haunted by the spirit of his childhood sweetheart, Rika Orimoto. Rika's soul has been transformed into a Curse, a violent monster that feeds off of the negative emotions of humanity. Yuji is brought to the mysterious Jujutsu High, a school for sorcerers, with the hopes that he'll be able to learn how to control Rika's violently overprotective Curse, but his training is interrupted when he is pulled into the conflict between his new teacher, Satoru Gojo, and the humanity-hating sorcerer Suguru Geto.
The movie's North American release will come after the film's extremely successful run in Japan. The anime movie premiered on Dec. 24 to the second-best opening weekend in Japanese film history and has managed to earn over 9.3 billion yen (about $81 million USD) within its first month of release. For comparison, last year's highest grossing movie in Japan, Evangelion 3.0 + 1.0: Thrice Upon a Time, earned 10 billion yen (approximately $89.5 million USD) during its entire theatrical run.
Jujutsu Kaisen was originally created by manga artist and writer Gege Akutami in 2018. The series has rapidly become one of the most popular anime and manga franchises currently running, and managed to top the list of Japan's best-selling manga series in 2021, outperforming older series such as Demon Slayer and My Hero Academia. An anime adaptation, which was produced by studio MAPPA (Attack on Titan: The Final Season) and directed by Sunghoo Park (God of High School), concluded its first season in 2021. The manga is available in English in both print and digital formats from VIZ Media, while the anime series is available for streaming on Crunchyroll and Funimation. A release outside of Japan for the movie has yet to be announced.
Source: Crunchyroll
