🔗 Share this article

The Culling Game ritual in the hit anime series is portrayed as one of the most disturbing acts of cursed sorcery terrorism in history. The third season has been steadily peeling back the disturbing facets of this deadly competition, though its true purpose remains a mystery to the participants themselves. The sorcerer Yuta Okkotsu joined the fray following the conclusion of the third episode, with Yuji Itadori and Megumi Fushiguro subsequently striving to gather allies and devise strategies to endure. The duo were separated immediately upon arriving in Tokyo Colony No. 1, culminating in an thrilling battle between Megumi and the reincarnated sorcerer Reggie Star in episode 10.

The Cunning of a Strategist and a System's Hollow Victory

While the eleventh episode solidifies Megumi’s status as a brilliant tactical mind, it also powerfully highlights the profoundly paradoxical nature of the Culling Game. With the most powerful jujutsu users at the whim of a game that functions as a deathtrap, the series challenges what it means to be the "strongest" in a world that harbors disdain for the weak. It transcends defeating every enemy to prove one's supremacy—it's about revealing how meaningless that kind of power is within a manipulated framework.

A Battle of Wits and Domains

The previous episode concluded with Megumi activating his unfinished domain expansion, Chimera Shadow Garden, inside a school gymnasium. The penultimate episode of season 3, part 1 resumes with Reggie underestimating this move due to his domain-countering ability, Hollow Wicker Basket. Reggie's esoteric technique allows him to avoid damage by neutralizing domain expansions infused with a cursed technique, which nullifies any sure-hit effects. However, since Hollow Wicker Basket does not defend against cursed techniques themselves, its efficacy is contingent upon the presence of a barrier. Megumi's domain, being not fully realized, does not possess a barrier altogether, which is precisely why he drew Reggie into the enclosed gymnasium to serve as a physical barrier. This clever ploy allows Megumi to overwhelm Reggie with manifestations of his technique, catching the sorcerer off-guard with this unexpected loophole.

The animation has been exceptional this season. The Megumi versus Reggie fight is crafted with visible love, incorporating shaky-cam movements and distorted perspectives to convey a sense of urgency and kinetic energy.

Even the visual of Megumi barely keeping his domain stable while weighed down by the pressure of Reggie's conjured vehicles is awe-inspiring to behold. The gymnasium's shadowy interior illuminates with Megumi's blue cursed energy, dragging Reggie into the abyss of his Ten Shadows Technique. Although Reggie does his best to counter Megumi, he is outmaneuvered at every turn. Reggie tries to defeat Megumi by materializing a structure, but it collapses the floor, plunging both combatants into the swimming pool located beneath the gymnasium. At this moment, it becomes evident that Megumi had not retreated fearfully—he had strategically guided Reggie into a carefully laid snare, which concludes with Megumi canceling his domain once Reggie's drenched receipts become ineffective.

A Hollow Triumph

After a brutal hand-to-hand struggle, Megumi stuns Reggie with Divine Dog: Totality to deliver the finishing move. In his last words, Reggie likens sorcerers to liars while commending Megumi's cunning. It is then that Reggie discloses he was never allied with Kenjaku; he was merely a bystander who became entangled in the Culling Game. Megumi brings up Master Tengen to elicit a possible confession about his role, but Reggie's parting thoughts linger on the pointlessness of the game itself. These words make Megumi's victory feel hollow as he realizes that Tengen may not have been totally forthcoming about the true nature of the Game. Megumi has already been compelled to kill two sorcerers in self-defense, an act that must weigh heavily on him despite his belief that the means justify the end if he wishes to save Tsumiki.

The Mastermind's Mysterious Plan

Kenjaku's true endgame remains the most intriguing aspect of the story. He appears to be using the Culling Game as a direct method to cull the weakest within the sorcerer world. The immense stress of the battles may even trigger new cursed techniques among the strongest participants. An false sense of agency is at play, as the game's convoluted system mask the fact that it is, in essence, a ruthless mass murder ritual. This "survival of the fittest" dynamic fundamentally alters the definition of the "strongest," as it is not determined purely by the raw strength of one's technique.

We are offered a glimpse of this when narration states that Fumihiko Takaba's Comedian technique is so potent it could even oppose Satoru Gojo's Limitless, yet Takaba remains blissfully unaware of his own strength. Another sorcerer often inspiring comparisons to Gojo is Yuta, who ends the episode by defeating the ancient sorcerer Dhruv Lakdawalla in the Sendai Colony. Lakdawalla's death dissolves the stalemate in that colony, paving the way for intense battles involving Yuta in the impending conclusion.

The Core Irony

The tragic irony of the Culling Game is the false promise of power it sells to its top combatants. The architect ultimately wishes to use Sukuna as a "bomb" to trigger the breakdown of jujutsu society, a process that will inherently threaten the weak and defenseless. This dynamic between the strong and the weak was explored in depth in a previous story arc, where Gojo and Suguru Geto maintained completely different worldviews. A young Gojo, in his hubris, had distanced his status as the "strongest" from ethical duty, while a young Geto believed that strength only has value if it protects the weak. These viewpoints reverse after a key death, propelling Geto toward a genocidal rampath driven by his contempt for non-sorcerers. Meanwhile, Gojo's painful experience leads him to understand that strength is meaningless without a younger generation of sorcerers to uphold a tradition rooted in empathy—an empathy that encompasses the well-being of non-sorcerers, who must be protected from the noxious influence of curses.

Jujutsu Kaisen season 3 undermines this vision for a more compassionate society with Kenjaku's plan to merge humanity with Tengen. This detached objective ignores individuality and views jujutsu sorcerers as mere tools used for achieving capricious ends. Following the rules of the Culling Game offers no assurance of survival, especially since the outcomes are rigged but fluid. The vision of a winner is a lie, just as a world without survivors is as devoid of meaning as a fleeting illusion. With this story arc coming to an end next week, we will be one step closer to witnessing the travesty that the Culling Game makes of its most talented sorcerers.