🔗 Share this article

The Culling Game ritual in Jujutsu Kaisen is portrayed as one of the most disturbing acts of cursed sorcery terrorism in the annals of history. The third season has been steadily peeling back the unsettling layers of this deadly competition, though its ultimate end goal remains unknown to the players themselves. Yuta Okkotsu entered the game following the events of the third episode, with Yuji Itadori and Megumi Fushiguro subsequently striving to recruit companions and formulate plans to endure. The duo were separated immediately upon arriving in the first Tokyo colony, leading up to an intense battle between Megumi and the reincarnated sorcerer Reggie Star in episode 10.

The Cunning of a Strategist and a System's Empty Triumph

While the eleventh episode cements Megumi Fushiguro's reputation as a brilliant tactical mind, it also casts a spotlight on the profoundly paradoxical nature of the Culling Game. With the strongest sorcerers at the mercy of a contest that doubles as a lethal trap, the series challenges what it means to be the "most powerful" in a world that scorns the weak. It transcends defeating every enemy to demonstrate superiority—it's about revealing how pointless that type of strength is within a rigged system.

The Climax of a Duel

The previous episode concluded with Megumi unleashing his incomplete domain, Chimera Shadow Garden, inside a school gymnasium. The penultimate episode of season 3, part 1 resumes with Reggie dismissing this move due to his anti-domain technique, Hollow Wicker Basket. Reggie's unique cursed technique allows him to remain unharmed by countering domain barriers that utilize a cursed technique, which nullifies any sure-hit effects. However, since Hollow Wicker Basket does not counter cursed techniques themselves, its effectiveness is contingent upon the presence of a domain barrier. Megumi's domain, being not fully realized, lacks a barrier altogether, which is precisely why he lured Reggie into the closed-off gymnasium to serve as a physical barrier. This clever ploy allows Megumi to overwhelm Reggie with manifestations of his technique, taking his opponent by surprise with this unexpected loophole.

The visual presentation has been stunning this season. The clash between Megumi and Reggie is crafted with visible love, incorporating shaky-cam movements and fisheye lenses to create a sense of immediacy and dynamism.

Even the sight of Megumi barely keeping his domain stable while weighed down by the force of Reggie's conjured vehicles is striking to behold. The gymnasium's shadowy interior lights up with Megumi's blue cursed energy, pulling Reggie into the bottomless pit of his Ten Shadows Technique. Although Reggie fights valiantly to counter Megumi, he is outmaneuvered at every turn. Reggie tries to defeat Megumi by summoning a small house, but it collapses the floor, sending them into the swimming pool located beneath the gymnasium. At this moment, it becomes abundantly clear that Megumi had not fled in panic—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 incapacitates Reggie with Divine Dog: Totality to deliver the finishing move. In his dying moments, Reggie likens sorcerers to liars while praising Megumi's cleverness. It is then that Reggie discloses he was never in cahoots with Kenjaku; he was merely a bystander who got involved in the Culling Game. Megumi brings up Master Tengen to extract a possible confession about his role, but Reggie's final words dwell upon the utter futility of the game itself. These words render Megumi's victory feel hollow as he grasps that Tengen may not have been entirely truthful about the real purpose of the Game. Megumi has already been compelled to kill two sorcerers in his own defense, an act that must burden his conscience despite his belief that the ends justify the means if he wishes to save Tsumiki.

Kenjaku's Enigmatic Goal

Kenjaku's true endgame remains the most compelling element of the story. He appears to be using the Culling Game as a literal means to eliminate the weakest within jujutsu society. The traumatic pressure of the matches may even awaken new cursed techniques among the strongest participants. An false sense of agency is at play, as the game's convoluted system obscure 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 does not boil down solely to the potency of one's technique.

We are given a hint of this when narration states that Fumihiko Takaba's Comedian technique is so powerful it could rival Satoru Gojo's Limitless, yet Takaba remains blissfully unaware of his own capabilities. 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 ferocious conflicts involving Yuta in the impending conclusion.

The Core Irony

The central paradox of the Culling Game is the false promise of power it markets to its top combatants. The mastermind ultimately aims to use Sukuna as a "catalyst" to trigger the breakdown of jujutsu society, a process that will inherently threaten the weak and defenseless. This relationship between the strong and the weak was fleshed out in season 2’s Hidden Inventory Arc, where Gojo and Suguru Geto held completely different worldviews. A young Gojo, in his hubris, had distanced his status as the "most powerful" from ethical duty, while a young Geto believed that strength only has value if it protects the weak. These viewpoints reverse after a tragic event, 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 safety of non-sorcerers, who must be protected from the malignant presence of curses.

Jujutsu Kaisen season 3 challenges this vision for a more compassionate society with Kenjaku's plan to merge humanity with Tengen. This detached objective disregards individuality and views jujutsu sorcerers as pawns used for achieving capricious ends. Following the rules of the Culling Game does not guarantee safety, especially since the outcomes are manipulated yet unpredictable. The promise of a winner is a lie, just as a world without survivors is as devoid of meaning as a waking dream. With season 3, part 1 concluding next week, we will be one step closer to observing the mockery that the Culling Game makes of its most gifted sorcerers.