Perhaps the most talked-about anime series of the year, Jujutsu Kaisen season 3: The Culling Game Part 1, is finally done with all its episodes. The newest season remains one of the most ambitious adaptations of its manga, in terms of experimental animation, risky pacing and loaded emotional arcs. From Itadori’s execution to Maki’s transformation, the latest season leaves no stone unturned to keep its fans completely hooked to the screen. However, this ride is adventurous but also dizzy, constantly challenging your ability to keep up with the plot. As we dive into the plot, trailer and other details of Jujutsu Kaisen season 3, let’s explore its to-be-continued ending, which will be explained further.
If, after bingeing on the entire Jujutsu Kaisen season 3, you are left with hundreds of questions regarding the Culling game rules, powers, abilities, and cursed techniques of any character, then know that you are not alone. Many manga readers would hold your hand and empathise with you. From Kenjaku’s real goal to participating in the deadly game, the rather fast pacing of the narration may feel slightly disoriented at first.
However, the loaded combat scenes make you momentarily forget about the confusion and revel in its stunning animation. We see many characters shining in this instalment, namely Maki, Megumi and Yuta. We meet several new sorcerers and sometimes, bid them farewell just as fast. However, the series doesn’t lose its footing in keeping you entertained.
The ending of Jujutsu Kaisen season 3: The Culling Game Part 1 may not solve many of our questions, but it sure does raise the anticipation for the second part.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 ending: Decoding The Culling Game that leaves you craving for the next chapter
A faux execution
After the haunting Shibuya incident, Itadori, the vessel of the King of Curses, endures sleepless nights out of overwhelming guilt. He spends his time slaying cursed spirits in the lifeless streets of Tokyo along with his half-brother Choso. His destiny once again takes a dramatic turn when his executioner, Yuta Okkotsu, a second-year Jujutsu High student and only modern sorcerer on par with Satoru Gojo, finally gets to him.
Yuta swiftly kills Itadori and seeks first-grade sorcerer son Naoya Zen’in’s help to convey the same to the higher-ups. However, Itadori wakes up hours later, discovering that Yuta only killed him to convince the senior sorcerers and keep them in the dark. Yuta confesses that Gojo had asked him to protect Itadori, hence he took up the task to become his executioner, to save him. However, due to a pact made by the seniors, he had to kill him and then revive him through his Reverse Curse energy.
Megumi finds the due a few minutes later and convinces Itadori to return. He explains that Kenjaku has started the Culling Game, and his sister, Tsukimi, will be compelled to play and kill people in it. He needs Itadori’s help to save her. The latter agrees only before asking Yuta to kill him as soon as Sukuna takes over him again.
Why did Kenjaku start the Culling Game?
Yuji Itadori, Megumi Fushigoro, Choso, Yuta Okkotsu, Maki Zen’in and Yuki Tsukumo finally meet Tengen, the immortal being and barrier keeper. Tengen explains Kenjaku’s master plan and motive to start the Culling Game. He reveals that since Satoru Gojo has been sealed and the Star Plasma Vessel was killed, Kenjaku has gotten the window he had been waiting for. He further explained that he was somehow connected to the Star Plasma Vessel and the bearer of the Six Eyes technique.
After taking over Geto’s body, Kenjaku started the Culling game to force the evolution of mankind. The game will pit existing, recently incarnated, and awakened sorcers, by Kenjaku with Idle Transfiguration, against each other to stock up the cursed energy. He will then facilitate humanity’s assimilation with Tengen until there are no more humans left. Moreover, he also has the back door of the prison realm, which can only be unlocked by Hana Kurusu, the Angel. They must find her and seek her help to release Gojo.
What are the rules of the Culling Game?
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Tengen also explains the rules of the Culling game to the sorcerers.
- The Culling Game has separated Japan into 10 ‘Colonies’ (Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan, is excluded), where sorcerers will enter and fight for points.
- The players have 19 days after they awaken their Cursed Technique to enter one of the colonies and participate in the game.
- Any player failing to do so will be stripped of their technique, which means guaranteed death.
- Players must earn points by killing another player. A sorcerer is worth five points, while a non-sorcerer will be worth one point.
- Players can spend their 100 points to add a new rule to the game, based on the game master’s approval. Any rule can only be added if it doesn’t directly defy the continuation of the Culling game.
- Players who do not show any change in their point system after 19 days will be stripped of their technique.
The recruitment
Tsukumo and Choso stay behind to protect Tengen, who claims to have gotten weak after failing to merge with his Star Plasma Vessel. Meanwhile, the rest of the sorcerers start plotting their survival in the Culling game. Yuta agrees to participate first and understand the colonies. Meanwhile, Megumi, Itadori and Panda decide to recruit Kinji Hakari, a powerful third-year Jujutsu High student, to participate in the game.
Maki is tasked with acquiring the cursed tools in the workshop of curse user Juzo Kumiya and the ones in the Zen’in vault. She convinces Megumi to accept becoming the head of the Zen’in clan, and he later grants her permission to enter the vault. Maki enters the vault, unbeknownst to the drastic path her fate is going to take. She discovers her sister, Mai, lying in her pool of blood. Her father ends up attempting to kill them both. He is vexed about having them as his kids, as it cost him the position of Zen’in clan head.
Mai uses her cursed technique, Construction, one last time to bid a painful farewell to her twin sister, Maki. She explains that twins are considered an individual sorcerer in this world, hence they were always weak. She reveals that as long as she is alive, Maki cannot reach her full potential as Toji Fushiguro did. Mai breathes her last, but not before asking Maki to “destroy it all”. Maki reawakens as a powerful sorcerer. Not only does she kill her parents, but she goes on a massacre spree to end the entire Zen’in clan, keeping her dead twin sister’s promise.
The new rule
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Meanwhile, principal Masamichi Yaga is killed by Yoshinobu Gakuganji for refusing to divulge his cursed technique that lends autonomy to his creation of man-made cursed corpses, like Panda. Before breathing his last breath, he reveals the technique — the cursed corpses are created by using the body’s information to reproduce the soul’s information. It is then stored in three cores, each holding a compatible soul to help the corpse sustain itself. Before dying, Yaga explains that this is cursed information that he is now passing on to Gakuganji.
Meanwhile, Megumi, Panda and Itadori finally recruit Kinji Hakari in the Tochigi Prefecture. Hakari only agrees after hearing Megumi is the head of the Zen’in clan. He believes associating with him would be beneficial in the long run. Meanwhile, a new rule gets added by Hajime Kashimo, an incarnated sorcerer aiming to find Sukuna to settle old scores. His rule states that every player can acquire information on other players’ names, points, number of rules added and current colony.
What happens inside Tokyo Colony?
With the help of the new rule, Megumi, Panda and Itadori decide to convince Hajime Kashimo and Hiromi Higuruma, players with the most points, to make a new rule, one that would allow players to transfer their points to each other. This will help them potentially escape the Culling game without killing anyone.
They are split up involuntarily once entering the colony, and each meets formidable sorcerers hungry for points. Each battle ends with both of them surviving, but not without trauma and injuries. Itadori manages to convince Higuruma to add the points transfer rule while Megumi kills a player by finally activating his domain expansion, Chimera Shadow Garden, albeit still an incomplete one.
Meanwhile, during his fight with Reggie, Megumi discovers more conspiracies about the Culling game, which makes him suspicious of Tengen’s intentions. He starts pondering whether Tengen really wanted to stop Kenjaku. After the strenuous fight, Megumi collapses in an alleyway. Just then, a glowing figure, the angel sorcerer, appears above him.
The Sendai colony
While Itadori and Yuji fight their own battles, Yuta roams the Sendai colony with only one goal in his mind — never letting Gojo fight his own friends again. He vows to collect as many points as he can to add two more rules to the game — a way for participants to communicate with each other and create passages between colonies — as advised by Megumi. In the colony, four strong sorcerers appear stuck in an uneasy stalemate. However, Yuta swiftly kills two of them and heads for the remaining two.
He eventually meets his strongest opponents yet: Ryu Ishigori and Takako Uro. The three-way fight is brutal, with Uro holding a personal grudge against Yuta’s ancestors. The trio also deploy their domain expansion at once, but the barrier is unexpectedly broken by Kurourushi, who was earlier killed by Yuta but somehow came back to life after evolving.
The four-way ends with Yuta defeating all three of them but holding off on killing them. He merely seeks their points. Ishigori and Ur transfer their points to Yuta, which leaves him with 190 points, enough to make at least one rule addition.
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How does Jujutsu Kaisen season 3: The Culling Game Part 1 end?
The ending of Jujutsu Kaisen season 3 shows Yuta walking away. However, Uro’s words stay with him. She warns him of his impending doom after reaching his limits. Meanwhile, we see snippets of movements happening across the Jujutsu world. Tengen is resting under the protection of Choso and Tsukumo. Megumi is being airborn by the Angel and Kenjaku, guarding the prison realm, holding Gojo hostage. We also see a glimpse of Megumi’s sister, Tsumiki, being taken away in a wheelchair.
Since Kenjaku cursed her, she has only a few days remaining before she must join the Culling game. Sukuna also seems to have gotten excited over the series of events. However, Yuta must also bear the responsibility for killing Itadori if Sukunar takes over him again. And what is Itadori doing, you may ask? He’s found a new, rather funny companion — Fumihiko Takaba, a comedian-themed sorcerer who is incredibly powerful.
(Hero and Featured Images: Courtesy Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3/IMDb)
Note : The information in this article is accurate as of the date of publication.