REVIEW: ‘Jujutsu Kaisen’ Season 3 Episode 3 — “About the Culling Game”

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 3 wastes little time in announcing what kind of episode “About the Culling Game” is going to be. It’s the lore drop. It’s the wordy, text-heavy, eye-glazing-over lore drop about—you might’ve guessed it—the culling game jujutsu sorcerers are about to be forced into. If you’re the type who has to pinch yourself to stay focused while learning about a new board game or who, conversely, will breeze through any instructions with a “I’ll just wing it,” foolhardy gusto, well, here’s your litmus challenge in anime form. 

To its credit, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 3 takes pains to elevate itself to be more than just an instructional manual installment—almost to the point of seeming to be in on the joke. From the rambling text that appears on the screen as Tengen (Yoshiko Sakakibara) explains what the characters are about to face, to the wall that lays out everything in an enormous infographic, to drop-down menus popping up in frames, the production at least acknowledges that this is a lot to take in. 

There’s no escaping the exposition dump in Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 3.

Even the animation style itself understands that, for so much exposition, there needs to be enticing visuals. The red linework gives the characters a more digital rendering that highlights they’re in a different space while in Tengen’s domain. And there’s a lot of dynamic, clever direction that utilizes different perspectives, from fisheye-adjacent point-of-view shots to exaggerated facial expressions and character acting. 

Outside of Tengen’s domain, we see the cinematic animation flourish further in small, character interactions. From Shoko lighting her cigarette to the unusual framing of failing comedian Takaba in his introductory sequence, many engaging artistic decisions make for a more dynamic episode. 

But there’s no denying that, at its core, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 3 is an exposition dump. No matter the humor, no matter the not-distracting-enough pretty colors, this is a lot of words being said and a lot of words being read. And it’s all done with Gege Akutami’s requisite wordiness. Akutami has created a vast, engrossing world with constant, unfolding revelations about how it operates and how specific power imbalances can trigger apocalyptic disasters. 

The culling game a battle royale for sorcerers.

That said, he has a penchant for explaining something with an essay when 20 words would suffice. Kenjaku (Takahiro Sakurai), the big bad who stole Gojo’s (Yuichi Nakamura) boyfriend’s body, who now possesses excellent skill in weaponizing cursed spirits, wants to assimilate all of Japan’s population with Tengen, the immortal godlike figure who maintains balance and suppresses cursed spirits, and who has, by their own words, become “the world itself.” In doing so, the population will turn into a hive mind pile of Evangelion-style goo, which will cause greater cursed evil to rain down, obliterating the masses. 

The culling game, essentially a battle royale for sorcerers, will help prepare humans for the merger. And then it all gets a bit lost in the sauce. But at the very least, they have their own directives by the end, and we learn several interesting facts throughout the process.

The first is that Toji killing Riko Amanai and his ensuing fight with Gojo directly enabled Kenjaku’s plan to be realized. It adds the Hidden Inventory arc that much more devastation (if it even needed more) by showing just how much of a tragedy it was, both on the internal and widescale levels. Despite everything, Riko Amanani was still a pawn for the powers that be. The second is that one of the rules allows the creation of new rules, which could alter how they play the game and who is omitted from it, as Megumi (Yuma Uchida) looks for ways to save his sister. 

The group of sorcerers must split up to survive the culling game. 

Of course, to win anything in the culling game requires killing, and there’s a genuine moment of despair as Yuji realizes, worried already he’ll have to kill again in his tireless pursuit for atonement. Yuji spends a lot of Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 3 slipping into some of his earlier personality, one that is less plagued by the demons of the Shibuya Incident. It helps assuage some of the ever-present, all-consuming guilt. But in this brief moment, aided by Enoki’s subtle vocal shift, he swiftly reminds us of the gravity of his plight. 

Yuki Tsukumo (Noriko Hidaka) and Choso (Daisuke Namikawa) will stay and guard Tengen, who has forfeited the right to be the master of the culling game. Maki (Mikako Komatsu) is going to raid the Zen’in clan vault for cursed tools now that Megumi is technically the leader.

Meanwhile, the three looking to join the games immediately, Yuta (Megumi Ogata), Yuji, and Megumi, are also splitting up for the time being. Yuta needs to find information in another colony and to make sure the group isn’t facing off against one another. 

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 3 doesn’t pull its punches.

It does lead to another snag, as Yuji and Yuta remember the latter’s promise to kill him should Sakuna take over again. But Megumi just assures him by saying he can let Sakuna kill him, then, after he dies. It’s another moment of necessary levity amid such a dense episode. The two also have the objective of finding a mysterious third-year student who was once suspended from Jujutsu High. Along with another 1000-year-old sorcerer, Angel, who can help unseal Gojo from the prison realm. 

It’s a lot! Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 3 doesn’t pull its punches, instead trying to get all of the exposition out of the way in one fell swoop. And it works as much as it can due to the stylized direction from Takumi Ichikawa and storyboards by Shōta Goshozono. The density is counterbalanced by the story’s expressive nature, from the framing to the characters themselves, making what could’ve been a slog into a color-coded, playful interactive rulebook. 

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 3 is available now on Crunchyroll. 

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