When the Shibuya Arc concluded with Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 in late 2023, it posed many questions. What did Kenjaku really do? What were his true intentions? What would happen now that thousands of sorcerers were awakened? This article will be a comprehensive guide to all these answers and everything else you need to know before diving into the third and latest season of Jujutsu Kaisen.
By neutralising Gojo Satoru within the prison realm, Kenjaku (or faux Geto) was free to set his master plan into motion — unleashing the age of cursed energy.
Using Mahito’s “Idle Transfiguration” technique, Kenjaku altered two groups of people he had previously marked. The first group rapidly awakened innate cursed techniques and became jujutsu sorcerers, while the second had been fed sealed cursed objects over the years. When Kenjaku released the seals at the end of the Shibuya Arc, these humans’ bodies were permanently overtaken by the ancient entities inhabiting them, essentially reviving elite sorcerers from hundreds of years ago.
Unfortunately for the protagonists, Megumi’s older sister, Tsumiki, was revealed to be among the ones who were marked by Kenjaku. As a result, she, alongside everyone else, was forcibly entered into the “Culling Game”.
What is the Culling Game?
After awakening hundreds of new and old sorcerers across Japan, the next step in Kenjaku’s plan was to enter everyone into the “Culling Game”, a brutal jujutsu battle royale, forcing newly awakened and ancient sorcerers to fight to the death.
By pitting players against one another, Kenjaku aims to unlock their full potential and accelerate their growth in strength. In the jujutsu world, this forced slaughter constitutes one of the most heinous acts of terrorism imaginable.
To ensure his plan proceeds without any sort of external interference or protests, Kenjaku established a strict set of rules governing the game.
The rules of the Culling Game
The Culling Game Arc is notorious for its heavy exposition dumps, much of which stems from the complex mechanics of the game itself.
Kenjaku establishes eight rules in total, starting with a requirement for players to enter one of ten designated arenas within 19 days of their awakening. This effectively ensures no one can dodge the start of the game by any means, as failure to comply will likely lead to death, as stated in the second rule.
The third rule opens the Culling Game to all jujutsu sorcerers, even those who were not recently awakened by Kenjaku. It states that non-players would become players upon entering one of the designated arenas, with their willing entry signalling their pledge to participate in the game.
The fourth rule is what makes this game such a transgression: the game will award players points if they can end the life of another player. However, as rule five states, not all kills will be awarded the same number of points. Instead, the game master reserves the jurisdiction to award whatever value they see fit to someone’s life.
The sixth rule is what Itadori and co. are truly after. It states that once players accumulate 100 points, they can negotiate with the game master to add an additional rule to the game.
The Jujutsu High team aims to enter the game and subsequently exploit this rule to allow Tsumiki and the other innocent people to freely exit the game. However, the seventh rule places certain restrictions on the creation of new rules, stating that the game master can nullify any and all new conditions that directly contradict any of the previous rules or tamper with the continuation of the Culling Game as a whole.
The eighth and final rule is simple but effective in making sure that each and every awakened sorcerer takes part in the games: if a player’s points do not increase by the first 19 days of the game’s commencement, they will likely face death.
