Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3: The Culling Game Part 1
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malvarez1
Posts: 2983 |
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I will give props to the animation team for the third episode, taking what were two very drab infodump chapters and making them visually stunning and easier to follow along with.
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utawoutau
 Posts: 217 |
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I liked the little touch in episode 3 where we see that at least some of the characters are confused about who Kenjaku is, cause I am still super confused about who this person is. This show has done a pretty crap job telling the audience who this big bad is. Kenjaku is also unecessarily complicated.
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BaronViolet
Posts: 491 |
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I'll tell you who he is. He is a bloody plot device that Gege created because for some stupid reason he did not think Mahito or Geto, two actually compelling and memorable villains, were "not good enough " to be the big bad of the story. It is Naruto vs Kaguya all over again! |
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Covnam
 Posts: 4366 |
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I suppose the information had to be given in some way, but I still can't believe the third episode was entirely an info dump in a blank space. Though as @malvarez1 said, they did do a good job with presenting it.
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tintor2
 Posts: 2687 |
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The amount of expositions is ridiculous when fighting. It's nice seeing Yuta and Maki interacting after the 0 movie where they were pretty much best buds but I doubt the story will focus on them since the opening videos loves having as many characters as possible. The handling of Nobara in season 2 was kinda horrible too so it feels this season will focus on random character we never saw.
Also, Yuji turned out to be half human half cursed or something as a result of Kenjaku for some reason wanting to have a child with Yuji's father.... Some twists feel weird as heck. Season 2 foreshadowed it with the random meal scene of Choso's siblings but the whatever Kenjaku is planning with them feels so random. I'm not really motivated to watch the next episodes considering the handling of fights. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 7166 |
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Given Sukuna’s existence this is kinda hilarious. |
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Blaze_1013
Posts: 211 |
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I wouldn't make that comparison. Kaguya came out of basically nowhere with stuff involving her only even starting to be mentioned in the last couple years of the series 15 odd years of publication. Kenjaku does at least feel like Gege had planned for him from the start as one of the big bads. At the very least for about half of the series 6 year run. Honestly, the thing I've always found ridiculous about what Gege did was reveal him with what ever name at the end of the Shibuya Incident and then totally dropping that name a handful of chapters later. I think the point is to show how old he is and how long his machination have been happening, but it will never not be silly to me to have him introduced with one name and then just change it a few chapters later. |
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Everlasting Coconut
 Posts: 344 |
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I'm one of the people who didn't like Kenjaku's addition to the story, but I gotta admit, his brand of evil won me over with time. My man happily took those backshots for the sake of his plan. Also, to be completely honest, it's not like I ever cared about Geto, so I never grieved his death in the first place.
I just wish the story allowed us to see Yuuji's reaction to Kenjaku being his mother. We barely get to see his reaction to Choso being his brother, which makes it hard to care about their relationship. I want to like Choso too. He's such a sweet goofball. Really the most annoying part about these recent developments is the return of Yuta. Rika still being with him cheapens the ending of the movie*. And Yuta is such a nothing burger that I have no idea what he can bring to the table. The Culling Games is a fun concept. Seeing sorcerers from the modern era facing off against overpowered sorcerers from ancient times should be fun. And props to the team at MAPPA for making episode 3 as visually interesting as possible to prevent us from falling asleep with all that exposition.
Oh, so it's not just me who never understood what the Six Eyes does? Good to know! Out of curiosity, did James willingly step down from the JJK reviews, or did ANN ask him to? I remember some fans weren't happy with his season 2 coverage (they hated him 'cause he was right). Either way, looking forward to your reviews, Lucas. *spoiler[*Before anyone tells me it's not actually Rika, I know. But she looks, sounds, acts, and functions exactly like her, so there's virtually no difference and so there is no sense of loss.] |
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InfiniteNothingness
 Posts: 371 |
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Quoting Loveridge in the Your Winter 2026 Anime Daily Streaming Reviews post:
Additionally, I can't ever recall a time of ANN going "Hey, you, yeah we gotta ask you to quit with these weekly reviews", so... |
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Everlasting Coconut
Posts: 344 |
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@InfiniteNothingness: Good to know. Thanks!
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Wyvern
 Posts: 1791 |
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Season 3, Alternate Episode Titles
Episode 1: When A Protagonist is Introduced Into Another Protagonist's Natural Habitat They Will Instinctively Fight For Dominance Episode 2: Help Us Yuji, Kenjaku Put Together a Fortnite LARP And He's Taking It Way Too Seriously Episode 3: This Could Have Been an Email Okay, seriously though, Episode 3 wasn't that bad, I actually enjoy a loredump when it's done with style and character. But I think the episode messed up by focusing on the wrong thing: it's too worried about the technical aspects of the Culling Game rather than the emotional conflict that will hook the audience. The Culling Game's hook is a good one because it's a sort of shonen trolley problem: The Culling Game is inescapable and everyone involved is certain to die, unless someone creates a rule that allows escape. But to create that rule, you need to kill one hundred civilians (or twenty sorcerers.) What's the right thing to do? And this happens right as Yuji is being consumed with guilt over Sakuna using his body to kill people. The episode just glosses over this, though. The gang agrees that they need to create a rule, but no one points out that creating a rule requires mass murder. It seems like that should be at the forefront of everyone's minds, especially Yuji's. (Another trolley problem question that's ignored: if you've decided to do what it takes to create a rule, is it better to kill civilians or sorcerers? Killing civilians carries a much lower risk of failure, but you have to kill five times more people. Killing sorcerers has a very high risk of failure, and if you lose everyone dies, but you're killing far fewer people. Do you choose the route that has the highest chance of success, or the route that minimizes the blood on your hands? I have no idea if the show will give these questions the attention they deserve, but I sure hope so!) |
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SinisterOracle
Posts: 850 |
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So far I’m rather disappointed with season 3. Sure, it looks good but all this exposition and info dump is way too much. I honestly can’t keep up with it all and now don’t really care what’s going on or to keep watching JJK. Seems like the writing has continued to go down hill since season 1. I wonder if the ending is worse than AoT?
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Envyus
Posts: 12 |
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I am pretty sure that Kenjaku straight up does not know that the Back of Prison Realm exists.
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Envyus
Posts: 12 |
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The exposition dumb was a necessary evil in my opinion, we won't be getting another thing like that. Also the writing got better in season 2, and the Ending is pretty good. |
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The Anime Binge-Watcher
 Posts: 106 |
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I'm of two minds about episode 3's spreadsheet presentation. On the one hand, it's easily the most visually interesting way I've seen an anime shove a big fat exposition dump down my throat, bless Gosso and his team for making this show look so interesting. On the other hand... man, did we really need to spend the WHOLE episode going over information? How much here was actually necessary and how much was filling in random lore gaps that don't ultimately matter or repeating information we already knew? It feels like Gege realized how splintered his story had gotten and tried to tie everything back together in a single long conversation.
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