▶ TL;DRJujutsu Kaisen Season 3 is the best-animated arc in the show's run and the most awkwardly structured. The Culling Game's rule-heavy setup creates exposition headaches that the series tries to outrun with fight scenes that, frankly, often succeed. If you bounced off Shibuya for being too dense this won't fix that. If you watched Shibuya for the sakuga, Part 1 of the Culling Game will keep you fed.

I went into Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 wanting two things: fights worth the wait, and a story that could make sense of the Culling Game without surfacing the manga's worst structural quirks. MAPPA delivered the first one with absurd consistency. The second one is, well, complicated.

The Culling Game: Part 1 ran 12 episodes from January to March 2026, with returning director Shōta Goshozono back at the helm. It bridges directly from the Shibuya Incident into the manga's most ambitious and most divisive arc, where sorcerers are conscripted into a ritual battle royale across colony zones overlaid on modern Tokyo. There is a lot of new lore. A lot. The premiere is essentially a rules briefing wearing a knife.

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What This Season Actually Is

Season 3 covers the early Culling Game material: Yuji and Megumi entering colonies, Yuta running ops on the outside, Hakari Kinji's introduction, and the first proper on-screen confrontations with reincarnated Heian-era sorcerers brought back through Kenjaku's machinations. It is structured as the front half of a longer arc, with Season 4 (Culling Game: Part 2) confirmed before the credits had finished rolling on the finale.

If you are coming in fresh, this is not your entry point. If you bounced off the Shibuya Incident for being too dense, this season is denser still in places. The audience for Culling Game: Part 1 is people who already know what they are signing up for.

+ PROS

  • Action animation among the best in the medium right now
  • Yuta Okkotsu finally gets the spotlight he deserves
  • King Gnu's 'Aizo' opener is a genuine ear-worm
  • Hakari's debut absolutely delivers on the manga hype
  • Yoshimasa Terui's score keeps the tension dialled in

− CONS

  • Culling Game rules are introduced via large exposition dumps
  • Some character motivations don't survive close scrutiny
  • 12 episodes for half the arc means thin breathing room
  • MAPPA's reported working conditions remain an uncomfortable backdrop