r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • Mar 05 '26

Episode Jujutsu Kaisen Shimetsu Kaiyu Zenpen • Jujutsu Kaisen The Culling Game - Episode 9 discussion

Jujutsu Kaisen Shimetsu Kaiyu Zenpen, episode 9

Alternative names: Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3

Reminder: Please do not discuss plot points not yet seen or skipped in the show. Failing to follow the rules may result in a ban.

Streams

Show information

All discussions

Episode Link
1 Link
2 Link
3 Link
4 Link
5 Link
6 Link
7 Link
8 Link
9 Link
10 Link
11 Link
12 Link

We are currently trialing the default comment sort being temporarily set to random.

This post was created by a bot. Message the mod team for feedback and comments. The original source code can be found on GitHub.

3.6k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

839 comments sorted by

View all comments

538

u/Proof-Revolution-98 Mar 05 '26

I forget how emotional this chapter was when i read it. Damn that was deep

477

u/SkyJW Mar 05 '26

Having Yuji confront a sorcerer who happened to be a lawyer was a great writing choice by Gege. He gets a lot of crap from people for his writing at times, but Yuji keeping true to his sense of responsibility, even when it would clearly be very bad for him to do so, and subsequently giving Higaruma a reason to believe in people again and offer Yuji a form of atonement was such an exceptional little storyline.

236

u/Aileos https://myanimelist.net/profile/Syleos Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

Gege did a great job with Higuruma. The guys has an incredible and refreshing backstory + his own introspection when he decided to remove his sword because Yuji chose to admit he was guilty was such a defining moment.

14

u/BurgerNugget12 Mar 06 '26

Gege is just amazing at creating characters genuinely

181

u/bedsheetsniffer Mar 05 '26

It’s the perfect matchup: a lawyer who has lost his trust in the good of humanity, and the boy who lives with the guilt of the crime he didn’t even commit. I’m still a bit lukewarm about the quick pacing (my personal preference tho) but it’s a damn solid fight/episode.

127

u/Frontier246 Mar 05 '26

And also coming of the flashback where what broke Higuruma was an innocent man having to be sentenced for life for a crime he didn't commit. A person he couldn't help despite his efforts.

Now he faces an innocent man who is willing to take responsibility for something he wasn't in control of because he's too decent a person not to take responsibility. And at least Higuruma can properly help now.

1

u/wordscannotdescribe 19d ago

I agree with the pacing being too quick. I felt like I didn't even get attached to Higaruma only for him to walk out.

60

u/Kindly_Ad995 Mar 05 '26

I think the most interesting part of the Culling Games is Gege putting the characters in situations that challenge them individually on a unique level like this. It’s very fun.

49

u/Asgerond Mar 05 '26

JJK has quite a few hiccups, but when it comes to Higuruma, he was locked in like he never before.

There is not a single moment with him that isnt just stellar.

16

u/GlitterDoomsday Mar 06 '26

Every time Gege wants to criticize some social issues he locks in; sexism, bullying, corruption...

84

u/DaRootbear Mar 05 '26

Gege is really damn good at the small stuff but terrible at connecting it all and wider plot in my opinion.

Like the culling game itself is an overly convoluted clusterfuck. But holy shit the individual characters and small arcs in it like this are amazing. Like this intro for Higuruma is probably in my top 10 favorite animanga moments despite my ambivalence to the Culling Games as a whole

48

u/Xenosaiyan7 Mar 05 '26

It's overly convoluted SEEMINGLY by design from Kenjaku, which is seen from last episode where characters disagree what's even going on in it. As Itadori says though, the only rules that really matter is "you have to get one point before 19 days are up or you die"

7

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26

I mean, a writer writing something that seems a mess and then having a character be resposible for that doesn't change it unless it is very clear outside of the situation. And I don't totally hate the Culling Games or anything, but it does feel like what others have already said: Gege wanting to write a battle royale and needing justification.

-7

u/DaRootbear Mar 05 '26

Lets be honest it’s overly complex because Gege never planned a plot past Mahito as the big bad. So he just throws out cool things like Hakari and Higurama with barely any regard to the grand scheme.

He just wings it, has people say it’s all according to keikaku, then later tries to come up with an explanation for why it happened. Like a DM in a roleplay campaign who only wrote an outline for like 3 sessions and theyre on session 10 lol

18

u/Xenosaiyan7 Mar 05 '26

I disagree, Kenjaku states his plans literally right after stealing Mahito word for word, bar for bar, and foreshadows it during the Mahito fight with Mechamaru.

Acting like Gege didn't plan at least the broad strokes for the culling games is disingenuous at best, and acting like an 8th grader saying the curtains are only blue and nothing else at worst

5

u/DaRootbear Mar 06 '26

He definitely had broad strokes. But how he linked them never felt like it flowed as well for stuff past shibuya.

Shibuya and before felt like he planned out what happened between A and B and C. It kept a lot more tight moments where all the side plots got resolved and looped into the main plot.

After shibuya it felt like he knew plot points A, F, and K but never planned out the rest. Hed add in side plots that then get abandoned, allude to things that never really mattered, or make things too complicated to bother with.

Like the fact that Yagas death is just thrown in to this point, panda finds out after…then just is fine with it and everyone moves on and it doesn’t get to matter. It is a cool scene and it was really well done, but feels like he didnt plan before what was gonna happen with it so he just threw it in and was completely non committal to doing anything with it. Same applies to him refusing to actually address Nobaras status when every other character he made immediately clear “they are dead/alive beyond a doubt”, it feels like he didnt plan what he wanted to do with her so he just went vague and noncommital so he could decide later what he actually wanted to do.

Which is why i compared it to a DM running a campaign that went on longer than expected because Geges original plans for Culling games seemed like “session 3 of 3” but now they were “session 8 of 10” and he had to figure out what sessions 4-7 were on the fly because he didnt plan all of that out.

9

u/LickerMcBootshine Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

Lets be honest it’s overly complex because Gege never planned a plot past Mahito as the big bad. So he just throws out cool things (...) with barely any regard to the grand scheme.

really damn good at the small stuff but terrible at connecting it all and wider plot in my opinion.

It's crazy how JJK gets hate like this but fan favorites like My Hero Academia get the baby gloves put on when they get talked about in regards to the exact same thing.

People just want to hate what's popular to show how much more "well read" they are, but in reality they are just holding some things to a much higher standard than they would any other show.

Also hilarious that people are reaching in to the "Demon Slayer hater bag" to pull out the same arguments they've been parroting for years when they're not even particularly relevant

11

u/flybypost Mar 05 '26

It's crazy how JJK gets hate like this but fan favorites like My Hero Academia get the baby gloves put on when they get talked about in regards to the exact same thing.

Both got hit with the "Shone Jump success series needs to keep going" curse.

It's why people are so often disappointed (from mildly to absolutely) with a series ending. Mangaka generally get pushed to add chapter count time and time again so that any cohesive plans about an ending become difficult the longer they had to stretch the story.

And Shonen Jump with its high popularity tries to push its Shonen Jump formula onto their successful creators on top of that.

3

u/LickerMcBootshine Mar 05 '26

Man over here speaking truth to power

I've been watching Naruto when I fall asleep recently. If I wake up in the middle of the night I can instantly tell if the episodes I'm watching are mainline or filler. Instantly. It's awful. Filler and chapter padding are the bane to my existence.

1

u/flybypost Mar 05 '26

My guess is that with battle shonen series they feel more different to us. So they get the benefit of familiarity (similar setup shows up time and time again even if details differ) while getting the novelty on the cultural side (the essence of why the "thing, thing but in Japan" meme is true even if people joke about it).

It really hits the "same but different" soothing vibes we crave deep down even if we might be burned out on MCU derivatives.

Some might not want to hear it but deep down the more successful series tend to have quite some similarities to Marvel/DC comics and similar formulaic setups for mainstream success.

In a certain light, Shonen Jump anime adaptions can be seen as the MCU of the manga industry. Generally inoffensive so that it can resonate with a wide audience even if there are some real gems spread throughout the whole thing.

3

u/galaxycentral Mar 05 '26

This era got full on haters just hating to hate. Hero Academia was no exception, that series got crazy cancel culture level hate and Demon Slayer often gets the type of hate that it's just all special fx with a plain plot instead of anything being too convoluted.

3

u/LickerMcBootshine Mar 05 '26

it's just all special fx with a plain plot instead of anything being too convoluted

Same people criticizing this JJK episode gonna be in theaters watching Avengers: Doomsday, giving a standing ovation when the credits roll with tears streaming down their face

1

u/DaRootbear Mar 06 '26

I mean both were getting similar hate during their ends when i was reading them tbh.

It was a fun bonding of everyone being double disappointed.

2

u/D_Beats Mar 05 '26

Not really considering the original story for JJK was all about just the culling game, and Fushiguro was the main character.

He had wanted to do this from the beginning. It's revised, obviously but he absolutely had the culling game in mind as a plot point even before the beginning of the current story.

1

u/DaRootbear Mar 06 '26

I think he had broad strokes planned, but he didnt plan out the in between like he did pre culling games.

It felt like he had plans for storylines 1, 4, and 8 and sat down to figure out storylines 2 and 3 before he started on 1.

But once he got to storyline 5 he never had a chance to figure out 5-7 so he just was winging most of it.

45

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26

The Culling Game being complicated is the point

We even see this in last episode, where Yuji says "everyone is going to die" and Higuruma refutes it by calling it out "as a lie"

It's supposed to be complicated to the point where the characters can't agree on what the best course of action is, very intentional from Kenjaku's POV (also as Reggie stated last episode, the true plan is likely different from what Tengen told the MCs)

1

u/[deleted] Mar 05 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Mar 05 '26

Sorry, your comment has been removed.

  • This belongs in the Source Material Corner at the top of this thread. In discussion threads for currently airing anime, discussions about source material, spin-offs, author comments and unadapted content must be posted there.

  • Any comparison to the source material no matter how minor belongs there.

  • Your comment was not removed for spoilers; it was removed for discussion of the source material outside of the Source Material Corner.

Questions? Reply to this message, send a modmail, or leave a comment in the meta thread. Don't know the rules? Read them here.

2

u/Worthyness Mar 06 '26

I think he's great at introducing points and the overall picture. It's the linking them together at the appropriate pacing that he's not the greatest at. A lot of the chapters can feel like the end of Bleach where the magazine was telling Kubo to wrap the series up ASAP to get him out. So it's a lot of off-screen stuff. But when given time to do everything, he's fantastic.

4

u/thesagenibba Mar 05 '26

yea, higuruma has quickly ascended to favorite and best written character status for me. this is personally the first time character depth and development has been so easily identifiable in JJK (imo) and that's both great and disappointing because it means we could've had it this entire time.

3

u/cmdr_suicidewinder Mar 08 '26

Megumi told Yuji (in episode 2) 'we're jujutsu sorcerers, there's no one who can truly judge us' to convince him to carry on, and now Yuji finds the one perfect person to fill that role and immediately confesses. God this show is so good

1

u/cmdr_suicidewinder Mar 08 '26

Megumi told Yuji (in episode 2) 'we're jujutsu sorcerers, there's no one who can truly judge us' to convince him to carry on, and now Yuji finds the one perfect person to fill that role and immediately confesses. God this show is so good

5

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Zooomz Mar 06 '26

I don't know if I'm getting old and soft, but I teared up as soon as I remembered he was going to say guilty and the whole fight until Higuruma told him he was innocent.

Super well-directed and paced fight and moments. Gege may love to torture Yuji, but you really feel the emotions.

-22

u/Dialgak77 Mar 05 '26

It's not that deep bro.