Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 is finally here, and the Culling Game arc is delivering exactly what fans feared — chaos, betrayal, and more questions than answers. With legendary sorcerers from the past entering the battlefield, Kenjaku’s master plan slowly unfolding, and Gojo still trapped in the Prison Realm, the JJK community is going into overdrive with theories. But not all theories are created equal.
We’ve gone through the manga clues, the anime foreshadowing, and the community discussions to bring you 7 Jujutsu Kaisen Culling Game theories that are actually grounded in evidence — not just wishful thinking.
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This post contains spoilers for JJK Season 3 and references to manga events. Read at your own risk.
🎯 Key Details So Far:
- 1. Kenjaku’s Real Goal Is Far Bigger Than the Culling Game Itself
- 2. Megumi Will Become the Arc’s Biggest Threat — Not Its Hero
- 3. Yuta Okkotsu Is Being Set Up as the Final Boss (Not an Ally)
- 4. Hiromi Higuruma’s Rules Will Change How the Culling Game Ends
- 5. Angel (Hana Kurusu) Knows More About the Prison Realm Than She’s Letting On
- 6. Hajime Kashimo Is the Key to Understanding Sukuna’s True Power Level
- 7. The Culling Game Cannot Be Won — It Can Only Be Survived
1. Kenjaku’s Real Goal Is Far Bigger Than the Culling Game Itself
Most fans assume Kenjaku started the Culling Game just to harvest cursed energy. But there’s a strong case that the Culling Game is only a means to an end — not the plan itself.
Think about it. Kenjaku has been alive for over a thousand years. He has possessed multiple bodies, manipulated history, and engineered the circumstances that led to Yuji Itadori’s birth. Someone who thinks on a millennium-long timescale doesn’t start a battle royale just for energy collection.
The theory? Kenjaku is trying to merge all of humanity with Master Tengen — essentially turning every living person in Japan into a single cursed mass of consciousness. The Culling Game maximizes cursed energy output across the country, but the real endgame is the merger itself.
This is backed up by Tengen’s own warning in Season 3: the Star Plasma Vessel system has broken down, making Tengen increasingly “human,” which makes the merger both more possible and more dangerous. Kenjaku has been positioning for this for centuries. The Culling Game is just his final piece.
2. Megumi Will Become the Arc’s Biggest Threat — Not Its Hero
Megumi Fushiguro has always been set up as a parallel to Yuji — same potential, different philosophy. But Season 3 is quietly laying the groundwork for something much darker.
Megumi’s primary motivation for entering the Culling Game is saving his stepsister Tsumiki. That emotional vulnerability is exactly the kind of thing Gege Akutami loves to exploit.
The theory making the rounds: Sukuna is specifically interested in Megumi’s Ten Shadows Technique — not just as a curiosity, but as a vessel and power source. Sukuna’s fascination with Megumi has been present since Season 1. In the Culling Game, with Megumi emotionally compromised and pushed to his limits, Sukuna gets the perfect opportunity to move.
The evidence is damning. Sukuna has had countless chances to harm or discard Yuji, yet he consistently keeps him alive. It feels less like mercy and more like strategy. If Sukuna’s long game involves jumping into Megumi and using the Ten Shadows Technique without restriction, then everything Yuji has been fighting for collapses from the inside.
3. Yuta Okkotsu Is Being Set Up as the Final Boss (Not an Ally)
Hear this one out before dismissing it.
Yuta returned in Season 3 as one of the strongest active sorcerers — and one of the most morally flexible. His stated goal is to kill Kenjaku. But Yuta operating outside Jujutsu High’s authority, with near-limitless cursed energy and Rika at his disposal, is a wildcard that the show has not finished with yet.
The theory: Yuta’s independent operation in the Culling Game will pull him further from the “good guy” side of the line. His confrontations with Ryu and Takako already showed a ruthlessness that surprised even fans who loved his arc in Jujutsu Kaisen 0.
More importantly — Yuta has the Six Eyes level of raw power without Gojo’s philosophical grounding. Gojo had decades of identity formation before he understood what his power meant. Yuta is still figuring that out, under wartime pressure, alone.
If Kenjaku is removed from the board and Yuta has nothing left to aim at, what does he become? The show has planted that question carefully. Don’t be surprised if the answer is uncomfortable.
4. Hiromi Higuruma’s Rules Will Change How the Culling Game Ends
One of the most exciting new characters in Season 3 is Hiromi Higuruma — a disgraced lawyer whose Cursed Technique, Judgeman, operates as a literal courtroom. His ability to confiscate cursed techniques through a legal trial mechanic is unlike anything else in the JJK universe.
This theory focuses on what happens if Higuruma’s technique is turned on a major player — specifically Kenjaku or Sukuna.
Kenjaku has been implanting cursed wombs and manipulating events for centuries. Higuruma’s Judgeman convicts based on guilt, not power. If Kenjaku’s crimes can be presented in that courtroom, the outcome could strip him of his technique entirely — not through a battle, but through a verdict.
It’s the kind of creative, rules-based resolution that Gege Akutami has used before. The Culling Game itself runs on rules. It makes thematic sense that a character defined by rules and law would be the key to breaking the game’s framework — not a stronger sorcerer, but a smarter loophole.
5. Angel (Hana Kurusu) Knows More About the Prison Realm Than She’s Letting On
Angel — the ancient sorcerer inhabiting Hana Kurusu’s body — presented herself as the key to freeing Gojo from the Prison Realm. Her technique, Jacob’s Ladder, can eliminate cursed techniques entirely, which theoretically can undo the Prison Realm’s seal.
But fans have noticed something odd: Angel’s conditions and motivations are suspiciously specific.
The theory is that Angel isn’t simply a historical sorcerer who got reincarnated into the Culling Game. She has a personal stake in what happens to the Prison Realm — one connected to her ancient history with Kenjaku and possibly with Tengen’s original barrier system.
Her interaction with Megumi in Season 3 was particularly telling. She seemed to assess him rather than help him, and her decision to intervene came with unstated conditions. Ancient sorcerers in JJK don’t do anything without a reason. Angel’s reason hasn’t been fully revealed — and when it is, it will likely reframe everything she’s done in the arc so far.
6. Hajime Kashimo Is the Key to Understanding Sukuna’s True Power Level
Kashimo entered the Culling Game with one explicit goal: to fight Ryomen Sukuna. Not Yuji Itadori — Sukuna himself. He has been waiting centuries for this, which immediately signals that his fight isn’t just action spectacle. It’s meant to reveal something.
The theory: Kashimo’s battle with Sukuna will finally establish what Sukuna’s full, unrestrained power actually looks like — and it will be the moment fans realise why every other sorcerer in the series is so far beneath him.
The JJK power scaling has been deliberately vague at the top end. We’ve seen Gojo’s potential and Yuta’s ceiling, but Sukuna has never fully committed. Kashimo — a sorcerer who has engineered his entire existence around this confrontation — is the measuring stick Gege Akutami has built specifically to show the gap.
The outcome of that fight won’t just be a winner and a loser. It will reset the audience’s understanding of what the final arc needs to achieve to feel satisfying. Kashimo losing badly, if it happens, is the point.
7. The Culling Game Cannot Be Won — It Can Only Be Survived
This is the most uncomfortable theory on the list, and possibly the most accurate.
The rules of the Culling Game, as Kenjaku designed them, do not have a “win” condition that benefits the sorcerers. Every action they take inside the game — gaining points, changing rules, recruiting players — operates within a framework that Kenjaku built. He has had a thousand years to account for clever opponents.
The theory: Yuji and his allies will not “defeat” the Culling Game. They will escape it — at enormous cost.
This aligns with JJK’s overall philosophy. The series has never been about triumphant victories. It has been about surviving a world that is fundamentally cruel, making meaning in hopeless circumstances, and accepting loss. The Shibuya Incident didn’t end with a win. It ended with survival and grief.
The Culling Game will likely follow the same pattern. Kenjaku’s plan advances. Some players escape. Several don’t. And the next arc begins with the world already partially changed in Kenjaku’s favour.
That’s not a defeat. It’s Jujutsu Kaisen being honest about the story it’s telling.
Final Thoughts
The Culling Game arc is the most ambitious story JJK has told yet — and Season 3 is doing it justice. Whether these theories land or get completely subverted by Gege Akutami (who has a proven history of doing exactly that), they’re grounded in what the show has actually built.
The best JJK theories don’t predict what fans want to happen. They follow the logic of what the series has been quietly setting up all along.
Which of these do you think is closest to what actually happens? Drop your take in the comments — and if you want to catch up before the next episode drops, check out our [Complete JJK Watch Order Guide (2026)] and our [JJK Filler List: Episodes You Can Skip].
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