JJK Culling Game Characters

The Culling Game is the battle royale Kenjaku sets up at the end of the Shibuya Incident. At midnight on October 31, 2018, he awakens cursed techniques in huge numbers of ordinary people and releases a batch of ancient sorcerers who had been reincarnated into modern bodies. Then he locks them all into ten barrier colonies across Japan and tells them to kill each other for points.

Tengen explains the rules in Chapter 146, and they're worth knowing because nearly every fight in the arc bends around them:

• Anyone with an awakened technique must declare participation at a colony within 19 days, or have their technique removed. Tengen confirms that removal kills them.
• Anyone who walks into a colony becomes a player.
• Points come from killing other players. A sorcerer's life is generally worth 5 points and a non-sorcerer's 1.
• A player can spend 100 points to have a new rule added, as long as it doesn't stop the game.
• If a player's score doesn't change for 19 days, their technique is removed too.

Each player is assigned a Kogane, a small shikigami that acts as the game's interface, announcing points and rule changes in a cheerful voice that gets more annoying every time you hear it.

Megumi's sister Tsumiki has been marked as a player, which means she has 19 days before the rules kill her. That's the engine of the arc. Yuji and Megumi jump into Tokyo Colony No. 1 to farm points and buy a rule that can get her out. Yuta Okkotsu heads to the Sendai Colony. Maki heads off with her own unfinished business at the Zenin estate. And the third-year Kinji Hakari, who had been suspended, is recruited because his gambling domain makes him one of the toughest sorcerers alive in a long fight.

Hiromi Higuruma was a defence lawyer who lost faith in the justice system. His technique opens a domain called Deadly Sentencing where his opponent goes on trial, and Yuji is the defendant in one of the arc's best fights. He's one of the few new characters who feels fully formed from his first scene.

Reggie Star is a modern player who uses receipts to recreate the things he bought, which is about as strange as it sounds. He's the first real wall Megumi hits in Tokyo Colony No. 1.

Hana Kurusu is a girl whose body hosts an ancient sorcerer known as Angel. Angel's technique can cancel other techniques, which makes her the key to a very important plan involving Gojo.

Hajime Kashimo is a 400-year-old reincarnated sorcerer who uses electricity and wants one thing: a fight with Sukuna. His match against Hakari is one of the most celebrated fights of the arc.

Charles Bernard is a French manga artist who can glimpse a few seconds into his opponent's future. He fights Hakari on the way to Kashimo and spends most of the fight talking about manga.

Fumihiko Takaba is a struggling comedian whose technique makes whatever he finds funny come true. It sounds like a joke. It's honestly one of the most broken abilities in the series, and his scenes are a deliberate change of pace from the rest of the arc.

In Sendai, Ryu Ishigori, Takako Uro, Kurourushi and Dhruv Lakdawalla form a four-way deadlock until Yuta arrives. Ishigori in particular is a fan favourite for his massive cursed energy output.

Season 3, The Culling Game Part 1, aired from January to March 2026 and covers the start of the arc: the rules, the Zenin clan, Tokyo Colony No. 1 and the first look at the Sendai Colony. Hakari's fight with Kashimo and the rest of the arc are expected in Season 4, which was announced in March 2026 with Takeru Sato as director. There was no air date at our last update.

If you want the full list of who debuted in the anime so far, see our JJK Season 3 characters guide.

Higuruma, Hakari and Takaba. Higuruma because his backstory is the most grounded in the arc and his domain is a genuinely clever idea. Hakari because a fighter whose power is literally a pachinko jackpot shouldn't work and somehow does. Takaba because a comedian whose power is a gag is exactly the kind of left turn only Gege Akutami would take, right in the middle of a story about mass murder.

In Japanese it's 死滅回游 (shimetsu kaiyū), which is closer to "migration of death" than "culling". The English title captures the point, though. Kenjaku isn't running a tournament for fun. Tengen explains that the colonies are part of a much bigger plan to merge Japan's population with Tengen, and the fighting inside the colonies is part of how that ritual works. The players are fuel, which is why almost nobody in the arc is fighting for the reasons they think.

Of the ten colonies, the story spends most of its time in three. Tokyo Colony No. 1 is where Yuji and Megumi go in, and where Higuruma, Reggie Star and Hana Kurusu are. Tokyo Colony No. 2 is where Hakari and Panda face Kashimo and Charles. Sendai Colony is where Yuta deals with Ishigori, Uro, Kurourushi and Dhruv. The other colonies get far less page time.

Hakari's Idle Death Gamble. Hakari's domain works like a pachinko machine. If he hits the jackpot, he gets unlimited cursed energy for 4 minutes and 11 seconds, and his body heals automatically for the whole time. It sounds silly until you realise it makes him almost impossible to kill while it lasts.

Higuruma's Deadly Sentencing. His domain summons a shikigami called Judgeman and puts the target on trial. Instead of attacking directly, it can confiscate the target's cursed technique, and in the worst verdict it gives Higuruma an executioner's sword. Yuji's trial is memorable because he pleads guilty.

Angel's technique. Hana Kurusu's ancient passenger can extinguish other techniques, which makes her one of the most important players for the heroes. If anything can open the Prison Realm, it's her.

Takaba's Comedian. Anything Takaba finds funny becomes real, as long as he believes the joke works. It's a technique that's only as good as his confidence, which is the whole emotional point of his story.

Shibuya is one night of chaos, packed with deaths and set in a single district. The Culling Game is slower and broader. It's spread across colonies, built around rules, and full of new players whose stories run in parallel. Fans who love Shibuya's intensity sometimes find the Culling Game's start slow. Fans who like clever fights tend to prefer it, because many of the arc's best moments come from players using the rules against each other.