The following contains spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3, Episode 7, “Tokyo Colony No.1,” which is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
With Hakari and Kirara officially on board after Jujutsu Kaisen Episode 53, “Cog,” Team Jujutsu High needs a plan. The time to officially enter the Culling Game is upon us, and helping Fushiguro’s sister is top priority. They need to find the player with the next highest points and no interest in adding a rule. Fortunately, they have one option: Hiromi Higuruma.
Holed up somewhere in Tokyo Colony No. 1, fans are about to meet one of the coolest new characters to be introduced this season. He doesn’t appear in this episode, but someone else we haven’t seen in a while does. Kenjaku, the dastardly mind behind this whole jujutsu throwdown, makes a somewhat confusingly heartwarming appearance. So… what’s that all about?
Jujutsu Kaisen Launches Us Into Kenjaku’s Dreamland
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If you don’t remember who the girl in the image above is, you’ll have to go back to Episode 1. It’s Sasaki Setsuko, member of the Occult Research Club at Sugisawa Third Municipal High School. Itadori swallowed Sukuna’s finger to save her life all those episodes ago. Now, here she is, restless in her bed and dreaming while a strange man with long black hair and a kasaya stands over her.
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We haven’t seen Kenjaku in person yet this season. The soft voice that is not Geto Suguru (no, seriously, you’re crying,) speaks to Sasaki about the situation. He gives her a choice. She can wake up outside the barrier of the Culling Game, or potentially get herself killed. She can only leave the barrier once, so she must choose carefully.
As he extends a gentle hand to her and begins leading her through her dream, he says something anime-only fans have been wondering for a while. Turning to Sasaki before they reach the end of her dream, he says, “Thank you for being friends with my son.”
And then she wakes up outside, on the edge of the barrier to someone calling her name. Classmate and fellow Occult Club member, Takeshi Iguchi takes a hole of her arm as she gains her bearings. As they wander through the crowded streets, barefoot and still in their pajamas, they talk about the barrier and the strange dream. It seems everyone has had it, but Sasaki is the only one he mentioned his son to. Dawning on her, the last thing she says before the glorious opening kicks off is, “Itadori?”
Never Split the Party Doesn’t Apply In Jujutsu Kaisen (Though, Maybe it Should…)
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Moving back to the present moment, Itadori, Fushiguro and Panda are catching Hakari and Kirara up on the Jujutsu Kaisen situation since Shibuya. Gojo’s been sealed. Panda speaks up here to let everyone know that Principal Masamichi is dead. Yuji is crestfallen, believing himself responsible for yet another death, but Panda reassures him. It happened outside of Shibuya in a confrontation with the higher-ups.
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Hakari does officially agree to help them out with their mission. He’s not going to do it for free, however. He wants help with his fighting club once things calm down. There is a hilarious moment here, where Megumi tells everyone he’s head of the Zen’in clan, and Hakari’s entire tune changes. Suddenly, he wants to be besto friendos with the guy he keeps calling Sea Urchin Head.
When Yuji tries to comfort Panda, starting to say he was your “Dad,” Panda just cuts it off. I choose to believe it’s because he’s too heartbroken to further discuss it. Learning this, Hakari is even more depressed. The only people at Jujutsu High who ever treated him with any decency are gone, and it sucks. (Like Kirara, I agree, Hakari-Senpai!) With everyone discussing their options, they come up with a plan to split into two teams.
Team Hakari and Panda will head out and search for Hijime Kashimo and the Angel Tengen told them about. Team Fushiguro and Itadori will enter the game to look for the other player currently holding 100 points: Hiromi Higuruma. Kirara is to remain outside the barrier, which is a blow to their ego, but they need someone on the outside to communicate with.
Yuji Doesn’t Like That He’s Paired With Megumi
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Ever since he sensed that Sukuna was up to no good in regards to Megumi, Yuji’s been on edge. When he tries to suggest that maybe he and Fushiguro should split up, Megumi tells him to stop being so selfish. This is similar to me wanting to believe Panda is too heartbroken to talk about his dad. I feel like Megumi needs to hold onto the only thing that makes sense in his world right now, and that’s Yuji.
With no say in the matter, the group goes their separate ways and Yuji follows Megumi. Now, you don’t have to play Dungeons & Dragons to know that splitting up an adventuring party is a bad idea. But then, Jujutsu Sorcerers are always expected to hold their own, so, maybe that doesn’t apply in their world.
Ironically, the moment Fushiguro and Itadori cross over the barrier to join the Culling Game, they are separated anyway. They both land in the middle of their own fight, and the Culling Game officially begins for them.
One of These People Is a Traitor
With Megumi and Yuji landing in entirely different areas of Tokyo Colony No. 1, they each come face to with their own difficulties. Yuji comes out right in the middle of an attack in waiting. He finds himself battling some woman with the power of flight thanks to her hair. After knocking her down, her partner comes to avenge her, his own hair carrying him overhead like helicopter propellers. This is such a fun battle, and when he finally stops the guy’s propeller with his fist, his opponent thinks he has the upper-hand. Wrong. Yuji has fists of steel. He didn’t even break a bone.
Megumi, on the other hand, comes face to face with a damsel pretending distress. He thinks she’s one of the reincarnated sorcerers, but quickly discovers she’s just battle hungry. Her name is Remi. She attacks first, asks questions later, which immediately puts Megumi on guard. When he asks her where he can find Higuruma, she agrees to show him the way, but only if he promises to be her knight in shining armor. He says he will, but not until she shows him where he needs to go, but I can already tell this is going to go south.
Megumi is Not Messing Around, Ya’ll
The one thing that really stands out here is Megumi’s distinguishing moment. When he warns Remi about what will happen if she’s lying to him, he’s stone cold in his silent declaration. He’s not like Yuji. He has no problem earning the 100 points they need the old fashioned way, by killing anyone betrays him. At the same time, Yuji wraps up his fight only to come face to face with a guy who knows him from his middle school days. He doesn’t know the guy, but the guy remembers him. He tells him he was kind of famous. Rin Amai is his name, and he says he knows where Yuji can find Higuruma.
Jujutsu Kaisen is never about the straight and narrow. Something fishy is going on here. It’s obvious that one of these two, either Remi or Rin, is lying. So, who’s actually going to make it to Higuruma first? Guess we’ll find out next week.
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3, Episode 7 On a Scale of 1 to 10
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I am still really loving this season, so far. This episode felt a little slow at first, probably because it rehashed the last few minutes of Episode 53. It picks up before the end to satisfy my own battle hunger, so the pacing itself isn’t really off. The animation is still top notch, and it feels like it’s setting us nicely for some major battles that over the next few weeks.
We’re going to see just what Hakari is capable of before long, and Higuruma’s cursed technique is going to be exciting to see animated. I’m still excited every Thursday the minute I wake up, so Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3, hooray!
“Tokyo Colony No. 1” gets an 9 from me this week, mostly due to that slow start to the episode and repetitiveness. There is some comedy to break up all the nonstop tension, including a funny tiff between Megumi and Yuji that still has me laughing. Mostly because Yuji looks like Kermit the frog after Megumi tells him to shut up.
VOID RATING: 9/10
