Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Turns Our Worst Yuji Itadori Theory Into Reality
Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 explodes into the Itadori Extermination Arc, with the higher-ups once again ordering Yuji’s execution and the trailer putting Yuta Okkotsu on his trail. After Season 2’s fallout—Nanami dead and key allies out of play—Itadori faces the hunt alone.
Season 3 of Jujutsu Kaisen is not easing up on Yuji. The new season jumps straight into the Itadori Extermination arc, the higher-ups are once again calling for his head, and the trailer already has Yuta Okkotsu tracking him like a problem to be solved. After Shibuya, Yuji basically has no safety net left. Nanami is gone, Gojo and Nobara are out of commission, and the only thing riding shotgun is the worst roommate imaginable: Sukuna.
Where Season 3 picks up
The powers-that-be want Yuji executed, again, and this time there is no Gojo-shaped shield to hide behind. The preview footage puts Yuta on the hunt, and if you know anything about JJK power rankings, that is bad news. Yuta is often framed as the number two powerhouse in the series, which is a nightmare matchup for a kid already hanging by a thread.
How Yuji got here, the short version
Yuji started out as a normal high schooler who just wanted to mess around with an Occult Club. He had no clue he was born under unusual circumstances, and no clue what the sorcery world even was. Then he accidentally passed along a cursed object - one of Sukuna's fingers - and his clubmates unsealed it, which drew curses to their school. To save Megumi, Yuji did the insane thing and swallowed the finger. It saved lives in the moment, but it also basically detonated his life.
- Season 1: The elders wanted him dead immediately or dead later after eating all 20 of Sukuna's fingers. There was never a friendly demon roommate scenario here - Sukuna is cruel and relentless. Yuji saw his new friend Junpei manipulated by Mahito and killed right in front of him. It was ugly.
- Season 2: The Shibuya Incident blew up everything. Nanami dies. Nobara is left in a critical, seemingly fatal state. Worst of all, Yuji realizes Sukuna used his body to cause massive destruction and death. The guilt and self-hatred set in hard, but he still has to tap Sukuna's power to survive. That's the knife twist.
Yuta vs. Yuji is going to hurt
With Yuta stepping in, Yuji is not walking away from this clean. Without leaning on Sukuna, he is not ready for that fight. Anime-only viewers are in for a stressful stretch, because this is the part of the story where good options evaporate.
"Where we're at in the anime - especially post-Shibuya - Yuji hasn't fully processed the devastation Sukuna caused. We see his immediate crash after regaining his body, but I think Yuji now realizes he's going to have to do things he never thought he'd have to do, because of Sukuna.
He knows he has to stop him. After seeing so many people hurt, he'll do anything it takes. I don't see an understanding ever happening between them."
That is Adam McArthur, Yuji's English voice actor, summing it up. And he is not sugarcoating it: there is no truce coming between Yuji and the King of Curses. Yuji is never handing over the wheel, and fighting Yuta right after everything in Shibuya is going to grind him down even more.
Bad now, worse later
If you think Season 3 is the bottom, sorry. If the adaptation keeps pace with the manga, Season 4 is where the screws tighten even further. Yuji's suffering is basically a feature, not a bug at this point. He might be the most tragic lead of the new wave of anime protagonists, and we still haven't hit the worst of it.
Jujutsu Kaisen is streaming on Crunchyroll. How much more can Yuji take? And is Gege Akutami being too brutal here, or is that exactly why this story hits so hard? Tell me where you land.