Jujutsu Kaisen’s Culling Game Must Fix One Crucial Hakari Detail Before Season 3 Premieres

Jujutsu Kaisen just dropped its first proper look at Season 3 during Jump Festa 2025, and it rips. But there is one little thing in the new Culling Game PV that could quietly confuse a lot of people: Hakari’s hair. Yes, hair. Stay with me.

So... is Hakari blonde or purple?

In Gege Akutami’s official character art, Kinji Hakari has bleach-blonde hair. The new PV from Toho Animation sticks to that, and MAPPA’s model clearly follows the blonde look. No issue there.

The curveball comes from the cover of Volume 18 of the manga, where Hakari is drawn with purple hair. If you only know the series from those covers, that is a hard pivot and an easy way to think you’re looking at a different character. Anime hair color is a visual name tag; change it, and you change how a character reads at a glance.

"Hakari's hair is purple (modify before season starts) The rest is 10/10"
— onYT (@SpeedSta123), December 20, 2025

Why this tiny detail actually matters

Hakari is not background wallpaper in the Culling Game arc. He’s one of the main pieces on the board alongside Itadori and Megumi. If a side character’s cover colors shift, most people shrug. Do it to Hakari and you risk audience whiplash right when he becomes essential.

And there’s context here: Akutami regularly treats manga covers like stylized posters, not canon design sheets. Gojo has bounced between blue, teal, purple-tinted white, even greenish hues on different covers. Sukuna’s swung from pinkish to red to gray. It’s a vibe choice, not a lore update.

Hakari, though, is the exception where vibes collide with characterization. His blonde hair isn’t just aesthetic; in Japanese pop culture shorthand, that bleached look screams delinquent. It fits the guy who got suspended from Jujutsu High and ran an underground fight club. Swap that to purple and you start drifting into a more mystical, enigmatic read, which isn’t the energy Hakari is built on.

What MAPPA did, and why it’s the right call

Sticking with the blonde matches the official character art and, more importantly, the character. If the anime had gone purple to mirror Volume 18’s cover, it would have bent his whole presence. So no, this isn’t MAPPA vs. manga. It’s stylized cover art vs. canon design. Easy to mix up if you don’t live on artbooks and production sheets, but the PV clears it up: Hakari is blonde in Season 3.

Quick refresher and dates

• Title: Jujutsu Kaisen
• Studio: MAPPA
• Season 1 premiere: October 3, 2020
• Genre: Gore, Supernatural, Action
• IMDb rating: 8.5/10
• MyAnimeList ratings: 8.53/10 (Season 1), 8.72/10 (Season 2)
• Where to watch: Crunchyroll
• Season 3 (Culling Game) premiere: January 8, 2026

Bottom line: the PV looks great, Hakari is blonde, and the purple cover was a stylistic one-off. Tell me if you think the manga should tweak that Volume 18 art for consistency, or if we all just need to accept that covers are the wild west.