Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 9 Review & Recap: Yuji's Judgment

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 9, titled Tokyo No 1 Colony Part 3, is the payoff to everything Episode 8 set up. Ep 56 (in total) resolves the Yuji vs Higuruma confrontation in its entirety, moving from a courtroom trial to a physical fight to a conversation between two people carrying unbearable guilt. MAPPA adapted Chapters 164 ("Tokyo No. 1 Colony, Part 4"), 165 ("Tokyo No. 1 Colony, Part 5"), and 166 ("Tokyo No. 1 Colony, Part 6"), covering roughly three chapters of material without it ever feeling rushed.

Where Episode 8 introduced Higuruma through his backstory and ended with the activation of Deadly Sentencing, Episode 9 shows us exactly how that Domain works and, more importantly, why it matters. The setup is almost poetic: Yuji, still drowning in guilt over the Shibuya Incident, meets a lawyer who literally spells out, according to the letter of the law, exactly how he is not guilty. This adaptation makes it clear just how important this scene is to Yuji's arc and to the series as a whole.

How Deadly Sentencing works: Higuruma's courtroom Domain Expansion

The episode opens inside the Domain. Deadly Sentencing is not like any Domain Expansion we have seen before. There is no guaranteed kill. There is no overwhelming cursed energy flooding the space. It is a courtroom, and the rules are simple: Yuji is on trial, Higuruma is the prosecutor, and a Shikigami called Judgeman presides as judge.

Higuruma explains that violence is prohibited inside the Domain. Both sides get one statement. Judgeman already has evidence submitted for deliberation, but Higuruma himself does not know what that evidence contains until after arguments are made. Yuji has three options: remain silent, confess, or deny.

What makes this Domain special is that it is an older-style technique. Master Tengen explains that ancient sorcerers used Domain Expansions to force targets to obey the rules of their cursed technique, not to land guaranteed hits. Higuruma's Domain falls into this category. It cannot physically hurt Yuji. It can only judge him.

The charge is almost absurd. Judgeman accuses Yuji of entering a pachinko parlor in Sendai City on July 16, 2017, while underage. It is a minor crime in every sense. But the trial is dead serious. Yuji actually did visit the parlor that day, and you can see him trying to figure out how to navigate the rules without incriminating himself. The whole sequence plays like an Ace Attorney case brought to life: Yuji weighing his options, second-guessing himself, trying to find the angle that gets him an innocent verdict. He settles on claiming he entered the building to use the restroom.

Higuruma's rebuttal is simple: the evidence shows Yuji at a cash exchange associated with the parlor. Combined with Yuji's admission of entering the building, Judgeman rules him guilty. The sentence is "Confiscation."

After the verdict, Higuruma reveals where Yuji went wrong. Pachinko parlors and cash exchanges are separate legal entities under Japanese law. All Yuji needed to do was deny ever seeing the parlor in the first place. He overthought it, admitted too much, and lost.

Confiscation strips Yuji of his cursed energy

This is where things get dangerous. Outside the Domain, Higuruma attacks immediately. His gavel lands on Yuji's arm and does far more damage than expected. The confiscation penalty normally strips a target of their cursed technique. Since Yuji does not have an innate cursed technique, the effect defaults to something worse: he loses access to his cursed energy entirely.

Higuruma realizes this and is both impressed and alarmed. Previous opponents lost their techniques and their foundational cursed energy control weakened as a side effect. Losing all cursed energy should be catastrophic. But Yuji is still standing. He is still fighting. Higuruma recognizes that Yuji's raw physical strength is keeping him in the fight, and that makes him more dangerous, not less.

The fight choreography in this stretch is worth singling out. Higuruma's gavel can change shape, and the way it snaps back to his hand after every throw is reminiscent of Mjolnir. Given Higuruma's unwavering pursuit of justice, the comparison feels earned. He is probably worthy. A standout cut by animator Nian41 shows just how versatile Higuruma is with the gavel, shifting it between a standard hammer and a flexible hook, wrapping it around Yuji's elbow before tossing him across the theater. The animation and choreography in this sequence are genuinely excellent. Yuji circles, dodges, and absorbs hits he cannot properly defend against because he has no cursed energy reinforcement. It is a one-sided beating, but Yuji never stops calculating.

Yuji demands a retrial and confesses to Shibuya

This is the turning point. Yuji figures out that because Judgeman declared his guilt (without Yuji confessing outright), he can demand a retrial. Judgeman cannot refuse. Higuruma is surprised but accepts. The Domain reactivates.

The second charge stops the episode cold. Judgeman accuses Yuji Itadori of mass murder during the Shibuya Incident on October 31, 2018.

Yuji knows immediately what this refers to. Sukuna's rampage. The hundreds of deaths. He also knows, based on what he learned from the first trial, that he could probably argue his way out. He was not in control of his body. Sukuna was responsible. The evidence would likely support that defense. Legally, he has an out.

He does not take it.

Yuji confesses. No hesitation. No legal maneuvering. He says he did it and that he is not lying or denying it.

Judgeman's reaction is terrifying. The Shikigami forces its eyes open through its stitches, bleeding in fury, and sentences Yuji to Confiscation plus the Death Penalty, the harshest punishment the Domain can deliver. The Death Penalty transforms Higuruma's gavel into the Executioner's Sword, a weapon capable of killing with a single cut.

Higuruma remembers why he became a lawyer

The final stretch of the episode is the reason this fight will be remembered. Higuruma now holds a weapon that can end Yuji in one strike. He charges. Yuji, stripped of all cursed energy, throws theater chairs, his jacket, his hoodie, anything he can find to create distance. He lands a sweeping kick attempt that Higuruma dodges, then throws an uppercut at the exact moment Higuruma brings the sword down.

But the sword never connects.

The episode cuts to a flashback. During his time in law school, a colleague named Mr. Yoshizawa tried to convince Higuruma to become a judge instead of a defense lawyer. Higuruma refused. He said he was not ambitious enough for it. He admitted that he always saw people as weak and flawed, but that he valued that fragility because it was something uniquely human.

That memory resurfaces because of what just happened in the courtroom. The evidence for the retrial contained the truth: Sukuna was responsible for the Shibuya massacre, not Yuji. Higuruma has the evidence. He knows Yuji is innocent of the crime he just confessed to. And he watched Yuji confess anyway because Yuji refuses to deny responsibility for deaths that happened inside his body.

Higuruma deactivates the Executioner's Sword. Yuji's uppercut connects. Higuruma crashes into the theater seats, unhurt but done fighting. He tells Yuji that the absence of intent and control means the crime has no components. Sukuna was in control. Yuji did not surrender that control willingly. He is, by law and by logic, innocent.

Yuji does not agree. He still blames himself. He says all those people died because he was too weak.

Higuruma understands. He asks Yuji to sit down. After Yuji gets his clothes back on, Higuruma asks if he has ever killed someone of his own volition. Yuji says yes, quietly. Higuruma, thinking about the prosecutor and judge from the Keita Oe case that he himself killed, asks Yuji if he felt awful about it too.

It is a conversation between two people who believe they are guilty, even when the system says otherwise.

Higuruma agrees to give Yuji his 100 points. But he does not join him. He tells Yuji that staying by his side would only make him hate himself more. The points are a gift, not an alliance.

What manga chapters does JJK Season 3 Episode 9 adapt?

Episode 9 covers Chapter 164 ("Tokyo No. 1 Colony, Part 4"), Chapter 165 ("Tokyo No. 1 Colony, Part 5"), and Chapter 166 ("Tokyo No. 1 Colony, Part 6") in their entirety. That is three full chapters, and the adaptation is faithful. MAPPA follows the manga's structure closely here, which was the right call. The trial sequence, the fight, and the resolution form a natural three-act arc, and trying to split it across two episodes would have killed the pacing.

One notable choice: the flashback to Higuruma's conversation with Mr. Yoshizawa in Chapter 166 is placed exactly where it appears in the manga, during the Executioner's Sword sequence. Episode 8 had already front-loaded Higuruma's backstory from the skipped Chapter 159, so this episode only needed to fill in the final piece of his psychology. The result is a clean emotional arc across two episodes: Episode 8 tells you who Higuruma was. Episode 9 shows you who he still is.

JJK Season 3 Episode 9 Review: Final verdict

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 Episode 9 is one of the strongest episodes of the Culling Game arc, and another win for MAPPA this season, though in a completely different direction from Maki's episode. For an episode focused solely on two characters, Tomokazu Sugita (Higuruma) and Junya Enoki (Yuji) carry the emotional weight entirely through their voice performances. Sugita's delivery during the courtroom sequences is measured and precise, and Enoki matches him in the confession scene with a rawness that makes Yuji's guilt feel physical.

The Deadly Sentencing sequence is creative, grounded, and mechanically interesting in a way that most Domain Expansions are not. But the reason this episode works is because the fight is not really about combat. It is about guilt, justice, and whether either of those things can be defined by someone else.

Yuji had a legal defense and chose not to use it. Higuruma had a weapon that could end the fight and chose to put it away. Two people operating under different frameworks of guilt reached the same conclusion: the system does not get to decide what you owe.

With Higuruma's points now in play, the Culling Game enters its next phase.

With Higuruma's points now in play but no alliance formed, the Culling Game enters its next phase. Three episodes remain in the first cour, and the question shifts from who Yuji is fighting to what rules he can change. Megumi's confrontation with Reggie Star, teased in Episode 8, is the next thread to pull.

What to expect from JJK Season 3 Episode 10

With Yuji's side of the colony resolved, the focus should shift entirely to Megumi. Episode 8 left him walking into Reggie Star's trap, and the manga material from Chapters 167 and 168 covers the full ambush.

Judging by the previews, there is also a good chance we see the debut of Fumihiko Takaba, one of the Culling Game's most unpredictable players. Manga readers know exactly why that matters.

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3 is available to stream on Crunchyroll and Netflix.