The return of Jujutsu Kaisen’s third season has introduced anime viewers to one of the manga’s most fascinating late-game additions: Hiromi Higuruma. This former lawyer turned sorcerer represents a unique case study in cursed energy development, displaying a learning curve that defies conventional understanding of jujutsu mechanics. As the Culling Game intensifies, Higuruma’s capabilities have become a critical factor in the ongoing battle against Sukuna, with implications that extend far beyond his individual power level.
The Lawyer’s Awakening and Unconventional Development
Hiromi Higuruma’s origin story begins not in the jujutsu world, but in the courtroom. A lawyer with an unshakable belief in justice, Higuruma experienced a profound disillusionment when his client, Keita Oe, was wrongfully convicted. This trauma, combined with Kenjaku’s manipulation of Japanese society, created the conditions for his awakening as a sorcerer during the Culling Game. What makes Higuruma remarkable isn’t merely his transformation, but the unprecedented speed and nature of his development as a cursed technique user.
Unlike traditional sorcerers who spend years honing their abilities, Higuruma displayed immediate mastery of complex jujutsu concepts. Within days of awakening, he achieved what many sorcerers spend lifetimes pursuing: a Domain Expansion. This acceleration defies established norms within the Jujutsu Kaisen universe, where power typically correlates with experience and lineage. Higuruma’s case suggests that certain individuals possess latent potential that manifests fully under specific psychological conditions, challenging the series’ established power acquisition framework.
Deadly Sentencing: The Mechanics of Higuruma’s Domain
Higuruma’s Domain Expansion, “Deadly Sentencing,” represents one of the most conceptually complete abilities in the series. When activated, it conjures the Shikigami Judge, which presides over a courtroom where Higuruma’s opponent stands trial. The mechanics operate with legal precision: the Judge reviews the target’s actions and delivers a verdict. A guilty finding triggers one of two potential sentences, both devastating in combat scenarios.
Confiscation and Execution: Two Paths to Defeat
The first possible sentence involves confiscation of the target’s cursed technique. This doesn’t merely seal their abilities temporarily—it strips them completely, rendering even the most powerful sorcerers essentially ordinary humans within the Domain’s confines. The second, more severe sentence is immediate execution. What makes this Domain particularly dangerous is its near-inescapable nature; once the trial begins, conventional evasion becomes impossible unless the target possesses specific counter-techniques.
This legal framework power system creates fascinating narrative possibilities. Unlike brute force domains that overwhelm through raw power, Deadly Sentencing operates on rules-based logic. The outcome depends not on Higuruma’s personal strength relative to his opponent, but on the target’s actions and the Judge’s interpretation. This introduces a strategic element where characters must consider their moral standing as a combat factor, a concept rarely explored in shonen battle systems.
Rapid Mastery of Advanced Jujutsu Techniques
Beyond his Domain, Higuruma’s true significance lies in his demonstration of rapid skill acquisition. In the span of what appears to be mere days within the story’s timeline, he accomplishes feats that typically require decades of study. Most notably, he develops Domain Amplification—a technique used to neutralize other Domains—specifically to counter Sukuna. This represents strategic adaptation of the highest order, showing Higuruma not just as a powerful sorcerer, but as a tactical thinker who identifies specific threats and develops counters.
The Revelation of Reverse Cursed Technique
Perhaps the most shocking display of Higuruma’s potential comes with his use of Reverse Cursed Technique. This ability, considered one of the most complex and difficult to master in the jujutsu world, allows users to heal themselves and others by multiplying positive cursed energy. Typically, only elite special grade sorcerers like Yuta Okkotsu and Shoko Ieiri demonstrate consistent mastery of this technique. Higuruma’s utilization of it, despite his minimal experience, suggests either unprecedented natural talent or a fundamentally different relationship with cursed energy than established sorcerers.
The implications of this rapid skill acquisition extend beyond Higuruma’s individual character. They challenge the series’ established power hierarchy, suggesting that the traditional metrics for evaluating sorcerer potential—lineage, experience, innate technique—might be incomplete. Higuruma represents a new paradigm: individuals whose abilities develop not through gradual training, but through immediate, comprehensive awakening under specific psychological conditions.
Strategic Importance in the Final Arc
While Higuruma may not match the raw destructive power of characters like Satoru Gojo or Sukuna, his strategic value in the Culling Game’s final stages cannot be overstated. His abilities function as force multipliers and equalizers against otherwise overwhelming opponents. The confiscation aspect of his Domain provides a potential path to neutralizing Sukuna’s techniques, while his rapid development of countermeasures demonstrates adaptability crucial in the fluid battlefield of the Culling Game.
The Lawyer Versus The King of Curses
Higuruma’s confrontation with Sukuna represents one of the manga’s most intellectually engaging battles. It pits a rules-based, procedural power system against Sukuna’s overwhelming might and experience. This clash of philosophies—order versus chaos, law versus strength—elevates the conflict beyond mere power levels. Higuruma’s legal background informs his combat approach, creating battles that are as much about intellectual and moral positioning as they are about cursed energy output.
This dynamic creates narrative tension that persists even when Higuruma is outmatched in conventional terms. His ability to impose rules on the battlefield, to create conditions where raw power alone cannot guarantee victory, makes him uniquely dangerous to beings like Sukuna who rely on overwhelming force. It’s a testament to Gege Akutami’s world-building that a character introduced so late in the story can fundamentally alter the strategic landscape.
Redefining Sorcerer Potential in the Modern Era
Higuruma’s emergence during the Culling Game suggests broader implications for the jujutsu world. He represents what might be called “emergent sorcerers”—individuals whose abilities manifest fully formed under specific societal pressures, rather than developing gradually through traditional training. This phenomenon, if replicated, could revolutionize how jujutsu society identifies and cultivates talent, potentially shifting power away from established clans toward individuals awakened through trauma or crisis.
The conditions of the Culling Game—with its point system and life-or-death stakes—appear to accelerate this emergence. Higuruma’s case study suggests that extreme psychological states, combined with the game’s structured competition, might unlock latent potential in ways that peaceful training cannot. This has disturbing implications for the future of jujutsu society, potentially creating incentives for creating crisis conditions to force rapid sorcerer development.
Ethical Dimensions of Higuruma’s Power
Higuruma’s background as a lawyer brings ethical considerations to his power usage that most sorcerers never confront. His Domain literally judges morality, creating a system where combat outcomes depend on ethical standing. This introduces philosophical questions about justice, punishment, and the relationship between personal morality and combat effectiveness. In a world where sorcerers often operate outside conventional legal systems, Higuruma’s power represents an internalization of legal principles into the combat framework itself.
This ethical dimension becomes particularly relevant in his interactions with Yuji Itadori, whose own moral struggles and guilt over Sukuna’s actions make him uniquely vulnerable to Higuruma’s Domain. Their dynamic explores whether the jujutsu world’s ends-justify-means approach to combating curses can withstand moral scrutiny, and whether power derived from legal principles can reform a system built on secrecy and extra-legal operations.
As Jujutsu Kaisen approaches its conclusion, Hiromi Higuruma stands as one of Gege Akutami’s most innovative character creations. He represents a fusion of mundane professional expertise with supernatural power, a rules-based combat system in a world of overwhelming force, and a demonstration that potential can manifest in ways that defy traditional metrics. His rapid mastery of advanced techniques suggests untapped reservoirs of human capability that could reshape the jujutsu world long after the current conflicts resolve. While he may never reach the absolute power levels of the series’ god-like beings, Higuruma’s impact on the narrative and world-building demonstrates that influence in the jujutsu world comes in forms beyond raw destructive capability—sometimes, the most dangerous power is the ability to change the rules of engagement entirely.
