Summary
Warning: The following contains spoilers for the Jujutsu Kaisen Manga, now available to read onManga Plus by SHUEISHA.
TheJujutsu Kaisenpower system allows for many different manifestations of Cursed Energy, but one character’s Domain Expansion stands out for the complexity of its rule set. This character is Kinji Hakari, a third year at Jujutsu High who was suspended for clashing with authority and now runs a fighting ring. He has astrong penchant for gamblingand his Domain Expansion reflects this by generating a materialized version of the popular Japanese game Pachinko, a game similar to slot machines that involves shooting small silver balls at a rapid pace.
Pachinko is Japan’s workaround to gambling restrictions which prohibit more traditional slot machines. The player’s objective is to bounce the small balls off pins, obtain increased probabilities, and hit Jackpots, which generally correspond to a monetary gain. Though the basics are straightforward, the intricacies of the game are quite confusing in nature, and asHakari’s Domain Expansionfollows the same rules, many non-JapaneseJujutsu Kaisenfans struggled to understand it.
How Does Hakari’s Domain Expansion Work?
Jujutsu Kaisenoften has its characters explaining the functioning of their abilities during combat in exchange for a power boost, but Kinji Hakari’s Cursed Technique is so complicated that even when he does so,his opponents can’t understand it. This leads to a lot of confusion on their part, and works to Hakari’s advantage, making it harder for opponents to prepare themselves as the conditions of his Idle Death Gamble Domain play out.
The general idea behind Hakari’s Domain Expansion is that with each play he gets a character. The end goal is to align three characters with matching numbers to get a Jackpot, and this is done through actions called rolls. These rolls are de facto the actions he can take within the game, and there are three different kinds. Referred to as Visual Effects, they are Reserve Balls, Doors, and Consecutive Effects.
Though his Domain references classic Pachinko, its structure elaborates on this concept by incorporating a Shojo Romance storyline in the game dynamic, called CR Private Pure Love Train. This creates a gambling environment within his domain that plays out scenarios between the characters, allbased on classic Shojo tropes.
What Are Hakari’s Visual Effects?
Hakari’s Reserve Balls and Doors are quite similar, as both these Visual Effects generate simple attacks within his Domain. Hakari can even use these attacks outside his domain, as demonstrated when, before theJujutsu Kaisenstory introduced his full domain, he summoned train doors to trapthe protagonist Yuji Itadoriin his fight against him. Of course, outside his domain it was just a simple attack, whereas in his domain they are necessary steps to hit a Jackpot.
The Consecutive Effect action is also called a pseudo-roll, and it consists in a re-roll that allows Hakari to replay a sequence. This is particularly useful as, when he replays a sequence, he negates all the damage dealt to him by an opponent during that sequence. Of course, it doesn’t come without a downside, and he tends not to use it unless he already has increased chances of obtaining a Jackpot as it tends to decrease the probability of him drawing a dud in the next Visual Effect.
What Are Hakari’s Riichi Scenarios?
This technique is based on gambling and, as such, there is a major luck component. This comes into play after Hakari has chosen a Visual Effect, when he can choose to go into a Riichi Scenario. This is an animation that hypes up the third roll, meaning these scenarios are associated with different probabilities of hitting the Jackpot. Which scenario is triggered depends on the color of the played visual effect, and as Hakari only chooses the type of Visual Effect, the color is randomized. Of course, though this is ultimately luck based, Hakari isone of the luckiest charactersinJujutsuKaisen, making this Cursed Technique much more efficient than it would otherwise be.
Basic probability associated with each scenario aside, there are chance boosters that can increase the probability of getting a Jackpot, even when the Riichi Scenario is unfavorable. Alongside this, when Hakari obtains a Rainbow Colored Ball or Four Consecutive Effects, he is guaranteed a Jackpot.
What Happens When Hakari Hits A Jackpot?
If Hakari hits a Jackpot, the boost he receives makes him one of the toughest opponents inJujutsu Kaisen. When this happens, his Domain Expansion disappears and the song Admiring You Plays out loud, for a total of four minutes and eleven seconds. For the duration of this song, Hakari has no restrictions on his cursed energy, and this allows him to useReversed Cursed Techniquewithout limitations, de facto making him invulnerable the entire time.
Ashis Cursed Energy levelreverts to normal when the song is over, this allows him to repeatedly open his domain, and the mechanisms of the Pachinko game make it so that after the first Jackpot, it’s more likely for him to get others and chain them. In fact, obtaining a Jackpot grants Hakari a bonus in the next game. This bonus is one of two, and can be either Increased Spins, which makes it more likely for him to achieve a Jackpot on his first try, or faster spins, which decreases the time it takes him to perform actions, which allows him to achieve Jackpot faster.
One ofJujutsu Kaisen’s selling points is the variety of Cursed Techniques fans are introduced to, most of which are much simpler to understand than Hakari’s Idle Death Gamble. Luckily,his fight against Hajime Kashimowas entertaining even for those who didn’t understand the intricacies of this power, though as Hakari is still alive, it is good to understand it as it will likely be seen again.
