Warning! Contains spoilers for Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 186!
175 chapters after he was first mentioned, Hakari is finally showing why he is one of Jujutsu Kaisen’s strongest sorcerers, on par with Gojo himself. The series has been slowly revealing more about him and his powers over the course of the culling game arc. But now series author Gege Akutami has finally decided to show off his full strength.
Kinji Hakari is a delinquent student at Jujutsu High, who is two years older than the main character of the series Yuji Itadori. He was first mentioned by Gojo in chapter 11 as being a sorcerer who may someday be as powerful as him. Given that Gojo is consistently ranked as Jujutsu Kaisen's strongest fighter by fans, this set some extremely high expectations for Hakari’s abilities. When Yuji and his friends first meet Hakari to recruit him to help them stop the Culling Game he is running a fight club for Jujutsu Sorcerers. While he and Itadori do briefly fight, he only shows off a few of his powers before agreeing to help. But in the series’ latest chapters, readers are finally learning why Gojo thought so highly of Hakari’s ability.
In chapter 186, Hakari begins fighting Kashimo, one of the Culling Game’s strongest participants who dismantled Hakari’s friend Panda the chapter before. While the end of Hakari’s fight with Bernard isn’t shown, he is still under the effect of getting a jackpot in Jujutsu Kaisen's ridiculous pachinko-themed Domain Expansion. After getting a jackpot, Hakari gains access to an unlimited amount of cursed energy for the duration of the theme song of the romantic comedy his Domain Expansion’s pachinko is based on. During this time, he is nigh-invincible as his body instinctively uses the energy to fuel Reverse Cursed Technique and heal any injury against him. And while this only lasts for slightly over four minutes, it recharges his stores of Cursed Energy, enabling him to immediately go into his domain expansion again.
This is a powerful ability if he manages to set it up. While it's been argued that this is stretching Jujutsu Kaisen's battle system too far, it's undoubtedly thrilling. The only time that he is vulnerable while using it is when he is trying to get a jackpot within his Domain Expansion. But while this is happening he is able to use other attacks like sliding doors and reserve balls to fight his enemy. And he has said that he has never failed over thirty attempts in a row to get a jackpot, implying that he has some way to influence his Pachinko machine’s result. And since Hakari can essentially keep fighting infinitely as long as he keeps getting jackpots, he will be able to outlast any opponent he faces, as they will eventually run out of cursed energy.
The Culling Game arc has been proving that Gojo was right in his estimation of both Yuta and Hakari. Yuta was able to defeat various powerful sorcerers on his own in the first Tokyo Colony arc, and Hakari seems to be continuing this trend in the second. Despite Kashimo being an incredibly strong sorcerer, it is hard to imagine how they will be able to defeat Hakari, who is finally showing himself to be on the same level as Gojo, Jujutsu Kaisen’s former strongest sorcerer.
Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 186 is available to read from Viz Media.