Maybe it was our favoritism speaking or something, but we all thought Megumi would have an easy win over Kirara. But who would have thought Kirara’s cursed technique would make not just Megumi and us rack our minds over it?

Hoshi Kirara – the brand new wild card entry along with Hakari Kinji astonished us. If the odd situation of the fandom mistaking them for a girl wasn’t enough, they also turned out to be a solid defense for Hakari. Panda and Megumi fought with this new character over a couple of chapters, making one thing clear. Kirara is not to be taken lightly.

And more importantly, that Kirara’s cursed technique is pretty hard to understand. Worry not and sit tight; we are going to unravel this puzzle in this article! Before we begin, though, we must learn a bit about the stars.

The Southern Cross constellation or Crux

Kirara’s name and character design were a foreshadow of their cursed technique. Kirara Hoshi (星綺羅羅) translates to ‘sparkling star,’ and they even had star-shaped pupils. Moreover, their four face piercings were another tell of the Southern Cross or Crux constellation. It is important to know about this to understand Love Rendezvous.

The Southern Cross or Crux is a very famous constellation of the Southern hemisphere. As the name suggests, Crux is based on four stars and is the smallest of 88 modern constellations. However, a fifth & less bright star mars this perfect cross shape of the constellation.

Acrux is the brightest and south-most star of the constellation. This star is assigned the Alpha Crucis name, and the other stars follow suit. Mimosa is Beta Crucis, Gacrux is Gamma Crucis, and Imai is Delta Crucis in order of brightness. Ginan is not part of the ‘cross’ per se, but it is still included in this constellation and is assigned the Epsilon Crucis title.

While people widely recognize these five stars as the Crux, there is another sixth star with the name Tupa. The International Astronomical Union has officially approved the names of all the six stars of the Crux constellation. Even more additional info says that there is a cluster of stars called the Jewel Box Cluster in the Crux.

Source: Wikipedia, Space.com, Constellation Guide

An important thing to note here is that 2D diagrams aren’t entirely accurate for constellations. We know that such diagrams only represent two dimensions: length and breadth. But constellations also have depth, as the manga says too; the depth of a constellation matters too. So, it might look like Ginan is on the same plane as Acrux because there is no depth to see from this visualization.

The manga’s representation of the Southern cross takes the depth into account as well. This diagram clarifies a bit of confusion about how the technique works, but it makes the constellation look haphazard. Again, this is because we cannot gauge the depth of constellations from the Earth and is only apparent in space.

The conclusion Akutami wanted us to reach is that each star has a certain distance from the Earth. What does all of it mean in baby terms? It means one can trace a pathway from a particular star to a different one. This path will follow the depth of the constellation, meaning one can’t go from Gacrux to Acrux directly and has to follow a specific path. (More on this in the next section)

A wee bit complicated, right? But don’t worry! The application of this technique clears it up. Akutami deliberately explained this technique to us twice in the same chapter. It was pretty hard to understand if we had not seen it in action. Let’s dive into it!

What is Kirara’s cursed technique, Love Rendezvous?

Love Rendezvous is based on the Southern Cross constellation. It can mark any entity with cursed energy or its residuals with a star from Crux and its name. So, we can conclude that it applies to shamans, shikigami, curses, and even inanimate objects with cursed energy. But the range of this marking is not very large.

Each marking creates a sort of barrier of a few meters around itself, possibly a radius enough to maintain the least distance between two stars. In essence, this barrier is the most significant element of Love Rendezvous. There is another thing when it comes to marking residual cursed energy on objects. It seems that Kirara’s cursed technique cannot mark the owner of the residual cursed energy. So, unlike Demon Dog and Megumi, the technique won’t consider them as one unit.

Additionally, Kirara does not need to touch a person or thing to mark them with a star. Until now, we saw that they could mark five stars (I think we know why) at once. However, there is no limit on how many entities Kirara can mark with the same star. And now, for the most interesting part. How the heck does Kirara’s cursed technique work?

When Kirara marks a person or thing with a star, they are bound to a particular pathway. This pathway or relay goes something like this: Imai → Acrux → Mimosa → Ginan → Gacrux. In simple words, if you are Imai, you can approach Acrux and then Mimosa, but not go to Mimosa directly. This relay also works vice versa because Acrux can approach Imai too.

To make it clearer, this happened with Panda and Megumi when they were Imai and Acrux, respectively. They could come close to each other but not go to Kirara, who was Ginan, without going through Mimosa. Then, this also explains why Panda (Imai) could never cross the distance to the room’s door (Gacrux). Plus, there was a stalemate between Kirara, Megumi, and Panda because none of them could reach Kirara.

Furthermore, the entities marked with the same star attract each other. We saw this happen with Megumi and his shikigami, Divine Dog and Rabbit Escape. Since they were all Acrux, they were attracted to each other. In fact, when Panda tried to throw a car with the Imai mark (from Kirara’s cursed energy), he could not throw it.

What is more, is that Kirara could even remove the star from their cursed energy and mark anything else. That would free them from the array, whilst their opponents would be stuck with finding out the marking. A shaman can cancel Love Rendezvous only by going through the array of markings. Megumi very quickly deciphered one thing: it was pretty impossible to approach Kirara himself to cancel the technique.

What exactly did he do? He blocked Divine Dog from reaching him using a wall and unleashed it when Kirara was between them. Since Divine Dog was also Acrux and Kirara was Ginan, Megumi canceled Love Rendezvous without approaching Kirara himself at all. This was also possible because of a single rule that governs attraction in Love Rendezvous:

The one outputting more cursed energy is the one who pulls other things or people with the same star name. So, when Megumi used cursed energy to protect himself from Kirara’s attacks, he pulled Divine Dog towards himself. He took a gamble and guessed that such a rule exists when Divine Dog had the same effect earlier.

Another thing to clear here is why Panda and Megumi wanted to keep Kirara from going through the room’s door. The door was Gacrux, while Panda and Megumi were Imai and Acrux. Even if they had gone through Mimosa, Kirara’s Ginan marking would have been under the Gacrux barrier!

This little event tells us a crucial thing, too. Let alone Panda and Megumi, if Kirara marks an enemy with Imai or Acrux while marking themselves as Ginan and Hakari as Gacrux, nobody will ever be able to come close to them! As this post suggests, rendezvous means a meeting between two people. So, Kirara’s cursed technique can protect two people if they stick together!

Here is a little fun fact: Love Rendezvous references two different songs, according to Twitter user soukatsu. The kanji for Kirara’s cursed technique is 星間飛行, that is, Interstellar Flight, a reference to a Macross Frontier ED. And Kirara’s reading of the kanji gives us another reference to ラヴランデヴー or Love Rendezvous, which is a song by Angela.

Possible strengths and weaknesses

Love Rendezvous is a mind-blowing technique. No doubt. It is so solid that if it had not been the specific circumstance of Megumi’s intellect and technique, Kirara would not have lost. The strengths of this technique could be the following:

As we discussed before, Love Rendezvous is invincible when it comes to protecting two people. Even if an enemy does figure out their technique, they would not be able to surpass the Gacrux barrier. But a question arises here. Can Kirara’s technique also mark cursed techniques like Gojo’s or Sukuna’s? If Kirara marks Itadori, would that prevent them from Sukuna’s techniques?

Another strength is that there could be ANY object in the vicinity with cursed energy or residuals, and Kirara could mark it. The manga has not specified it yet, but if there are no exceptions about the object’s size or minimum limit of cured energy, it would be FANTASTIC! One could spend hours on end searching for the next star.

Moreover, there is no upper limit to how many entities Kirara can mark with the same star. This simple-looking fact can be dangerous. Imagine if Megumi could actually not release his Rabbit Escape, and all of them were Acrux. Hell. He would have died of his own accord!

But there are a few downsides of the Love Rendezvous technique too. The first two are blatantly obvious, I think. As the story emphasizes, the range of Kirara’s cursed technique is not that huge. If a shaman or object goes out of range, the technique will release automatically.

Secondly, the technique only works against two enemies at most. It was obvious from Kirara’s showdown against Megumi and Panda. Plus, if Kirara has to save themselves, they have to mark themselves as well. It means the user of the technique is not independent of it, unlike other techniques.

The flaw above can extend to the fact that the user cannot reach the other person they are protecting fast enough. A stalemate hinders the speed of the user. Love Rendezvous is also highly a defensive technique rather than attacking. Sure, it can use some small attacks like pulling objects by using touch or residual energy to the opponent. But anything major is out of the question.

We are unsure of the time duration Kirara can hold the fort in battle. Naturally, it must be tiring to keep switching markings and keep an eye on the enemy. The technique must also use cursed energy in proportion to how powerful the target is. In fact, even the number of enemies Kirara is marking with the same star could affect them.

Although the manga said that Kirara only has five stars UNTIL NOW, we can never be too sure. It is possible that Kirara could use Tupa as well. However, it is unlikely that they could use any other constellation with their technique. Further, is it possible for Kirara to have another move using the Jewel Box reference? The story will tell us!

So, there you have it! Kirara’s cursed technique, Love Rendezvous, is one of the most complex techniques of Jujutsu Kaisen. By this technique, Akutami taught us a bit of astronomy now, after some math and mythology. I personally enjoy such references a lot because it shows just how much thought Akutami puts into the story and power system.

How did you find this technique? Had you figured it out before? Or do you still have some confusion? Let us know in the comment section. While you do that, also check out our ultimate guide to all cursed techniques in Jujutsu Kaisen!