Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. There are many types of religions in the world each one having their own sets of beliefs, ideas, and gods. But the one thing each religion has in common is that there is an afterlife for us. No matter what religion you believe in there is a life waiting for you after you shed your mortal skin. Some religions believe we’re reincarnated into the world while others believe we stay in the afterlife and go to a new world separated from this world. For Christians we believe that there’s a heaven and hell in this world. If you do right and believe in God and follow his rules and teachings you’ll go to Heaven and live in paradise. If you commit sin and choose to reject God you go to Hell where you’ll suffer for all eternity. But one thing I think Christianity failed to mention about Hell is that there are some souls who are good and believe in God but through the pure hatred of the world they’re sent to Hell to suffer. Anime has taken a number of shots at talking about the afterlife and addressing the hatred in the world and I think one anime that stands out the most is Hell Girl. Hell Girl or Jigoku Shōjo is an anime series produced by the anime studios Aniplex (Magi) and Studio Deen (Is this a Zombie?). The anime follows the story of Ai Enma a girl who used to be human but through a series of events becomes Hell Girl and has to carry the souls of people to Hell in order to rest in peace. She accomplishes this by creating a website that allows people to take revenge by having other people sent to Hell. In the story Ai is accompanied by her assistants who help her carry out this system and follow her on her long journey. This show was quite popular on account of it had three seasons. The first one simply known as Hell Girl came out in 2005, the second one titled the Two Mirrors came out in 2006, and the third and final season called the Three Vessels came out in 2008. Also, each season had 26 episodes each that’s the equivalent of 2 anime seasons so technically this anime had 6 seasons that’s pretty impressive for a series and today, we’re here to look at all three seasons. This review will be done in my Animation Bang style simply because I watched the series and I came to the conclusion that there really wasn’t all that much to go on to write a review for. Each episode had the same plot, someone uses Ai’s website and they have to make a choice if they want to send that person to Hell or not. The story is different but the plot remains the same in each. So I decided to just look at all 3 seasons as a whole and give my general thoughts on the series. Let’s see if you want to give death a try this is Hell Girl.
The Story
Let’s start by looking at the story of Hell Girl. The anime centers around a girl named Ai Enma known to the world as Hell Girl. She runs this site called the Hell Correspondence a website that can only be accessed at midnight by those who have a strong desire for revenge. On the site you type in the name of the person you want revenge on and you’ll be taken to another realm where Ai will appear before you and offer you a straw doll with a red string tied to it. If the red string gets untied the person you harbor revenge for will be sent to Hell immediately but not before Ai sends them through a well-done torture scene that usually has some context to the episode. There is a catch to all of this however. When you send someone to Hell you go to Hell as well but only after your life has ended and a black crest-shaped mark appears on your body to remind you of your decision to send someone to Hell and that you yourself will be joining them after your death. That’s pretty much the plot in each episode. Someone is either bullied by a fellow student, a horrible boss or family member who treats them like shit, or see the person they like dating a douchebag and want to get rid of them. Other stories include someone being jealous of someone, cheating, the list goes on. Then that person has their revenge reach a high enough level that it allows them to summon Ai, she gives them a doll, and the summoner has to make a choice if it’s worth it, is it worth sending someone to Hell just to exact revenge on them only to have the same fate as them at the end of your life? For a majority of the seasons a lot of the people do deserve to go to Hell because of just how evil and wrong they are but there are a few of them who don’t deserve to go to Hell and are only sent to Hell because the summoner was just jealous of them for some stupid reason and wanted to be an asshole and ruin their life.
The Characters
Ai Enma voiced by Mamiko Noto (Nodoka from Negima!)
The main protagonist of the series as well as the anti-heroine if you want to argue that. She is a beautiful young girl who appears to look like a 13 year old girl. She has long straight black hair, pale skin, and red eyes. At first she seems to have a cold, silent and closed off personality not really speaking all that much and remaining emotionless even in emotion-evoking events and only speaking when the need arises for it. But as time goes on she does start to show some emotion such as talking to her servants and even mocking them on occasions. She also starts to show a little concern for her clients and victims who are innocent even feeling a little sorry for them that they have to go to Hell because of someone’s actions. In the end despite her cold, silent and serious demeanor Ai is a good person who just chooses to close off her emotions. I mean she’s Hell Girl, that’s not really a glamorous job to smile about if you ask me.
Wanyuudou voiced by Takayuki Sugo (J from Heat Guy J)
The first and probably the most loyal of Ai’s servants. Wanyuudou has the appearance of an old man but is actually a tsukumogami. His true form is a headed wheel on fire that used to pull a carriage carrying the princess of a royal family. One day, the carriage was attacked by enemies and caught on fire and fell off a cliff killing everyone on the carriage. The wheel that was Wanyuudou came to life shortly after this and gained supernatural powers. For years he would roam the mountainside terrorizing travelers until he met Ai who invited him to join her. After he accepted Ai used her powers to give him a new human form which is the one we see in the anime. We never see his original human form before meeting Ai. He has super strength and can transform into a carriage that can fly and move on it’s own to carry Ai and her other servants. He usually keeps a calm and well-mannered demeanor often seeking the peaceful path instead of the aggressive path. He also seems to be the most knowledgeable out of all of Ai’s servants able to pick up on things and events both normal and supernatural than the others.
Ren Ichimoku voiced by Masaya Matsukaze (Kyoya Ootori from Ouran High School Host Club)
The second companion of Ai who is also a tsukumogami. He takes on the form of a handsome young man with his hair covering his left eye. He can be a little vain but at the same time he holds a great sense of justice and kindness for innocent clients that he sympathizes with them a number of times. There was even one time where he actually interfered with one of the clients just to save them. In the past he used to be a katana who was used for the personal benefits of others instead of the good for others. He would often express his sickness and sadness with hurting people and how he hated being used to kill other people but since he was a sword nobody could hear his thoughts. After sometime he met Ai who asked him to join her. He agrees out of the boredom of being stuck in a rock and gets transformed into a human which is his current form (you hear that England, this is the true heir to the throne. She pulled a sword out of a stone. All hail Queen Ai). Ren has a few supernatural powers, he can project his eye on surfaces, watching and hearing anything from a great distance, he can also teleport to and from places, and is also shown to be quite athletic.
Hone Onna voiced by Takako Honda (Anko from Naruto)
Hone is the third and final companion of Ai. Unlike the others she used to be a human woman named Tsuyu who fell in love but was betrayed by the person she loved and sold to a brothel. In the brothel she meets another man who she falls in love with and they make plans to escape together but her friend becomes jealous of her and tells the owner who then hires a man to kill her. She gets brutally wounded and is thrown into a river where she drifted to a bank full of bones and souls of other women who were killed by the owner. The souls felt sympathy for Tsuyu and merged with her soul to transform her into the youkai Hone Onna. She had the appearance of a skeleton woman and would often scare the nearby villagers whenever she approached them but after meeting Ai and joining up with her she soon became able to control her powers and was able to take on the form of a beautiful black-haired woman. Out of all of Ai’s servants she seems to be the one who shows the most sympathy and concern for people and events.
Minor characters
Ai’s Grandmother
She lives with Ai in the realm of twilight and is shown to look after Ai checking up on her and caring for her greatly. Not much is really known about her. It’s said that she’s still alive but we don’t know how alive she is because we never see her. The closest we see to her is a silhouette shown through a shoji door where she’s constantly making Ai’s yukata or something.
There are a few other minor characters who play an important role in the series but I’ll get to them in the next part.
Season 1
In the first season people use the Hell Correspondence to send the object of their revenge to Hell. It gets to the point that it becomes a phenomenon in the world and a journalist named Hajime begins to investigate the site in the hopes of stopping people from using it and going to Hell. He has a daughter named Tsugumi who is 7 years old and has some kind of telepathic bond with Ai which allows her to see the clients of Ai which helps Hajime find the clients and try to stop them. She also sees images from Ai’s past. Eventually the two realize they have some sort of connection to Ai and they travel to the mountains where Ai originally lived to find answers. We find out that Ai is over 400 years old (man she looks good for a 400 year old girl. They say women are like fine wine, they get better with age. If that’s the case than Ai is the best wine for pedo-bear) and lived in a village with her family and cousin Sentarou who she developed a crush on. In the village she was chosen to be sacrificed to the Mountain God to bring in a good harvest but Sentarou was against the idea of watching Ai die so he worked out a plan with Ai’s parents to hide her in the mountains convincing the villagers that Ai was sacrificed. Years later, Sentarou continued to go up into the mountains and bring Ai food as well as keep her company. But the villagers begin to notice their crops dying and find out that Ai is still alive. They find her in the mountains, drag her back to the village, kill her parents, beat her within an inch of her life, and begin to bury her alive. Even though Sentarou was against this he was forced to push the first dirt onto Ai; he ran away after that because he couldn’t bear to see her die. Ai became confused by this and got the idea that Sentarou really did want to kill her like the other villagers. She began to hold a grudge so powerful that it summoned the entity known as The Spider who everybody calls the God of Hell. He gives Ai the power she needs to carry out her revenge but only if she becomes his servant and she agrees. Ai rises from the grave and begins setting the village on fire killing everyone within the village except for Sentarou who ran away. Because of her new powers the God of Hell tells her that she must now carry souls to Hell or he’ll make the souls of her parents wander for eternity in darkness and that’s how she became Hell Girl. After Hajime and Tsugumi find out they’re distant relatives of Ai and confront her she lets her grudge get the better of her and tries to kill them while her servants try to stop her because if she tries to carry out her own grudge she’ll be sent to Hell. Yeah, I know it’s kinda confusing but according to the anime she doesn’t actually die and go to Hell, she’s still alive but lives in this alternate realm where time has stopped. It doesn’t really get explained all that much in the anime but that’s what we’re made to believe. They fail to stop her but Hajime and Tsugumi escape. Later on Ai tries to convince Tsugumi to send her father to Hell saying that he’s the one responsible for the death of Tsugumi’s mom, Ayumi. Hajime reveals that because of his over-commitment to work Ayumi had an affair with a politician and was quickly discovered by him. He left her and took Tsugumi with him which shatters Ayumi greatly. She goes to him and tries to beg forgiveness but Hajime rejects her and sends her on her way in the rain where she dies in a car accident. After hearing the story Tsugumi forgives her father and gives the straw doll back to Ai. Tsugumi convinces Ai that Sentarou loved her, that he never really wanted to kill her, and that he died with the regret of not being able to save her. Ai realizes this and is able to let go of her grudge and move on (not to the afterlife but with her life in general).
Season 2: The Two Mirrors
Same story as the first season. Ai is still Hell Girl and has to send souls to Hell in order to be free of the role of Hell Girl. This season would also introduce us to a new character for the show. A little girl named Kikuri voiced by Kanako Sakai (Compa from Hyperdimension Neptunia the animation). A childish little girl who accompanies Ai and the others throughout the series. She’s a very selfish girl who does whatever she wants not listening to anyone except Ai. She can’t transform into a doll like the others and we don’t know all that much about her past other than she has a strong desire of becoming Hell Girl. It’s also revealed that she’s secretly the God of Hell in disguise checking up on Ai and keeping an eye on her to make sure she’s doing her job properly and not messing up like she did near the end of season 1.
The highest point of this season takes place in a town called Lovely Hills where we see a young boy named Takuma go through a series of misunderstandings. He makes his debut in episode 14 where he gets mistakenly accused of killing his mother with a crossbow. At the funeral he finds out that the culprit is a friend of his father and accesses the Hell Correspondence site but he remembers the words of his father and decides to leave the accident in the hands of the police. The culprit then tries to kill Takuma’s father sending him into a coma but Takuma sees him and the culprit tries to kill Takuma with a glass bottle but gets sent to Hell by his ex-lover who he pushed down the stairs causing her to have a miscarriage. The police arrive on the scene and accuse Takuma of attacking his father and killing the culprit. Because of this the townspeople begin to call him the Devil’s Child. Fast forward to episode 22 and we see that all charges against Takuma have been dropped due to a lack of evidence however the townspeople still call him the Devil’s Child. The townspeople learn about Hell Correspondence and begin to use it on a regular basis sending people to Hell for the littlest and stupidest of things such as not liking that person, jealousy, I had a fight and can’t stand this person, just stupid stuff that could’ve been solved with just talking to them. The townspeople push the blame onto Takuma and everyone believes he’s responsible for sending people to Hell except for one police officer and his younger sister named Hotaru who discover that he’s innocent, doesn’t have a black sign on his body, and that all the disappearances in town are the result of the townspeople. The townspeople beat the officer to a pulp thinking they killed him and set their sights on killing Takuma next. But luckily Hotaru warns him of the coming danger and they escape from the mob of crazies. Eventually they get captured and they try to drown Takuma and Hotaru but the officer shows back up and saves them. As they’re driving back to the town the mob sends the officer to Hell causing the car to crash with Takuma and Hotaru coming out uninjured. Not being able to handle the loss of her brother, Hotaru accesses the Hell Correspondence sight and sends Takuma to Hell promising that she’ll be joining him soon (she tried to drown herself at the nearby lake). As Ai is sending Takuma to Hell she sees how unfair and unjust Takuma going to Hell is and sends him back into the world. Because of this the God of Hell punishes Ai by making her human again, erasing her memories, and making her body weak and vulnerable. Takuma no longer having the patience to stand by and see justice served properly decides to take matters into his own hands and burn down the houses of the mob. The mob finds him and are about to kill him but Ai comes in to save him and calm the mob. But one of the mob members snaps and attacks Ai out of the fear of going to Hell. The rest of the mob follows his lead and they kill Ai. As Ai dies her body turns into sakura petals, she vanishes, and the souls of her parents are freed and sent to Heaven. At the end we get a narration explaining that Takuma has been cleared of all charges, Lovely Hills has been closed down and all the residents escaped, Takuma’s father wakes up from his coma, and Hotaru miraculously survived her attempted at drowning. At the end Ai’s servants go their own separate way and we’re left to wonder if Ai really is dead or not.
Season 3: The Three Vessels
Ai’s soul has returned from the dead and is now in the body of a high school girl named Yuzuki. Through Yuzuki’s body Ai continues to carry out her duty as Hell Girl just like the previous two seasons. We also get introduced to another companion of Ai this season. A creature from Hell who takes the appearance of a young boy named Yamawaro voiced by Hekiru Shiina (Celestia from Danganronpa The Animation). Not much is known about his past other than the fact that he met Ai once in the past and was offered a chance to join her but he turned her down for reasons unknown. He’s a quiet, shy, kind, obedient, and well-mannered boy who seems to show great respect to Ai and the others but seems to be very loyal to Kikuri calling her princess. He’s also very smart often surprising the other servants of Ai with his knowledge. He can also take on the form of a straw doll to help Ai with her clients when she asks for him. Other than that not much is known about him I think the ultimate goal with this character was to have a relationship build between him and Ai but it got scraped and they just decided to have him be Ai’s servant.
About halfway through the season Ai gets her body back and leaves Yuzuki’s body. She also reveals to Yuzuki that she is destined to be the next Hell Girl. Yuzuki doesn’t believe this and tries as many times as she can to stop people from sending others to Hell but all her attempts fail. Near the end of the season Yuzuki’s existence begins to fade away as in nobody knows her, she can’t contact her parents, and her apartment complex has become a dump. It finally gets revealed that Yuzuki died long ago as a child because of a sickness. We find out that her dad used to be a bus driver but due to faulty parts the bus he was driving crashes and kills just about everyone on it including himself. The bus company pushes all the blame on Yuzuki’s dad and everyone in town including her relatives begin to shun her and her mother for it. It gets so bad that Yuzuki stops going to school because of the bullying and her mother becomes so sick that she doesn’t even have the energy to get out of bed and even if she did the hospital won’t treat her. Yuzuki’s mother finally works up the strength to go to a temple with Yuzuki where she plans on strangling Yuzuki and killing herself. However, Yuzuki’s mother dies at the temple before killing Yuzuki leaving Yuzuki by herself where she goes back to her apartment home and dies in her sleep. After seeing her past Yuzuki accepts her fate as the next Hell Girl, Ai vanishes, and everyone except Wanyuudou leaves deciding to remain loyal to Ai and not the new Hell Girl. In her first assignment she tries to carry out her own grudge against a target because the target sent her best friend to Hell. The God of Hell shows up stopping her, relieves her of duty and is about to send her to Hell as punishment but Ai along with the others come in to save her. Ai proposes to accept Yuzuki’s punishment and resume the role of Hell Girl. The God of Hell accepts this and Yuzuki is sent to Heaven to end the series.
My favorite Episodes
Hard to say. Each episode offered an intriguing story that was usually different from the previous episode and sometimes darker and sadder. But if I had to choose I would have to say the last few episodes in each season because that’s where we get the darkest moments of the show. Everything all comes together and we get an ending where not everyone lives happily but it’s an ending you feel satisfied with. Each ending showed that even though Ai is Hell Girl and has closed off her emotions she still has them and is still a human girl with a good heart who cares for others. In the first season she’s able to forgive Sentarou, in the second season she saves Takuma and finally frees her parents, and in the final season she saves Yuzuki from the horror of being Hell Girl as if to say she doesn’t want anyone else to go through the hell she faced so she’s gonna take up the job so no else suffers like her. That’s really admirable of Ai.
The theme
The theme of the show was originally meant to address the problem of bullying in Japan which was and still is a major problem today but as time went on the show started to branch out and address the dark nature of humanity showing how stupid, evil, and nonsensical we can be for the smallest of reasons. The show tries to show us that Hell isn’t just some place we possibly go to when we die but is instead the darkest place in our heart where we hold all of our darkest thoughts and feelings for others. The show also presents the question of is it worth it? Is it worth sending someone you hold a grudge against to Hell just to exact revenge on them only to meet the same fate as them when you die? It makes you the viewer ask yourself the question that if a site like the Hell Correspondence was real and being used in the world today would you use it, would you know people who would use it, and if you did use it would it be worth it? Or would you choose to confront the object of your grudge yourself and solve it using your own powers without relying on supernatural powers? Society is usually run by the emotions of others and because of this we make unwise and stupid choices that we usually come to regret much later on in our lives and using a site to send someone to Hell when the issue could have been solved by simply talking to them is one of those regretful choices.
Another theme the anime addresses is the nature of humans. In the third season when Yuzuki is trying to stop Ai, Ai tells her that hatred is a part of nature and that it can’t be stopped no matter how hard she tries. It’s unfortunate but Ai is right. Hatred is a part of human nature it’s inescapable it’s a part of us whether we like it or not. Chances are in life you will come across someone or something you hate or despise but the question is how will you handle it? Will you try to fight it using your own methods and relying only on your skills to reach a conclusion or will you take the shortcut and condemn yourself and someone else to Hell because you allowed your hatred to get the better of you? But despite hatred being a part of human nature there is an upside to human nature, there is kindness and love in human nature as well. It’s the basic theory of good and evil. In order for there to be good in the world there must be evil and vice versa. While hatred may exist in the world and there’s no chance of getting rid of it we can use kindness and love to keep it under control and stop it from tearing our world apart.
Does this deserve another season
I say no. I think they got their story right and ended it on a good note. While it’s not a happy ending for everyone you do feel at peace with the way things ended.
Final Thoughts
You probably aren’t going to believe this but Hell Girl is one of my top 11 favorite animes of all time and for a guy who prefers to laugh than watch a serious anime that’s saying a lot. The anime is so dark in that it shows the dark nature as well as the stupidity of humanity so well without backing away from it that it’s beautiful in a sense. A dark beauty so to speak. By the time the anime is finished you really do come to feel sorry for Ai because she’s not doing this job because she wants too but because she’s a victim of humanity’s stupidity and darkness and this is the only way to repent for her actions. The stories presented in each episode are great and feel so real that you almost forget that this is a fictional anime and the stories presented in each episode are works of fiction. The other characters also have their good backstories that you come to care for them and they even manage to get a small chuckle out of you at times. Much like Ai and everyone else in the show they’re victims of humanity’s stupidity and darkness.
The animation is nice. I like the shading and backgrounds that the anime has as well as the character designs for each character in the show. The music is beautiful setting the right tone for the scene and fitting in perfectly with the anime. The highest point of this anime in my opinion were the themes and the questions and ideas they present in those themes. You will find yourself sitting there and seriously thinking about what you just saw and develop your own ideas and theories about the way society thinks and the nature of society in general that you’ll want to bounce these ideas off of your friends and family members to get their input or see their response to these ideas and questions.
Final Score
The final score for Hell Girl is our very first 10/10 with a must watch stamp of approval. This anime will amaze you with its dark beauty and characters who you come to like and feel sorry for. While it may be dark and show the side of humanity we wish to ignore sometimes we have to look into the darkness, accept it, and learn from it so we ourselves don’t make the same mistakes in life. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj as Ani-ween continues MUHAHAHAHAHAHA- *light bulb falls on head and shatters* DAH *falls to ground* (Chibi Isis): I’m so sorry Nii-chan! I was replacing a light bulb and- (Nitsuj): Is this going be a running gag throughout October!?
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