“Jigoku Shojo” aka “Hell Girl” is a fifty-two episode Japanese anime series. It has the same feel as the popular Japanese anime series known as “Death Note.” At the same time, this has a very different feel from Death Note. The story behind Jigoku Shojo revolves around a young girl that looks to be twelve years old named Enma Ai. Enma Ai is also known as the Hell Girl that grants your wish to send your antagonist to Hell. There’s a very solid storyline behind Jigoku Shojo as the main characters are tasked with bringing the named antagonists all the way to Hell.
Exactly at midnight, the website known as the “Jigoku Tsushin” or “Hell Correspondence” can be accessed. It has to be accessed exactly at midnight. If you’re a minute early, the website won’t appear. If you’re a minute late, the website will go away and you have to wait until the next midnight. Once you type in the name of your antagonist, Enma Ai appears and gives you a straw doll which is either: red, blue, or black with a red string wound around the neck.
Once you pull the string, Enma Ai will ferry the recipient of the revenge straight to Hell. Enma Ai tends to be the ferryman or ferrygirl in the series. The protagonist of each episode details the situations they’re in and why they’re in it. Of course sending your antagonists to Hell seems to be wrong. But Jigoku Shojo tends to show viewers that nothing is really black and white. Life and death is one gray area as the series tends to reveal.
Enma Ai says that once you pull the string, you’re in a contract with her. In the contract, your soul gets carried to Hell at the end of your natural life. She says that two graves are dug instead of one which signifies the contract. It details that one must pay a hefty cost to send his/her antagonist to Hell. Once the transaction takes place, the people that enter into a contract with Enma Ai have some sort of black symbol on their chests that stays permanently.
She and her companions live in a house in an unknown world as they wait for their jobs. Enma is assisted by Ichimoku Ren who takes the form of the blue doll, Hone-Onna who takes the form of a black doll, and Wanyudo who takes the form of a black doll. The three help out Enma Ai when the victims are confronted with their own sins before getting sucked into Hell.
In terms of going to Hell yourself, it mirrors that of Death Note. But in Death Note, you don’t go to Heaven or Hell by using the Death Note. Instead, you live a life of nothingness. But there are similarities between Jigoku Shojo and Death Note. While you use the straw doll to send your antagonist to Hell in Jigoku Shojo, you use the Death Note to deliver death to whomever you want. In both series, you have to match the name and face of your antagonists.
Eventually two recurring characters are introduced a few episodes into the first season: Shibata Hajime a journalist and his daughter Tsugumi with their own interesting pasts. He’s investigating the disappearances of people in connection with the Hell Girl. To Hajime, what people are doing is wrong. Hajime presents an interesting point. But when you look through the eyes of the protagonists of each episode, the people in most cases get sucked into Hell really do deserve it.
In one episode, this one high school student who is a star pitcher of the baseball team jabbed a fellow player in the gut with his baseball bat very hard. The boy’s appendix burst as a result. The student showed no remorse saying that a person like him comes every ten years. He didn’t care about anybody else except for his own ambitions.
There is this one woman who antagonized this girl and her mother. The girl and her mother happened to catch the woman cheating on her husband. She was very antagonistic to her. The woman very much deserved to get sucked into Hell.
In another episode, this one greedy and deluded woman held a girl hostage against her will. She enslaved the girl using her pet dogs as leverage. It looked as if things were handled. But at the end of the episode, it’s revealed that she very much deserved to get carried into Hell.
It’s basically a case on how the protagonists of each episode are willing to pay the price to protect the ones they love. But unfortunately, the Hell Hotline can be assessed by anybody. There are cases where people get sucked into Hell that do not deserve to be in the first place.
Overall, it’s an anime series that presents a lot of intellectual value. If you’re into the afterlife and so forth, this is one series you may want to check out.
Leave Your Comments