Jigoku Shoujo

Jigoku Shoujo
地獄少女
Hell Girl

The first thing that struck me about this anime was its beautiful animation and its difficult content, and how it seemed to parallel with Enma Ai’s pretty face and her darker objectives.

Jigoku Shoujo is a 2005 anime consisting of 26 30-minute episodes. It is the 1st season, the second season being Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori. It can be classified as “occult” and “drama.”

I will give you warning: This can be one of the MOST frustrating animes to watch. The Hell Correspondence will take revenge for you, ferrying your hated straight to hell, though you will follow when you die. Enma Ai and her support are the revenge takers, Ai the one who ultimately ferries the wretched victims while her support torments them first. The person requesting revenge will receive a straw doll (one of Ai’s support in doll form) with a string around its neck. If they truly desire to take revenge, they should pull the string and at that moment their object of revenge will disappear from the world.

A cool concept, and it’s wonderfully executed in this story, buut … if you’re the kind who loves justice to be served and right is right and wrong is wrong … this will be a considerably difficult anime to watch. Jigoku Shoujo does not “mince words” when it comes to human nature. The people who call on Ai sometimes just want to make their lives easier by causing their hated to disappear. Sometimes the people are just to afraid to take actions into their own hands and so have Ai do it for them. Most disregard, or don’t understand the weight of, the idea that they will also go to hell. Almost always the string is pulled when the revengers undergo heavy emotional stress – the type where you get angry enough to do things you’ll later regret.

Ai and co don’t help matters, and why should they? They don’t want to help people, they want to do their jobs, which is making tons of these contracts to bring people into hell. And they never entice people themselves. Ai is always sought out, and does nothing to directly influence the decision being made. Of course the Hell Correspondence services will be abused. It’s the easiest way out, and Ai and co who perform the service are more than willing.

For me, this was an amazingly realistic look at human nature and the detestable things within that people try to ignore. The idea that someone would want another to go to hell is powerfully ugly. The weakness and desire for any easy way out in people is more than apparent in this anime. If you watch it with “people can and will do anything” in mind instead of “I hope bad people go to hell,” it’s a lot more tolerable, and in fact interesting. For me, it really cemented the idea that the desire to send someone to hell is worse than committing murder, but no one really understands that.

Jigoku Shoujo has crisp animation with vibrant, deep colors and full-bodied backgrounds. Enma Ai’s large red eyes and eerily calm voice always sends a bit of a chill through me as she asks her victims, “Want to try dying this once?” If you like the occult but not too much gore (that’s me; I hate blood but love horror), this is a wonderful chance. It really hits home that the most frightening thing is human nature, considering you’re contrasting human nature directly against Ai and co who are trying to bring people to hell.

I recommend giving Jigoku Shoujo at least a try. You may be tempted to yell at the screen, no matter how beautiful and eerie it can be, and you may be turned off it. I still feel that everyone should watch it once and ask him/herself truthfully: What would I do?

What would I be capable of?

Tags: anime, Drama, hell girl, jigoku shoujo, Occult, review