Jigoku Shoujo

Information of Anime

There is a website that can only be access at midnight.  It's called the Hotline to Hell.  Rumour has it that you can exact your revenge on someone who is giving you a hard time.  Doing so, the Hell Girl, Ai Enma, & her three members will send that person to Hell immediately.  However, it comes with a price.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

In the beginning, it's mainly a series of short stories where we see different person having a hard time.  It can be from being bully, blackmailed, life threatening, etc.  When the person can't take anymore punishment from the abuser, they go to the Hotline to Hell & Ai will appear.  She gives the person a doll with a red string tied around it's neck.  By pulling the string, they will entered into a contract with Ai & she will send the person to Hell ASAP.  However, the victim will be sent to Hell as well when he/she dies & suffer eternal pain.  Most of the times, the victim hesitates due to the own soul.  However, the string gets pulled either way.  With that, the abuser gets some emotional & psychological pain from Ai & her crew in order to admit that it was his/her fault.  Usually they don't admit it & Ai carries them to Hell.  The show basically follows this trend & none of the episodes seem to connect with one another until episode eight.

Hajime Shibata is a reporter & he became interested in doing an article about the Hell Girl.  During his investigations, he manages to see some of the abusers taken in for punishment.  However, he doesn't have enough information about the Hell Girl as he misses out on every occasion.  Also, his daughter, Tsugumi Shibata, has some strange ability to see & foresee the incidents occurring by Ai.  Understanding how the contracts work, Hajime tries to stop people in making contracts with Ai in order to save them from giving up their souls.  This creates problems for Ai & her team.  However, he fails many times even though Tsugumi sees & hears what Ai does & says.  However, Hajime & Tsugumi have different views of this issue.  Hajime stops them because taking revenge on someone will scar people for life, while Tsugumi believes it helps send the bad people to hell.  Later on, we see why Hajime views revenges to be bad as we learn about his past love relationship with his deceased ex-wife.  Also, we get a glimpse of Ai's past life.  Later on, Tsugumi starts to think differently about revenge when she finds someone nice getting sent to hell.  Concern for her about her confusion, Hajime stops chasing Ai until Tsugumi becomes interested in Ai's past.

Sentaoru is a key figure to Ai's past.  As Hajime & Tsugumi travel to find about it, they discover that Sentaoru is a family ancestor & Ai was Sentaoru's cousin.  Hence, why Tsugumi can see what Ai is doing.  Also, we learn that Sentaoru "betrayed" Ai in protecting her when she was a sacrifice for their home village 6 years old from the time of the sacrifice.  Because of her anger, she burns the village as she gets her revenge on them for burying her alive.  As punishment, she becomes Jigoku Shouji.  As Ai realizes who Hajime & Tsugumi are, she takes her revenge on them by sending them to hell.  But she fails & tries to make Tsugumi take revenge on Hajime for killing her mother.  However, even with a lot of pressure, Tsugumi doesn't pull the string as the bond between father & daughter is very strong.  Seeing this, Ai gives up.  The story ends with an open ending as Ai continues her work as Jigoku Shouji.

My Personal Review

Jigoku Shoujo is surprisingly a strong good series.  It really gets to you in hating the abuser & feeling for the victim.  It's an emotional roller coaster ride.  This anime is classified as a horror genre due to the amount of psychological & visual stuff.  It has a good amount of blood, cut off body parts, & bones.  If you can't stomach this kind of stuff, it's recommended that you stay away from this.

Animation

The drawings are weird & seem to be different each episode.  With the exception of Ai & her crew, the characters are drawn differently each time from the looks of it.  The facial expressions are the dead giveaway.  Sometimes the eyes are huge & sometimes they are small.  Sometimes the faces are long & sometimes they are round.  The face of Ai is indeed freaky.  Her eyes are very big & her face is a face from hell.  Initially, I thought the character designs were ugly due to the oversized eyes.  However, I managed to get use to them over time.

Ai's kimono is something to point out.  The flower designs on her kimono seem to float when the camera view shifts up or down.  Even when the camera doesn't move, the flowers still float.

The backgrounds are pretty good.  It's got an eerie affect to it, especially during the horror scenes where Ai & company get to work.  And the dark & dull colour tones really make it shine.  Plus, it blends very well with the colour of the characters.

The animation movements are quite natural & realistic.  In terms of smoothness, it's not all there.  The running looks more like leaping.  Other than that, there is no choppiness really.

Sound

The sound effect are really on the realistic side with some horror effects.  It's really sharp & clean.  It really sets you in the mood with the right volume level.

The voices aren't too bad since most of the cast changes.  For Ai, I'm really iffy about it.  Mamiko Noto, who does the voice for Ai, seems to fit & unfit Ai's character.  Her past works where she plays as aggressive or dark characters aren't bad, but this role doesn't seem to fit her much.  Personally, I think she's just average here.  The voice acting she uses here is more on the soft & gentle side than mysterious.

The music isn't too bad.  It really sets the mood for the show well since they are dark & on the rock side, but they aren't memorable.  In fact, I can forget what songs I heard after watching an episode.  The only songs that stick are the opening & ending themes which I like.

Story

Basically you call Ai about your troubles & have her take your abuser to Hell while suffering a somewhat similar fate when you die.  However, not all the victims are "victims".  They can be abusers as well, depending how the story goes.  In cases like these, Ai & her crew would go investigating on the situation.  But, they would answer a lot of the calls.

Some of the stories give away the abuser right at the beginning, while some come later in the end.  I've seen most of the abusers known at the beginning to midway point.  The stories are interesting, but they aren't anything new.  They are basically basic blackmails, cheating, bullying, etc.  However, there are some case where the show takes the story too extreme that it isn't realistic.  For example, in one episode where the abuser jabs a guy in the stomach to make him die in pain, the abuser didn't feel any fear as if he was a cold blooded person.

Around episode right, there seems to be a main storyline going as we have a reporter trying to find out who this Hell Girl is.  Interesting enough, Hajime is stopping people from pulling the string & trying to offer help for them.  Also, the fact on how Tsugumi can see what Ai is seeing is mysterious.  As the show progresses, we see Hajime & Tsugumi's views differ as more people are sent to hell.  Near the end of the season, we start to see the past life of Hajime & Ai & it's shown at the appropriate time.  Plus, Tsugumi's change of viewing on having revenge is pretty good as she grows up & understands the hardships of life.

The ending of the show is somewhat unsatisfying in a way.  The idea of making it as an open ending allows it to expand the series, but it leaves you feel empty.  Hajime knew something about Ai from her grandmother, but it wasn't mentioned in the show what he knew.  But, I liked how Tsugumi refused to pull the string after seeing how her mother died & how Ai tried to trick her in pulling the string in order to send both of them to hell.

Overall Conclusion

Jigoku Shoujo is really a good show to watch.  It may be too violent for some as it contains gore, adult situations, & a fair amount of body parts being torn apart.  If you can stomach these kind of things, I would recommend watching this.

Jigoku Shoujo gets an eight out of ten from me.  The short stories really are set to play with your emotions & they can keep you on the edge of your seat.  The addition of Hajime stopping Ai & find the truth about her really makes it more interesting to watch.  However, the ending was lacking a bit as it left a lot of mysteries about Ai.  What is it that Hajime knew about her at the end and why wasn't it told?  Although it was open, a second season of this series was announced later on.