May 22, 2006

Jigoku Shoujo Review - 92/100

Filed under: Finished Series:/Jigoku Shoujo, Other:/Anime Reviews



The concept: somewhere on the net, there exists a website. When you access that website, you can enter the name of a person you want to take revenge on. This person then gets sent to hell immediately. There is a catch, however. When you die, you also get sent to hell. Your soul will never find peace, and it’ll burn forever. In some anime, concepts like these never work. Jigoku Shoujo, however, somehow manages to turn this into something awesome.

Each episode is a standalone episode, except for the latter ones. In each of these, a person wants revenge on another person, and struggles whether it’s worth it or not. While some of the cases may look like each other, the majority of these cases manage to produce a unique standalone story, with beautiful characters, beautiful motives and furthermore great storytelling. I especially liked episode 7, 16, 22 and 23.

The characters are amazing. Each of the main characters has a unique personality, a good background (in most cases great) and really adds to the story. There were no annoying main characters at all. The characters who only appeared for one episode, even though there were a lot of them, all had something different from each other, and each of them had some kind of background. At the end of each episode, we could really enter the mind of these characters.

The art looks amazing. Especially the character art is among the most crisp ever seen in anime. The music also has turned into a masterpiece. The storytelling also couldn’t have been done better.

Overall, Jigoku Shoujo is an amazing anime. I’ll definately recommend it to anyone. Although, I have to say that there were a number of episodes which didn’t really seem too impressive. Apart from that, I have no complaints about this series.

Final Rating: 92/100

Jigoku Shoujo - 26 - Ending

Filed under: Finished Series:/Jigoku Shoujo



And it’s over! The ending definately was interesting. It doesn’t belong to the collection of amazing endings, though I did enjoy it. A lot.

Especially the first half of the episode is worthwile. I’ll say it again: WARNING: HUGE SPOILERS AHEAD!

The spider! The spider was behind all this. He forced her to become Jigoku Shoujo, in order to repent for her sins. Anyway, Ai isn’t satisfied, as Hajime, who indeed is a descendant of Sentarou, hasn’t been sent to hell yet. She then uses Tsugumi, she gives her the black doll with the string, she shows her the accident at which her mother died and tries to make her paranoid. Tsugumi actually believes this.

Then the infamous scene occurs, at which Tsugumi’s saved by Hajime who enters just at the right time, but let’s ignore that, shall we? Hajime then finally begins to break down, and Tsugumi comforts him. A bit overdramatic, but it works. Tsugumi was too cute at this once more. Ai sees this, and she decides to cease hostilities. She takes a moment to destroy Sentarou’s temple, and she leaves, along with her dolls, in order to just play Jigoku Shoujo again. Like I said, it was nothing special, but I definately enjoyed this ending.

This also gives a lot of room for the second season of Jigoku Shoujo, which has been announced. There are a lot of unanswered questions left, like who the hell was the spider? What is the meaning of the candles, which get shown at the end of each episode? Where did the grandmother come from? And does Hell-boy make another appearance? I wonder whether Tsugumi and Hajime will continue to try and stop Ai. The tension concerning the three of them certainly has died, so there has to be something else to take their place, while the two of them get to play another part. In any case, I’ll definately be looking forward to the next season. Does anyone have an idea when it starts to air? The concept just so totally rocks.