I like the new focus of Jigoku Shoujo. Now that Tsugumi and Hajime have buggered off, it’s time for the three dolls to get a bit of depth. Each episode, one of them feels attracted to the case, and starts to investigate. Last episode, we had Ichimoku Ren, this episode, we have Hone Onna. The next episode will probably focus on Wanyuudo. I’m wondering if Enma Ai will also have such an episode.

This episode focused at the love of a teenage girl who went out of control. She’s been living right next to a guy ever since she was born. Over the years, she fell in love with him, but she was too afraid of change. Because of this fear, she just accepted that he suddenly got a girlfriend, and she actually supported him. She even gave him enough cash to fly away with her to Hawai. Her own reason for this is incredibly biased: if she confessed to the boy she loved, the two would get closer and closer together, which would eventually lead to the two of them breaking up again, and she hates to move further away from him. But, because she’s probably been watching too many soap-operas, she forgets the most important thing: if the relationship with his new girlfriend does work out right, the two of them will be moving in together at one point, and they’ll be starting a life on their own. Away from the girl.

Still, things go way differently when the girlfriend appears to be a two-timer, breaks up with the guy, and the main character makes the guy fall out of a window, two or three stories down, which kills him. Afterwards, it gets even clearer how immature this girl actually is: she wastes her afterlife for a moment of pleasure when the hears the ex-girlfriend talk bad about her ex-boyfriend (reference to Gintama 07), moves in to another apartment, and meets up with another guy who looks just like the previous one. With a bit of luck, the exact same cycle will be starting all over again. It just shows how fragile the feelings of girls like her are.

I think I’ve already said this before, but in my opinion, the power of Jigoku Shoujo comes from its formula, and its ability to deviate from this formula. Each episode, there are a few things which you know will happen. Each episode has a basic set of ingredients. But apart from these ingredients, you can see a lot of different elements, some big, mostly small. The fact that the episodes in the second season so far all ended with some kind of twist only makes this better. I really can’t get enough of these stories. ^_^

Okay, so This series has been out for a week, even the subs have appeared after only two days, and I’m still the only one who blogged about it? Okay, sure, it isn’t the best series out there, it has its flaws, but it’s not bad, or anything. Ah well, time to give this show a bit more attention.

This series tries to bring an epic tale in only thirteen episodes. If the creators will actually manage to pull this off, the future episodes might get very interesting. Like I said in the quick first impressions: the first episode tried to make us feel sympathy for a one-dimensional character by making her brother kill off her three best friends. Only afterwards, she gets interesting. It may have ruined that moment, though it set a nice base for the future episodes.

I’m not sure whether I agree with Shinsen-Subs’ decision to spell the main character’s name as “Sara”. To me, it sounded more like “Seira”. In any case, I like her. Ever since the incident with her brother, she estranged herself from society. It’s like she’s become afraid to make any friends, in fear of losing them again. Well, that plan failed, as she starts talking to a doll, Lotti got interested in her, and the two technicians (whose names I unfortunately forgot, they were quite difficult ones) started to get familiar with her when she kept visiting Emily, who just happened to sit right next to one of their projects: a huge strain.

Well then, there were quite some things that I liked during this episode. The fast pacing, for example. I know, fast pacing isn’t good for series with a big plot and only 13 episodes, but it definitely does add its good points, as Good Witch of the West showed us. At least this anime doesn’t make the mistake of excluding important explanations. Lotti and her companion were also very good during the fighting scene. Lotti seems to have some kind of grudge against Ralph Werec herself, which does make her an interesting character, who’ll probably end up alongside Seira in the future. Her companion will probably get caught as an innocent bystander, due to the fact that she always follows Lotti around. This episode also showed that she isn’t entirely helpless. Isabella’s death also showed lots of potential, as it’ll be interesting to see how everyone reacts when she’s gone.

Still, there were a number of bad things as well. I still don’t get the use of the MIMICs. They’re supposed to be bound to one person, they were made when that person was born, and can’t ever be replaced. You would think that the person this MIMIC is bound to is the only one who can fly it, but episode 1 showed Seira, who just borrowed the Strain of one person, without any problems at all. How did she manage to make it work? Same with Emily, though that might gave an explanation: Emily is a second MIMIC of Seira.

Still, that doesn’t explain what Emily was doing inside the mecha-pilot-academy. And why did Seira choose this academy, of all possible academies to choose. And why did the two technicians start working on their Strain in the exact room Emily was in. And why they didn’t remove her. I’m somehow fearing that some of these questions will never get an answer. Another thing I didn’t like was the useless fanservice which appeared once in a while.