Ai begins to show some emotion, but the series still hasn’t shown its focus.

plot summary

Ai’s been busy lately with Hell Link, and Hell doesn’t seem big enough for all the cases she’s been taking on. Hajime Shibata, the reporter who’s tireless investigations have finally led him to Hell Girl, still hasn’t given up on his attempts to shut Hell Girl and her troupe down.

Tsugumi, Hajime’s daughter, on the other hand, views Hell Girl in a different light than her father. The two argue over the morality of sending someone to Hell, no matter if the person deserves the condemnation.

Tsugumi’s faith in Hajime as a parent is wavering, especially when he fails to make an appearance at a very important anniversary. Can the two’s relationship as father and daughter continue when they both have such strong opposing viewpoints on Hell Girl?

review

This series is going nowhere fast, and by fast, I mean it’s already there, parked the car, and is buying a soda. Besides having given up on storytelling, the series is still lacking focus. Who am I supposed to invest my interest in? Ai and her group of Hell Bringers or Hajime and Tsugumi? The latter two are interesting, but only barely. And the former are barely given any explanation or depth, so I’ve given up on them.

The humanity and moral dilemma the series is trying to show through Hajime and Tsugumi is transparent at best. I shouldn’t be able to see through what the series is trying to accomplish, which it’s doing badly anyway. Every time the issue comes up of whether or not a person warrants going to Hell, the arguments made on either side would make a middle school debate team cringe. The episodes which seem to be trying to show the ambiguity of right and wrong come off as funny instead of well plotted.

Some episodes continue to be nothing but time-eaters, doing nothing and going nowhere. For instance, the completely contradictory and absurd episode titled Hell Boy vs. Hell Girl. I don’t think I was supposed to laugh till I hurt during the episode, but I did nonetheless.

The focus is continually shifting between people, without ever really showing what the lenses of the series is trained on. One minute Ai has become the center of attention, the next Tsugumi, the next Hajime, the next a spider, the next, you get the idea. But not once during this hectic jumping around is there any substance. You’d think with the way the focus bounces around so quickly, the series would be better paced, not so. Everything is happening so slowly, one would suspect the series of doing so on purpose in order to squeeze two seasons outta something which should only be one….

Character Development

The last episode is one which does have focus, and the focus is on Hajime, his wife, and Tsugumi. It’s slightly poignant, and one hundred percent human. The episode seems a bit out of place and it’s confusing as to what purpose it fulfills in the larger scheme of the anime. If the entires series were better planned, the whole anime would mesh like this episode did as an episode in itself.

Conclusion

The concept for Hell Girl is a good one, the idea is original, but the execution is abysmal. The series, as far as I can tell, has decided to give nothing to viewers in the first season, nor has it given viewers any reason to watch Season Two. I have no faith whatsoever the last DVD of Hell Girl will be anything more but more of the same; nothing.

Rating

Hell Girl, Volume Five gets 2 outta 4 Hammies!

Retail Info

• Publisher: Funimation
• Release Date:April 8, 2008
• Retail Price: $29.98
• Number of discs:1
• Episodes:19-22
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Rating: TV-MA
• Language: English, Japanese
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: Animated, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen

Ai continues to tantalize audiences with her personal tale, but still fails to deliver.

plot summary

Hajime Shibata and his daughter, Tsugumi, have become obsessed with finding Hell Girl, and will go to any lengths to travel to the places she’s been sighted. Tsugumi has an uncanny ability to see what Ai Enma, Hell Girl, sees and can then tell her father where Ai will strike next.

Father and daughter journey to a tiny island, one which Tsugumi saw in her visions, in order to stop another unholy bargaining of souls. The duo next travel to a circus and a mental ward, but are unable to catch up to Ai and her henchmen.

With the copious amount of souls being bartered away, will Hell have room for them all?

review

Hell Girl, the anime, must have realized it was boring me to tears with its repetitious, disconnected episodes, since it started making more comprehensive ones in this volume. The stories have swung back from ludicrous and laughable to scary and pitiable. I prefer the latter over the former, but the series still remains about individual stories rather than the whole of Ai Enma, her role as Hell Girl, her henchmen and how those same henchmen came to serve Ai.

Character Development

Ai is beginning to appear more human with each new episode. There’s emotion starting to show in the cracks of her cool visage. She also appears to know about her connection with Tsugumi, either because she herself is the one responsible or because she’s aware of the connection but unconcerned over it, even welcoming it. In one of the episodes, Ai actually extends her protection to Tsugumi and her father; two people who are determined to put an end to Ai and her work.

Aside from a bit more humanity coming from Hell Girl, there’s no other development. The three henchmen, Ren, Onna, and WanyÅ«dō while interesting as tools of damnation, are just that: tools. Apparently tools need no fleshing out or explanation, they just are, end of discussion.

Conclusion

While the lack of forward momentum in this series is frustrating, this volume at least was entertaining. The stories in this volume made more sense than in previous volumes, and I agreed wholeheartedly with most of the candidates up for damnation. I would have even pulled the string on a few of the nominees. Yet, I still consider the lack of pacing and focus to be a distraction. How will Hell Girl end? When will it start picking up loose ends and tie them up in some fashion?

If one were to grade the series thus far on its merits as a quasi-random horror series, similar to the Twilight Zone, it would be given high marks. But if it were graded as a comprehensive series, one that’s filled with progressive story, pacing and a definitive point, then it receives a failing grade. Thankfully, Hell Girl has two more semesters, I mean volumes, to straighten up and do better.

Rating

Hell Girl, Volume Four gets 2.5 outta 4 Hammies!

Retail Info

• Publisher: Funimation
• Release Date:February 26, 2008
• Retail Price: $26.99
• Number of discs:1
• Episodes:15-18
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Rating: TV-MA
• Language: English, Japanese
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: Animated, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen

Volume Three of Hellgirl, continues to punish “evildoers”, but now the definition of “evil” is put to the test as Ai and her group accept almost all petitioners to Hell Link. Who’s evil now? The victim or the antagonist?

Plot Summary

It looks like things aren’t as black and white as they first were for Ai and her friends. The people logging onto Hell Link don’t always have righteous retribution in mind when they click on the website. Sometimes, the petitioners are as bad as the “antagonists” in terms of right and wrong.

Things have gotten even more complicated for Ai, as Hajime Shibata and his daughter, Tsugumi, are still hot on Ai’s trail, trying to put an end to her work. Hajime goes out of his way, risking his life and soul, to find the next petitioners of Ai’s. He then tries to dissuade them in their unholy quest.

Ai’s friends, Ren, Onna, and WanyÅ«dō have caught wind of Hajime’s meddling, and in turn watch him as he tries to track the quartet down. For now, they leave Hajime to his own devices, confident in their abilities to handle him if and when that time comes.

But Hajime and his daughter are getting pulled deeper and deeper into Ai’s world. The journalist now faces the horrific truth behind Hellgirl and must confront those in his life who have dealings with her.

review

I would say that this volume was as boring as the first two, but that’d be unfair. It is fair, however, to say this volume is more infuriating, annoying, and nonsensical than the previous volumes.

Apparently, as shown in Volume One, Ai can pick and choose which applicants to accept. If this is the case, I have a hard time understanding her motivations for taking undeserving souls. The second episode, “Spilled Bits” is a shallow glossing over of a girl with emotional problems who gets her hands on Hell Link. The victim isn’t a victim and the perpetrator isn’t a bad person in the least. This is one the dumbest episodes to date; this and “Beyond the Dead End“, that sucked hard too.

Character Development

I’m banging my head against the computer screen going, “Why, why, why is there zero character development that counts?” This series has such potential to be good! What the hell is wrong with the studio, mangaka, or whoever dreamed up the pacing for this story? There’s been nothing to indicate who Ai is or who she was, except for the episode “Purgatory Girl”. Even then all we get is a glance back in time about seventy years. But nothing in this brief glance explains anything!

For all we know, Ai is some demon emissary from Hell, bent on world domination. Her buddies are window dressing in the series but they’re tantalizing window dressing. They all fulfill interesting roles in Ai’s work, yet they get the shaft when it comes to explanations or development. Is everyone on Ai’s team a demon emissary from Hell bent on world domination? Your guess is as good as mine…

The Shibatas are intriguing and a good storytelling device. Even they’re not given any fleshing out, though. Hajime is a lowlife journalist who blackmails famous people with naughty pictures (man, anime gives journalists a bad name!) but that’s it. Development’s done. That’s unfair.

It’s unfair to make a viewer invest time and money in a series and not have the anime work to fill out the important bits. A good anime does this in pieces, all at once, or in its own time, but does it well nonetheless. A bad anime assumes the viewer doesn’t need things like “pacing” or “development”. Pffft. Who needs that when you got purty pictures?

And that’s what cheeses me off about Hell Girl; it wouldn’t need to work hard to be a good anime. It’s being counterproductive by slouching by with the development and pacing. Either that or the studio plans on a big “reveal” the next season, which would also blow. For shame if that’s the case!

I don’t like it when a potentially good anime gets lazy. I paid money and time and expect an anime to live up to my expectations of it as a series or movie. I expected Hell Girl to be excellent, but thus far, it’s been mediocre. Far worse than that, however, is how it refuses to progress. I keep threatening to toss this series on the “crap” pile of anime, but I have some hope (a tiny sliver) Hell Girl can be redeemed. For now, though, I consign this volume to Hell.

Rating

Hell Girl, Volume Three gets 1.5 outta 4 Hammies!

Retail Info

• Publisher: Funimation
• Release Date: January 15, 2008
• Retail Price: $26.99
• Number of discs: 1
• Episodes: 11-14
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Rating: TV MA
• Language: English, Japanese
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: Animated, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen