The slow pace is stepped up at last, but the storytelling in still a step below average is Volume Six of Hell Girl.

plot summary

Tsugumi begins to doubt the moral value of Hell Girl’s trade when an innocent is condemned to Hell on a whim. Even though Tsugumi no longer wishes to be linked to Ai Enma, her ties to Hell Girl grow stronger each day as she sees what Ai sees in the present and the past. Ai wants something from Tsugumi and her father, Hajima, but even the powerful Hell Girl is unsure of what that something is.

But when the father and daughter investigate Hell Girl’s past, they unearth a startling secret which could damn them to Hell if they’re not careful. As Tsugumi and Hajime struggle to overcome a vengeful spirit, they must learn to grow closer or all will be lost.

review

The pacing for this series was horrid. For twenty three slow, drawn out episodes, not much was revealed of Ai and her connection to Tsugumi and Hajime. The retributions of Hell Link featured in each episode were like living the same experience, with slight differences, over and over and over and over. Then in the last three episodes, the flood gates of back story were opened and drowned out what little reason the series had.

The last three episodes felt like a schoolgirl racing to beat the bell, when in fact she had hours upon hours to get to her homeroom. I have no sympathy for a series that has that kind of time and still doesn’t deliver on schedule.

Character Development

The anime had twenty six episodes to develop Ai and make her a character to empathize with, but the studio decided to develop her at the end…in the last three episodes. It was a bad move to save something this big for the finale, especially as how there wasn’t any solid foreshadowing involved. Frankly, however, I just didn’t care.

Viewers should care about characters or at least feel something, be it disgust, compassion or hate. There was no focal point in the series to empathize with, nor was there an attempt at one till the end, when it’s revealed who we really should have been connecting with.

The finale was supposed to be a built-up scenario, one in which we’re pulled in and sitting on the edge of our seats, but a series needs momentum to do that. A series needs a running start to convincingly pull off the leaps in story and logic Hell Girl tried at the end. This anime had no momentum however, and plodded along, oblivious to the gaping hole it needed to cross in order to end. Instead of getting the point across, the series shot head first into the abyss of crappy storytelling. This is unfortunate since the idea for Hell Girl was a good one.

Animation

Hell Girl was a beautiful series filled with lush colors and striking backdrops. The gorgeous scenery featured showcasing the seasons was a treat and managed to salvage some watch-ability for the series.

Production

Each DVD in the Hell Girl series features two full-color postcards. They’re a lovely reflection of the high quality animation in the anime. The DVD covers and DVD themselves are as rich and lushly designed as the animation and are embellished with gold.

Volume Conclusion

Hell Girl, Volume Six would have been disappointing if the series as a whole had been better. Since the series wasn’t what it set out to be, the quality of storytelling in the final volume fit in with the rest of the series- poor.

Volume Rating

Hell Girl, Volume Six gets 2 outta 5 Hammies!

Series Conclusion

Hell Girl is a series which was given a large amount of time to tell a small amount of story. Too many episodes were filler-repetitious and gratuitous- telling no story and furthering nothing. The vengeance angle grew old after the first volume and I was expecting to find out more about Ai and her crew in the following volumes. That wasn’t meant to be, however, and the series’ refusal to give up episode after episode of the same thing and actually develop a plot helped damn it. The point of Hell Link and Ai Enma could have been conveyed in two or three “cases” instead of twenty three. That’s a matter of pacing and not necessarily the quality of the idea.

The anime relied too heavily on its good looks and paid little mind to the rest of what makes great anime- storytelling, pacing and character development. It’s always a shame when a good concept falls prey to the easy seduction of style-over-substance.

Series Rating

Hell Girl, Complete Series gets 2 outta 5 Hammies!

Retail Info

• Publisher: Funimation
• Release Date:May 20, 2008
• Retail Price: $29.98
• Number of discs:1
• Episodes:23-26
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Rating: TV-MA
• Language: English, Japanese
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• 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

In Volume Two of Hellgirl, Ai continues to dole out retribution to any who access her site, but someone is catching onto Ai and her cohorts.

review

Ai has been plenty busy of late, as more and more people click on Hell Link looking for revenge. A few of Ai’s petitioners are sincere in their need for vengeance, while others are petty creatures bent on inflicting spiteful pain.

Ai has been researching each new case, but even if each case is unworthy, she still takes up the “victim’s” cry for retribution. However, someone’s been researching Ai and her group.

Hajime Shibata is a freelance journalist who has taken an interest in the city’s latest internet craze, Hell Link. He’s turned his attention on Hell Girl, but can’t seem to get any real leads on the story. That is until his daughter Tsugumi sees Ai one day and begins to have visions of the victim’s and antagonist’s vengeance and punishment.

Tsugumi and her father hunt Ai down in order to stop victims from selling their souls. People, though, don’t seem to mind the hefty price, and Hajime is stymied in his quest. Hell Girl roams unrestrained for now, and Hell is beginning to slowly fill with damner and damned.

review

Volume Two of Hell Girl didn’t stretch itself far in terms of developing the anime. The stories were pretty much the same, if not with a few more twists. I wasn’t wowed by anything new, like I felt I should have been, and this series hasn’t captured much of my interest or attention. The second volume of any anime should be the hook which lands the viewer into committing to the entire series, if it hasn’t already done so in Volume One. Volume Two didn’t land my interest and bored me in many instances.

The retributions and punishments were once again unbalanced if not downright dumb: Who would send their soul to Hell because their mom doesn’t have the gumption to stand up to her slutty neighbor? One episode was really, really creepy, however, and did catch my attention. It reminded me that certain people shouldn’t have access to dangerous weapons, and Hell Link is far worse than any weapon. It also reminded me that stalkers come in all shapes and sizes.

Character Development

There’s still no development of Ai beyond the sense that she’s lonely and might not like what she’s doing. When Tsugumi sees Ai, Ai sees her as well, and tells her grandmother she made a new “friend”. That was sad and insightful, and I wanted to see more of what made Ai who she is. I’m also still wanting to see the back story behind her henchmen, but there’s no hint that’ll happen anytime soon.

Tsugumi and her dad were elements of interest, and I bet through them is how we’ll learn about Ai and Hell Link. Leave it to a journalist to uncover truths when they shouldn’t be uncovered.

Yet, the series is still wasting its time with the vengeances and such. The scenes where Ai tells the victims the terms of the agreement are still overlong and the punishments aren’t nearly as ironic as they should be. The one exception was the punishment involving the actress; that was dead on.

I’m not sure I want to invest anymore time in Hell Girl since it doesn’t seem keen on investing time in development and actual story. The anime is eking out development like its a precious commodity instead of a common factor which is integral to good anime. Hell Girl is still far too intent on each episode and not on the series as a whole. Volume Three has a heavy burden to carry in the way of developing the series. If Volume Three doesn’t further the story, I won’t stick around for Volume Four.

Rating

Hell Girl, Volume Two gets 2.5 outta 4 Hammies

Retail Info

• Publisher: Funimation
• Release Date:December 4, 2007
• Retail Price: $29.98
• Number of discs: 1
• Episodes: 6-10
• Run Time: 125 minutes
• Rating: Unrated
• Language: English, Japanese
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Format: Animated, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen