Joseph Luster
February 22, 2008 Jumping back into the world of Hell Girl can be a pretty taxing affair. The first episode of volume two alone is depressing enough to fill your quota for a while, though seeing the bastards of the week falling to the flames below can be a mighty satisfying salve for those wounds.
In this opening story, a young girl’s mother spots a woman engaging in a steamy affair, one that would certainly rock the Todaka family’s high status and shake things up all around. The lady in lust notices her spying, and decides to make her and her family’s life a living hell for what she knows. After an initial threat advising her not to talk, the follow-through ranges from general humiliation to a documented rape designed to make her appear unfaithful, and ultimately destroy her family.
All of this is pretty bleak and hopeless, but you just know that the daughter is going to log onto the trusty Internet at the stroke of midnight, and call upon Ai Enma to banish Mrs. Todaka straight to Hell, even if it means that her own soul will be doomed in the process. She does just that, bringing Hell Girl into the picture to thrust a cruel landscape before her victim: a twisted distortion of reality that will be her final resting place for all eternity.
Not every story is as black and white as this one, forcing you to watch as a grim-faced villain accosts some poor schmuck in one way or another. Sometimes you have to wonder whether or not the people calling upon Hell Girl are doing so out of selfishness, perhaps being at fault themselves in the situation. Either way, the formula adds a lot of flexibility, and also gives its creators and animators something with which they can play around and get a little bizarre.
There definitely aren’t any issues with the presentation, as Studio DEEN’s animation looks really nice for a show concept that doesn’t exactly beg for feats of two-dimensional marvel. This being your cup of tea wholly revolves around your tolerance for episodic vignettes that don’t have much of a connection outside of the star’s presence. This sort of setup has to have a good hook, too, and Hell Girl‘s is an enjoyable one. Consider it a hellish Twilight Zone, but with Rod Serling dealing out life lesson vengeance in the guise of a short, ghostly Japanese girl. If that image doesn’t scare you, nothing will.
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