Anime of the Week - Jigoku Shoujo - Hell Girl - 地獄少女

This anime is like one of my favourites if you didn't know already and this is for a number of different reasons. It was first aired in late 2005 and is currently on it's 3rd season but let's start from the 1st season!!!! I can't even remember what made me watch Jigoku Shoujo (Oh, it's coming back to me now)---I stumbled across this anime when I saw the drama series - Hell Girl and i read that it was adapted from the anime and that's how Chantelle met Enma Ai.

Jigoku Shoujo is still completely different from any anime I've watched to date. Why is this---hmmmmm----i'll do my best to explain. Have you ever been bullied? Have you ever had something terrible happen to you because for some unknown reason someone took a dislike to you...be that person a friend, a relative, your boss at work, your mother-in-law----if the answer is unfortunately --YES YES---Hell Yeahhhhhhh!!!!! Well, you might be able to relate to what Hell Girl is all about---she offers an invaluable service to people who have been mistreated and they want REVENGE. I'm not really a vengeful person myself but when you see the horrors some people are living on a daily basis you think ZOMFG they're so living HELL on EARTH right now. You can totally understand why they might want revenge.

This is when a pretty girl wearing a beautiful kimono with the sadest red eyes comes into play---Enma Ai. If you truly want revenge you can access Hell Correspondence at midnight and type in the name of your tormentor and Enma Ai will appear in a truly creepy manner. She sometimes takes the person into her world and explains the contract terms and they usually end up with a straw doll with a red string. By the time they reach the end of there teether they end up pulling the string and in doing so cement the deal with Hell Girl. Here is the catch----you don't get something for nothing and Enma Ai isn't doing this purely out of niceness (she is collecting souls for hell)!!! If you enter the deal with Enma Ai you condemn yourself to hell on your death.

If you hear these words being uttered from Enma Ai's pretty lips---trust me you're taking the express train to HELL----O miserable shadow clad in darness! Hurting and disdaining people, a karmic soul drowing in sin. Would you try dying for once? Before seeing some vivid looking scary HORROR scene and awakening on a rickety boat steered by Jigoku Shoujo as she ferries you to hell. In what reminds me of greek mythology with the boat to Hades or something like that.

This anime will leave you thinking and it definitely is worth watching. I would say that if you don't like this anime by the 4th episode I doubt you will. It has great music, i love the colourful kimono of Enma Ai and just the eerieness of it and the fact that it shows the true miseries people on earth suffer at the hands of other supposedly human or should that be INHUMANE people. I won't blab anymore as I'm afraid I won't stop BUT if this sounds of any interest to you ---SNEAK A PEEK.