Otaku In Kenya

Jigoku Shoujo(Hell Girl) One Of My fave anime

This anime series is the beginning of an epic story about damnation.
This series can be divided into three acts, like a play, but when the third act closes, the story has just begun. Until the end of the third act, you don't know anything at all about the heroine, even though you've seen her in every episode.

The first act is a long series of terribly similar stories. The moral of every one of these stories is identical, and that moral is: Revenge is not worth its horrible, inherent price.

Many viewers have voiced dissatisfaction after the watching the first two or three episodes. They have complained that there is little characterization of the recurring characters, that the stories are all the same horror story of revenge, and that the artwork, while striking, gets re-used too often. Do not heed them. This series just uses the first act to break down the viewer's resistance.

One-third of the way into the series, the second act begins the real story. The real story centers on the heroine who has been carrying out supernatural justice in exactly the same way for the entire first act. Her name is Enma Ai, and she is beautiful and she is terrible and while her outward manner is calm, there is a horrible disquiet lurking in her large red eyes.

Enma Ai is the Hell Girl, a supernatural spirit or goddess who can be contacted only by those whose hearts are burning with hatred. At the stroke of midnight, those who seek revenge can find her website and enter the names of those who have wronged them.


Those who seek revenge are always the same. They are always suffering terribly, and they are always making the wrong choice. It is not exactly an easy thing to sit through ten or sixteen episodes of horrible revenge stories -- many of those who seek Enma Ai have suffered rape, abandonment, torture, betrayal -- but if you want to see the brilliance of hellfire, this series expects you to look at the faces of suffering -- which are, incidentally, mostly very well-drawn and well-animated.

Enma Ai herself is depicted with an august elegance. Her bearing is much more dignified than her childishly young body. She can take on any appearance, but in her unguarded moments she affects the dress of medieval Japan. The hell she serves is a medieval Japanese hell -- it is the torture-dungeon of cruel Shinto gods with little regard for Buddhist salvation. It is nastily personal hell, and whenever Enma Ai drags another soul into it, the viewer is struck by the fact that her outward politeness cannot entirely conceal her personal, childish malice. This is not a hell of just punishment: this is a hell of personal revenge which sometimes effects justice by accident.


Enma Ai's loyalties are feudal -- she serves and she is served. Her servants are three: a young man, a seductive woman, and an old man. When Enma Ai so wills it, these servant-spirits can transform themselves into straw dolls resembling the cursing-dolls which were traditionally nailed to the trees of Shinto shrines with special nails. She gives one doll, bound by a red thread, to each persecuted person who asks for revenge. If that person unties the red thread, the soul of the persecutor will instantly be dragged down into hell; but the person who sought revenge will be dragged down to hell at death, and will never be allowed to know paradise.

This series depicts a hell that is profoundly unjust, and the viewer may well come to hate Enma Ai for serving such an unjust hell. In the second act, a much more sympathetic set of recurring characters come into play. A journalist and his young daughter begin to investigate Enma Ai. They provide a much-needed moral center to this otherwise nihilistic series. The journalist is mature enough to understand the suffering of life and the inevitability of death. His pursuit inconveniences Enma Ai and her three servants, thus leading inevitably to the third act.

In the third act, Enma Ai can no longer pretend to be a perfectly calm and dispassionate servant of hell. She is forced to reconsider why she obey the terrible mission of vengeance. And in the end, when the viewer has seen what drives Enma Ai to destroy unceasingly, the story has just begun.

Students of Japanese culture will have their hands full with this series. Enma is the Japanese transliteration of Yama, the Sanskrit name of the Lord of Hell. Ai can be translated as "harmony" or "love." Enma Ai is depicted as participating in traditional rural customs and mythological traditions with equal frequency, so the significance when she is shown as piling up flat stones on a riverbank is profoundly Japanese. (Japanese children in hell piled up stones on a riverbank, and were horribly cheated -- but the secret of that symbolism has not fully been explained, even in the second series.)

From a technical standpoint, this series has a number of shortcomings. The first act, lasting for perhaps eight episodes, is too repetitive for most audiences. The series as a whole is morbidly depressing, and yet it tells a complete story, so the viewer is obliged to watch the second season to see the real story. The series sets a high standard with the visually stunning first episode, only to repeat the same images over and over again for the next few episodes.

A few problems exist in the first season but not in the second, e.g.: The opening theme is too vulgarly popular for such a serious series. The three servant-spirits are not given opportunities to characterize themselves. A few episodes seem to have been animated by interns and are far below the standard of quality set by the other episodes. All of these problems seem to have been polished away in the second season, which is titled: "Jigoku Shoujo Futokomori."

A few problems seem to be systemic: the exact nature of hell is not explained for the entire first season. The series leads viewers to believe that hell ought to be other than it is shown to be. Major questions are introduced and blatantly left as mysteries, forcing the viewer to watch the later seasons in the hope that everything will be explained. It may be that these problems will never be resolved, but no story is perfect.

This is not a series that will be enjoyed by everyone. If you are babysitting six-year-old children with a tendency to have nightmares, show them Sugar Sugar Rune and pack them off to bed before you watch this show. If you are watching with impatient young boys who want to punch everyone, show them Kousetsu Hyaku Monogatari, which is a more masculine interpretation of similar mythological images. But if you watch TV with girls and women who often feel that they cannot resort to violence, by all means watch this show. It masters the most difficult part of horror fiction -- it combines the beautiful with the ugly, it draws the viewer in while repulsing the viewer at the same time. In the end, even if you had wanted to look away, you find that you cannot, and your attention is brought to the message of the story.

The first time I watched Shaman King was because I was really bored and my Anikki (Leo)recommended it to me. After watching just a few episodes I got more and more into it. And after a while I was a huge fan!

The plot is great with many twists surrounding the past of Yoh and his companions while continuing their quest towards becoming the shaman king.  The battles are also good with cool moves and good music in the background.

The powers of the different characters are actually pretty decent. Although they tend to do what I call bleaching (suddenly gain tremendous powers out of nowhere because they can) you get to see them train and develop their powers so when it comes to that the show is really good.

The animation technique is good from the start, the character development is actually good and not just parts you yawn your way true saying yes, yes, your mother and father was killed by your brother. Your life is filled with hate, we get it (recognize this from somewhere anyone? :D)

There isnt many fillers, right now I am not sure if there anyone to be true. The pace of the anime is good and it keeps you interested throughout the series, but the show had to be canceled due to lack of popularity. I was horrified when I discovered that the anime was done without actually finishing the story, but I would still recommend watching this anime because I started to read the manga after wards and I am not finished with the manga yet, but as far I can see the plot of the anime sticks to the original manga plot.

I rated it a 4 because any anime show can be better, but the only thing I would alter with this anime is a better start and that they actually finished it. I recommend this to anyone who would like to watch a show that really grows on you, but I would not recommend it to people who have to watch one episode and then be fangirls/boys for the rest of their life. Some animes take a few episodes, but those that do are usually worth it.


Twelve games based on the Shaman King series have been released to date, the first being Shaman King Tyoh Senji Ryakketu Funbari Hen on December 21, 2001. No games that were developed in Japan have been released outside of that region, however Konami and 4kids Entertainment developed a series of games that were only released in North America and Europe.

Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra





First off, I will begin by saying that this in not an anime everyone will find enjoyable. It is very similar to a long winded Baccano!, following many different stories, making it very hard to identify with a single character that has a lot of depth. Next, the way the story is presented, it makes the series seem episodic, following a new or at least a relatively unknown set of characters from one arc to the next, almost giving it the feel of a set of sequels from one arc to the next, often ending with a character being put aside and seemingly disregarded in term of the plot. This, however, is not the case. Each arc is actually quite important to the final ending, making the "side-stories" actually being integral facts and the disregarded characters being picked back up. This is not a series for people with short attention spans, people that don't pay close attention, or that need a single uniting thread to keep their attention throughout a long (27 episode) series. This being said, I'll attempt to review the series from here on out without any spoilers (which may be quite difficult for this series).

Story:
 For this series, as briefly mentioned above, there are a lot of subplots taking place throughout the first 20+ episodes of the series, taking up only a few episodes per subplot. This gives the series a feeling of just being a lot of filler when, in reality, very little of these stories are actually filler. It is most like each of these subplots are but a thread that, when put together, make a full rope of a plot, escalating at a rather well presented (albeit, cliche'd) end message and a finale that takes several unexpected turns. This being said, if you can get to the end of the series, the story is actually quite exceptional.
The presentation of the story itself is rather reminiscent of Baccano! or, in a more recent and slightly more accurate example, Durarara!, following different characters almost exclusively for a single arc, then putting them aside for a little, sometimes as long at 15 episodes or so. This makes the story seem more like a branch, spreading off into different directions, instead of a standard linear one. All the while, there are rather interesting and intricate subtleties being set into place in the background for the engrossed viewer. All these things, when culminated, add up to a good story that can't be appreciated until viewed in hind site.


Animation: 
The animation of this series is fairly strong, having only weaknesses in the slight failures at CG near the start of the series (which, to my recollection, only happen in the first few episodes) and the fact that a few of the characters have similar designs, making them easy to mistake for one another, even though all the other designs are rather impressive and easy to differentiate. Other than that, there are nice sceneries and backdrops and relatively few complaints to be made about the animation quality.

Sound:
The OPs and EDs are fairly catchy, and the backdrop sounds were appropriate and occasionally impressive. Being a former jazz artist in high school, I really appreciated the jazz they threw in here and there, keeping the OST fairly balanced with different sounds.

Characters: 
How you view the characters is very important for this story, but also it is very easy to dislike them. A great many of the characters have their own arcs, giving many of them characterization. However, they are then pushed aside or killed in some cases, kind of making you hate whomever wrote the story while you are watching it. However, there are so many interesting characters with some depth that I think it prevents your anger after the first few arcs. Another complaint is that there are a lot of cool characters that have no depth whatsoever, or that you don't even learn what their power is. This, however, is unavoidable because there are simply too many characters to do so, and can be forgiven.


Overall: 
About 20 episodes into this series I wasn't expecting anything I could give above a 6/10 or so. A few fun characters, a few good action scenes, and not much else. However, after seeing it all come together, I have another opinion of this series. Although a few of the twists that happened about 3/4 of the way through the series were kind of foreseen, the last few episodes kept me guessing, not knowing what to expect and not expecting things to crop back up again that already seemed to be put to rest. If I had to compare this series to others, I would have to say it is like a 26 episode Baccano! or the first half of Durarara!, with Lelouch and Suzaku from Code Geass, Yukito from Air, and a climax similar to Shakugan no Shana. The first portion of this series is kind of hard to sit through because it seems like a hero of the week theme, but it ends up working in the end.