Review 37: Hell Girl (The price is the soul).
So it does seem really hard to explain the concepts of hell girl
without ruining the story behind it and what the main characters backgrounds
are like. So I am soooooo sooooo sorry if there are any spoilers in this
review!
Basically the series as a whole is about a young girl who is dead but
not really dead and is stuck in between hell and earth. So like a purgatory
kind of aspect to it. She travels around with three other people; an old man
who usually takes the form of a doll, a middle aged woman who takes the form of
whatever she pleases and a young boy who seems to be in his young 20's who also
takes the form of whatever he pleases. These people are also known as the hell
correspondence. An online website which is only retrievable at midnight. When
on the Hell Correspondence website the user has to enter the name of someone
they wish to refer to hell; this won't happen straight away though. What
happens next is that Hell girl comes and visits you and gives you a doll that
looks a bit like a voodoo doll. When you're ready to send this person to hell
you just pull the red thread from around his neck and hell girl will fetch them
and take them to hell. The only problem is that when you die your soul will
also belong to hell.
I received the first disc to the Hell Girl series last year as a
birthday present from my cousins; now they don't see me that much and don't
really know what I like but I think this present had to be the closest they
have ever gotten to what I asked for. (Bless them). So basically they said if I
liked the first one then they'll get me the rest whenever they could which
seemed like a pretty good deal. So as I watched the first one I noticed that
there was actually no story line involved what so ever; the only people that
remained the same where the people from the hell correspondence... All of the
other characters that you meet along the way are just people who have been
affected by someone and wish to send them to hell at some point.
So after I watched the first one I did some reading into the series.
Apparently the story line and main characters appear in the second disc so I
asked if I could have the rest of the series. I did eventually get the rest of
the series and it does eventually start properly and when it does it starts to
get interesting. As the audience we meet a journalist who is looking into
the ever growing audience that love the hell correspondence and his daughter.
We learn from their conversations that her mother is actually dead but it never
says if the journalist is actually her dad or not. She always calls him by his
first name. This does seem weird but it doesn't reveal anything throughout the
series. They don't really develop much as characters apart from the little girl
who eventually grows to hate the journalist as he becomes too involved in the
happenings surrounding the hell girl.
We do see a lot of touching stories along the way and some
pointless ones; we do get to learn a lot about each and every character that we
encounter. Including their past, their school, their family, their friends and
what is actually wrong with the individual. This does seem a little weird for
this type of anime to go into so much depth about a character that we won't see
every again throughout the series as a whole. This then gives us a bit of
understanding as to why they do this and what actually drives them into sending
people into hell. So as a whole anime there is a lot of understanding of the
characters that the audience has to pick up on along the way.
The graphics and animation is yet again top notch and lives up to the standard of modern anime shows. There is not too much gore and if there is then it lacks blood and organs. This is pretty good in my mind because it appeals to all audiences so I think that it was actually a pretty clever move to have something so involved with hell itself but not have the gore that we would expect from a normal hell-is anime.
The anime as a whole has a lot of dialogue and different characters; it is English dubbed and subbed and is available online for download or free streaming. Also available in HMV stores and online stores. You cannot buy the discs in a complete collection yet (I think) they can only be bought separately so far but they aren't too hard to find.
Spoiler part: If you want to watch the anime then don't read this!!!!!!
In the end of the anime it does become a bit confusing as we learn the
truth behind the hell girl and what happened to her when she was younger. It
actually turns out that a very long time ago there was an old fashioned village
that needed to sacrifice an 8 year old girl every year so they could have a
good harvest season; in other words pleasing the gods was the key. This meant
that the hell girl was to be sacrificed; we eventually find out that her loving
cousin was the one to save her and he managed to help her stay out of harm’s
way. Just shows that your family can be trusted sometimes!
A few years’ later people from the village find out where bouts she's
hiding and return her to the village; here at the village her and her parents
are stoned to death by the angry villagers who had the bad harvest. Strangely
enough she comes back; but when she does we meet the hell that is the hell
girl. On her first hour of returning she sets the village a light and the only
person there to witness the burning is her beloved cousin who tried his best to
keep her out of harm’s way.
This seems to give the whole series as a whole an extremely
unexpected twist on events; when we see what happened and her will to survive
that sacrifice. It just shows that her will to survive carries on within all of
the other characters that we eventually meet throughout the anime. It's as if
hell girl herself is actually passing on that will to other people so they also
have the power to stop whatever is in their way. The revenge that she has still
possess those who use the hell correspondence website; this just adds a huge
twist that will affect everyone in different ways as different things begin to
emerge.
I actually watched the anime series with a friend and his thoughts on
it was that her hatred towards people reflects on those who use the site as
their hatred grows stronger towards a person. He also said that this acts as
revenge because hell girl is also sending them to hell as well as if she hates
every living being.Watch the anime and see what you think about why she does it in the
end; comment what you think below and let's put all of these ideas together!
Thanks guys and I do apologize for adding the spoiler at a different time to
the rest of the review!
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