HELL GIRL: BUTTERFLY (VOLUME 1).
August 18th 2008 22:09
Category: Videos, Television
“O pitiful shadow lost in the darkness, bringing torment and pain to others
O damned soul wallowing in your sin…perhaps it is time to die?”
Ai Enma to an unrepentant sinner.
Originally planned by: Hiroshi Watanabe.
Director: Takahiro Oomori.
Screenplay by: Kenichi Kanemaki.
Producers: Ai Abe & Norihiro Hayashida.
Starring: Brina Palencia (Ai Enma/Hell Girl), Todd Haberkorn (Ichimokuren), Jennifer Seman (Honne Onna), R Bruce Elliot (Wanyuudou) & Juli Erickson (Ai’s Grandmother).
Produced by: Aniplex, Wellthink & Jigoku Shoujo Project.
English version by: FUNimation Productions Ltd.
Released by: Madman Entertainment.
Running Time: 125 minutes. Rating: M.
The first I knew of Hell Girl, or Jigoku Shojo in Japanese, was via a trailer on a magazine cover disc that didn’t really say a lot and left you wondering what exactly it was all about. Who was this mysterious enigmatic girl in a black sailor uniform and with rather soulful looking eyes and a truly ethereal voice? What was the story behind her character and why is she called Hell Girl? Well when I eventually managed to get a hold of the first DVD in the series it was with some trepidation that I managed to watch the opening episodes. Hell Girl could be a very dark version of the whole maho shojo or magical girl genre, where the protagonist isn’t some kind of bright cutesy young thing with a fuzzy pet and the whole magical girl shtick but rather a dark brooding vengeful type who for reasons unknown exacts poetic justice on sinners. You definitely do not want to capture her attention, not by a long shot.
It all begins with the super information highway that everyone knows as the Internet; forget the old standbys of pentagrams, goat heads, blood and torturous Latin chanting or the weirder Lovecraftian exclamations such as “Ia! Shub-Niggurath, Black Goat of the Woods with a thousand young!” no it seems that all it takes in this day and age is to log onto a web site. The denizens of the infernal realms are probably more up to date with cutting edge technology than various government departments or corporate lackeys. Of course they haven’t completely given up on the whole atmosphere angle, the only way to contact Hell Girl granted is via a computer medium but it has to be done at the stroke of midnight, the witching hour. When this particular condition is met then the website known as Hell Correspondent will reveal itself to those seeking it.
One wonders how they deal with spam? Perhaps there is a separate outfit that deals with that issue or they have one really fantastic security system that prevents spammers from clogging up the site. All joking aside the whole thing with the Hell Correspondent site is that once it appears on your screen at the stroke of midnight the idea is to enter in the name of the person you have a grievance against and then click the send button. This simple act is all that it takes to summon forth the Hell Girl and once she appears before you things proceed on from there. Its all very cut and dried, and the service even comes with a text messaging addendum, your phone suddenly tells you that your message has been received and will be dealt with post haste.
Naturally though it’s not as simple as it all sounds, not by a long shot. Oh granted the actual mechanism by which all this is achieved is fairly straight forward as previously mentioned but it’s not a freebie, not at all. When the Hell Girl appears she tells the seeker what the deal is, usually handing them a straw doll with a red ribbon tied around the neck of said doll. Release the ribbon from around the dolls neck and your grievance will be avenged, the catch is though that when you die your soul is consigned immediately to Hell; do not pass go do not collected two hundred dollars. By entering into a covenant with Hell Girl you immediately forfeit any chance of your soul going to Heaven; that is the price to be paid. Those who do enter this bargain are marked with a black flame sigil on their chest that symbolises that they have entered into a covenant with Hell Girl.
I have to say that I was really impressed with this feature; the animation is something literally to die for and those involved in that aspect deserve kudos for their work. Just the opening credits of each episode would be enough to win an award for animation excellence so high calibre are they but this level of quality continues on into the meat of the episode and throughout the entire volume. Japan has long been a country noted for the excellence of its various manufactured goods and technology and frankly this series shows that they have taken an equal level of excellence into the anime arena. But a show with fantastic animation is not much if it doesn’t have the other ingredients just right, like a bowl of ramen whose soup is delicious but the noodles just aren’t up to scratch. Fortunately in the areas of story and mood the quality is up to the same level as that of the animation.
Its interesting to note that where Hell Girl has her abode in the infernal realms is not quite what anyone would expect for a region in the fiery pits, in fact their isn’t even a single flame or pit to be found. Ai resides on what seems to be a lakeshore region in a traditional style Japanese home surrounded by marshland that is filled with all manner of vegetation and wildlife. A spider with three eyes emblazoned on its torso weaves webs in nearby trees or amidst the eaves of Ai’s home, it seems to be eternally twilight in this particular realm no doubt indicating the time that could be regarded as the literal border between the realms of light and dark, life and death, salvation and eternal damnation. She shares her home with her grandmother who is never seen other than as a silhouette working at a spinning wheel, in the main room of the house rests the computer on which the various messages are registered, a machine that looks strangely like an old Apple Mac, frightening stuff.
There is a certain sorrowfulness and mystery to the whole character of Hell Girl, something that will no doubt be developed in future episodes. Watching the opening credits I had the funny sensation that she was someone, a young girl naturally, who had either undergone some tragic affair of the heart and committed suicide via drowning or had been the victim of a fatal drowning. Throughout the whole five episodes on this volume there is no real deeply felt emotion from Ai other than a sense of melancholia and hidden sorrow, even when she is meting out the various punishments she has been called to deliver onto the wrongdoers who have caught her attention. This is definitely a spooky and masterly crafted show, well worth taking the time out to watch.
O damned soul wallowing in your sin…perhaps it is time to die?”
Ai Enma to an unrepentant sinner.
Originally planned by: Hiroshi Watanabe.
Director: Takahiro Oomori.
Screenplay by: Kenichi Kanemaki.
Producers: Ai Abe & Norihiro Hayashida.
Starring: Brina Palencia (Ai Enma/Hell Girl), Todd Haberkorn (Ichimokuren), Jennifer Seman (Honne Onna), R Bruce Elliot (Wanyuudou) & Juli Erickson (Ai’s Grandmother).
Produced by: Aniplex, Wellthink & Jigoku Shoujo Project.
English version by: FUNimation Productions Ltd.
Running Time: 125 minutes. Rating: M.
The first I knew of Hell Girl, or Jigoku Shojo in Japanese, was via a trailer on a magazine cover disc that didn’t really say a lot and left you wondering what exactly it was all about. Who was this mysterious enigmatic girl in a black sailor uniform and with rather soulful looking eyes and a truly ethereal voice? What was the story behind her character and why is she called Hell Girl? Well when I eventually managed to get a hold of the first DVD in the series it was with some trepidation that I managed to watch the opening episodes. Hell Girl could be a very dark version of the whole maho shojo or magical girl genre, where the protagonist isn’t some kind of bright cutesy young thing with a fuzzy pet and the whole magical girl shtick but rather a dark brooding vengeful type who for reasons unknown exacts poetic justice on sinners. You definitely do not want to capture her attention, not by a long shot.
It all begins with the super information highway that everyone knows as the Internet; forget the old standbys of pentagrams, goat heads, blood and torturous Latin chanting or the weirder Lovecraftian exclamations such as “Ia! Shub-Niggurath, Black Goat of the Woods with a thousand young!” no it seems that all it takes in this day and age is to log onto a web site. The denizens of the infernal realms are probably more up to date with cutting edge technology than various government departments or corporate lackeys. Of course they haven’t completely given up on the whole atmosphere angle, the only way to contact Hell Girl granted is via a computer medium but it has to be done at the stroke of midnight, the witching hour. When this particular condition is met then the website known as Hell Correspondent will reveal itself to those seeking it.
Naturally though it’s not as simple as it all sounds, not by a long shot. Oh granted the actual mechanism by which all this is achieved is fairly straight forward as previously mentioned but it’s not a freebie, not at all. When the Hell Girl appears she tells the seeker what the deal is, usually handing them a straw doll with a red ribbon tied around the neck of said doll. Release the ribbon from around the dolls neck and your grievance will be avenged, the catch is though that when you die your soul is consigned immediately to Hell; do not pass go do not collected two hundred dollars. By entering into a covenant with Hell Girl you immediately forfeit any chance of your soul going to Heaven; that is the price to be paid. Those who do enter this bargain are marked with a black flame sigil on their chest that symbolises that they have entered into a covenant with Hell Girl.
I have to say that I was really impressed with this feature; the animation is something literally to die for and those involved in that aspect deserve kudos for their work. Just the opening credits of each episode would be enough to win an award for animation excellence so high calibre are they but this level of quality continues on into the meat of the episode and throughout the entire volume. Japan has long been a country noted for the excellence of its various manufactured goods and technology and frankly this series shows that they have taken an equal level of excellence into the anime arena. But a show with fantastic animation is not much if it doesn’t have the other ingredients just right, like a bowl of ramen whose soup is delicious but the noodles just aren’t up to scratch. Fortunately in the areas of story and mood the quality is up to the same level as that of the animation.
Its interesting to note that where Hell Girl has her abode in the infernal realms is not quite what anyone would expect for a region in the fiery pits, in fact their isn’t even a single flame or pit to be found. Ai resides on what seems to be a lakeshore region in a traditional style Japanese home surrounded by marshland that is filled with all manner of vegetation and wildlife. A spider with three eyes emblazoned on its torso weaves webs in nearby trees or amidst the eaves of Ai’s home, it seems to be eternally twilight in this particular realm no doubt indicating the time that could be regarded as the literal border between the realms of light and dark, life and death, salvation and eternal damnation. She shares her home with her grandmother who is never seen other than as a silhouette working at a spinning wheel, in the main room of the house rests the computer on which the various messages are registered, a machine that looks strangely like an old Apple Mac, frightening stuff.
There is a certain sorrowfulness and mystery to the whole character of Hell Girl, something that will no doubt be developed in future episodes. Watching the opening credits I had the funny sensation that she was someone, a young girl naturally, who had either undergone some tragic affair of the heart and committed suicide via drowning or had been the victim of a fatal drowning. Throughout the whole five episodes on this volume there is no real deeply felt emotion from Ai other than a sense of melancholia and hidden sorrow, even when she is meting out the various punishments she has been called to deliver onto the wrongdoers who have caught her attention. This is definitely a spooky and masterly crafted show, well worth taking the time out to watch.
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