Hell Girl and Human Nature

[venka21]

Hey. Here's an essay I did for a project I'm working on called Anime Confessions

Hell Girl and Human Nature

By Venka Le Fay
Age 26
Pleasant Hill, Ca.

Jugoku Shoujo or Hell Girl, as it is more commonly called, is an anime that centers around an enigmatic girl named Ai Enma. Almost every episode has someone who has been "victimized" by someone else. The victim feels a desire for vengeance against the person who wronged them. When they desire vengeance they are able to access a website only appearing at the stroke of midnight and summon Ai Enma to their aid.
Ai responds by handing one of her three assistants in the form of a straw totem doll over to the victimized person. She tells them if they desire revenge they must pull the scarlet cord from around the dolls neck. But, she also warns them that doing so was to dig two graves, one for their tormenter, and one for themselves for when they pass on naturally.
Some of the people who are victimized are even given visions of what sort of existence they will have when they too pass on. In several of the episodes, the victimized person tries to get justice in an alternative means such as approaching the instigator and begging them to admit to their crimes. Or, they may try to find ways where justice could be served without the need to go to Hell. Ultimately they end up pulling the cord and send the victimizer to Hell, while the rest of their existence becomes nothing more then a lit candle.

Each vignette of the first seven episodes seems to follow this repetitious pattern. However from episode eight up until the end of the first season the third party characters of Hajime Shibata and his daughter Tsugumi appear. Hajime tries to track down the victim and convince the victim that seeking vengeance will only cause more suffering. Unfortunately in the end most of victims ultimately chooses an eternity of suffering, over acknowledging there are some things that life that aren't always how we would like them to be.

After viewing all six volumes of the first season, I have noticed the patterns of evil depicted in each of the people instigating the problem. Episodes one-six the instigators were largely egotistical. These people all were too full of themselves to acknowledge what they were doing as wrong. Making the viewer feel they truly deserve to be taken to Hell.
One example can be found Episode 3: The Tarnished Mound. Mamoru Hanagasa, a Star Pitcher of a high school baseball team hits a class mate Kinichi Muroi with a baseball bat. He then tells Muroi's friend Daisuki Iwashita to take Muroi home and to say that they had been rough housing. Three days later Muroi dies of his injuries and Iwashita is blamed for murder. Iwashita tries to get Hanagasa to admit to his crimes. Hanagasa admits the death wasn't intentional but refuses to come forward and say he was the one responsible. Even when he is being confronted by the Hell Girl's assistants, Hanagasa refuses to admit to his faults. Instead he claims he has a gift that only comes once a decade and that Muroi and Iwashita should be honored to sacrifice themselves for his talents.

Episodes Seven-nine the aggressors weren't bad enough to really deserve going to hell. But they weren't good people either. It seemed more that the use of Hell-Correspondence was nothing more then an easy means to an end.
An example of this is in Episode 7: The Cracked Mask. Legendary Actress, Midori Kurenai adopts a girl named Ayaka and trains her to be her successor after seeing what potential Ayaka had as an actress. Ayaka however doesn't care much about acting. She tries sending Kurenai to Hell, but didn't want to be sent to Hell in retribution. So she attempts to gain Kurenai's favor by staging a robbery attempt so that Kurenai would give her the co-star role of her acting troop's last production in gratitude. However Kurenai sees through this and has another actress named Kaoruko Kurushima playing the co-star role. Angered by this Ayaka pretends to befriend Kaoruko, but then has two thugs pour a liquid down Kaoruko's throat, ruining her voice. Kurenai again isn't fooled and tells Ayaka she knows she was responsible. Ayaka tries to send Kurenai to Hell like she had planned before. But Ayaka is sent to hell instead because of what she did to Kaoruko.

Episode 10-14 the aggressors were in the wrong as well, however the person who was the victim was just as bad as the aggressor. In these instances Hell-Correspondence was used more in a matter of poor judgment.
For example Episode 10: Friends. Minami Shibuya becomes upset when her best friend Shiori Akasaka starts making friends with two other girls. Shiori is driven even further from Minami when her new friend's convince her that Minami was like a stalker on account she would text message her every half hour or so. Minami decides to send Shiori to hell and even plans to do it in front of her. Shiori finds the Hell Girl doll that Minami had and nails it to a tree hoping that would curse Shiori. However the next day Shiori was going to team up for a field trip with her new friends only to find they have chosen someone else. Realizing her mistake Shiori contacts Minami and the two become friends again. Unfortunately Shiori is sent to Hell when she forces Minami to pull the scarlet thread hoping to curse the girls who had betrayed her.

Episodes 15-18 are almost like a combination of the three evil aspects of the previous 3 volumes. The aggressors are egotistical, but they're not bad enough to deserve to be sent to Hell. There reason behind their evil is generally from incorrigible behavior brought on by paranoia and possible mental disorders. The end result of sending these people to hell is a bitter victory for the victim.
A huge example of this is episode 18:Bound girl. A girl named Miki is enslaved by a reclusive and miserly woman after Miki's welsh corgis, Yuki and Pinky bite the woman on the leg. The woman tells Miki that if she tells anyone about what is really going on she would kill the dogs. However when Miki's teacher, and even Hajime Shibata come to the woman's house to ask about Miki. The woman kills the dogs, despite Miki insisting that she has kept her promise. Turns out the Woman had killed her own parents to gain her inheritance. She also killed her own child to keep it from inheriting her fortune. So she was paranoid that everyone who came to her house was there to steal her money. Miki sends the woman to hell for killing her dogs and the puppy's one of her dogs had in captivity. But the ending result is bitter for her because she didn't pull the string before all the dogs were dead.

Volume five the characters are a combination of the previous volumes. But the victims end up in a Hell of their own making.
Episode 19: Bride Doll has a good example of this sort of thing. Inori is an orphaned girl who was picked by a wealthy doll maker to be her son's bride. Unfortunately Inori is not permitted to do anything for her new family except sit up straight and act like one of her mother-in-laws dolls. Inori doesn't like this because she feels trapped, and even tries to return to the orphanage. However she remembers her mother-in-law is the main benefactor towards the orphanage and that it would be shut down if she rejects her new family. In fear and desperation she sends her mother-in-law to Hell. Unfortunately for Inori, Inori's husband was just like his mother.

In the final volume we see how fear, desire, and anger can lead to one digging a grave for two. We learn much about who Ai really is and why she is the one who ferries the people to hell. But we also learn how Hajime and his daughter are distantly related to Ai.
Episode 26:The Ephemeral has a good example of this. Ai is being ferried to Hell for attempting to kill Hajime Shibata and his daughter Tsugumi for being related to Sentaro Shibata. Sentaro had once been Ai's cousin and best friend, unfortunately he had been pressured into betraying her four centuries ago. Sensing her vengeance wasn't yet complete Ai appears to Tsugumi and tells her that her father was responsible for her mother's death. Ai continually encourages Tsugumi to send her father to Hell. Tsugumi refuses and tries to tell herself that what Ai says was not true. Especially since she knows what will happen to her when she does send her father to Hell. Hajime arrives to stop Tsugumi from pulling the scarlet cord. Ai tortures Hajime by showing him the moment his ex-wife had died. Seeing this Hajime breaks down and says everything was his fault and that he deserved to be sent to Hell. Tsugumi tells him that even though she gets mad about some of the things he does, she could never hate her father that much.


As Human's we are creatures with many flaws. Unlike animals we tend to rely on our thoughts and emotions rather then our instincts. The desire for vengeance itself may be a part of human nature. But everything as Ai Enma often states must come with a price. Everything we do affects everyone else to a degree.


Even though vengeance and evil are part of human nature. Humans are not born evil, nor do they truly desire to be evil. But we still choose to do evil things. We do not always commit acts of evil by choice, but by choosing to be something we are choosing whatever comes with it. For example the Nazi's during World War 2. Not everyone who was part of the Nazi regime liked what they were doing to the Jewish people. Still many committed acts murder upon hundreds of people under the excuse that they had no choice in the matter. However here in lies the eternal conundrum. Does not the fact that these people choose to be part of the Nazi regime, mean they choose to be murderers?

Imagine if you will you have a friend you have known your whole life, and this friend is important to you. However one day you see your friend tormenting this one person just because they are different, and what's worse is your friend is encouraging you to torment this person as well. You never felt right about this, but you fear you will lose your friendship with this person if you stand up for the victim.
We've all had situations like this, where we see someone getting hurt and we feel powerless to stop it. Or if we can stop it, we don't feel it is our place to stop it. Other times we fear what will happen to us, if we do try to stop what is going on.

What frustrates me the most about the Hell Girl series wasn't so much the abuse and torment that was taking place. But rather how everyone was blissfully unaware of everything that was going on with the victim. I know different cultures have different ways of dealing with such matters, and to think everyone should side with the victim is a rather ignorant mind set.

As much as I do love the drama and story that the Hell Girl anime presents, I am actually grateful that all it is an anime and manga series. The situations the story does feature however are all too real. If Hell Girl truly did exist the cycle of vengeance will be ceaseless. Anyone who has anger or some sort of strong emotion against them would be sent to Hell, and those who weren't sent would be going to Hell themselves in time.

Ai Enma though a fictional character does exist in parts of human nature. Do we pull the scarlet thread or don't we. To we condemn our tormentor to suffer or do we choose to forgive. This is a choice only we can make. Until we decide Ai Enma can only observe until the scarlet thread has been untied.

[MikoChika]

A good essay. I liked it.
There were a few sentence structure problems, however they were over shadowed with the interesting topic that is Ai Enma. XD!
I'm a fan of the anime and manga, and ( in general) find asian horror hilarious.
Thanks for shareing the essay!

[Jun-Watarase]

Just curious, but what in god's name is this for? Your writing style is a monotonous and uninteresting to read, and a lot of sentence patterns seem to be recycled through the entire essay. It would've been nice if you had a more consistent theme pertaining the series... well, you seemed to at least try to, but it turned out to be written quite plainly. Also, it would've been nice if you had ordered things a little better, because as is, it just felt like you were going off a tangent and trying to recall things that you remember from the series rather than actually having any planned outline.

But while you did try to address the theme of the series, you didn't explain or emphasize any of the main points of what the series tries to portray. The whole point is an observation of the mentality people in society carry, how they refuse to confront their own issues and make irrational choices like cursing the people supposedly causing all their problems and themselves instead, how others refuse to help or intervene for their own sake, how people feel that they have to in order to survive in society and why. But really, did you need to write a paragraph for each specific episodes to write a review of the series? It just felt like useless bulk that I didn't want to put myself through-- it would've been better for you to make short references instead, use relevant examples, make the content more interesting to read. I feel like I'm eating plain spaghetti.

All I see here are just descriptions of what happens in the series, along with generic pseudo-intellectual explanations with human nature, using works like fear, desire, vengeance, evil, etc, i.e. stating the obvious. You didn't tie any of these together, either, you just sort of slapped all this together without it really being directly relevant. It's horribly written, uninteresting... there was no hook. You needed to make a clearer note of how it IS realistic, and how things like this do happen, without any supernatural interference.

But what is your demographic? If you're writing this for a demographic that isn't familiar with anime, you need to be mindful of that. Your description for the procedure was also really hard to follow if I've never seen the series. You barely explained what role Enma Ai played and what exactly she's doing. Also, hell is spelled "Jigoku" in Japanese.

[PyronIkari]

What was the point of this essay? Seriously. Besides you missing a huge point of the show(The criticism of Japan's culture and how it reacts to people/issues), the entire essay doesn't project anything. It's like a giant summary of the show, with a few comments about what you thought of each episode. Not even in depth things, but just general OBVIOUS comments. Then you finish it off with a bunch of paragraphs that don't even relate, realistically, and are also HORRIBLY written.

Even though vengeance and evil are part of human nature. Humans are not born evil, nor do they truly desire to be evil. But we still choose to do evil things. We do not always commit acts of evil by choice, but by choosing to be something we are choosing whatever comes with it. For example the Nazi's during World War 2. Not everyone who was part of the Nazi regime liked what they were doing to the Jewish people. Still many committed acts murder upon hundreds of people under the excuse that they had no choice in the matter. However here in lies the eternal conundrum. Does not the fact that these people choose to be part of the Nazi regime, mean they choose to be murderers?

You obviously know little of what happened in WW2. The Nazi regime was more than just a band of people that went around and killed Jews. Many of the Nazis were originally just soldiers in the German army. The Nazis could be considered, in a lot of ways, simply the German army headed by their leader. Hitler didn't start off and just convince a bunch of people "HEY WE SHOULD KILL JEWS". He was a leader that took over Germany in its entirety, and nearly took over the world. Hell he could have succeeded if he didn't want to show off the power of his air force and just sent ground troops to deal with the events of D-Day.

Many of the "Nazi regime" didn't agree with the murdering of Jews... but they did support their country thus followed orders like a soldier.

QUESTION... Do all the troops in Iraq right now agree with it? They are killing people to you know.

Are they murderers in your eyes? They may not choose to be there, they may not choose to want to kill people, but they are doing so... so they are choosing to be murderers?

What frustrates me the most about the Hell Girl series wasn't so much the abuse and torment that was taking place. But rather how everyone was blissfully unaware of everything that was going on with the victim. I know different cultures have different ways of dealing with such matters, and to think everyone should side with the victim is a rather ignorant mind set.

This is so ignorant it itself. Let's take a simple example. Desert chef one. The guy was an asshole, he totally sabotaged the chick... right?

HEY... GUESS WHAT... welcome to the business world. This kind of thing happens nearly every day, and I do not exaggerate at all when I say "happens nearly every day". Businesses try to out do each other. Businesses try to upstage each other, steal ideas, sabotage, and everything they possibly can to win in business. It's not that people are blissfully aware, but people realize that, this is how things work. People do things to get ahead, and it's a very sensitive line. Also... which I stated earlier...

YOU'RE MISSING A HUGE PART OF THE STORY.

Really, I said this in many reviews and conversations about Jigoku(you spelled it wrong btw) Shoujo. This series will really, go over the head of everyone that doesn't really know JP culture. Japan's culture is extremely passive with aggression. There's a reason there's so many suicides. There's things you don't do in this culture, and one of them is make yourself into a target. By speaking your opinion, you are making yourself a target. If your boss treats you like shit, you don't talk back. If you do, you're digging yourself a grave. You leave there, your boss knows people, he will spread the word about how you talked back, and you don't get hired other places. You accept things no matter how bad they are.

Does it make sense realistically? Is it fair? No, but this is how Japan's culture works.

This is why Jigoku Shoujo works. Because it is catered towards the JP culture. People cause you problems, people are bothering you, making your life a hell... instead of confronting it, you sacrifice yourself and kill them in the process. Yeah, in their minds, it makes perfect sense. Unspoken rules.

As much as I do love the drama and story that the Hell Girl anime presents, I am actually grateful that all it is an anime and manga series. The situations the story does feature however are all too real. If Hell Girl truly did exist the cycle of vengeance will be ceaseless. Anyone who has anger or some sort of strong emotion against them would be sent to Hell, and those who weren't sent would be going to Hell themselves in time.

No it wouldn't. In a good amount of the world, people see things differently and wouldn't do things like this. Most normal people would never accept said conditions. In the states, the only idiots that would are the introverted losers with no spine(LOLOLOL ANIME FANS). In Japan, that's the good majority of the country.

But I'll ask a simple question. How many of you would have the balls to send me to hell. Seriously. You guys are all talk. Most of you hate me, but none of you really have the balls, or mentality to really do anything. You just fill up with rage and get pissy because it's easier to do so.

Which leads me to...

Ai Enma though a fictional character does exist in parts of human nature. Do we pull the scarlet thread or don't we. To we condemn our tormentor to suffer or do we choose to forgive. This is a choice only we can make. Until we decide Ai Enma can only observe until the scarlet thread has been untied.

It's not even about forgiving. It's not so simple. There's millions of other options. I don't know... try beating it. You don't need to forgive, but you can out do them. You can beat them. You can ignore it. You can try to change it. You can leave. You can do many things.

Other than you missing a huge amount of everything... it's written horribly. There's a ton of grammar mistakes, it's poorly structured, it's poorly written. There is nothing about this essay that has any strong points, and sounds like a horrible review over anything else.

[Steve.Young]

I didn't bother reading through a lot of it, I skimmed it for the most part.

Here's why.

LEARN WHAT A TOPIC SENTENCE IS.

I mean really what it is, not this bullshit about "It's what you are going to talk about".

NO, It answers one part of the overall question presented!


It helps keep you off tangents and gets straight to the point.

[venka21]

Thank you for the contructive critisim about my rough draft. I will look into the sudgestions you have given.

like a said this was an essay I had written for my Anime Confessions project. I had posted it here so as a way of seeing if it was suitable before posting it as part of the project.

to check out the project for yourself please go to www.freewebs.com/animeconfessions

You obviously know little of what happened in WW2. The Nazi regime was more than just a band of people that went around and killed Jews. Many of the Nazis were originally just soldiers in the German army. The Nazis could be considered, in a lot of ways, simply the German army headed by their leader. Hitler didn't start off and just convince a bunch of people "HEY WE SHOULD KILL JEWS". He was a leader that took over Germany in its entirety, and nearly took over the world. Hell he could have succeeded if he didn't want to show off the power of his air force and just sent ground troops to deal with the events of D-Day.

Many of the "Nazi regime" didn't agree with the murdering of Jews... but they did support their country thus followed orders like a soldier.

QUESTION... Do all the troops in Iraq right now agree with it? They are killing people to you know.

Are they murderers in your eyes? They may not choose to be there, they may not choose to want to kill people, but they are doing so... so they are choosing to be murderers?

I never claimed to be an expert on the Holocaust or WW2. I have however read books written by people who have survived that time. Such as Night by Elie Wiesel and the Big lie. I have also studied into the Woman's Holocaust as well.  The book that inspired me to start this essay was The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal. As it offers the question of what would you do if a person who is part of a group that has tormented you came before you and asked for forgivness.

As for current war, I doubt a large majority the troops there agree with the having to kill people. But we also can't condone what happened on September 11th. Unfortunatly the war against terrorism is ongoing and will never truely be over.

This is so ignorant it itself. Let's take a simple example. Desert chef one. The guy was an asshole, he totally sabotaged the chick... right?

I agree with you on this statement. But the motives the guy had for stealing Hiromi's recipe, humiliating Yuka and Hiromi, and causing them to go into bankruptcy was not entirely because they were competition. Hiromi had worked for the man as an apprentice before beginning her own shop. It was actually revealed he had been in love with or had sexual desires towards Hiromi which caused her to leave. He viewed her actions as a betrayal and took revenge.

This is why Jigoku Shoujo works. Because it is catered towards the JP culture. People cause you problems, people are bothering you, making your life a hell... instead of confronting it, you sacrifice yourself and kill them in the process. Yeah, in their minds, it makes perfect sense. Unspoken rules.

I was not righting this as a person who is familer with the Japanese culture. When I said the issues brought up are all to real. It was the speaking to the fact that events like hazing, robbery, unlawful imprisionment, abuse, embezzlement, and assult don't happen only in Japan. I work with children and have taken a training program in abuse prevention. I myself also have been the victim of school yard hazing during my school years and have been betrayed by people I had once known as friends. So I know the experience of being abandoned and emotionally backed into a corner.

As a Christian I have been taught to love my enemy and to turn the other cheek. And As a Wiccan I have been tought to respect the Karmic law of three. These statements are not be be confused with submitting to ones tormentor and letting them continue to hurt you. Instead they mean that one should not blaim their tomentor for the deeds they have done, by repeating the same action.

[Gatsby]

I'm not familiar with the series, but I will give my two cents about your writing. As stated by others already I found the writing style to be dry and repetitive. Be it a rough draft I can understand this isn't perfect, but this would be a great fixer. I'm not sure if you're going for this but you should have a clear thesis about what you believe this anime is trying to get across. If you're going to going for a thesis then read my next few sentences. Another aspect that I noted was missing, and this could just be my own view on how these types of essays should be written, is an analytical review and critique of the theme or message. Instead of just giving a long explanation of what the episode is about try to give a short summary and analyze the message it is trying to get across while pulling examples from the episodes in question. Pyron said it was a criticism about Japanese culture, so start with that.

In honesty I think this needs some work and rewriting, but definitely don't give up.

[PyronIkari]

I never claimed to be an expert on the Holocaust or WW2. I have however read books written by people who have survived that time. Such as Night by Elie Wiesel and the Big lie. I have also studied into the Woman's Holocaust as well.  The book that inspired me to start this essay was The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal. As it offers the question of what would you do if a person who is part of a group that has tormented you came before you and asked for forgivness.

Don't write about something and use examples that you don't know a damned thing about. Your paragraph CLEARLY DEPICTS that Nazis were nothing more than Jew murderers. That by being a Nazi they basically were nothing but murderers even if they didn't want to. Like I said, there was a lot more to Nazi'ism. Some of them didn't even do it by choice, they would have been killed for deserting the army if they left.

As for current war, I doubt a large majority the troops there agree with the having to kill people. But we also can't condone what happened on September 11th. Unfortunatly the war against terrorism is ongoing and will never truely be over.

Wow, this is ignorant... so so ignorant. You/I can easily argue how, going to Iraq and killing people in no way prevents or helps the events of 9/11. War against terrorism... hahahahahhaha what a joke. But this doesn't invalidate my point.

Armies being forced to do what they don't want.

I agree with you on this statement. But the motives the guy had for stealing Hiromi's recipe, humiliating Yuka and Hiromi, and causing them to go into bankruptcy was not entirely because they were competition. Hiromi had worked for the man as an apprentice before beginning her own shop. It was actually revealed he had been in love with or had sexual desires towards Hiromi which caused her to leave. He viewed her actions as a betrayal and took revenge.

Way to miss the point genius. People have motives for everything. What he did wasn't so out of line and isn't far from an every day occurrence at all. 

PSSSST This sounds like something Ryu would do... wwwwwwwwwwwwww.

I was not righting this as a person who is familer with the Japanese culture. When I said the issues brought up are all to real. It was the speaking to the fact that events like hazing, robbery, unlawful imprisionment, abuse, embezzlement, and assult don't happen only in Japan. I work with children and have taken a training program in abuse prevention. I myself also have been the victim of school yard hazing during my school years and have been betrayed by people I had once known as friends. So I know the experience of being abandoned and emotionally backed into a corner.

Yes, these things happen every where... but the major thing is that Jigoku Shoujo reflects JP Culture. It reflects how JP people would react, and deal with situations, which is something that most people cannot associate with. They cannot see the logic in going to hell, to kill someone because they do something stupid like "sabotaging a business" or a crooked vet. In the US, things like this are confronted. A crooked VET? The press is called, animal rights activists, PETA, etc. etc. etc. You wouldn't kill the guy, but you would certainly ruin him. Backed in a corner? Most of these people were not backed in the corner with what they could do.

As a Christian I have been taught to love my enemy and to turn the other cheek. And As a Wiccan I have been tought to respect the Karmic law of three. These statements are not be be confused with submitting to ones tormentor and letting them continue to hurt you. Instead they mean that one should not blaim their tomentor for the deeds they have done, by repeating the same action.

... I'm not gonna bother.

My point is, you really didn't get this series. You didn't grasp the point of it at all, and are only writing about the very surface of what was portrayed in it.

Your writing only reflects that.

Your essay sucks, not only because the writing sucks... but because YOU DID NOT UNDERSTAND THE SUBJECT.