Category: Finished Series: Mystery/Suspense

This time, the case involved a girl and her father who were old friends of Hajime and Tsugumi. But that’s not the thing this episode centers about. This episode really is about the growing conflict between Hajime, who wants to stop all the revenges, and Tsugumi, who believes that the revenges are good. It’s really, really tough to choose a side on this conflict. Therefore I just decided to support both sides.

Anyway, in the ending, Hajime finally manages to talk the victim out of revenge, with the horrible results following. This really tries to let the viewer believe that the revenge was actually good and it also adds up to the wonderful drama going on. I really liked this episode. It couldn’t have been executed in a better way. Not to mention that the little doses of humour added worked perfectly this time around.

This is the perfect example of an episode which started horribly, and ended magnificently. In the beginning, we see some kind of actor who claims to be paranormally gifted being humiliated in front of television by a guy who calls himself “The boy who returned from hell”. I have problems with both of these persons. The actor just doesn’t fit this show. I have no idea why the creators found it a good idea to make him act like a little boy, but it just doesn’t work in a show like this. The boy who returned from hell (I’ll call him hell boy for now) is even worse. First of all, his outfit totally sucks. It looks like he’s some kind of Dracula Wannabe or something. Secondly, he behaves like a total idiot, acting all high and mighty, while every baboon can see that he’s nothing. Tsugumi and Hayate also didn’t play such good roles as they did in previous episodes.

Anyway, hell boy plans to challenge Ai for a fight, so he uses the actor to summon her in order to extract revenge upon him. It works, Ai appears, and then the awesomeness starts. First of all, we get to see a bit of her background! I really can’t believe it. Okay, it is not much, just a clear sky, but still. I’ve been dying to see that scene. Then hell boy tries to beat her using his hell-powers. It seems to work, but Ai so TOTALLY pwns him afterwards, it was so great to see this idiot get what he deserves after messing with her. The thing she said about not caring about herself was just AWESOME. Finally, we get to see Ai pwning hell boy even more, by straightly sending him into hell, where he literally belongs. As a dessert, we get treated on even more background and awesomeness of Ai. There surely was something that happened to her in the past. And I want to know it!!

Aah, it had to come some time. The infamous mother-in-law-case. This mother-in-law is a famous doll maker. The only problem is that she’s totally obsessed with her work. For that end, she lets her son marry a beautiful girl, who reminds her a lot of her dolls. The result is, that she forces this girl to be a doll. She doesn’t let her do anything. When the girl breaks the rules, she treats her horribly (she’s pretty strong for an old lady). A call to Hell-Hotline becomes inevitable with this.

Anyway, Tsugumi feels Ai again, Hajime takes her to the place of the scene and they both try to convince her not to pull the string. As usual, they don’t succeed, and Hell’s population has increased by one again. The aftermath, however, was extremely enjoyable.

Again, we see the standard Jigoku Shoujo-story. This wasn’t meant as a special episode, so it quite followed the formulae that had been set by the previous episode. The special thing about this story was the antagonist. This… eh… “woman” really made a hell out of her victim’s life, using dogs as hostage. Although this was nothing compared to episode 15 and 16, it still was greatly executed.

This also was the first time in which the antagonist actually gets arrested and everyone knows in the end what she had done. Normally, the truth would just be kept between a couple of individuals.

Oh, and Tsugumi still manages to be too cute. ^_^

Haunted House stories á lá Jigoku Shoujo. Can it get any better? I don’t think so.

This episode was definately different than all other episodes combined. This time, it focuses on the first supernatural being in the show, other than Ai and her company. The story was brilliantly excecuted. The spirit I talked about houses in an old hospital, and managed to catch Hajime and Tsugumi in her web.

This was also the first time that revenge was being asked against an already dead person. It’s nice to see that sometimes, even spirits make use of each other’s powers like that. Or at least, try to make use of each other’s powers like that, as Ai wasn’t really intending to grant the girl’s wishes.

Then we finally get to see a couple of things the show’s been hinting at for a while comfirmed. Even though her dolls see H&T as bothersome, Ai herself doesn’t, for some reason, and she even protects them. We also see that she can do more than just carry out revenges, as she demonstrated quite nicely at the end of the episode. The epilogue of the episode also was just great. I like this girl’s story, and this also is the first episode in which nobody got carried to hell.

Oh golly… These episodes just get better and better by the minute. Almost literally. While the previous episode revolved around chaos and comedy, this episode did around mystery. It was SO awesome! We first see this girl, full of scars, sitting inside some container and talking to Ai. Even that alone is just too sad to see, and it only gets better afterwards.

Tsugumi informs Hajime, he drives to the circus in which the girl is supposed to be, the dolls look agitated again, and they try to get rid of them. In Tsugumi’s case, the result turns out quite hilarious. In Hajime’s case, the results turned out to be quite interesting. He moves to the victim, and decides to confront her directly with it. Then he notices that she doesn’t know anything about Jigoku Shoujo, so he gives up, goes back to Tsugumi and both of them so they decide to eat something.

Then the really good stuff begins. T&H realize that they’re dealing with twins here. One is really successful, the other gets beaten with a whip by the circus director. When they arrive at the scarred girl’s place, we get so see something really interesting. Hajime goes to the circus director, hoping to be in time before the Jigoku-Squad arrives at his place, and miraculously, he actually manages this. Then we get to see another awesome plot twist, which made me feel even more sorry for both this girl and also for Tsugumi, for some reason. The aftermath was just great to see. It’s a good ending, but it does gnaw on you.

Whoa… This episode was totally different from the other Jigoku Shoujo episodes. I so LOVED it. If it had been perfectly executed, it could have been the best episode ever.

Okay, we still have the same pacing as most episodes do (vision, search, persuade, hell, blah), but there were just SO many little details that were unique, it almost scared me. For starters, the episode ran way more chaotic than it ever had. We also see that the creators finally managed to include some comedy in the series, with hilarious results. Tsugumi and Hajime’s search for Jigoku Shoujo also ended up a bit different than this, and Tsugumi’s drawings were just awesome, and even more awesomely used. The way the dolls tried to interfere with them was also great to see. Especially seeing them fail in this.

The case in this episode also was just NUTS. As an antagonist, we have the scariest woman ever. She lives together with her niece. Add those two up, and you get to the Hell-Hotline. I won’t say what kinds of things happened with this crazy woman, but believe me, she was awesomely scary to see. The niece also perfectly played her role, and the ending was just amazing!

If these two things were split into two distinctive episodes, so one with the chaos, the other one with the crazy woman, it would have made for the best episodes EVER! I just feel that both these elements were too awesome for each other, causing the overall picture to be a bit confusing. That, however, doesn’t mean that I didn’t love this episode!!

This time, we had a very unique Jigoku shoujo episode, as we look at a case from fifty years ago. The reporter (note to self: remember his name) is directed to a book store through Tsugumi’s visions. She sees Ai enter a certain bookstore and look at a certain book. The reporter then wakes her up from her trance, and realizes what her spacing-out meant. As the store contained a few adult-books, it was hard for him to get the information out of Tsugumi, finally resulting in a very amusing scene. Each time Tsugumi gets some screentime, I start to find her more and more awesome. It was also a good thing that she only appeared in the first couple of minutes of the show. It gives a nice feeling of mystery to her.

The rest of the episode features the reporter trying to look for this bookstore. He finally manages to find it, thanks to a very noticable bookstore-keeper and his parakeet. This gives us some insights about the world Jigoku Shoujo plays in. First of all, it appears that Jigoko Shoujo only targets one certain city. After all, otherwise it would have been impossible for the reporter to find this bookstores. We also learn that parakeets can talk in this world. Okay, it isn’t really relevant to the story, but it makes for some funny scenes.

Then it appears that the book that Ai was looking at was describing a Jigoku-Shoujo-case from fifty years ago. The reporter sets out to investigate, and finally manages to find the victim. As everything happened fifty years ago, he should’ve been about 75 at that time, waiting for his death. The case itself was nothing special, but I was so glad to finally see how a victim of Jigoku Shoujo lived his life afterwards. I just loved the Mushishi influences put in it.

The ending left some nice questions behind, even though most of it was totally predictable. Still, I really liked this episode. Finally we see the reporter get involved in a case which is not based on pure-coincidence. Instead, he has to do some actual research in order to get what he wants.

I’m wondering, though. Why was Ai looking at that book? Nostalgia?