Jigoku Shoujo – 50

Short Synopsis: The case with the devil’s child really gets out of hand now, when people find out that putting the blame on the devil’s child is actually easy. Good: Hajime and Tsugumi are back. Well, at least Tsugumi. Bad: No major twists in this episode. Overall Enjoyment Value: 7.5/10 This episode was definitely meant to show one of the main themes of Jigoku Shoujo even more: the fact that humans will commit sins when they’re easy and easy to cover up. Before, the thing that prevented people from sending a person to hell wasn’t because of the thought they’d go to hell themselves, but “what will everyone else think of me”. “Hell” is a nice concept, but people nowadays just don’t know how cruel hell can really be, so they pay no attention to that part. Now that the devil’s child has been an excellent person to put the blame on, people suddenly start cursing and cursing each other. I’m also glad to see that Tsugumi has returned. She didn’t do much yet, but this episode mainly was meant to build up for the finale. Hajime also returns, but only in third person. We never really actually see him. Still, I’m glad they’re back. The only interesting parts in the episode were the ones that involved the Hotaru and Takuma. Sure, seeing random people send each other to hell is nice and all, but you can’t really connect to their characters, can you? This episode also confirmed something I suspected ever since I saw the very first candle-scene, in the first episode of the first season. Ai doesn’t have to work forever, once she reaches a certain amount of clients, she’ll have accomplished her task. This isn’t mentioned directly, but Wanyuudo’s statement can’t mean anything else. I’m still not sure how Kikuri is going to get herself even more hated by showing the candles to Hotaru, but I’m sure we’ll find out about that next week. Remember, she has still to find out that her brother’s in the hospital (at least, I assume he survived the beating at the end of the episode).]]>