Jigoku Shoujo – 63

Short Synopsis: A young teen kills people based on what he read in a novel.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Haha! Best episode of the third season yet! It’s episodes like this one that remind me why I originally fell in love with this series. Sure, the normal episodes are entertaining, but the real gem of this series is the collection of stories in which the creators really start playing with the concept. This episode also wasn’t awesome in the overblown way that we’ve come to get used to from this series: everything was wonderfully written, and you could see why the people wanted to send others to hell.

I must say that it was quite creative of the creators to come up with a topic that has been such a recent news item kids who commit murders because they’re inspired by their favourite anime, novel or movie. It’s been a subject debated heavily, and I really liked the different sides to the problem that this episode showed: to the overblown image that the mass media provides, to the feelings of the original author, to see people influenced by his works in that way, to the victim’s relatives, who go and blame the original author. It all fits so well, and I loved how the three main characters of this series came to the conclusion of sending the involved people to hell. It was basically their way to make peace with the whole affair.

On a different note: I’m beginning to get curious about the second half of this season. It’s subtle, but the overall mood and direction did change in the past two season: in the second half of the first season, Hajime and Tsugumi really became main characters, and the cases became more extreme. In the second half of the second season instead, the cases became less extreme, and instead that half focused on fleshing out the different important characters. I really wonder what the direction of the second half of the third season is going to be, with such an extreme first half. Are things going to be even more extreme? Will Tsugumi come back? Will Yuzuki actually get to DO SOMETHING?