Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori, the second season of Jigoku Shoujo, which features a website. If you access it at midnight, you can enter the name of someone you want to send to hell. The only price: you’ll get sent to hell after you die yourself. For the second season, Hajime and Tsugumi have buggered off, while the series continues with its usual formula, though with a very different focus.
The second season has two major focuses. The first is Ai’s dolls, Ichimoku Ren, Hone Onna and Wanyuudo. In the first half, they start to get personally involved in some of the cases, while the episodes that follow reveal their background, and how they actually met Ai in the first place. The second focus is people, getting more and more lenient to send someone to hell. At the start of the season, I actually expected the cases in the second season to be even more extreme than the first season, but I was quite surprised when the opposite happened. Quite an amount of cases are way lighter than most of the latter half of the first season.
The cases in the second season were definitely more character-based. While the first season tried to create cases as extreme as possible, or to illustrate Hajime’s and Tsugumi’s differences of opinion, the second season tried to delve a bit more into the main characters of the different cases. In about 50% of these episodes, this didn’t work, but the other 50% were amazing. There are some beautiful stories among them, all accompanied by some of the most amazing plot twists.
There actually isn’t a main storyline like Hajime and Tsugumi, until very late in the anime. Still, even though this storyline has been getting less development than you would expect, nearly each of the final episodes is a beauty, giving the second season a definite better ending than the first season had.
If you got through the first season, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t check out the second season. Heck, it’s probably even possible to continue with the second season, without having finished the first one, all you miss is a bit of development. Still, I have to say that even though the second season has been excellent, the repetition did kick in at some moments. The usual formula did get annoying at some of the worse episodes, though that didn’t stop the good ones for really working out.
The graphics were of the same high quality as the first season, but a definite improvement has been made in the music-department. The first season already featured great music, but the second season takes another step further, and delivers a truly memorable soundtrack, with some amazingly catchy tunes. Overall, though, I had more enjoyment out of the first season, but that’s only because of the repetition. The final episodes definitely make for an interesting watch, and, unlike the first season, there’s actually a lot to discuss about with others.]]>
Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori Review – 88/100
I just ended watching this show. I really liked it far less than the previous season. The ending is forced and weird twisted.
Why the hell had Hotaru to curse Takuma? Wasn’t that obvious that his brother disappearence was all the villains fault? Of course it’s all a twisted plot to tie Ai, Hotaru and Takuma in a situation similar to Ai’s sacrifice 400 years before. Infact, when Ai was (unwillingly) betrayed by his beloved Shibata, now Hotaru (weirdly) curses Takuma for no true reason at all. She even didn’t hate him. Or not? How could be Hotaru able to access Hell Site? After that, Ai empathized with the boy and stops the boat, then saves him again from death ending being sacrificed in the place of the boy. After all it was Ai’s destiny from the very start to be the scapegoat of the crowd’s greed. But this last time she seemed to have accepted her fate and finally dies peacefully. Poor little girl.
Takuma’s curse, Ai’s redemption, Hotaru’s useless death, this is a bit to forcefully bond together and it’s not well made in the first place, thus i admit that i couldn’t figure out how the authors could do it differently from the way they did it.
And at the very end the awful clichee of the worts american horror B movies style: a cell phone message that turns red with hell’ girls grant of a new revenge. Wasn’t it over? Oh well, let’s wait for Hell Girl 3! Bad, really bad…
But one last question for you mr blogger: I read all of yur sinopsys and there’s the wish to see again the Hell Boy everywhere. Why did yo like theat char so bad? That episode wasn’t one of the best and that was clearly a character to forget. The boy with supernatural powers who chellenges Hell Girl was just out of the normal line of the show, that features ordinary stories of hate and pain. Good it didn’t show up anymore, IMHO.
Hmm, an attempt to answer your questions a bit:
“Why the hell had Hotaru to curse Takuma? Wasn’t that obvious that his brother disappearence was all the villains fault?”
She probably didn’t know the names of these villagers. She did know Takumi’s name, and due to the shock that she recieved, she clearly wasn’t able to think properly. All she wanted was for the miseries to end, and this made her think that getting rid of Takuma was the best way for this.
“How could be Hotaru able to access Hell Site?”
I think the amount of hate you have doesn’t really matter, I think that the previous episodes show that if you take hell hotline seriously enough, Ai will appear. Otherwise, the guy who sent his wife to hell in episode 44 would never have been able to access the site, as I don’t really think he hated his wife.
“Hotaru’s useless death”
She never died, she just ended up in coma after she tried to commit suicide.
“And at the very end the awful clichee of the worts american horror B movies style”
Personally, I liked this, but that’s just a matter of taste. I’m curious to see who has taken up the role of Jigoku Shoujo, now that Ai’s dead and the dolls have split up.
“Why did yo like theat char so bad? That episode wasn’t one of the best and that was clearly a character to forget.”
Well, he did provide a nice challenge to Ai, and episode twenty was in my opinion one of the most unique episodes in the series. Hell boy would really be able to add something worthwhile, in my opinion.
Thank you for your answers Psgels and congratulations for this nice blog. I discovered it by “googling” in search of … ehm … .> … well… Akazukin reviews. I couldn’t find much about it, when suddenly i ran into your blog.
I read here and there your comments about this or that anime (trying to jump the many spoilers)and agreed with many of your comments. I also watched Simoun based on your reviews. It was a nice show. Thank you.
Of course there are many other questions about Jigoku Shoujo or Simoun that i would like to discuss, but this “comment page” in your blog permits limited exchange of opinions.
If i’m not too unpolite, may i ask if is there any other forum/irc chan where we can talk freely about anime?
Sure, I’m glad that my blog is being appreciated. I usually hang around the #animeblogger channel, in irc.irchighway.com (just give me an irc-pm if you want to talk to me. Unless I’m afk, I will respond), but I’m more often online with my msn-account: psgels(at)yahoo.com.
This serie really present great interest. I found it was as worth to be seen as the first season. The first doesn’t explain everything.It was a sad moment seeing Ai dying. It was her destiny from the beginning to sacrifice herself for all the crowd. But it does sound like a horror movie but one of the best. I don’t know what is my favorite but I think it’s the 16th. I liked Hone Onna’s compassion towards the main character. Moreover, Hone Onna is my favorite character IN THIS SERIE.
This is definitely a good series to watch. But it hooked me more in the ending part because some of the episodes had stupid request for sending people to hell, which was unlike in the first season where most of the cases had valid or fairly valid reasons of wanting to send someone to hell. In the second season however, most cases were just plain ridiculous and idiotic. However the case may be, the last few episodes (probably the last five) of the second season made a different impression on me! I was thinking of dropping this season but when I continued on watching the last few episodes I was soo thankful that I didn’t! Although these last few episodes made me held back a lot of tears…It also made me hat Kikuri which I never thought I would..I just found her majorly creepy and not to mention annoying. But on the last 2 episode I seriously started to hate her. I also liked the 2nd season better because I fell in love with Takuma right away! I felt soo sorry for what happened to him… I mean I felt sorry for Tsugime (?) and Hajime-chan in the first season but at least they were together right? Takuma was all alone… Not to mention everyone was against him and was ready to assasinate him at any second he steped out of his own house. I really wasnt satisfied of the ending though, I mean I liked it but I liked it now sooo much that I wished there was a continuation the series which I dont think is possible anymore since our main character the jigoku shojo Ai Enma is now gone. Although there is now another jigoku shojo chances are that it isn’t Ai anymore seeing as she was willing to sacrifice her soul and her family’s for Takuma’s sake. So this basically leaves us with the result of either having another new Jigoku Shojo or it could now be Kikuri being the new Hell Girl..But if the animator doesnt get tired and decides on making another season then it may be a possible chance of seeing our Ai Enma back but what are the chances of that happening???
But if there is another season though, I don’t think that either Kikuri or Ai would be the Hell Girl seeing as that Enma Ai is now gone back to hell with her family because she disobeyed her master and didnt complete her contract and Kikuri is apparenly the master demon right? Why would she help out or do her own deeds? So most likely she will find another person to do it for her. And who would be the other person?? Well its obvously going to be Tsugumi Shibata from the first season! I mean she still has contact with the hell girl and not to mention she still is able to see what Enma sees and the biggest reason would be that she still is a relative of ENMA AI…so I thknk she could probably be the next Jigoku shojou! Then again I am just wishing for a next season!! XD
~Akiha
wrere kikuri come from?
i just want to say,the hell girl is that realy exist?T.T