Hell Girl Vol 2

[meganbmoore]

This is still just the manga. I haven’t watched any of the anime yet.

Even more than volume 1, volume 2 of Hell Girl focuses almost exclusively on the people who make contracts with Enma Ai, and not on Enma Ai and her servants, which is what I’d like to see. There are some interesting twists, though. A person who wants to get rid of both of her competitors tries to get them to enter each other’s names on Enma Ai’s website, only to get caught in her own trap. Another enters the wrong name, only to have someone else enter the right one before she can condemn herself, and another actually becomes a stronger person because of the contract. Just as I was about to get fed up with the fact that every contractor was a girl (though their motives are mostly different) a boy becomes a contractor. There’s also a new stage introduced into the contract, where the contractor has to pull a string off of a straw doll before the contract is complete, giving the contractor a chance to back out. I wish someone would back out, actually, and decide there’s a better alternative.

I’m enjoying the series, but I wish the regular cast wasn’t limited to just cameos, and that we could get a better idea of why they do what they do, how they get along, etc. Also, this may still just be my Judeo-Christian concept of Hell speaking, but I wish that the characters seemed to think more before they made the contracts. I can understand the ones who are trying to save someone they love, or responding to an attack on their life, or someone else they care about making the choice. However, the ones who do it because of bullying and/or someone tricking them tend to throw me out of their stories. The super-shoujo art still seems an odd match for the story content, but I think it helps emphasize the darker stories. 

Comments

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

I haven't read any of the manga for this series, but I did see the first four episodes of the anime. Doesn't it seem ridiculously similar to xxxHolic?

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Most of the xxxHolic similarities are mostly genre similarities...the whole "otherworldly shopkeeper/contract maker who takes care of those with evil flaws/makes lives better" thing is a decently popular one, and there's always a lot of similarities until they actually start focusing on the leads.

[mystickeeper.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I was not aware that this was a common narrative.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

off the top of my head, there's Petshop of Horrors, Antique Gift Shop, Tarot Cafe, and Nightmares for Sale. There are more, some I've read and some I haven't.

[valkyriesailor.livejournal.com]

Well, I only saw the anime, so I can't say much to the manga. But it's interesting to know this:
There’s also a new stage introduced into the contract, where the contractor has to pull a string off of a straw doll before the contract is complete, giving the contractor a chance to back out..
I don't think it's a spoiler to say, that in the anime it's like that from the start. And I do find it logical... and quite twisty. If you think about it: after the contractor takes the doll, it's unescapable to pull the string off... At last that's what I think after the stories in the anime.
I really enjoyed to watch the characters with different tragics, and the ways how they came to the conclusion that there is no other way than a contract with Enma Ai. ^^

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I have mixed feelings about how people come to decide to make the contract. On the one hand, I get the ones who are responding to a threat to someone they care about, or who are being mistreated by someone in a position with power and authority over them. Some, though, are just bullied in High School, and in one story, two girls both make a contract with the same person who tried to make them turn on each other, but both saw through it immediately. In those cases, I can't really make myself see the situation as being something willing to go to Hell over. But, again, likely Judeo-Christian based (and raised) perception of Hell, which isn't an exact match for the traditional Japanese version, clouding my judgement.

The doll is an interesting addition, especially in the story it's introduced in in the manga. There, it's actually a case of a contractor thinking the wrong person is behind the abuse, and then someone else making a contract for the right person. In that story, it almost came across as Enma Ai knew it was the wrong person, and was giving the contractor a chance to back out, so it actually threw me a bit when it showed up in every story after. (And this was immediately after the story where the eventual victim tried to trick the friends into taking out contracts on each other.) It definitely adds an interesting narrative twist, though, as you have a person reaching the decision, then being told to think about it, so there's no way it can be an impulse decision. (In one story, the victim actually forces the contractor to pull the string.)

[valkyriesailor.livejournal.com]

Hm... I don't remember a part where one wants to make two persons turn on each other~ or maybe I didn't like that part, and that's why~. But it made me remember an episode, where the doll gets into some newcomers hands and I found it quiant how they solved the story.
I feel like Enma Ai, and her servants are on the side of good, so they want to solve the problem of the contractor (if the person is good ^^"), they investigate the case of every person, and till the person pulls the string they even guard him/her in some way. Well, thinking about it, it's just like marketing. You don't want your customer to die till the contracter fulfilled his half of the bargain.
Then again, all is like a circle. The contractor sends his/her enermy to the Hell~ but with the contract fulfilled after the contractor dies, the person will get to Hell too. That's why I could only really understand one girls thinking in the anime. It was really so well made, and I thought at the end 'yeah, you had Hell in your life, now after your enermy died you can live in peace for a while'.
Some, though, are just bullied in High School...I can't really make myself see the situation as being something willing to go to Hell over.
In Japan being bullied can be a serious problem, I read somewhere once that the second most students commit suicide this being the reason (the first are not passing the entrance exam). So I think it depents on the personality, what you think is worth going to Hell for. One would think 'ah what a happy life, he is only bullied, but for that person that could be living Hell.

[vivacious-dan.livejournal.com]

I love Jigoku Shoujo :] I have the first volume of the anime, I have not read the manga. I hear the fifth volume of the anime gets into Enma Ai and her counterpart's back story, so I look forward to that.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's kind of the drawback to this genre. It takes so long for them to get around to focusing on the main characters.