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Title:
  Hell Girl vol 1

UK Distributor:  Revelation Films

BBFC Certificate:  15

Suggested Retail Price (SRP):  £15.99

Episodes:  1-5 (of 26)

Audio Options:  English 5.1, Japanese 5.1

Subtitles:  English

Reviewer:  Rich (Webmaster)

 

If you have a grudge, a deep, dark desire for revenge or retribution against someone, then search for the Hell Link.  Hell Link is a website that appears only at midnight, granting you the opportunity to tell the mysterious Hell Girl Ai Enma the name of those you want punished.  The Hell Girl has the power to condemn your enemy to Hell, but such a request comes at a price.  You are given a doll with a red string around its neck, untie the string and the person you have a grudge against will be banished to the underworld.  However, untie the string and you also condemn yourself to the same fate.  Untie the string and you'll never know paradise, you will live out your life knowing that unavoidable damnation awaits.  The choice is simple, but is a full and happy life worth an eternity of torment?  A choice once made can never be undone...

Revelation Films have really come into their own in recent months.  A series of romantic titles threatened to see them pigeonholed, but recently they have released a couple of original and brilliantly dark series which Hell Girl is the latest example of.
 

Fans of recent Japanese horror films will find a lot to like in Hell Girl.  Like many J-horror films Hell Girl is all about revenge and retribution, it's morally a bit murky and has the sting in the tail of leaving the viewer to decide if the character's actions were right or wrong.  It's even got a creepy little girl, the only thing it's missing is the lank-haired ghost in a white gown.  Each episode is a self-contained story in which a familiar dramatic situation is taken to extremes - abuse that leads to manslaughter, ambition that leads to murder - and features

people driven to the point of desperation.  The Hell Link gives them a way out of the situation they are stuck in that has no instant drawback, but the eventual consequences are dire.

It's a great premise and the stories in the five episodes on this volume are brilliantly constructed vignettes of despair featuring different people in different situations.  The only relation between them is that they, or someone close to them, is being abused or manipulated, and the person inflicting this on them feels no remorse or guilt about their actions.  It would work brilliantly as a live-action film or series, but it loses nothing in anime form.  Each episode does a good job of introducing and developing the characters well enough to draw you into their individual struggles and care about what happens to them.  Also, despite some of the villains being a bit OTT they are all suitably twisted and unlikeable individuals that you really want to see get their comeuppance.
 

The only problem is that although it is brilliantly realised and despite the great characters and intriguing stories, it's a bit predictable.  Despite each character's moral dilemma you know that all of them will be driven over the edge and pull the string to condemn their tormentor to hell.  The satisfaction comes from the macabre ways their crimes come back to haunt each one as they are delivered into damnation, but whilst this is very well done it would be interesting to see a character try to solve their problems without using the doll.  At the moment it's the

biggest fault with the series, everyone takes the easy way out, even though it means eternal damnation.  What this means is that the differences between the five stories on the disc are all superficial.  The situations may look different but they're effectively the same, and the same is true of the outcome of each episode. 

It's an odd thing.  Taken on their own merits each episode is a superb self-contained story of supernatural retribution and moral uncertainty.  However, taken as a whole Hell Girl vol 1 loses something.  Technically there is nothing wrong with any aspect of it - the stories are good, the animation and music is superb and the characters are strong and intriguing - but it would work much better if you were only watching an episode a week.  Hell Girl has all the ingredients to be a great series, all it needs is variety.  This first volume is brilliantly done, and there are few better horror anime available in the UK, but at the moment it needs to mix it up a bit.  It's very, very good, but it falls just short of greatness.

Extras:

Revelation spoil us once again!  As well as the standard clean opening and closing sequences and trailers we also get character profiles and a superb promo music video.  There is also a making of documentary about the promo video which features interviews with the Japanese cast and crew.  If you spend a couple of quid more you can also get the starter set which comes with a sturdy artbox to hold all the volumes in the series.  Superb.

Ratings

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