More then just dying

Someone mentioned to me that "Jigoku Shoujo" is a lousy anime, as the only thing that it ever shows are people dying, people dying... and yes, more people dying... ...
Which sad to say, I don't agree with that generalisation that that person has said. (Hang on, is that even sad?)

"Jigoku Shoujo" (地獄少女; じごく　しょうじょ）(Because I can :P)is an anime series produced by Aniplex and Studio Deen. The anime focuses on different stories every episode, in which the hell girl is contacted to exact the vengeance of the protagonist of each story. Over the course of the entire series of the anime, you get to see the various circumstances where people use the "Hotline to hell" to execute their vengeance on the person who has made life horrible for them...

Sure, the anime is all about people dying. Come on, you want to make an anime series where somebody needs to get sent to hell? Obviously there must be someone who needs to go there so that the series can even go on... But what I feel is that anime series is more then just an open-ended series where you get to see people dying and being sent to hell after committing horrendous act to other people...

One of the major themes throughout the entire series is firstly: What drives a person to doom his own soul so that he/she can take revenge on whoever caused misery in their life?
This is the part that seriously kept me watching the anime series continuously even though it seems pointless for me to see people getting sent to hell cause they have hurt others.

From each episode, we see that usually before the person execute his vengeance, the person would attempt to confront the antagonist in order to give the antagonist one last chance. This could be seen as also the last chance for the protagonist to save his/her own soul. After which that person would usually be sent to hell, since the anime depicts the antagonist as unwilling to apologise or to admit to his/her mistake...

We also see another trend, the red string seems to be usually pulled during the heat of the moment. Like in the baseball episode, the string was pulled after the antagonist walks away mocking him... Does this shows that humans are usually incapable of weighing their actions correctly right at the impulse of that moment?

The second major theme of the series is: Will vengeance really solve all the problems?

In the first 7 episodes, it is implied to be true... until the recurring characters finally started appearing. The recurring characters sort of breathe a new lease of life to the anime rather then watch the monotony of people dying, dying and... ehh... "I shall ferry this vengeance to hell"... which is... dying... We see the journalist trying to stop people from using the jigoku shoujo to solve their problems because he do not agree with the methods that are being used to solve the problem.

We see the journalist using all sorts of methods to seek an alternative to killing the person off in vengeance. He tries to make them apologise and as the series progress, we indeed see that he has nearly been successful several times, only for the person to pull the string at a later time. (I haven't finish the series yet, so I don't know whether or not he finally succeeded in coaxing some one). One of the greatest break from killing people would be episode 13.

In episode 13, we see the life of a person whose soul is doomed to hell live out the last few moments of his life. It also shows the inability of taking vengeance to solve all the problems in life. We see that the person, realising that his life is doomed, try to keep himself busy, to seek religious help and various other things in life to forget about the mark on his chest that shows his fate...

These are the two major themes that have kept me watching "Jigoku Shoujo". Its like an exercise of your mind, similar to that of "Cowboy Bebop". As you watch "Jigoku Shoujo", another thing that floats into your mind is the fragility of life. Life is one of the best gifts that you are bestowed with when you are born and we should treasure it as much as possible. As you see the people in the anime suffering from this and that and cursing other people to go to hell along with them, you see that life is precious, so precious in fact, that it can even be used as the ultimate weapon for revenge.

So if you think that people dying is just... dying, especially in this anime series and in real life, I hope that you'll rethink what is the true meaning of being alive. Is life really given to you to simply laugh at your enemies as you slaughter them? or to see violence and gory scene and laugh? Is that the human spirit?

Discmon