Type: TV series
Length: 26 episodes
Rating: M

They say revenge is a dish best served cold. But can that dish stay cold in hell? Revenge stories are as old as time itself. And lets face it, who doesn’t like a good old-fashioned revenge story? There are countless Hollywood movies that tackle the revenge theme in their own ways. Gladiator, Braveheart, Kill Bill, The Crow, and the classic French novel by Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo. Those are just a few revenge stories that western audiences would be familiar with. But now we’re turning out eyes eastwards towards Japan to find new tales of revenge. As you would expect manga and anime are no strangers to revenge with titles such as, Gungrave, Black Cat, Gun X Sword, and Afro Samurai to name just a few covering the topic in their own special way. Now something direct from the bowels of hell has stepped into the arena to give the theme of revenge a good old shake up.

The title, Hell Girl gives perhaps the biggest clue to what this anime is about. It is indeed about a girl from hell who does favors for tormented people who find their way to her website called the ‘Hell Correspondence.’ The tormented person enters the name of their grudge into the website and Hell Girl will appear before them to offer salvation. But as you would expect there is a price to pay for Hell Girl knocking someone off. The tormented person’s soul will go to hell when they die. But that is not the fun part. Hell Girl’s band of merry helpers get to have a little fun with the victim before Hell Girl finally ferries them off to hell. Sounds wonderfully cheery doesn’t it?

Do not get out of your comfy armchair yet. Fun as the concept might sound there is a real yawn factor to consider here. Each episode is a self-contained story on volume one. And they are at times about as interesting as a can of corn. I found myself holing out to just watch the end of each episode to see how Hell Girl torments her victims rather than being interested in the episode as a whole. Indeed the whole of volume one is just a tad mundane for my liking. Hell Girl and her offsiders are appropriately cast in voice acting terms but beyond them there was much to be desired. Music is barely noticeable. Maybe that’s a good thing? I’m undecided because the best thing about Hell Girl is the animation production. It is really top-notch stuff here. Nice and smooth with fluid character animation and no CG in sight.

I was less than impressed overall. I felt like there was more needed to woo me into enjoying Hell Girl beyond the regular array of DVD features. There must be a cheaper way to knock someone off without dooming your soul to hell. Two Stars.

-Al