Miyuki Eto’s artful adaptation of the popular anime series is more a catalogue of the various wrongs that can be perpetrated against young Japanese women than a thrilling tale of supernatural horror and revenge.
Still, its shojo manga audience will likely forgive its emphasis on the somewhat maudlin set-ups and its unabashedly repetitive episodic presentation. In fact, I suspect the young readers who are apt to enjoy this Del Rey release, and enjoy it very much, are not coming to it primarily for its darkness. Rather, the horror pay-off at the end of each episode probably has the effect of lending a nice, hard edge to the proceedings for those who don’t want simply to wallow in soapy teenaged angst. Seen in this light, the periodic appearance of the title character, an otherworldly agent of revenge, is probably reassuring despite its lack of variation; the narrative relies on the emotional comfort of knowing you have a big sister who can always step in and protect you: there’s satisfaction in this fantasy whether it plays out once or a hundred times.
For those unfamiliar with its premise, Hell Girl, aka Ai Enma, is summoned by victims to bring wrongdoers to, well, the place she comes from. The downside is that, as Ai warns her clients in a kind of legal disclaimer, when they themselves eventually die, their souls too will become the property of Hell. However, in this volume at least, we do not see the fruits of this back-end part of the bargain.
The result is an interesting moral strategy on the part of the creators: readers tacitly acknowledge that revenge is not exactly a high-minded pursuit, but we, like the protagonists, can defer the price we pay for indulging in it.
Miyuki Eto, whose pre-Hell Girl background largely involved magazines for young girls, does a terrific job of blending the bubble-gum tone and the spookier, more traditional elements. You can almost sense her reigning in the former elements at times, and indeed in the typical behind-the-scenes page for fans she remarks that she had to stop herself from drawing Ai in too “flowery” a manner. As if often the case with art in any genre or medium, the contrast that results from this inherent conflict is what makes Hell Girl so interesting. When Ai appears, usually with a splash or series of semi-splashes, the visual style changes dramatically. It doesn’t simply become more somber, but more mature and intricate as well. And while the storytelling in the “tales of woe” sections can be fast-paced to the point of being rushed, when Ai and her assistants show up, we’re treated to a downshift in tempo that lends an unexpected air of majesty to the story.
So although IFC has picked up 24 episodes of the anime to air this year in the U.S., I’m actually looking forward to following this saga as it unfolds in manga form...
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