JIGOKURAKU

DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ActionJigokuraku
NOVEL ActionJigokuraku: Utakata no Yume
ANIME ActionJigokuraku 2nd Season

REVIEWS

• 

  shimainuu

  83/100
  A dark, but refreshing touch when it comes to Shonen.

  I believe that while as dark as Jigokuraku is, it is a more refreshing title to hit Shonen. Chainsaw Man and JJK are definitely outclassing the latter, but I believe that Jigo has found a way to stamp itself into the culture within it's own niche. Firstly, I will talk about the negatives, or rather, observations I made when watching and reading. To start, I believe that there were noticeable inconsistencies with the animation. Mappa is definitely able to produce quality, but I just feel like sometimes they fall short on the times that it is really supposed to count.

  There were times where I was invested and really ready to see how certain scenario's turned out. But then would lose that build up due to the direction or the animation of the scene being mediocre. Off screen deaths and fights towards the beginning did not help the case either. I understand pacing and everything but even if the fight is quick, allow me the ability to at least invest further into their conflicts.

  I want to point out that I don't think the animation was completely terrible. Just lacking in places that I believe needed that extra punch of budget to send home the craziness that was happening around them. The STYLE of the animation is actually some really good. But the consistency through and through did not deliver justice.

  I want to first start off with Characters. To me, Gabimaru isn't anything extremely extraordinary. I do believe however, that he is a team pillar when it comes to the group. His character development came from being around the other criminals and executioners. And it's during this time and when he is with him does he shine the most. Reckless as he is, it was important that they showed him in a neutral light of being one of the strongest yes, but still not being able to do everything by himself.

  Sagirin is a powerhouse when she wants to be, and I think she was the heart of everyone. It was her who held everyone together, even when she did not have the means to have the most positive outlook herself. Bearing certain things so that others wouldn't have to. I like the relationship that she had built with the group but specifically with Gabimaru and Yuzuriha. She was able to break both of them out of their shells, and yank out the true nature of who they were. I am also glad that there was no hints or nudges at a non-platonic friendship between Sagirin and Gabimaru, but more of a strong friendship built through trials and tribulations, that rewarded them with trust and respect.

  The story is very refreshing. Nowadays its all about hacks, and who can obliterate who with whatever world destroying level attack they have tucked in their sleeve. I like that this was more laid back and a mystery more than anything else. That nobody was completely stronger than the other. And there wasn't an instance of them leveling mountains just because. Following more of the story and using that as the investment for going along is where I think Jigo shines. It's not eye candy 24/7 and that's okay. With how they made the Tensen seem godly, and the feeling of being helpless, the realism behind the reactions people would have to such beings.

  The surroundings of the island, and the disturbing nature of literally everything on it. You knew as much as the characters knew. And it was good, because it made me curious and curiosity is what carried me into the end of Jigo. I recommend this anime if someone wants a more laid back experience. With somewhat inclusive knowledge on Japanese religion and traditions, it makes for a nice story to sit back and watch. getting intrigued the more they decide to explain things. It's got some depth, so if that's your thing I recommend you to check Jigokuraku out.

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• 

  Jebmond

  20/100
  overhyped drivel?????

  July 1st, 2023, a truly noteworthy date. This day ought to be more celebrated than the American holiday that it precedes. This atrocity finishing is much more momentous an occasion than the ratification of the declaration of independence. With Hell’s Paradise, MAPPA subjected all anime fans to worse than anything Britain could muster. I’m not gonna sugarcoat it, Hell’s Paradise fucking sucks. Everything about it was soulless or lazy, the characters are bad, the narrative is bad, the animation and directing is decent at best, and the dialogue is absolutely abyssal.

  Each character is a surface-level cardboard cutout of an archetype, and none receive any meaningful development. Gabimaru the so-called hollow’s greatest feat as a shinobi is convincing fans that he is a deep and complex character by cramming down his love for his wife down the audience’s throat. He is a broken record of a character that knows two sayings, “I love my wife” and “I am hollow” (coping). Besides this master of illusions, the rest of the cast is blatantly one-sided in terms of characterization and development, no character really worth mentioning has emerged from the entire show. With how bad the main cast is, its pretty surprising that the show managed to churn out even worse antagonists; they are terribly uninteresting in everything they do, they aren’t charismatic, they aren’t compelling, they aren’t complex, and the greatest offense is that all of them have terrible designs.

  The story is similarly uninteresting, from its bland plot to its lazily crafted mystery, not one bit of it is good. The premise is fairly simple and not too complex, and already unoriginal as it and the characters are loosely based on pre-existing historical and mythological figures and narratives. It doesn’t try to say anything new with these concepts unlike other series that incorporate these aspects better. In Hell’s Paradise, these aspects are simply just there, and not expanded on in any meaningful way. This is also done with the incorporation of Asian schools of thoughts like Daoism, as well as other concepts like reincarnation, these aspects are also not fleshed out or expanded on in any meaningful way, yet their presence gives off the illusion of depth. Their presence instead of adding anything of import to the series really just detracts from it, because it all comes off as pretentious and shallow.

  The production value of the show is mediocre, not much to critique but I don’t think that there is terribly much to praise, either. The art style is pleasant, the animation is decent, but those positives are slightly detracted from because of the directing. A lot of potential in action scenes are squandered by misplaced flashbacks and exposition, or just cutting the action sequence entirely. While being passable in this regard, it sadly cannot boast the title of “carried by animation” like demon slayer, which actually somewhat makes up for its lackluster story with good visuals.

  To make matters worse, Hell’s Paradise also falls into the typical shounen pitfall of sexism. Each female character in the cast is almost constantly being sexualized, seduced, or saved by a male character. Despite its blatant sexism, the series attempts to include a character arc of Sagiri breaking gender norms. The reason I say attempt is because nothing really resulted from it. The sexist character literally had to die to admit he may have been wrong about women not being able to fight, and after that scene, nothing changed. Sagiri went back to being the same character she was before, the lasting impact of it wasn’t that great, and it didn’t have any impact on other characters or their perceptions, so it feels pointless and ham-fisted.

  The lazy writing, bad characters, pretentious nature, and sexism of Hell’s Paradise are all perfectly packaged together with its exceedingly overhyped protagonist, Gabimaru the Shallow, to create the ultimate 2/10 anime.

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• 

  Mcsuper

  50/100
  Definitely Not MAPPA's Favourite Child

  First of all, a quick writer’s note, as I’m writing this, it is June 30th, and it’s late at night, and I’ll be heading to bed right after I write this. The final episode of Hell’s Paradise airs in around nine to ten hours, and I’m just starting on my review. I did this intentionally though, to imitate a MAPPA style of production, rushing and submitting the work just a bit before it’s due to see how poorly this review will turn out.

  Studio MAPPA has been known for taking on big name action or shounen titles as of late, with the likes of Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack On Titan, Chainsaw Man, Vinland Saga, and now Hell’s Paradise. They've taken on so much that they have become a popular name amongst anime fans. While their shows generally look decent, it is clear that because they’ve taken on so much, their production schedule has been a literal hell, with very overworked staff, and poor working conditions. Of course, I’m sure many other studios experience these kinds of things too, but MAPPA has been brought into the limelight due to how many popular titles they’ve done recently. Clearly, Hell’s Paradise was not their favourite child, as this show looked considerably worse visually than their other shows.

  But before we get to all the production things, let’s talk about the story. On paper, this looks like a somewhat generic action shounen, with a death convict in Gabimaru being tasked, along with the rest of the death row convicts to find the “Elixir of Life” on an island called Shinsekyo, in order to escape their death sentence. Obviously, the convicts fight amongst each other, as only one can have this elixir to evade death. This island looked very interesting and colourful, with some scary creatures around them, all around a very intriguing, perhaps a unique setting. However, what this anime fails at is the most important narrative technique, which is “Show, don’t tell”. Time and time again, we are told about what this environment is like, the religion aspects, the creatures, how the world works, but we don’t really get enough showing of the environment itself, either through simple background shots, or just cutting back on the expository dialogue. There is no need to spoon-feed the viewers every single narrative detail about what is going on, people can figure things out. There was solid potential in what the environment could bring us, but I wasn’t really invested due to the overly saturated dialogue.

  The characters felt interesting at first, but slowly also devolved into being rather gimmicky or generic. Gabimaru is the typical protagonist who starts out cold but ends up warming up to people and becomes more kind. For the female characters, there is a sense of empowerment that they were trying to go for, especially with Sagiri looking to escape gender norms and become a samurai, instead of the “norms” that this anime instills upon women. While on its own this would be a cool concept, the fact that all the female characters were so sexualized, and somehow getting saved via princess carry, defying all logic of physics by the men just felt a bit hypocritical to the potential message the show was trying to convey. Furthermore, people died before we could even really have a chance to know them, and adding a sad backstory to try and make us feel emotions just felt like such a weak way for characterizing them. At least the backstories weren’t too saturated after the first few episodes.

  From a production standpoint, the show looks fine, but disappointing by MAPPA’s standards. Some of the fight scenes were genuinely very decent and tense, but the other moments of the show had this very weird filter where the characters didn’t really “fit in” with the background art. The compositing was awful at some points, and characters went off model a lot. It was clearly the product of rushed production, as most episodes were outsourced to between ten and twenty different anime studios and animation directors, which signalled how poor the production schedule was. It more or less just felt like MAPPA gathering up all their buddies to finish their homework just as the teacher was coming to collect it every week. This might feel a bit harsh and nitpicky, but if we’re comparing it to other MAPPA works, this is probably one of their worst productions, but from a wider perspective outside of MAPPA, the show looks average to fine visually.

  Overall, there is decent entertainment value to be seen here, but it could have been so much better with more time spent on production, and more showing instead of telling. This will undoubtedly get more seasons, so I just hope the next time this show comes around, it’ll be a much improved product compared to what we got this time around. MAPPA, you just got to chill with the amount of projects you got.

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