Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae - 01
OP: “Tsukihana (月華)” by Nana Kitade - Nooooooo~! Where’s my SNoW!? The new OP sucks! I’m not a huge fan of Nana Kitade, and the animation just isn’t as stylish as the first two.
Summary:
A round ball of light bounces through the city, as various events occur around the Jigoku Tsushin. Ren sees a strange boy appear before him in a bathhouse, Kikuri reappears before Wanyudo, and Hone sees a vision of Ai when a butterfly lands in front of her in a bar. At a certain school later, three girls get into trouble with their teacher Tange when he finds out that they are passing notes. Having heard bad rumors about Tange, the girl named Itsuka later suggests that they need to take measures against him for their futures. Because of her father’s influence, the girl named Akie is given responsibility for dealing with most of this. As Kikuri returns to the Jigoku Tsushin with him in the meantime, the young boy from earlier is revealed to be named Yamawaro. He address Kikuri as “hime” while he assists with her childish desires. Mikage Yuzuki, one of the girls from earlier, sees a strange vision while in the bath that night. Ai appears out of the water, dragging her into it and sharing a kiss with her. Yuzuki puts this off as a dream afterwards, but unknown to her, a butterfly has wrapped around her back.
The next day, Akie reveals that her father could not do anything because of the lack of proof against Tange. She doesn’t believe him to be a bad person either, so she leaves the other two girls without much thought. Itsuka still believes their situation is serious, however, so she convinces Yuzuki to accompany her in creating evidence against Tange. The two girls go to a love hotel that night, as Itsuka plans to take a picture of Tange when he passes. Yuzuki successfully shoots when Itsuka approaches who she believes is Tange, but this ironically turns out to be her father. With this, both of Itsuka’s parents appear in wonder of what she is doing in such a place. This brings Itsuka to the Jigoku Tsushin website that night, where she types in Tange’s name. Itsuka meets Ai as expected, who presents her with a doll that has a red string wrapped around it. She explains that by pulling the string, her enemy would be sent to hell. However, she would also follow after she died. Itsuka cannot believe these circumstances, but she reappears in her room with the doll before she can say any more. Yuzuki wakes from this vision, believing it to be another dream, but Ai appears to tell her that she is actually inside of her.
Itsuka continues to act rebellious at school the next day, even listening to her mp3 player in class. When Tange takes this from her, she runs out of the classroom in rage. While she looks through several places that afternoon in search for her mp3 player, Tange appears to tell her that he has already cast it aside. Itsuka reveals what she has heard about Tange refusing to pass students that he does not like, guessing that he plans to do the same to her. Tange states that this is impossible, but Itsuka brings out her doll before he can suggest anything else. Yuzuki appears just in time to see Itsuka pull the string, then feeling pain as Ai bursts from her body. With this, the Jigoku Tsushin appear to torture Tange and bring him to hell. When Yuzuki reappears in her reality, she finds that Itsuka has a round mark below her neck. When Akie shows up as well, however, she reveals that Tange had given her Itsuka’s mp3 player to return. Further more, there are doodles in the notebook Tange always seemed to write bad notes into. In the end, Tange really wasn’t a bad person.
ED: “Ichi Nuke” by Noto Mamiko - I actually really like the songs Noto does for this series. Her voice just works for these types of stories. The style is much like those of the first two, but with obvious focus on Ai’s relationship with Yuzuki.
Preview: Angry boy.
Impression:
I’m really mad that SNoW didn’t return for the OP. A little research would show that she has stopped preforming in favor of returning to school though, so I guess that can’t be helped. The animation for the OP, on the other hand, is just terrible. The stylishness of the first two was part of the reason I could even get through some of this show, and this one is nowhere near as good. It’s like they just put it off as an afterthought this time around. Anyways, the rest of this was much like every other episode of Jigoku Shoujo. There are some new plot devices introduced though, including the new Jigoku Tsushin member Yamawaro (I heard you like shoutas) and Ai’s entrance into the girl named Yuzuki’s body. I absolutely loved the scene involving Ai’s appearance before Yuzuki. Seeing that hand appear and Yuzuki being dragged into the lifeless water was just horrifyingly beautiful. Seeing Ai kiss Yuzuki while they were both naked was just artsy fanservice though, so bleh. Ai is one of Mamiko Noto’s only roles that I actually like a lot. She has always done an excellent job with Ai, right down to the “Want to try dying once?”
As far as the actual story in this episode, it was pretty standard Jigoku Shoujo. Itsuka had an extremely irrational and sudden hate for her teacher Tange, and after using the Jigoku Tsushin to send him to hell, she found that her actions were actually wrong. I’ve never really seen this anime as truly horrifying, since it really doesn’t have the ability to scare me at all (especially compared to say…the first season of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni). If anything, it more or less advises against revenge and hatred in the world. The stories dealing with the fictional hell just help to emphasize this. But either way, I thought this was a fairly strong way to start the season. If they build onto the Yuzuki plot more progressively than they have with other major stories in the past, I feel like I may actually enjoy this season quite a bit when compared to the first two (that had their ups and downs throughout). It’s up in the air whether I cover this weekly or not though. There is a lot airing on Saturdays, so it just depends on how much coverage there is elsewhere.
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Do I need to have watched the prior two seasons to make sense out of this season?
For the most part, no. If anything, just watch say…the first and last 3 eps or so of the first two seasons….or read Garten’s summaries. The rest of the series is just episodic tales about people’s revenge etc. I assumed that people wouldn’t be watching this if they hadn’t watched the first two seasons though.
I’m actually fairly convinced that Mamiko Noto actually IS Enma Ai…
It’s… kinda repetitious in Season 2 though. And I still don’t see how they brought Ai back, given how that last season ended. Will watch, but don’t expect to follow it for long if it’s anything like Season 2 or mid-Season 1 was.
The part where Ai comes out of Yuzuki is my favorite! It was just so awesome! The music, the colors, it was just so cool. It was a lot more interesting than seeing Ai come out of the bath that’s for sure.
Dude, tell me about it. Wasn’t that freaking hot!? I watched it twice already.
someone has a pink shuffle…
I liked the reveal at the end. I always feel like this series is squandering so much potential, sometimes it seems like they spend more time coming up with ways to get Ai naked than thinking about how ***these people are sending each other to hell***. Still not what it could be, but at least it’s a little better than “revenge of the week.”
I was kind of disappointed in the music. The soundtrack is half the reason I ever watched this show. Snow’s opening themes, Mamiko Noto’s endings, the background music like “Kakugo” — it was all brilliant. The new opening theme is 100% meh, the background music is…similar, but didn’t grab me as much. The ending theme sounds like a Muzak version of an ’80s jpop ballad, and it’s only saved because Mamiko Noto sings so darn pretty IMO.
Pink iPods; the sign of a revengeful murderer.
Not exactly a step in the right direction I think. We’ve already had revenge fantasies, so why can’t they mix things up a little? Still, seeing that teacher reciting pi as he’s shipped off to hell was pretty funny though.
the animation seems a lot different, and the colors are too bright. i hope i could watch this so i can judge it myself. tnx for the summary (& the bright images)!
No~! SNoW, come back, we won’t get to see anymore PV cameos of her in the series anymore! But I’m still looking forward to watching the third seasoneven if it kills me. Noto Mamiko-you rock.
I cant believe no one else has made any comments about. how the technology in Jigoku Shoujo is evolving.
She used Windows Vista… when accessing the jigoku site.
And making promo for ipod…
Something tells me we will have more ads.
I have been watching the series since S1, yeah is not an scaled plot series.
But that is why im keeping watching, i believe one day they can make it an scaled plot. Cause i like all the Characters, the Bald old guy, the Sword spirit, the geisha spirit, and the evil spider that well i dont understand how She/He isnt an enemy of the spirits. When i saw that new character the boy i was believing it was the one from S2, but it looks like it isnt.
I still want to see one episode for a Revenge on the Net
that would be entertaining, the power of revenge can overcome anything xD so even if you never knew the people in person you can still send him to hell xD
OR how about a Revenge on itself xD
Reason i still watch the series, Revenge. btw for being first episode i saw OP and ED. But i will have to skip them on future episode IMO xD
SNoW is gone, she has been let go by Sony Music Japan… she isn’t with any music company at the moment… but she did change her stage name to Yukie… and I do not like the animation, OP and OP NARRATION ANIMATION at the beginning. To tell u the truth I thought it was still going to be good with them changing the op singer but not only is the OP crap they degraded to animation level of S1 and they don’t have the dark close up of the characters, that i was expecting, they look happy and cheery… and yet it does not reflect the anime well… and S2 op was so good where the kanji letters were all together and they unfolded… this season they went what the heck lets do this just for the sake of doing it, and got lazy. and EWWWWWWW from BLUE top of the letters to yellow… what ever happened to the original RED to PURPLE… THE SHOW IS CRAAAAPPP
SNoW is coming back as under the stage name “Yukie”.
Ai in a bee costume was weird, to say the least.