Subculture Anime Blog

Wagaya no Jigoku Shoujo.

Summary:

Hone walks in on a group of girls after hours, noticing that they are participating in a ritual dealing with Kokkuri-san in the classroom. Inuao Kaede, the girl performing the ritual, stops the girl she is helping from leaving in order to complete the activity. The next day, the girl returns to Inuao while excitedly expressing how she has found her lost item as predicted by the previous event. Inuao credits this to Gon-san, a spirit that seemingly assists her. Another girl approaches Inuao later, wishing for her to put a curse on a certain teacher. Inuao is hesitant at first, but eventually agrees to. After she completes a paper doll at home, the cursed teacher actually injures himself by falling down the steps the next day. As rumors spread throughout the school, Akie recalls that Inuao was a girl who changed quite drastically when she entered high school with the other students. Most notably, she started to claim that a fox spirit had started following her.

On another day at school, Akie starts scolding two boys who plan on putting curses on certain people. Claiming that the Jigoku Tsushin is too troublesome, they wish to seek help from Kokkuri-san. A box of supplies suddenly drops on top of Akie, and while she leaves with her from the nurse’s office later, Yuzuki notices that Akie is genuinely afraid of being cursed. Inuao is eventually approached by a girl named Nishino Chizuru, someone who previously mocked her activities, asking for her to kill who she claims to be a stalker. Inuao expresses a bit of uneasiness with actually killing someone, but she is forced to agree after Nishino’s insistence. Meeting her in the hall, Akie wonders if Inuao had put a curse on her. Although she denies, Akie and Yuzuki still insist that Inuao should put an end to cursing people. Inuao refuses, however, claiming that she is different now that people are depending on her. Unkown to her while she places a curse on Nishino’s target that night, Ai spies on Inuao in curiosity.

Inuao is happy to be thanked by Nishino the next morning, but as she heads to class, she is disturbed at the appearance of Kikuri passing by her. The Jigoku Tsushin meanwhile discusses the recent lack of work because of the curses the students are placing through Kokkuri-san. When the validity of these events are brought up, it is decided that it is only coincidence. When Nishino later approaches Inuao is annoyance that she is still being contacted by her stalker, Inuao desperately attempts her ritual again during the night. When Nishino sees again that her stalker has not been taken care of, she becomes even more angry towards Inuao. Inuao refuses to deny the existence of her spirit, instead blaming this being her first time to kill someone to the failure, then continuing to perform rituals in secret throughout the day.

Nishino begins to lose patience with Inuao, giving her one last chance after showing her directly that her target has not died. This brings Inuao to even request help from a fox deity, but when even this does not work, she contacts the Jigoku Tsushin at last minute in hopes of killing the stalker. Despite Hone’s scolding of her, and even before Ai is done explaining herself, Nishino pulls the string off of the straw doll she is given. Nishino is glad that her target has been killed when she approaches Inuao the next day, but shocks Inuao with the truth that this was not really a stalker. It was only someone that Nishino did not like looking at. Nishino reveals that her friend has someone she would like to kill too, but with the truth in her mind, Inuao can only put on a face of panic.

Preview: Ichimura Kazuya and milfs…or something.

Impression:

So deities aren’t real, but hell is? Awesome…I’m loving the logic in this show. This episode started out fairly interesting, but it was quite anticlimactic to learn half way through the episode that all the “curses” happened out of pure coincidence . Although Inuao ended up being like all the other throw away characters in the series by the end of it all though, it was notable to actually see Hone express her opinion towards her before becoming a straw doll. Is it just me, or has she been a lot more involved with the clients this season?

Aesthetically, I also loved the shots of the shrine that Inuao visited. Something about how it was painted just looked higher quality than what has been put into the show recently. Kikuri’s “want to try dying once? O.^>” while passing on her tricycle was absolutely hilarious as well, and this episode was the perfect one to make a joke about spirits for.