Manga Review: Hell Girl Volume One

[Jason]

Title: Hell Girl
Volume: One
Mangaka: Miyuki Eto
Original Story: The Jigoku Shoujo project
Publisher: Del Rey
Originally Serialized in: Nakayoshi
Rated: Older Teen (16+)
Genre: Shojo, Horror

This review will be relatively short because this manga boils down to one thing: do you like horror short stories? If the answer is no, this manga will disappoint you, because that is what it is essentially. Five short stories connected only by the title character, Ai Enma, who really isn’t all that much of a character. She’s more of a device, really, with no growth from one chapter to the next since none is needed for this sort of manga with each chapter being a stand-alone short story. However, poking around online to find out more about the series to help form my thoughts, I found she might begin to grow a bit as the series develops.

Oddly, before this manga found its way onto my ‘read and review’ pile, I had read several new mangas all with the same theme, horror shorts, so in that respect Hell Girl is very much like Nightmares for Sale or Pet Shop of Horrors (minus the more cohesive subplot with Count D). I have to admit the stories are well written, though standalone short stories really aren’t my thing. I prefer something long and plotty so it made reviewing Hell Girl a tad more difficult.

Still, as I said, the stories aren’t bad. The main plot point: you can only access the website, Hell Correspondence, at midnight. If you type in the name of whom you want to suffer, Hell Girl will make sure s/he does. So you can expect to hear this explanation five times in this volume. Something else you’re going to hear with each story, Hell Girl’s spiel. She’s rather polite as she’s makes a contract with someone telling them ‘to curse someone is to dig a double grave.’ I.e. your soul is going to hell too. You think this would be a deterrent, or at the very least make you think twice. I would have been more interested in this manga if it had, at least once but not one person calling on Hell Girl gave going to hell a second thought as long as they could take someone with them (keeping in mind that going to hell means you’ll never be reborn). To say more would ruin it, but one final note, Hell Girl’s method of punishment usually fits the crime and she has two reoccurring assistants to help her.

So in short, if you like horror short mangas, you will like this because it is well written, even if the spiels get a bit repetitive. The art, however, bothered me. It’s not that it’s ugly art, far from it. It’s fairly well done, except for the big eyes. Huge eyes are manga standards you say, well yes, but not like this. They’re insanely large. Growing off the head, hairline to jaw line huge. It bothered me to no end. All the girls looked like aliens. The sound effects are left intact with tiny English translations. While it’s not my cup of tea, I still have to say it’s well written.

Reviewer: D.M. Evans
Proofer: Eduardo Menendez
Editor: Lissa Pattillo