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R2 DVD Reviews
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Written by maehara
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Sunday, 10 August 2008 16:00 |
 Ai's regular missions of vengeance continue, but one step behind her now is Hajime, who investigations into the Hell Girl guided by Tsugumi's visions are getting closer and closer to uncovering the truth. So far, though, his common sense has yet to override the need for vengeance...
11 - Broken Threads
Rich kid Kataoka's fallen on hard times - the money's gone and he's out on the streets now, and suddenly the friends who were keen to be with him when he was splashing the cash around don't much care to be around him. And they're certainly not putting their hands in their pockets to help. The rejection is enough to drive him to Ai's website, where the name of the man who ruined his family's reputation, Inagaki, becomes Ai's next target. But Tsugumi's aware of what he's planning, and alerts Hajime...
12 - Spilled Bits
Young girl Sawai has stopped going to school and essentially become a recluse. Despite the best efforts of her teacher Fukuzawa to get her to come out - visiting her home every day and calling for her again and again - she simply refuses to leave her locked room, and spends her time on the internet, swapping message with an online friend she's never met. At one point, they eventually talk about the Hell Link site, and Sawai - under her online friend's encouragement - enters Fukuzawa's name. By coincidence, Hajime has been working with Fukuzawa's class as part of an article he's working on, and has no idea how close he's come to Ai's potential next victim...
13 - Purgatory Girl
Tsugumi's had another vision - this time seeing a bookstore through Ai's eyes, with plenty of porn on display, run by an overweight shopkeeper with a parakeet on his shoulder. Enough information there for Hajime to make a start on tracing where Ai has been - but he's unaware that Ai's assistants are monitoring him, and have decided that he should be dealt with should he get too close to her. Hajime's investigations lead him to discover that Ai had been reading an old book, that spoke of the Purgatory Girl - a story from 50 years previously that bears a striking similarity to the Hell Girl rumour. With the story's editor still alive, Hajime decides he's someone he needs to talk to...
14 - Beyond the Dead End
Another day, another vision for Tsugumi, and another possible job for Ai that Hajime wants to try and prevent. This time, Tsugumi has seen visions of a man, possibly having committed suicide, and the face of the mayor of the man's hometown - a check of the local papers shows that the man, Kirino, and the mayor, Kusunoki, were connected. After visiting the dead man's daughter Saki, Hajime learns that Kirino died while in possession of incriminating photographs of Kusunoki - and that the photgraphs were never found after the death. That's enough for Saki to believe that it wasn't suicide, that her father was killed by the mayor or his associates - enough of a belief for her to have turned to Ai for help....
On the one hand, Hell Girl's formula is more-or-less intact each episode, with the exception here of episode 13, sticks to the usual idea of a person with a grudge and a victim for Ai to deliver vengeance to. So far, so much the same as before. Hajime's ongoing investigations add a new layer to the formula though, as he makes his best efforts to prevent any more deaths, whether by helping the wronged to uncover the real truth behind what's troubling them or by trying to help them take vengeance in less permanent ways. There are even a few points here where you think he's succeeded, that just for once Ai's client won't pull the fateful string, but much as I'd like to see how that sort of situation would play out we're not quite there yet. You can almost feel his frustration at times the longer his search goes on, the more frustrated he gets that he hasn't been able to make a difference. While simply sticking to the formula would have grown repetitive by now, Hajime's interventions add a little bit extra to each episode and have helped keep the stories fresh enough that you don't really mind the underlying repetition.
Hajime's actions aren't going un-noticed, of course, with Ai's assistants full aware of what he's up to and standing ready to deal with him should he get too close to the truth. That's bound to happen, and I'm looking forward to seeing how that plays out, but for now we're stuck with the steady drip-feed of hints and clues about Ai's history and background. Even Hajime's meeting with Fukumoto, on the day his debt to Ai is called in, doesn't reveal much although the episode itself is fascinating. Now if only there were some surprising decisions by Ai's would-be clients, we'd be all set...
For all that I enjoyed the disc, the repetitive nature of it does make it difficult to write a huge amount about it. That formula still underpins the entire series, threatening to become a millstone around its neck at some point, but at the moment it's serving its purpose well as the foundation for some very entertaining stories. The more I see of Hell Girl, the more I want to see it's definitely worth a look.
Watch the trailer for this volume
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