Plot: On a quiet mountainside is a lone stretch of road where tragedy has struck. Michiro Ito’s younger brother died after hitting a dangerous section of the road where two separate roads merge together briefly to navigate around a local house. The master of the house, Kazuhito Kameoka, has refused to move since the road was put in no matter how much money he was offered to relocate. Michiro believes he’s nothing but a greedy old man who wants to maximize his compensation before moving. To avenge his fallen brother, he has called on Hell Girl, but she, surprisingly, never arrived.
Breakdown: The Hell Team is interfering a hell of a lot (lolpuns) in this episode. Like I mentioned previously, in the first season, they made a point to never really get involved unless the situation called for it, like clients or targets were breaking protocol or something. Here, I’d say they purposely stalled Michiro’s request because they knew Kazuhito was going to die soon.
Wanyuudou also stated that sometimes Ai sends out her assistants to potential clients to read their hearts before she shows up after a request. I’m sorry – since when? The only heart reading being done here is supposed to be when the clients access the website. They need to have a good dose of vengeance in their hearts to access the site and call Hell Girl. What else are you reading the client for?
I’m glad they did interfere, though, because that poor old man didn’t deserve to go to hell. He was just a nice old man who had lived in a house since he was born. It was a house his family had owned and loved even before his time. He wanted nothing more than to live out his final days in that same house, and no compensation was enough to change his mind.
And, really, I think the people who designed the road are more at fault here. There had to be a better way to get both roads through that pass without merging them both on a sharp turn with little to no warning. There’s plenty of room on the other side – certainly they could come up with something.
We also get Wanyuudou’s backstory in this episode, but it’s actually somewhat boring. He’s a wagon wheel, if you couldn’t tell that already, and he’s felt a tremendous amount of guilt since his…..’death’ when he failed to avoid crashing over that same mountainside when he was part of a wagon. He was carrying his mistress, a princess of a nearby land, who had been attacked by bandits or enemy soldiers.
I could see why he’d take a personal interest in this case given his backstory, but it’s not the most interesting backstory in the world.
I did really like this episode, though. It’s refreshing to see an episode where no one goes to hell, especially an innocent person. Everything was wrapped up nicely (a little too nicely in some points. I thought the house collapsing immediately after the old man died was a bit much) and I think it showed that, to some capacity, the Hell Team does care about their clients and even their targets. Maybe Tsugumi and Hajime got to them more than I thought.
…..Also, Kikuri poked the old man in the head after he died. I’ll let you in on a secret, I know this might come as a shock….but I hate Kikuri.
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The Anime Madhouse 