Plot: A horror anthology that chronicles the stories of the clients of Hell Girl – a mysterious girl behind a website where you can input the name of someone who has wronged you and get the opportunity to exact immediate vengeance on them by sending them to hell. However, curses come home to roost. The price for this service is damning your own soul to hell – but only when you die your natural death.
Your grievance shall be avenged….
Breakdown: Oh what? You thought I was done with Hell Girl for now just because I said I wasn’t going to review Three Vessels until October? Psshhhtt. We still got manga to review, my friends!
Hell Girl’s manga is…something. It’s a bit odd. You see, the manga started just a month after the anime started running and ran along side it. In fact, it ended right before Three Vessels aired, so my timing is right on the money.
It’s not so much adapting the anime nor did the anime adapt it. It’s just kinda its own thing while also still being the same thing….do you get what I’m saying?
Good, because I don’t.
Considering this is an anthology, it doesn’t really matter that much anyway.
This also isn’t the only manga to the Hell Girl name. After Three Vessels aired (technically, it debuted a month before Three Vessels ended), a manga called New Hell Girl started up. Then we got Hell Girl R. Then we got Hell Girl: Enma Ai Selection, Super Scary Story (I’m not being a smartass, that’s the actual name) that actually came before Three Vessels aired, back in 2007, yet didn’t end until 2012.
However, whether I can actually find and review any of these manga will have to be an answer for another day. So far, no dice.
Something that creates quite the difference between the manga and the anime is the art. The anime’s art is fairly unique, especially where Ai herself is involved. Everyone has between toned down yet normal anime-ish styled designs or they go for a more realistic route with smaller eyes and more, for lack of a better term ‘normal’ features.
Ai’s design is quite notable and unique. She has a realistic eye shape, but it’s greatly enlarged in order to give her that signature haunting stare. The ruby red of her eyes in stark contrast to her black hair really create an air of horror around her. Kikuri, as much as I dislike her as a character, is also very unique even from Ai. She has a very similar eye shape, but she has even less in terms of visible scleras, and her eyes are purple with odd reflections, giving her an insect vibe.
The manga is pretty much just typical shoujo style. Ai herself doesn’t really look anything like what you probably know her as. She has the usual anime/shoujo eye shape with an eye color that is way more brown than it is red (on the covers anyway – the manga’s in black and white, as usual). She’s also almost always given an angry or ‘evil’ expression, which goes directly against the emotionless front that Ai is supposed to have at all times. Even her notable hime haircut doesn’t go unaltered because her hair is frequently very sharp and flowing in the manga.
Honestly, Ai barely looks any different from nearly any other girl you’d see in a shoujo series.
It’s not bad, it’s just not…Ai.
All of the other characters are also given very shoujo styled appearances, which, again, isn’t bad, but it kinda reduces the horror aspect of the whole thing.
Another difference is that, right off the bat, Ai very frequently appears to her clients and watches them, usually in the form of a student in their school. This is mostly unheard of in season one of Hell Girl, and even when it does become common for her and her team to investigate or watch clients, it’s usually only after a contract has been made and not usually so blatantly, especially with Ai herself. In the manga, it’s even common for her to use her own name when she’s doing this, and that’s just ridiculous from an anime standpoint. In the anime, the Hell Team are usually the ones who act as humans and do recon. When they have to give a name, it’s always an alias.
If what the artist, Miyuki Eto, says in the notes is any indication, it seems like she’s taking her notes of the main canon stuff, in regards to how Ai looks and how the system works, from the anime, because she mentions that Ai had bells on her bracelet in the anime and had to work the bells into later chapters.
She also notes, however, that she doesn’t get to watch anime a lot because her TV antennae needs to be setup in a certain way for her to watch it. (So she doesn’t get at least story notes on how the anime is working?) However, it seems like that’s just a preference of hers to do it that way because in chapter four she talks about coming up with the dog’s name, even though the dog already had a name in the anime version (Candy.)
It says the stories themselves are written by the Jigoku Shoujo Project, whatever that means, so maybe they’re leaving Eto to her own devices when it comes to the finer details. I really don’t understand how the people working on the Jigoku Shoujo Project organized the anime and manga this way, seems really sloppy and inefficient, but what can you do?
Even though I will likely make comparisons to the anime every now and then, please note that this is not an AniManga Clash entry. There are too many stories that weren’t adapted/mirrored for me to feel comfortable giving it that label, and, like I said, the anime isn’t even really an adaptation. However, when stories are adapted/mirrored I will make notes for the sake of completion.
It should also be noted that Hell Girl’s manga supposedly changes quite a bit the further along you get. Before I started doing the review, I read only about ten chapters, so we’ll have to find out if this is true later.
With that said, let’s delve into each story in volume one.
Chapter One: From Within the Darkness
Hey, I’m super consistent, which is why I’m going to open this review by saying the first story from the manga, that I just said was very different from the anime in its stories, is very similar to the first episode of Hell Girl.
In that episode, From Beyond the Twilight (even the names are similar) a girl is pressured into doing worse and worse acts because a bitchy girl and her friends are blackmailing her. It eventually gets so bad that when she hears of Hell Link she decides to contact Ai and send her tormentor to hell.
That same story is used here, but there are numerous differences. The characters are entirely different and so are the main circumstances. In the anime, the client, Mayumi, is blackmailed by Aya, the target. Mayumi was entrusted with a large sum of money that the class had raised for charity only to have it go mysteriously missing. In order to ensure the class and teacher never found out and didn’t accuse her of theft, Aya offered her a loan to cover the money.
In the manga, the client, Mari, is blackmailed by Hayase, the target. Mari had been accused of shoplifting a CD from a store, and Hayase had gotten her out of the mess by vouching for her to the cashier.
In the anime, Mayumi is driven to stealing from her mother in order to pay off the debt to Aya, but even after covering the sum, Aya claims that’s only good enough to cover the interest on the loan. It comes to a head when she brings her to the red light district and basically tries to whore her out for a meal. She then takes pictures of Mayumi with the men and blackmails her with those as well.
Turns out, Aya had been screwing her over from the start since she’s the one who stole the donation money.
Mayumi contacts Hell Girl, but she doesn’t come, so Mayumi tries to commit suicide, which is when Ai suddenly decides to make her appearance and give her the doll.
A short while goes by when Mayumi discovers that, even though she hadn’t stepped out of bounds with Aya, she still posted the photos of her with the men on the school’s server, which nearly destroyed her life and future. Devastated, she pulled the string and sent Aya to hell, allowing her life to return to normal.
In the manga, Hayase and her friends use the shoplifting incident to blackmail Mari into copying her schoolwork and buying A LOT of things for them, which eventually leads Mari into draining all of her savings and stealing from her parents several times. She was even caught by them on one occasion, which earned her a slap in the face from her father, though she still couldn’t get up the courage to explain why she was stealing. Mari pretty much knows from the instant this all starts that Hayase was the one who stole the CD and was using the situation to blackmail her. Mari wanted to get into a really good school and, supposedly, couldn’t do so if she had something like that hanging over her.
Unlike in the anime, Mari does not get the additional blackmail of having her photo taken in the red light district with seedy men. She is, however, still driven to suicide because she believes she has no choice.
I feel like this is the ultimate differentiation between the two stories.
Stealing nearly $1000 USD is way worse than shoplifting a CD already, especially since it was only an attempt (She got stopped in the doorway because the alarm went off) and she wouldn’t get charged or anything since the cashier already let her off (in fact, they have a security system in the store, which is how she got caught, so couldn’t she just ask to check the security footage to see who put the CD in her bag?)
They blow this situation up way too much in the manga. She drains her savings over this. She steals from her parents over this. Mari also seems to have absolutely no trust that anyone she loves would believe her over Hayase, which is silly because even one of her friends notes what a slimy person Hayase is – mentioning that she’d always pick on her and, get this, STEAL HER STUFF. She’s such a terrible person that even this friend says she wishes Hell Girl would take her.
If there’s one person she could have definitely told about this, it was her friend, but she still supposedly couldn’t risk it.
What’s even stupider is that, in lieu of the sketchy photo blackmail in the anime, the big crescendo in this story is that Hayase tells her to get her something, but Mari doesn’t have the money, so Hayase tells her to shoplift it….and she does….and her aforementioned friend catches her.
Guess what she was stealing…..Just guess. Anything. Shoot out suggestions. I’ll wait.
In the meantime, let me tell you that this was the event that made her want to attempt suicide via jumping off a building.
Got some ideas in your head?
Kay.
They’re wrong.
She stole snacks.
Snacks.
SNACKS!
Pocky and cornchips were all I was able to make out, but yeah, snacks.
Let me remind you that she had already resorted to repeatedly stealing from her parents, even getting caught by them once. Yet this is what tips her over the edge into calling Hell Girl and attempting suicide.
Snacks.
I don’t even know why she decided to steal from her parents anyway. Draining her savings, I get, kinda, even if I still find this whole setup a bit silly. But stealing from her parents? That’s a much bigger crime than trying to steal a CD, if you ask me. And she already got caught for stealing from her parents, and they were not happy, so why even bother trying to placate Hayase anymore? You think they’ll care that she attempted to steal a CD after that?
And even after all of that, she still does what Hayase says and she still flips her shit…..
Over stealing snacks.
She kinda shot herself in the foot too, because if she had just told someone about this before she was driven to steal from her parents, she likely would have gotten off a lot easier. The fact that she stole from her parents and then stole the snacks would actually be levied against her if Hayase mentioned she shoplifted the CD. She was digging her own grave in all sorts of ways.
Oh and another thing the manga and anime have in common in this chapter/episode, Ai waits several hours until the poor girl is attempting suicide in both versions for her to finally appear after being called. What the hell, Ai? What’s your problem?
I’m not one to call out characters for attempting suicide based on what I think is ‘worth’ having those thoughts over, but there’s no contest that Mayumi had a much more significant reason than Mari did. Being accused of being a teenage prostitute would do much more damage to your reputation and future than being accused of stealing a CD, or even stealing from her parents or even stealing SNACKS.
The hell torture in this chapter is also pretty benign as Hayase is basically just accused of shoplifting stuff and being sent to jail before she gets taken to hell. It’s nothing to clutch your pearls over.
In the end, it seems like Mari’s life is back to normal, sans the black mark on her chest designating her for hell when she dies her natural death, as expected.
I do have to ask though, in each version of this story, the target had a bunch of friends who knew of the situation and were partaking in the blackmail. Couldn’t they just pick up where the target left off and continue harassing the client, or is this another one of those mysterious circumstances where life gets magically improved after the target is sent to hell, as if the Hell Team has some sort of reality-bending or time travel powers?
Chapter 2: Sweet Trap
Hey, look, a chapter that’s so similar to a Hell Girl episode that even the titles are the exactly the same this time.
I suck at this.
Anyway, this chapter is very obviously mirroring the episode Sweet Trap where a young aspiring baker named Hiromi opens up a cake shop. Her old teacher, Mirasaki, seemingly gives his blessing, but turns on her when he makes her look like a recipe thief on live TV. Her business is entirely ruined by this, somehow, so her younger sister, Yuko, takes it upon herself to use Hell Link and send Mirasaki to hell.
Quite honestly, it’s one of the sillier entries in the franchise because it didn’t seem like realistic circumstances nor did they seem like bad enough circumstances to warrant sending the dude to hell. He was a prick, but it’s hard to say he was enough of a prick to deserve immediately being sent to hell or Yuki damning her soul either.
Also, the hell torture in that episode is one of the goofiest I’ve ever seen.
What of the manga version?
The manga version is basically the same in regards to characters (Hiromi is left alone, Yuko is Yuka in the manga and Mirasaki is Morisaki.) but quite a bit different in regards to both the circumstances and the hell torture.
In the manga, Morisaki used a magazine article to claim he made the recipe that belonged to Hiromi – he didn’t back her into a corner by giving them back to back TV spots where they’d unveil new recipes and she’d be stuck because he unveiled her “stolen” recipe that she intended on unveiling on the show first.
Still, people found her to be a rip-off of Morisaki and went to his shop instead.
After that, he kept spreading terrible false rumors about her bakery like saying they use frozen ingredients instead of fresh, they use rotten fruit, and their kitchen is absolutely covered in insects. He also sends out his employees to bust her windows, steal all of her product and even steal her recipes so can he use them himself.
Hiromi was under so much stress and was working so hard to build her reputation and make new recipes that she ended up being hospitalized.
Yuka couldn’t take watching her sister suffer anymore, so she contacted Hell Girl, but, like last time, she didn’t come immediately like she’s supposed to. She waited until Yuka was picking up a knife and was ready to kill him herself! Ai, please, timing!
The anime was so much more lackluster in this department, because Hiromi’s downfall was entirely that one recipe being stolen and everyone instantly refusing to go to her store afterwards, which caused her to shut down almost immediately.
In the anime, Yuko was driven by both guilt and anger because she was the one who gave Mirasaki a piece of Hiromi’s cake to try, which allowed him to somehow know the exact recipe and steal it before she unveiled it?
In the manga, Yuka is just tired of watching her big sister suffer and work herself sick just to keep getting kicked down by Morisaki.
Ai reveals the reason Morisaki did all of this – he used to steal all of Hiromi’s recipes when she worked at his shop. When she left, his quality went down, so he started stealing her recipes from her shop and trying to ruin her.
I gotta say, the anime made more sense in this respect. Mirasaki, in the anime, had sexually advanced on Hiromi, but she rejected him. As revenge, he ruined her when she tried to open her own shop.
The manga just doesn’t make much sense. If he’s a crap baker and needs Hiromi’s recipes (that he seemingly needs to steal like every few days or so) to keep the quality of his shop high, why would he go to such lengths to ruin her? If she shuts down or quits being a baker, he’ll be screwed all over again. How did he even make a name for himself to begin with if he was so reliant on a relatively new baker’s recipes?
Another note the anime had near the end of the story was Hiromi comforting Yuko by saying she’d save up the money to open a new business down the line, which pretty much made it seem like Yuko didn’t really need to use Hell Link, especially since Hiromi is still very young and can overcome such a minute scandal. Kinda makes it all the more apparent that contacting Hell Girl really isn’t necessary here.
There are no such comforting words in the manga. Things just get so bad that Hiromi’s reputation, shop and health are down the toilet, and Yuka feels the only way to end it is by contacting Hell Link.
As for the hell torture, there’s no denying that the manga’s version is 300% better and less goofy. In the anime, people threw cakes at Mirasaki, called him a terrible chef, people turned to frosting, and then he was eaten and fused with a cake. In the manga, he’s accused of stealing the recipes, his shop was revealed to be infested with tons of bugs, and the exterminators, who are Wanyuudou and Ren here, stick him to flypaper and, in order to kill the bugs, SET HIM ON FIRE. Wow. Yeah. Goofiness gone.
After that, Morisaki’s shop is suddenly closed down, Hiromi is getting better in the hospital, and Ai moves on to take more requests.
Chapter Three: Fallen Idol
Hey, finally a story that isn’t mirrored in the anime at all – and it’s a pretty good, albeit predictable, story.
Sakura is an actress who just landed her first leading role. She will be playing Ai Enma in a new drama about the legend of Hell Girl. She and her friend, Kaoru, are super excited about it, but as soon as she begins prepping for the role she starts getting harassed.
Someone plasters threatening messages to her forum, sends her a picture of herself getting dressed, sends her a bouquet of chrysanthemums, which are meant to be a message of condolences when someone dies, and it’s clear that someone is watching her at all times. She gets freaked out until her friend tells her it’s probably her creepy makeup artist doing it, and it’s confirmed when her manager finds incriminating photos on his computer. He promptly gets fired, and Sakura happily returns to her job. However, the instant she gets back in costume, a lighting fixture falls down from the ceiling and crushes Sakura.
Ligaments in both of her legs have been severed, and the doctors say she might not ever walk again.
In comes Kaoru, who is now gussied up to look exactly like Hell Girl. It seems Hollywood’s a pretty rough place because they’ve already booted Sakura from the role, since she can’t walk, and hired Kaoru as her replacement.
This was Kaoru’s plan all along. She had always felt like Sakura looked down upon her, something that, objectively, seems untrue, so she thought she deserved the role more than Sakura.
Filled with rage over losing her role, career and her ability to walk all because of some jealous bitch, Sakura calls on Hell Girl to take her to hell.
The hell torture this time around is rather typical bitter irony based on what she had done to Sakura.
Afterwards, it seems like Sakura’s career is still on track, getting a new role in a new movie even as she remains in a wheelchair. She states that she’s determined to get her ability to walk back and to keep moving forward. This entry is also the first time we see the curse mark in the manga.
This chapter was another that was predictable. I knew it was Kaoru the instant they showed another actress girl acting super happy about her role. A jealous fellow actress makes a lot more sense than a skeevy make-up artist, but there was also a good degree of pointlessness. I’m sorry, I just don’t understand why Kaoru did half the stuff she did. Why harass Sakura and frame the make-up artist if she was just planning on either severely wounding or killing Sakura so she could take her role? Even Sakura mentions that the stage lighting could have killed her. She could have just dropped the stage lighting on her at the start.
I thought for a minute that, maybe, Kaoru was trying to scare her into leaving the role voluntarily, but right as Sakura starts getting really freaked out, Kaoru frames the make-up artist, he gets fired and she’s back to feeling safe.
As a result, the make-up artist gets his rep tarnished and he’s fired from his job for things he didn’t do. He was a tiny bit creepy when he put his hand on her shoulder when he was trying to console her about the harassment, but that could easily just be an innocent gesture that was misconstrued. It makes so little sense, even Eto said in the notes “I worry about what happened to that poor make-up artist after he was fired even though he didn’t do anything wrong. I hope he got his name cleared.”
Hell Girl has a bit of a problem with overly evil super villain-esque targets, and this one is no exception. After Kaoru reveals she was behind everything, she might as well grow horns and have thunder clapping whenever she talks. She gleefully brags to Sakura about what she did, mocks her for being in a wheelchair/bedridden now (basically saying ‘You looked down on me, now you have to look up!’) throws a bouquet of chrysanthemums in her face and talks about how easy it was to get the light fixture to fall down. There is no doubt in your mind that this bitch deserves to go to hell, no matter if she’s still probably in her teens.
Chapter Four: The Inaudible Scream
Oh goodie, not only are we back to stories that are reflected in the anime, but it’s also a story about animal abuse. Fun fun.
The Inaudible Scream or Silent Cries as it’s known in the anime (It’s basically the same title) is the story of Junko and her beloved dog, Lucky, known in the anime as Candy (I feel like I have to talk about this name change even further because 1) If Junko and Hanjo kept their names, why not Candy? And 2) It seems needlessly cruel to name a dog you know is about to DIE….Lucky….)
Candy was very sick and needed an operation, helmed by Dr. Hanjo. However, when Candy was having her operation (I guess the dog also got a sex change between versions *shrug*) Hanjo stopped in the middle of the procedure to talk on the phone about golf with some congressman, and as a result of his negligence, Candy died.
Junko was devastated, especially since Candy was her only family because her parents died. Hanjo’s assistant tells her of the circumstances of Candy’s death, so Junko sends him to hell via Hell Link.
The story is almost the exact same in the manga, but there are some key differences.
First, even though Hanjo had been known by the assistant to give lower quality care to the pets of patients who weren’t rich and influential, apparently, in the manga, he just takes the money of the pet owners who aren’t rich and….doesn’t treat the animals, leaving them in their cages until they die.
That’s infinitely worse, but also so much harder to get away with. Hanjo is supposedly so tight with a lot of influential and powerful people that any attempts to sue him get swept under the rug, but certainly his reputation would be severely tarnished if he lets tons of animals just die in his care. It’s one thing to give priority to the animals owned by rich people, but he’s not even trying to treat the other animals.
Second, Junko’s story is actually more uplifting in the manga, even if it is still bittersweet and tragic. Junko knows she can’t sue Hanjo, but she tries to stop a little girl from giving her dog to Hanjo for treatment, fearing her dog will die too. The little girl and her mother leave the vet, but as a result Hanjo nearly strangles a dog in front of her, assaults her and tells her that the assistant that told her the secret behind his evil vet office mysteriously up and quit.
Seeing no options, Junko calls Hell Girl, but like so many times before Ai doesn’t show up. Junko is so depressed, hopeless and lonely that she tries to commit suicide by train, and THAT’S when Ai shows up to give her the offer.
Ai, seriously, what the crap are you doing? Why are you waiting until your clients are driven to either suicide or murder to finally show your face?
We also get our first glimpse of a straw doll here, complete with manga exclusive creepy scarecrow-esque face. It’s really weird because we never see Ai hand her this doll, she never explains what to do with it nor does a string get pulled. It just randomly appears in one panel. If you didn’t know of the show, you’d be very confused as to what this doll is and why it’s here.
Third, Hanjo’s hell torture is almost the same, but there are some interesting changes. He’s driving and about to hit a cat. He has no intentions of swerving because he doesn’t want to get his car dirty (Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be super clean with the blood, fur and cat gore all over it, dumbass.) He crashes because of Ai and breaks both of his legs. Wanyuudou, Ren and Hone Onna dress as doctors who are treating him, but they hilariously hand over the operation to a bunch of animals, who just hack away at him, not understanding his pleas for mercy. The anime episode ended with him in the cage begging for help for his leg while the Hell Team doctors ignored him.
Fourth, there’s an epilogue involving the little girl. Junko helps her find a better vet for her dog’s treatment. Turns out, her dog wasn’t sick – it was pregnant. And it just gave birth to a litter of three adorable puppies.
One of the puppies looks exactly like Lucky and takes a shine to Junko. The little girl gives the dog to her saying Lucky must’ve missed her so much he came down from heaven to be with her again.
No, I’m not crying. There’s just water in my eyes. Shut up.
In the anime, it ended very depressingly with Junko set for hell and absolutely nothing to show for it. She had no parents, no dog and really nothing to be happy about – especially considering that her being damned to hell meant she’d likely never see her parents or Candy again.
At least in the manga they have her save a dog (or four, technically) and even get a new dog of her own to love, even if they remind her that her soul is damned to hell and she’d likely never really get to see the real Lucky ever again.
Chapter Five: Dangerous Extracurricular Activities
This chapter is another that wasn’t mirrored in the anime. A girl named Yuu wants to work hard to get into the same private high school that her crush, Endo, is going to attend. She needs some additional work in chemistry, however, so her teacher, Yazaki, offers to privately tutor her.
It’s soon made apparent that this guy is a total creeper who just wants to get in her pants. He deliberately spills chemicals on her and makes no haste in trying to rip her clothes off, seemingly innocently (they are possibly harmful chemicals) and putting her in nothing but a lab assistant jacket.
He also invites her to what he claims is a group tutoring session at his house, which obviously turns out to be a lie – it’s just for the two of them. He quickly tries to get his hands in her shirt, but she runs off.
The next day, someone has written on the board that Yuu tried to seduce Yazaki. They also spread rumors that she was naked in nothing but a lab coat around him and that she went to his house to try and sleep with him. Yazaki is obviously the one who did this, but he’s playing the nice guy, acting like he might have just lead the poor girl on by being nice and hot.
Everyone, and I mean everyone, turns on her after this. Her friends shun her, everyone treats her like a slut, Endo tells her she’s scum, and even her mother slaps her in the face and tells her to not come home.
Jesus Christ, people. Is this guy such an angel in teacher’s clothing that no one wants to point the finger at him and say he’s probably the bad guy here? Just throw all of the blame on the middle schooler? Just because the guy is hot?
I wish I could say this is unrealistic, but I honestly wouldn’t be surprised….
Doesn’t make it any less infuriating, though. Especially her friggin’ mother. Not listening to her and being angry with her is one thing, but she legit kicked her out of the house!
Yuu goes to a manga café after hearing about Hell Correspondence, but, once again, Ai doesn’t come immediately. Yuu is about to slit her wrists with a box cutter before Ai finally shows up. I am not getting this weird suicide/murder theme at all, and I hope that’s one of the things that ends after a volume or two.
Yazaki is sent to hell, where his hell torture is Ai baiting him into his creepy behavior, which promptly gets noticed by tons of people….And that’s about it. I’d say that the vindictive pedophile is probably not the best candidate for ‘most tame hell torture of the volume.’ but you do you, manga.
After that, it seems the Hell Team has done their magic because Yazaki has somehow been ousted as a pedo with several molestation victims coming forward, and everyone makes their apologies to Yuu. It’s even hinted that Endo returns Yuu’s feelings and that she’ll live as happily ever after as much as someone can in this series.
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And that was volume one of Hell Girl! Like the anime, the stories have their big ups and downs with quality. And in terms of comparisons, they did some things better and some things worse. I especially didn’t care for the whole ‘Ai waits until the client is either about to kill themselves or commit murder’ shtick. I just don’t understand it. Why is she waiting for them to do that? Just to make a big dramatic entrance?
Some of the stories were drastically improved on in a variety of ways, though, so that’s at least good.
I’m not sure how I feel about the straw doll being almost entirely absent from the first volume (According to Eto, it is in volume two onward) as it corners the clients into making this huge decision right on the spot, but it’s not that bad. Usually, the clients are in such a state that, if they had the doll, they’d probably pull the string then anyway.
I hope another thing that changes with time is the art, but I don’t think it will change that much. Again, I must reiterate, it’s not bad art. It’s just that it’s so different from the Hell Girl art I’m used to, and Ai’s design is particularly distracting.
Here’s to more vengeful stories in volume two!
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The Anime Madhouse 