Jigokuraku

Sentenced to death, ninja Gabimaru the Hollow finds himself apathetic. After leading a blood-soaked life, Gabimaru believes he deserves to die. However, every attempt to execute him inexplicably fails. Finally, Sagiri Yamada Asaemon, a fledgling member of a famed executioner clan, is asked to take Gabimaru's life; yet Sagiri makes no move to kill him as requested.

Insisting that Gabimaru will not die because of his love for his wife, Sagiri instead offers him the chance to obtain a full pardon for his crimes. If he can travel to the island of Shinsekyo and obtain the Elixir of Life—which supposedly grants immortality—and bring it back for the shogun, then his freedom will be assured.

But of the many who have traveled to Shinsekyo in search of the mythical Elixir, not a single person has returned sound of mind, if at all. Though unaware of the numerous dangers ahead, Gabimaru decides to accept the offer—alongside ten other death row convicts—in hope that he and his wife may finally live in peace.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Gabimaru Main

Kobayashi, Chiaki Japanese

Yamada Asaemon, Sagiri Main

Hanamori, Yumiri Japanese

Yuzuriha Supporting

Takahashi, Rie Japanese

Yamada Asaemon, Shion Supporting

Kobayashi, Chikahiro Japanese

Aza, Choubei Supporting

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Yamada Asaemon, Tenza Supporting

Kobayashi, Yuusuke Japanese

Tamiya, Gantetsusai Supporting

Inada, Tetsu Japanese

Yamada Asaemon, Fuchi Supporting

Ichikawa, Aoi Japanese

Yamada Asaemon, Touma Supporting

Ono, Kensho Japanese

Yui Supporting

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Kawagoe, Wataru Producer, Production Assistant, Production Manager

Ishii, Nozomi Producer

Makita, Kaori Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Ebina, Yasunori Sound Director

Reviews

Jul 4, 2023

149597871

Recommended

Funny

Damn, I did not think I would ever give another anime a score of 10, but here we are. Of course, all those people criticizing Jigokuraku are not necessarily wrong - the anime is neither the next Shawshank Redemption nor one of Christopher Nolan's mind-bending masterpieces. Therefore, if you are one of those pseudo-intellectuals who only enjoys watching galaxy-brain-teaser shows whose depth is solely based on conveying simple concepts and premises in an unnecessarily complicated way that makes you feel like a genius once you finally understand it, then you should probably skip this anime, for it will not cure your chronic insecurity or make ... you feel better than the rest of the community in any way. However, for those whomst do realize they are essentially still watching children's/teen's cartoons, Jigokuraku is about as good as an anime show can get.

The story is fast-paced, captivating, and (most importantly) unpredictable. Unlike other popular shows in the genre, where even an 8-year-old kid can easily see how the anime would end after watching just the first two episodes of it and the whole journey feels about as exciting as watching a download bar fill from 0 to 100%, each episode in Jigokuraku is a unique experience and leaves you wondering where the next one would lead you. The anime also does not make the same mistakes as other big shows like Game of Thrones or Attack on Titan by overhyping people through unnecessary foreshadowing and suspense that are bound to end in disappointment later on. The story builds up tension steadily and effectively, with each plot shift either living up to or exceeding the viewers' expectations, and the bizarre setting and world-building brought to life by MAPPA's exceptional work only contribute to the whole magical experience that is Jigokuraku.

The characters may initially appear as one-dimensional, but quickly undergo a captivating transformation, gaining depth and complexity as the story unfolds. More importantly, Jigokuraku features one of the best and most respectable female protagonists I have seen in anime so far, despite the fact that it takes place during the Edo period in a heavily patriarchal and androcentric society. The show also touches on various far-eastern religious and philosophical concepts without wasting time with unnecessary details or trying too hard to impress the viewer by presenting things in an overcomplicated way.

Overall, Jigokuraku is not just a great anime, but I also believe it sets a standard for what other anime in the genre should aspire to be. I highly recommend it to anyone who seeks an enjoyable and unique viewing experience.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Jul 2, 2023

Mcsuper

Mixed Feelings

First of all, a quick writer’s note, as I’m writing this, it is June 30th, and it’s late at night, and I’ll be heading to bed right after I write this. The final episode of Hell’s Paradise airs in around nine to ten hours, and I’m just starting on my review. I did this intentionally though, to imitate a MAPPA style of production, rushing and submitting the work just a bit before it’s due to see how poorly this review will turn out.

Studio MAPPA has been known for taking on big name action or shounen titles as of late, with the likes of Jujutsu Kaisen, ... Attack On Titan, Chainsaw Man, Vinland Saga, and now Hell’s Paradise. They've taken on so much that they have become a popular name amongst anime fans. While their shows generally look decent, it is clear that because they’ve taken on so much, their production schedule has been a literal hell, with very overworked staff, and poor working conditions. Of course, I’m sure many other studios experience these kinds of things too, but MAPPA has been brought into the limelight due to how many popular titles they’ve done recently. Clearly, Hell’s Paradise was not their favourite child, as this show looked considerably worse visually than their other shows.

But before we get to all the production things, let’s talk about the story. On paper, this looks like a somewhat generic action shounen, with a death convict in Gabimaru being tasked, along with the rest of the death row convicts to find the “Elixir of Life” on an island called Shinsekyo, in order to escape their death sentence. Obviously, the convicts fight amongst each other, as only one can have this elixir to evade death. This island looked very interesting and colourful, with some scary creatures around them, all around a very intriguing, perhaps a unique setting. However, what this anime fails at is the most important narrative technique, which is “Show, don’t tell”. Time and time again, we are told about what this environment is like, the religion aspects, the creatures, how the world works, but we don’t really get enough showing of the environment itself, either through simple background shots, or just cutting back on the expository dialogue. There is no need to spoon-feed the viewers every single narrative detail about what is going on, people can figure things out. There was solid potential in what the environment could bring us, but I wasn’t really invested due to the overly saturated dialogue.

The characters felt interesting at first, but slowly also devolved into being rather gimmicky or generic. Gabimaru is the typical protagonist who starts out cold but ends up warming up to people and becomes more kind. For the female characters, there is a sense of empowerment that they were trying to go for, especially with Sagiri looking to escape gender norms and become a samurai, instead of the “norms” that this anime instills upon women. While on its own this would be a cool concept, the fact that all the female characters were so sexualized, and somehow getting saved via princess carry, defying all logic of physics by the men just felt a bit hypocritical to the potential message the show was trying to convey. Furthermore, people died before we could even really have a chance to know them, and adding a sad backstory to try and make us feel emotions just felt like such a weak way for characterizing them. At least the backstories weren’t too saturated after the first few episodes.

From a production standpoint, the show looks fine, but disappointing by MAPPA’s standards. Some of the fight scenes were genuinely very decent and tense, but the other moments of the show had this very weird filter where the characters didn’t really “fit in” with the background art. The compositing was awful at some points, and characters went off model a lot. It was clearly the product of rushed production, as most episodes were outsourced to between ten and twenty different anime studios and animation directors, which signalled how poor the production schedule was. It more or less just felt like MAPPA gathering up all their buddies to finish their homework just as the teacher was coming to collect it every week. This might feel a bit harsh and nitpicky, but if we’re comparing it to other MAPPA works, this is probably one of their worst productions, but from a wider perspective outside of MAPPA, the show looks average to fine visually.

Overall, there is decent entertainment value to be seen here, but it could have been so much better with more time spent on production, and more showing instead of telling. This will undoubtedly get more seasons, so I just hope the next time this show comes around, it’ll be a much improved product compared to what we got this time around. MAPPA, you just got to chill with the amount of projects you got.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jul 1, 2023

Ionliosite2

Not Recommended

Funny

Jigokuraku is the newest member of MAPPA’s line of adaptations of Shonen Jump titles, and just like the previous two, this one is garbage. What I had heard from Jigokuraku before made me afraid, after all, I hear it being compared to Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man which is an immediate red flag, but I know some people recommend some series over the most superficial reasons, so maybe, this one won’t be actually that similar to those, maybe this one will be good right? Well, the answer is sadly no, I cannot even say I’m disappointed because I’m not, it turned out to be exactly ... as to what came to my mind the second I hear it was compared to those series.

The very first episode is already dumb, when the MCs changes his character abruptly by something he should have obviously known before, as you see Gabimaru started completely willing to die but no one could kill them because their methods were obviously bad, suddenly when the girl Sagiri talks a little to him he remembers that he has a wife and now wants to live. I don’t know if Gabimaru is dumb or simply has dreadful memory because the instant he remembered she existed he turned very differently from how he was introduced as if his wife suddenly materialized instead of her existing beforehand. And with that said, everything from Gabimaru is terrible he is the most OP character, so there is no tension when he fights, he won’t get stronger or develop because he is already the strongest and already has a clear goal in mind and his “development” was remembering his wife on the first episode. There some shinobi rules as well that he has to follow, but some of them are broken as much as they are said, stuff like “never get into a fight with an unknown enemy” is broken every single time, because he is in a completely unknown island. Sagiri is a person a girl executioner with a great fear of killing people and wants to achieve the same painless killing method her father could pull off, which is so painless that can cut the head of someone and that head would continue talking because the person didn’t realize they died or something, she gets subjected to people looking down on her for being a girl d that she clearly isn’t fit for the role of executioner, and while that is true, she tries to prove she has some worth, she is probably the only character that I can barely care what her development may be even if it will be pretty obvious and her personality is extremely uninteresting, sadly, she gets easily sidelined by the amount of characters introduced later so we are far off of seeing her actually achieving anything.

This suffers the same syndrome these edgy series have always suffered, it kills character left and right without giving me a reason to care about them, this series killed so many of its characters in so many dumb ways and so quickly that I cannot remember their names. And sometimes when it wants me to care about them it gives them flashbacks the very second they are dying as if I was watching Kimetsu no Yaiba or something to tell me their whole story to feel bad for their deaths, but I don’t, because they are cardboard cutouts without much if any character whatsoever that talk like robots, I could only laugh after the death of a certain character because it came out exactly as I’m describing it. Characters not named Sagiri and Gabimaru are even more empty, Yuzuriha is literally just there doing nothing, deciding to not go into most of the fights and her ability which covers her in definitely-not-cum is made as if I’m watching some ecchi anime where it is trying to make me think the slimy white liquid she is covered in is cum. There are two edgy brothers, one more edgy than the other and when more edgy they have less character. I honestly cannot care to mention some of them, I remember more this character that was hyped in episode 2 just to die stupidly by the next episode, he didn’t get a flashback at least.

There is this energy called Tao that some people within the island aled Tensen can use t and that makes them extremely powerful and unkillable and these unkillable person that can use it, they are what you can call the main villains, due to their Taos they are stronger than everyone and no one can face them in a battle, except Gabimaru, of course. And when the time comes where a little group of selected characters survive the dumb killings from the first part, they discover the way to fight the unkillable enemies they were facing because they just bullshited their way to their new powers unlocking Tao, and lacks a basic consistent power system that most action shonen series have. And I’m not impressed, what should I be impressed here anyways? I mean, I guess the body horror where people are turned into flowers is not so commonly seen? But I guess that’s the best things I can give credit for.

I hope I can see MAPPA doing a good looking or even well animated show again, because I haven’t seen them doing it in years. Jigokuraku looks unsurprisingly ugly, it has the absolutely dreadful and soulless MAPPA’s filter just like Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man which immediately makes it visually appalling, it is also subjected to obviously bad animation having no impact on any of their actions outside of fights, janky movements, bad compositing, ugly backgrounds, even fights don’t look that good either, they are extremely lackluster even for MAPPA standards, it is just my usual MAPPA’s animation complain that they haven’t managed to get over.

What was I expecting? Probably a series that is entertaining to watch, sadly Jigokuraku is as uninteresting as they come, it is just another ugly edgy schlock that MAPPA vomited out just like Chainsaw Man was and just like the next season of Jujutsu Kaisen will surely be.

Thank you for reading.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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