Hells

The story is about Linne, a regular old schoolgirl who’s late for school and running with a piece of toast in her mouth. Then she’s hit by a truck and ends up in hell. Not exactly the best start to her day. She has to attend the Hell School for Prim and Proper Ladies, a variety of demon ladies with various gothic dresses or alternatively lavishly decorated pubic hair. Oh, and the principal is Elvis-sorry, I mean Helvis.

The style of hell is very much that cartoony gothic you see in Tim Burton or, to bring a more anime example to the table, Soul Eater, and ... it’s a style I’m rather fond of. It works well in Hells because they know full well how ridiculous the story is and so ham it up to eleven. Unlike the very crisp and clean animation style of Soul Eater though, Hells goes for a very pencil sketchy look. It’s not something I’m normally a fan of, but Hells pulls it off perfectly. The style goes well with its bonkers hyperactivity and over-indulgence in exaggeration. Its boundless energy is catching, and the art style brings that across perfectly. If you’re watching this anime, you’re watching it for the art style, because that’s where the fun lies. Because you’re probably not going to watch it for the story…

After 45 minutes of this nearly 2 hour movie, I was all ready to call it my anime of the year. The pacing is frantic but coherent and action scene blends in well with calmer scenes. The introduction to the new character’s in Linne’s classroom is hyper and crazy, but you then get a downer scene of her trying to cope with where she has ended up. This is followed by the fight scene with the literally heartless Stealer and the gatekeepers, which flows into plot development and character interaction scenes with the classmates and student council and so on. Each scene has a purpose and moves the relatively simple plot forward.

Then I’m not quite sure what happened, but my guess is the lead writer was eaten by alligators and replaced by some hobo who had gotten through the first few pages of the bible. I don’t really want to spoil events, but suddenly in pops Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel, 3 of which are characters we’ve already been introduced to. There were no hints given earlier on in the story that they were supposed to be these biblical figures. It just randomly decided to attribute these characteristics to each person. Adam is a totally new character who randomly shows up halfway through the movie with absolutely no warning and becomes an important character. Then there’s Mario, whose purpose in the movie I don’t get at all. He’s just some dude who yells a lot. I’m not kidding when I say he probably gets the most screentime out of anyone in the second half of the movie, despite his actions having limited to no effect on the events of the story. If you removed him completely, it wouldn’t really change, except perhaps less shouting and an overall improvement of the quality of the movie.

I’m not necessarily against the plot points in the second half of the movie, and part of me appreciates the audacity of the set pieces and dramatics. I even genuinely liked the ending, in all its cheesy sentimentalism. But a good hour of that movie could be cut down to about 10 minutes. It’s especially exasperating when the plot doesn’t appear to be advancing through all this yelling and self-doubt. The main theme of the movie is meant to be self-doubt, but that doesn’t mean you’ve got to hammer it into our heads over and over again. It’s incredibly frustrating because you can see how this movie could be amazing if it was just an hour long. For as much as I love that Madhouse are willing to give directors such creative freedom with absolutely no prospect for making their money back, there’s a reason you need a strict editor sometimes.

I feel rather conflicted about writing negative stuff about Hells though, because it’s astonishing that it was even made in the first place. It bears many resemblances to Redline in this regard. Madhouse and their utter disregard for making a profit just so they can give directors free reign to experiment. Hells is certainly no Redline, but it’s born from the same kind of production environment. It’s the same place that saw directors like Satoshi Kon and Mamoru Hosada rise up. It will eventually drive Madhouse into the dirt, but for the sake of art I’d love to see them keep trying. Hells may not have worked, but there are flashes of genius here. I was about to say that I’d love to see what this director works on next, but we’ve already seen that. He was brought under the creative branches at JC Staff. That anime in question was Kill Me Baby.

READ THE MANGA! The movie's only watchable.

Good points:
The art style stays true to the manga's, very "hellish". If the movie stands alone, I would say it's an impressionistic piece of crazy artsy shit.

Not-so-good points:
This is a very concise adaptation of the manga. It's like an animated version with a lot of essential factors taken away. The plot rushes through character development and important relationships, making everyone seems rather flat. Although the manga only has three volumes, the story and the characters are so complex and interesting that a TV series would do more justice than a movie. Cramming all the drama and plot twists ... in just two hours doesn't seem like a good idea.

Overall, meh. Try the manga.

Hells... wow that art is really unique. Beyond the art however, you find that the story at times is special within its own right, yet lacking in its bipolar plot. Personally, I enjoyed the few aspects of the story. The story I guess you could say... is a form of art: making you think of literature and such (it gets quite metaphoric in the second half, although that's not entirely a good thing because it's so different from the first half). And if you're interested in Cain/Abel references, then that's a cool bonus for you.

The art seems pretty retro and possibly low budget, ... also reminding me of Kill La Kill. I wouldn't say that the art is a weak point in this anime however, because its drawing really fits the theme of this anime superbly, being flexible towards its dark moments as well as its comical moments.

The sound is fair and mediocre. Pretty much nothing bad nor good, just average so you wouldn't be bothered but neither does it stand out in any way.
The characters are all really interesting when they are first introduced; but as the story moves forward you can feel the lack of significant bonding between characters... a fully fledged TV series would've done character development justice. But with what we're presented here, I rate the characters below average.

My enjoyment personally was really good; the first half of this movie just CAUGHT ME. I was hooked and I loved the interesting concept of a girl who ran into hell unknowingly. The atmosphere was great and the anime kept me thinking about what would happen to our protagonist and would she ever find her way back to her world. However after the first half of the movie, it suddenly becomes very cliche as if the producers gave up half way through. The whole theme flip flops into biblical allusions that seems to have rose from nowhere. This makes it stray away from the ominous tone that the movie initially had going for it. And rather than going for that ominous tone of "Hells", the movie suddenly starts producing random plot and random character backgrounds for the story and characters.

Overall, if you're hesitant on watching this movie, I say: don't try it. This is one movie that I do not recommend. But I will give the movie props for making people hesitant in watching it in the first place. The anime is funny in some areas, but also somewhat inspiring in some others.
Because of Hells' comical and witty nature, my enjoyment is higher than the (bad) story-design itself. Initially, I was intrigued by the unique art and atmosphere of Hells. However, if it doesn't intrigue you, then I doubt you're going to find something worth your time in this film.

Thanks for reading ~