Hell's Paradise

Hell's Paradise, despite its promise of thrilling fights and a captivating world, stumbles out of the gate with a heavy reliance on forced exposition. The stage is set for a treacherous journey with an explanation of the processes of beheading from our main character, Gabimaru. Meanwhile, an executioner struggles to decapitate him with a sword—a seemingly invincible boy who just wants to die. He explains his history, motivations, and flaws to a stranger who randomly interviews him in prison. Almost all the information we learn about the protagonist is delivered lazily through forced exposition. Whether narration in non-diegetic form, flashbacks, or characters uttering their backstory,it's all forced. The anime’s saving grace is the grotesque monsters Gabimaru fights along with the ensemble cast, but subpar production quality and weak writing ultimately leave you cold. Gabimaru and many other criminals have been sent to a monster-infested island to find the "elixir of life." Upon achieving their goal, the nation would pardon their crimes. Every criminal has an executioner to monitor them. Gabimaru’s is Sagiri. She is a blank slate, a hard-working, disciplined rule follower known as an Asaemon. Sagiri's internal monologue spoon-feeds Gabimaru's character development. If they want us to understand how emotionless yet emotional he is, she will tell us painstakingly. Let's just say neither of them will make any "Best Character of the Year'' lists. It's not only Sagiri, either. Half of the screen time is devoted to people dumping exposition onto one another or, worse, the viewers. For an anime with such mature content, it treats us like children! We can handle visual storytelling, natural dialogue, and context clues. Is that asking for too much? Aside from its overly literal nature, the script is blander than an unseasoned boiled chicken breast. I like humor, wit, charm, irony, sarcasm, or flavor. There's none here! If there's one thing Hell's Paradise does better than its contemporaries, it's how it doesn't waste too much time on world-building. It keeps its terms comprehensive. The monsters on the island are just called monsters. The energy that monsters harness to fight is called Tao. Gabimaru’s ninja flame powers are efficiently named 'ninjutsu'—all pretty basic stuff. Aside from the Mcguffin storyline, I didn't care about the generic world. It's an exciting anime for the violent death island and increasingly grotesque monsters. There's some lore behind how the monsters came to be, but it's mostly an excuse for big bug battles and giant killer statues. Body horror lovers won't be disappointed. The most challenging enemies heroes encounter are the Tensen—seemingly immortal flower/human hybrids. The Tensen control the island's monsters and use Tao to slice and dice human trespassers. Early in the series, the writers establish that cutting off a Tensen's heads doesn't kill them, yet no one seems to share this information, leading to predictable outcomes. One of the side characters chops off a Tensen's head, then it regrows, and now they're disadvantaged. Marvelous, what else do you have for us? Hell's Paradise embraces a recurring theme of women's empowerment. A significant moment occurs when one of Sagari's superiors tries to belittle her by suggesting her weakness as a woman. He also urges her to leave the island. However, Sagiri courageously stands her ground, and it is refreshing to see the show firmly supporting her stance. As one of the few female Asaemon, she must demonstrate her combat prowess to silence misogynistic criticism. There are other female characters in the anime, and the overall portrayal can be deemed feminist in its approach. Caring about Hell's Paradise characters could be an Olympic sport. After a few minutes of development, the series dispatches them so quickly that you may wonder what's the point. The supporting character development resembles Demon Slayer's worst aspect—they develop right before dying. Usually in the form of a badly-timed flashback meant to make you pity or sympathize with the short-lived fighter. This first season offers plenty of unique faces with likable personalities. It's a shame it's over right before you get to know them. Thankfully, they don't do this with the Tensen monsters. Flashbacks work in moderation, but their overuse here looks like lazy writing. The series' only alternative to quick flashbacks is inserting a character whose sole purpose is to spew background information. Like Sagiri, random people will appear just when we need to hear about the person's life story. You'd have to be blind not to see the played-out formula. Speaking of played out, it's no surprise the production is mediocre. As the compositing shows, Hell's Paradise was a less significant production for MAPPA. Whether their productions will come out well is a coin flip. One of the problems is overexposed art and excessive brightness—this results in a loss of detail and a washed-out appearance like a low-budget anime. Additionally, the characters seem alien to their surroundings due to a significant disparity between the background art and characters. Instead of seamlessly integrating the characters into the environment, it looks like stickers haphazardly placed on wallpaper. The issue is made worse by slow fights. Combat constantly pauses for flashbacks, basic observations, or monologues. The battles aren't particularly well choreographed, relying on wild camera movements and close-ups to avoid animation. It's a lot of build-up for a fight that ends up being lame. Hell's Paradise falls short in many aspects, especially character development, scriptwriting, and art. The forced exposition and dependence on flashbacks hinder the story's natural progression, leaving little room for viewers to form a genuine connection with the characters. The lack of humor, wit, and charm further detracts from the overall enjoyment of the anime. However, the series succeeds in concise world-building and delivers on the promise of violent battles and grotesque monsters. The body horror elements and the Tensen enemies provide genuine excitement. Hell's Paradise deserves credit for highlighting the strength and determination of the female deuteragonist, Sagiri. Hell's Paradise falls short in production quality and writing competence, resulting in an irritating sense of disappointment.

Each character is a surface-level cardboard cutout of an archetype, and none receive any meaningful development. Gabimaru the so-called hollow’s greatest feat as a shinobi is convincing fans that he is a deep and complex character by cramming down his love for his wife down the audience’s throat. He is a broken record of a character that knows two sayings, “I love my wife” and “I am hollow” (coping). Besides this master of illusions, the rest of the cast is blatantly one-sided in terms of characterization and development, no character really worth mentioning has emerged from the entire show. With how bad the main castis, its pretty surprising that the show managed to churn out even worse antagonists; they are terribly uninteresting in everything they do, they aren’t charismatic, they aren’t compelling, they aren’t complex, and the greatest offense is that all of them have terrible designs. The story is similarly uninteresting, from its bland plot to its lazily crafted mystery, not one bit of it is good. The premise is fairly simple and not too complex, and already unoriginal as it and the characters are loosely based on pre-existing historical and mythological figures and narratives. It doesn’t try to say anything new with these concepts unlike other series that incorporate these aspects better. In Hell’s Paradise, these aspects are simply just there, and not expanded on in any meaningful way. This is also done with the incorporation of Asian schools of thoughts like Daoism, as well as other concepts like reincarnation, these aspects are also not fleshed out or expanded on in any meaningful way, yet their presence gives off the illusion of depth. Their presence instead of adding anything of import to the series really just detracts from it, because it all comes off as pretentious and shallow. The production value of the show is mediocre, not much to critique but I don’t think that there is terribly much to praise, either. The art style is pleasant, the animation is decent, but those positives are slightly detracted from because of the directing. A lot of potential in action scenes are squandered by misplaced flashbacks and exposition, or just cutting the action sequence entirely. While being passable in this regard, it sadly cannot boast the title of “carried by animation” like demon slayer, which actually somewhat makes up for its lackluster story with good visuals. To make matters worse, Hell’s Paradise also falls into the typical shounen pitfall of sexism. Each female character in the cast is almost constantly being sexualized, seduced, or saved by a male character. Despite its blatant sexism, the series attempts to include a character arc of Sagiri breaking gender norms. The reason I say attempt is because nothing really resulted from it. The sexist character literally had to die to admit he may have been wrong about women not being able to fight, and after that scene, nothing changed. Sagiri went back to being the same character she was before, the lasting impact of it wasn’t that great, and it didn’t have any impact on other characters or their perceptions, so it feels pointless and ham-fisted. The lazy writing, bad characters, pretentious nature, and sexism of Hell’s Paradise are all perfectly packaged together with its exceedingly overhyped protagonist, Gabimaru the Shallow, to create the ultimate 2/10 anime.

Out of all the big shonen shows MAPPA have done lately, Jigokuraku stands out to me as the most interesting story, characters and most entertaining experience. I know that’s going to come as a surprise to many considering the big name titles they’ve done of late, but with the exception of Vinland Saga s2, which I’ll count as a WIT production due to the staff involved, they’ve been “meh” for me. Overhyped animation spectacles with little in the way of a good story. Jigokuraku on the other hand actually has one of the coolest set ups in recent history for me. The idea of excons being thrown on an island with samurai, and made to search for an elixir, while fighting monsters and gods just clicks for me. The world feels alive and rich. Mystery and danger are around every corner and the threat of someone dying is a constant concern. The brutality of the show and gruesome reality of the island were amazing. I love a gritty anime and this delivered. The main cast of characters have good chemistry and bounce off each other well. Each of the main cons is assigned to a samurai chaperone who at some point develops a soft spot for the con. This allows for some good character development and bonding. Some characters were a little lacking, but I can excuse it because I know this is a longer running series and after 12 episodes I don’t expect to have everything done. I’ll say there’s an obvious path forward for everyone in the story, though and that’s enough for me. Also huge props to the author for not taking the easy way out and making an MC that falls in love with the samurai chaperone and become a generic battle shonen romance. Having Gabimaru be married and fully dedicated to his wife, as well as using his wife as his motivation to return home was a great touch that adds to the uniqueness of the story. I think it’s more challenging to show a platonic relationship between men and women in anime than creating generic ships, and this author does it perfectly. Now, the story is great, but one thing you’ll hear a lot from people is the production aspect of the show. I personally have no issues with it because story+entertainment> great animation, but there are a few moments in the show where it’s obviously lacking some polish. Particularly in the compositing of backgrounds and some character models looking really janky. There’s also a few episode ends that feel very jarring. I feel like that was down to creative intent as opposed to budget constraints, though. The last 3 episodes looked very solid to me and it was apparent that the week off they took helped the production tremendously. The action scenes down the stretch were much better. Again, the production side didn’t matter to me as I prioritise the substance of a show and my overall enjoyment over how it looks. But it is something that’s worth mentioning. Jigokuraku may not have the flashy lights and crazy action scenes of its fellow MAPPA titles, but what it lacks in spectacle it makes up for in story and substance. If you’re an action anime fan and looking for something different and more on the mature side, this is the one. You’ll get a really interesting world, fun characters and some good action scenes. I loved this one and I can’t wait for a season 2. Jigokuraku gets 9 out of 10.

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 exactlyas 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.