Hell Warden Higuma

Note: A 4 does not mean it was bad, just disappointing. Hell Warden Higuma is an interesting series. On the surface, it seems very generic. Higuma's clan has been tasked with being wardens of hell as they send escaped convicts that prey on the living back to their fiery afterlife. But after a few chapters, you start to notice how un-generic this series is. For one thing, there is no sexualization of women. Usually, a heroine falls in love with the male protagonist or is at least looked at in sexual situations, but none of those annoying cliches are here. Instead, we have Ayaha who isa fairly competent character where she almost stands as equals to the overpowered main protagonist. Then there's Higuma. When it comes to Shonen Jump protagonists you'll expect loud, obnoxious, dumb, goal-oriented teen, but Higuma is not that. In fact, he's the opposite. He's very quiet, quite calculating, and actually hates what he does. And yet, I also feel like what makes him stand out is also what makes being invested in this series so hard in the beginning. The first few chapters are okay. You're getting to know the world and the characters, but there seems to be something missing. There's no spark to make you go "oh, I gotta check out the next chapter." After thinking about it for a while, I think it's because of how closed off Higuma is. You don't really get to know him until much later, near the end of this series, when you start going through his families' backstory do you truly finally understand him as a character. And because he's fairly mysterious, you start to question why he's the main character early on. You ask why is he interesting and worth following. The antagonists are alright. For a SJ series, it's fairly dark. There is a lot of innocent death being hacked between panels. The one that stands out the most is the Kitsune storyline. That was fucked up and the way the story transitions from fairly mundane action to holy shit that spirit just killed a child is sometimes very clashing. I think this was where the story was going to go, but from what we got it felt like Higuma worked better with not only an ensemble cast, but a cast made up of his family. This is easily a story about familial sin and how they need to stick together to get out of the pits of hell, but so much of the series, in the beginning, was about Higuma being closed off that you, the reader, feel closed off to the story as well with only hints of Ayaha to guide you through it all. Overall, it had potential, and I wouldn't have minded seeing where it went, but as it is I felt like it struggled to find its footing and it didn't reveal enough interesting information soon enough to keep readers invested. This series is just a step below average for that. Story: 4/10 Art: 5/10 Character: 4/10 Enjoyment: 4/10 Overall: 4/10