Jigoku Shoujo ep.6

November 9, 2005 | 9 Comments

This will unfortunately have to be a rather quick entry since I'm still quite sick and not in the mood for a long-winded summary. Overall this is a rather interesting story that deals with infidelity and violence. I have to say that I'm surprised to find the amount of stories that deal with the pressure of being in a community housing owned by a company in anime and manga. If you're interested, Hot Gimmick is another manga that deals with this kind of stories, albeit in a much lighter manner. Animation-wise this is much better than last week's effort with several shades of red colour being used to represent the infidelity theme of the episode. It reminds me of The Red Shoe Diaries .... err, not that I've seen it or anything like it. :P

Anyway, in this episode, a high school student called Yasuda Haruka and her family moved in to a community housing owned by her father's company. One day, however, Haruka's mother saw something happening at a house belonging to Todaka Namiko, the head of the housewives community in the housing complex. Ever since then, the Yasudas are bullied by their collegues, classmates, and other housewives living in the complex. One day Haruka finds her mother overdosing on medicine while the windows are closed and the cooking gas are leaked all around the house. As Haruka's mother is sent to the hospital, Haruka overhears her mother mumbling how it's all Namiko's fault. In order to find out the story behind the incident, Haruka decides to list the help of Ai and her associates. Ai, however, claims that she can't help Haruka's mother. All she can do is carrying out Haruka's revenge should she decides to exact one.

So Ai tells Haruka the drill as usual then shows Haruka how her mother saw Namiko having an affair with a delivery man. Namiko feels threatened about this so she sent a henchman to rape Haruka's mother. Namiko then took pictures of the deed and threatened to have the henchman come back to rape Haruka if Haruka's mother doesn't stay quiet about the affair. Haruka becomes angry upon finding out about this but still hesitates to pull the red string. However, when she comes home, she finds her mother beaten up by her father because he thinks his wife is the one having an affair. Unable to contain her anger anymore, Haruka pulls the red string. Upon doing this, Ichimoku Ren poses as a delivery boy to incite Namiko's lustful desire. However, as they are doing 'it' on the couch, a group of people finds out about their affair, driving Namiko to insanity before Ai eventually takes her for a boat ride to hell.

Impression:

I think the punishment in this episode is probably the weakest of them all. I realised that for someone who's so reliant on her social status, Namiko probably feel ashamed after being exposed by Ai and her associates. But since I don't care so much about social status, I feel that she got off easy with that punishment. After all, this is a woman who sent a henchman to rape another woman then took picture of the deed herself. I kind of wished that Ichimoku Ren had turned into something scary or gross while doing it with her. But unfortunately the writers do not seem to be willing to diminish his pretty boy look here. This is unfortunate because I think the punishment scene would have been more satisfying if something much more horrific had happened to Namiko while she was having sex with Ichimoku Ren. As it is now, I feel that Haruka gets a raw deal for simply wanting her mother to live a happy life.

© memento 2003