Jigoku Shoujo ep.8

November 23, 2005 | 3 Comments

Lately I've been thinking how I actually don't find one-off episode format itself to be a problem because I obviously like Mushishi a lot. However, Jigoku Shoujo's way of telling a story is quite limited and therefore, without some kind of an arc, each episode feels a bit repetitive. This episode also made me realised that the animators are trying their best to work with whatever small budget I suspect they've been given. When I saw the stock animation of Enma Ai doing her Ippen Shinde Miru routine being turned upside down, I knew the animators are scrapping the bottom of the budget barrell. I think this is exactly why the storyline needs to be better because when you don't have enough money to show 'the fireworks', so to speak, you have nothing else to rely on but the quality of the script itself. So I'm glad that at the very least the story is quite interesting this time around.

The episode begins with Ai and a little girl looking at each other while the two are waiting on different sides of a railway crossing. As soon as the train appears and disappears, however, Ai also disappears from the girl's sight. Meanwhile inside a coffee shop, a man is seen reading a newspaper when an article about Jigoku Tsuushin attracts his attention. He quickly types in a keyword but can't seem to access the website even though he manages to find its location. His interest on the site, however, shortly diverted when a woman called Yamamoto Seira arrives at the coffee shop. The woman then hands in a wallet full of money in exchange for a large envelope full of surveillance photographs. After the woman left, the guy notices that its 12 midnight so he tries to access the site again but realises that it doesn't respond and makes a dry comment that maybe it won't work for those who should be the target of vengeance.

There is, however, a girl who manages to access the site because she has a vengeance she wants to exact for her hospitalised friend, Yuuko. Meanwhile Ai is seen in her weird acid land abusing her Jigoku straw dolls!! While she does this, she tells her grandma that today she saw this girl who for some reason brought back some memories for her. The grandma simply laughs it off and calls Ai silly before telling her that she's got a job to attend to. What kind of a grandma is her? I think Ai should report her to children's welfare organisation. Anyway, the next morning, the guy who was seen at the coffee shop is now seen having breakfast with his little girl. Well, sort of. He's also reading something on his laptop and this earns him an egg throw to the forehead from his daughter. She tells her father not to play with the computer while having breakfast so the father has no choice but to close his laptop and goof around about being a good father.

The father then ask his daughter, whose name turns out to be Tsugumi, if she ever heard of Jigoku Tsuushin from her friends at school. Tsugumi admits that she's heard about it but tells her father that if he wants to write article about it, he better stops right away. She then goes into a trance mode and speaks Ai's trademark word: "Ippen, Shinde Miru?" before falling unconscious. Meanwhile, the girl who entered in her request for vengeance is seen spying in front of a Hamburger shop, looking angry at the guy inside. Back to Tsugumi's father, Hajime, he's now seen back in the coffee shop looking up the internet again. After a while, he manages to find a message board where a poster named GBC39 claimed that he/she has sent a request to Jigoku Tsuushin but Ai never got back to her. Hajime decides to yahoo-ed the screen name and manages to obtain the street address of the Hamburger shop that the girl was looking at earlier.

At the same time, Chie, the girl who asked for a vengeance is now seen memorising the time when she saw her best friend being pushed from a balcony down into the car that is parked below by her boyfriend. When Chie takes a buss, however, she ends up being taken into the Sunset World. Ai then gives her the doll, the drill, and the vision before transporting her back to the real world. Meanwhile Hajime is now seen back inside the house trying to persuade his daughter to drink milk so her bossoms will be bigger. O_0 Tsugumi immediately tells him that this is a sekuhara. You tell your perverted dad, Tsugumi!! She also catches him trying to research Jigoku Tsuushin again so she has no choice but to ask him to be careful about it. But just as Tsugumi is about to drink some milk, she gets into a trance again and begins to see what Ai sees as she spies the burger shop.

Ai basically sees Chie entering the shop and asking to talk to the manager. At the same time, Hajime and Tsugumi are speeding their way towards the shop because Tsugumi has asked her father to take her there. Meanwhile, Chie finally talks to the manager, who pretends as if he doesn't know what happened to Yuuko. Chie, however, tells the guy that she knows the manager has used the company's money for his own use and that she saw him pushing Yuuko that day. The manager immediately changes his position and tells Chie that there's nothing she can say to the police because he has an alibi. Chie, however, tells him that she's not going to use Jigoku Shoujo instead. The guy laughs at the idea until Chie produces the straw dolls. He then tries to put the moves on her but when that doesn't work, he begins strangling Chie. In desperation, Chie tries to pull the red string.

At the same time, Hajime and Tsugumi arrives on the scene. Hajime manages to scare off the manager but by then it's too late because Chie has reflectively pulls out the string. All of a sudden the three hear the manager screaming and when Hajime arrives on the scene, he sees the guy being pulled by transparent figures into a shop. The manager then finds himself on a deserted city and ends up running into his own apartment where he finds Yuuko...looking all mangle and bloody. In his fear, he tries to push her off the balcony but he then realises that it's him who falls into the ground. Ai then catches up to him mid-air and Ippen Shinde miru him before taking him to hell using her boat. After the incident, Chie tells a still unconscious Yuuko that she actually liked the manager as well and knew she could ended up like Yuuko so she did what she had to do, revealing her Jigoku mark. Meanwhile, while Tsugumi is sleeping, Hajime is seen obsesively trying to find out info about Jigoku Tsuushin.

Impression:

It is interesting to note that Jigoku Tsuushin doesn't actually work on those with no intention to exact vengeance here. When Hajime tries to use the site, the site doesn't seem to react to his request. But doesn't this actually contradicts the event in episode 5, where someone could just write 'help' without having intention for revenge? Is this a plothole or has Ai installed some supernatural firewall on her computer? Another interesting thing about this episode is the presence of Tsugumi, a little girl who seems to be able to see what Ai sees. I wonder what this will hold in store for her and Ai herself. It's also interesting to see how her father's obsession with the site will turn out especially since Hajime has become the first person who has seen what happened to the victim of Enma Ai and her associates.

© memento 2003