Subject: Manga Reviews: Hell Girl, vol. 1 | Author | Messages | Billy Aguiar
Posts: 84
 | Posted: 1/19/2008 1:37:12 PM | Hell Girl, vol. 1
Del Rey Manga
$10.95, B+W, 208 pages, Available Jan 29th!
By Miyuko Eto with Original Story by The Jigoku Shoujo Project
Rated for 16+
Reviewed by Billy Aguiar
2 stars
There is an Internet urban legend is that if you contact a certain website with the name of a person you hate at midnight, that person will be taken away to hell. Since this a manga, this of course true, but once the victimhas sent in their information, there are contacted by Hell Girl, a teen girl that they have meet before, perhaps in school. She offers to take care of their problems, taking the source of all the victim's troubles to hell, but in return when the requestor dies, they will go straight to hell. Their tormentor goes to hell in a suitably ironic way and the victim, now vindicated, now resolves to live their life to the fullest until they are claimed by hell.
One of the interesting bits of difference between East and West is played out here, with the typical Faustian bargain being made, but the characters accepting their doomed fate rather than trying to find ways out of it which tends to be next step in these Faustian bargains. The stories follow the formula that is laid out in the first chapter of the volume, so one can very quickly tell the pacing of the story within a couple pages of a chapter. I suspect that this series fared better when it was being serialized, when the chapters were released a month or two apart, but here it just quickly becomes repetitive. Unless the set-up or the Hell Girl character evolves, this series over the long haul is only for fans of the twist horror story.
This is a weekly manga review here on the CBG site, but don’t forgot to check out my other review site, Prospero’s Manga for more manga reviews.
www.delreymanga.com
ISBN: 0-34549-747-3
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