Rumor has it that somewhere on the Internet there is a website accessible only at midnight -- the Hotline to Hell -- where people can ask the Hell Girl to take revenge on people who have wronged them. However, when one person is cursed, two graves are dug, for if the Hell Girl fulfils your request, you too will be consigned to the pit of Hell when you die. Would you untie the red ribbon and sell your soul to the Hell Girl for vengeance?
Description: shinsengumi
Story & Characters
the commercial seemed promising- a little girl sending people to hell? hmmmm.
different from the usual take-over-the-world villains. seeing real people in a different perspective- seeing them
through red eyes, knowing their fate in eternity is in your hands. episode one was okay enough to proceed to the second.
and after the second, well.... read on.
Rating: 6
Art
Art is very smooth and sharp. Making Ai's hair all black is good to look at and eats up less of the budget, heh heh
heh. Character designs are impressive- in fact my best friend is stuck on Ichimoku Ren. fangirl moment. I am immune to
this syndrome though.
Ai's kimono is.... ngh, could be better... the flowers just look like blobs. Real kimonos are very detailed. On the
plus side, details on the lycoris flowers are very beautiful. But overused. Apart from the fact that they grow near
Ai's house, they have little to do with the story. Or did I miss something? I got kinda bored and sort of....
drifted.
the style of drawing suits the genre quite well. And Ai is... cute. That was probably what the design team had in mind
while working on her design. Hone-onna is obviously a mature woman (I mean, mature in age) and Ren is younger than her,
Wanyudo is the eldest... it was a good idea to incorporate a red scarf into the hell doll thing.
Rating: 8
Sound
yay the sound!!.... is pretty good. OP and ED were good enough to stay on my playlist for two months. Catchy, but not
unique. In fact, it's the kind of music that fades out of your life after a few plays. As for the BGM, it's
faintly distinct, at least it catches your attention, but then it sounds like standard BGM fare. nothing special.
Ake Ni Somaru, the haunting song when the girl was being whipped, was vaguely impressive. the best of the BGMs that my
brain registered.
Voicing was pretty good. Ai's voice seemed to lack emotion though when she went psycho (pardon the term). All the
seiyuu are suited to their characters. Well, all the characters we've seen. The Grandmother never showed her face,
did she? Oh yeah, the spider. the only voice that didn't match. kinda funny to hear a big booming voice from a
little bug.
the OST as a whole is well suited to the genre, though not creepy since it's got a pop feel to it. Lots of room for
improvement. I'm not looking for a Dracula organ tune- it's just that the music is so peaceful and
everyday-life-ish.
Rating: 7
Presentation
unfortunately, by the second episode it was already getting on my nerves. The same process over and over again, like a
'monster of the week' thing, except it was 'victim of the week'. bah.
also, it is clear who is the 'good guy, bad guy'. this anime is tagged as 'Psychological', but it
isn't. It tells you what to think, it tells you who to side with. To be rated PSC, an anime must require DEEP
thought. want a sample, try death note. you will be toyed with like a piece of string- now THAT is psychological.
psychology is also used in Gundam Seed, where it is not clear what is right or wrong. meaning you can't go
brain-dead and float off in the middle of the episode. be forced to think for yourself.
what annoyed me the most was how they handled character development. They crammed everything of use at the very end, the
south pole of the story, and that is just a bad idea. putting something so important at the end is something only
someone who plowed through the 'monster of the week' stuff will see, and by the time I got there I hardly
cared what happened, and only watched it because there was nothing else to watch. and that's just Ai, Shibata and
Tsugumi. The rest don't even develop at all, no, just sit around waiting for the Miss to fly off in the chariot.
on top of all that, this series had so much potential. a little girl, hell, straw dolls, a weird website.... it could
have turned out so cool. argh. if I had a doll, I'd probably go chase the scriptwriter and send him to hell, he
ruined this series >_<*
I realize this sounds VERY harsh. however, seeing things cycle over every episode is maddening. and as for the ending?
watch it and flinch. rip-off.
OVERALL: ok (sorta), but not a keeper.
btw the screenshots' quality is low. not really a priority for me.
Rating: 3
Final Verdict
5.5000 (average)
Reviewed by Tsunoh, Apr 16, 2007
