Season two of “Jigoku Shoujo” has officially started. Instead of throwing us right into the usual one-shot stories, we get to see just how Ai became known as Enma Ai. Taking into account what was shown in the first season, this scene definately made things more clear. The rest of the episode was pretty much like the other one-shot episodes from the first season. At least it appeared that way until the end. I thought the addition of the twist at the end made the story a lot more interesting overall, albeit kind of depressing. Discovering that Hirohashi Ryou was this week’s guest seiyuu was a pleasant surprise. To top things off, we also get a glimpse of a mysterious girl in a kimono as well. It gives us an idea of what the story concerning Enma Ai is going to revolve around. Without a doubt I thought this episode was a nice start to the series’ second season.

After 26 episodes this series has finally come to an end. I thought the last episode did a good job of finishing this series. Pretty much all the remaining questions we’ve had are answered in this episode. We find out why Ai is doing what she has been doing for the past 400 years. I liked how we got to see Tsugumi struggling not to pull the thread while Ai was pressuring her. She’s one tough and mature 7-year-old, I’ll give her that much. I thought the scene where we see Hajime asking for Tsugumi to forgive him was a pretty nice scene. I wouldn’t say this was a fantastic ending, but I think it did what it set out to do and it has its fair share of good scenes. In the end things are back to the way they were with Ai continuing with her job of helping people damn others. They could have just left the series at this point, but a second season is already in the works. It’ll be interesting to see what changes they make in the second season.

Without a doubt this was one of the most unique series in the last couple of months. That in itself is already a good reason to watch this series. One of the drawbacks of this series were the amount of similar one-shot episodes. There were some stories that stood out because of their originality, but there were others that didn’t stray from the formula used in episode one. I thought the art for the series was pretty decent. Because of all these one-shot episodes we didn’t get to see the recurring characters develop that much. In terms of the usual category, I thought this series was a little weak in the music department. It had a good opening song and whatnot, but the BGM’s were kind of lacking in my opinion. This isn’t a series for everybody. If you’re looking for something completely different from the usual genres then I highly recommend “Jigoku Shoujo”.

The entire episode was spent on telling us about Ai’s past. After watching this episode you can’t help but understand Ai’s immense hatred. I thought it was such a sad story. There’s almost nothing worse than being buried alive and getting betrayed by the one person whom you thought you could trust. All the blame can’t be put on Sentarou though. He was under a lot of pressure and being in his early teens didn’t help the situation. Watching this episode just reminds me of how stupid people can be because of superstitions. I thought it was great when we see Ai burn down the village. I’ve had enough of the stupid villagers. Now I’m really looking forward to the last episode. I’m not even going to begin to guess that the finale will be like.

This episode wasn’t anything like I had thought it would be. There is a lot of new information regarding Ai and her past which I found to be really interesting. We’re beginning to see the connection between Tsugumi and Ai. Speaking of Tsugumi, we learn that she is 7 years old. I knew she was young because of her elementary school backpack and whatnot, but she seems too cognitively advanced for a real 7 year old. I guess there really was no way around it for the story to have a big a impact as it does currently. Having Tsugumi act like a real 7 year old would take away from the intensity of the moral dilemma she has been dealing with. I would never have expected to see Ai become blinded by her hatred like that. Now I’m really anxious to see the rest of the series. A lot more should be revealed in the next episode regarding Ai’s past. My guess is her hatred stems from some sort of misunderstanding, but I could be wrong.

In a way this episode can be seen as unique. The victim this time appeared to be loved by everyone around her. Indeed that was the case because the locals were of no help either since nobody could think of any reason why anyone would hold a grudge against Kanako. That was until someone showed up to try and lead us to believe he was the one who contacted Ai. Of course this was just to mislead us and we find out the real perpetrator was a complete stranger. What makes this episode unique is this was the first time where the victim and perpetrator had no relation whatsoever. I was a little disappointed at the lack of development during the episode until the end where we see Tsugumi standing near Ai. We get a glimpse of a girl who appears to be a young Ai with Sentarou. It looks like we will find out the connection between Tsugumi and Ai in the next episode.

The young boy Ai has been seeing appears to be someone named Sentarou. We don’t get anymore new information besides that so his significance is still unclear. I found this episode pretty difficult to watch. A good portion of it were a series of flashbacks into Hajime’s past. This is the first time we get to see Tsugumi’s mother. At first I was wondering why it appeared Hajime was reluctant to go with Tsugumi to visit her mother’s grave. It all made sense when Hajime caught her cheating on him in one of the flashback scenes. I can’t say it was completely unexpected since Hajime put his work ahead of his family. Regardless, I thought that scene was hard to watch because you feel so bad for Hajime and even Ayumi to a certain degree. After going through what Hajime has been through, it’s no surprise he feels the way he does about revenge. Without question, this episode adds a lot more depth to Hajime and also puts him in a better light.

It took many tries, but Hajime was finally able to prevent someone from pulling the thread. Tsugumi’s support for revenge becomes even more prominent in this episode. There seems to be a few hints pertaining to the relationship between Ai and Tsugumi. It’s still pretty much unsupported at this point so I don’t want to make wild guesses for the time being. This week’s guest seiyuu is Chiba Saeko. Some of her previous work include Natsuki from the “Mai-HiME” series, Chika from “Ichigo Mashimaro”, and Dokuro-chan from the OVA series “Bokusatsu Tenshi Dokuro-chan”. I thought the ending for this episode was well done. Ai didn’t answer Yuko’s question until the very end. It sort of leaves the ending open-ended up to the viewer to decide for themselves what happens.

Without question, this was one of the best episodes of the series so far. What made this episode stand out so much was how different it was from everything we’ve seen in the previous 19 episodes. Here we have Jil, someone who claims to have been to Hell and returned. Before watching this episode I this episode I just thought he was just some guy pretending to have special powers (like all those “spiritual mediums” or “psychics” you see on TV). I was surprised to see he really did have the powers he claimed to have. It was exciting to see that even Hone-onna and Ren were unable to do anything to stop Jil. To top it all off we get some development for the plot as well. Wanyuudou and the others now know Tsugumi has some sort of one-way connection with Ai. We also get to see Ai begin to recall something from her past. For now we have no clues as to what it all means, but I’m glad to see we’re once again progressing with the plot.

I hate to say it, but I was a little disappointed in this episode. The episode doesn’t really set itself apart from the early episodes in the series. The only worthwhile thing in this episode was we get to see how unbearable it is to basically have your own free will taken away. I guess there was one “unique” aspect in this episode. I believe this is pretty much the only time where the individual is still in a living Hell after getting revenge on their victim. Next week’s episode should be a good one. It looks like there will be some actual plot development.

This week’s special seiyuu guest is Kujira. Many of you may know her as Orochimaru from “Naruto” or Ursula from the “Kingdom Hearts” series. The story for this week was good in my opinion, even though it wasn’t unique like the previous few episodes we’ve seen so far. This was pretty much back to the original formula from the first few episodes. There really was no plot or character development for the main story and cast to speak of either. I guess the only thing that may be worth mentioning is Tsugumi started wondering if what Ai is doing is not a bad thing afterall. At this point I don’t have high hopes in seeing a very deep story for the main plot of the series. I could be wrong of course and I do hope I am wrong about this.