This is the best way I can describe Hell's Paradise.
# This review is spoiler free
It doesn't go the usual approach you would expect from something that was serialized by Shounen Jump. The story, characters, plot and everything around it is much more grittier and darker that from the big series like MHA or Black Clover, despite this it still keeps the light-heartedness you would expect at certain points, but it never feels out of place and is well placed into this very dark story.
# Plot
The story hooks you from the very beginning, presenting an interesting premise, which is well supported by the impressive imagery thrown at you, not holding back from showing dead bodies, cut off limbs and other things of the sorts. The worldbuilding in this is also impressive, with only little by little being revealed not only to us readers, but the characters as well, which gives us the feeling of exploring the island the main characters are sent to together with them, opposed to just watching them explore and learn from it.
The story starts off as a kind of battle-royale survival story. The plot at the beginning is very simple. Criminals sentenced to death are given an offer by the shogun himself, to travel to a newly found island, which is supposedly the home of the elixir of life, and whichever criminal comes back with said elixir, gets his death sentence revoked. Every criminal is sorted a executioner from the Asaemon clan to keep watch over them. This already presents us with a mental dilemma some of the executioners find themselves in. Are they just gonna keep watch over their assorted criminal, are they gonna try to lighten the mood with some small talk, or are they actually gonna befriend the criminal and try to survive on this island together. This is a great opportunity for the story to present us readers with the same dilemma. It also crates the opening for one of the oldest question in humanity. Do bad deeds in the past equal a bad person in the present? Are bad deeds allowed to be fulfilled in the name of law and justice? The story gives us a rough answer to these question, but keeps it open enough for everybody to form their own opinion.
After all of the groups explore the island for a while, all of them quickly find out that this island is not a normal one. It's filled with human-faced bugs, religious looking monsters and all kinds of different dangers for our main characters. The story later evolves from the battle-royale story, to basically saving the world like almost all shounen let's be real. But this time, the opponents are not simple villains that just want to rule over the world. They are a group of almost all-mighty beings, that all strive to do one thing, which I won't spoil here. Of course, our "heroes" are not just gonna give up and let these newly found being destroy the world they live in, so they make pacts with each other, to have a better chance to defeat them. This also brings us to the main question of the series.
What does it mean to be human
What does it mean? What makes humans special? Those and more are questions that are thrown at out heads while experiencing this story. This especially resonated with us, because it's not the only the question that also makes the convicts and executioners think about their ways of thinking differently, but it's the one thing our main character, Gabimaru the hollow had to fight for all his life. From since he was a baby, he was trained to be a killer machine, not feeling pain, emotion, empathy. But he himself realises that as he is about to die, he maybe isn't just a dead shell of a human like he thought. He actually has a reason to live, that that is his wife, which was originally only paired to him to give him somewhat of a illusion of a normal life, so that they could control him more and more, but he didn't care. It doesn't matter if the life he had with her was fake, if it was only a show, it was the only thing that kept him going and the only thing he was looking forward to experiencing once more.
# Power system/action
The power system is somewhat similar to nen from HxH, but kinda feels like a watered down version from it. Which is definitely not a bad thing. While HxH executes it's complex power system really well, something like that really isn't needed in this, actually very human, story. While the action is fantastic and has some really enjoyable and entertaining fights with some really nice dynamics, made possible by said powers, the main part of why I loved this series is in the story and characters, and how it makes us question what it really means to be human.
Like I said, the fights are still phenomenal tho. Great imagery, great uses of the power system, great dynamics between the characters, it just has it all. Like said, it also doesn't hold back with it's gory and gritty elements, which really helps to empathise the fights, the power behind every strike, and what can be the consequences if you even do one small mistake. The characters are also very likable, which makes us sit on the edge of our seat for almost every fight, because you don't want any of the characters to die, but the story is not scared of doing exactly that, what makes almost every fight unpredictable. Talking about the characters tho, let's talk about them
# Characters
The characters are absolutely phenomenal. Which I have to admit that yes, at least most of them, are not exactly the best written characters. You won't find any Guts, Light or Johan here, but the characters just overflow with personality, charisma and chemistry between them. All characters bring something new and unique to the table, which really helps the story and pacing, because it can focus on all characters at once, or on just one on them, depending on what the situations demands of it. Almost all of the main characters get about the equal amount of screen time, to the extend that even the main character Gabimaru doesn't really have much more screentime that all other characters in his group.
Even tho this is the case, the main part of the story is for the most part still about Gabimaru, and how he wants to reunite with his wife, and if it's only for one more time. And he will do anything, anything, to achieve his goal.
Almost all characters go through a lot of development through the series, be it realizing what they did in the past was wrong
Especially the main character, Gabimaru, goes through a lot of development in the course of the story. Nicknamed "Gabimaru the hollow" because of his emotionless killing, everybody just saw him as inhuman monster killing machine, which couldn't be further from the truth, which is revealed more and more through this story, as he learns to not only cooperate with other people, but also creates bonds with said characters. Bonds that not only fill his life with colour again, but also helps him push past his limits.
His main motivation is also different from most other shounen characters. Instead of his main goal at the start being to become the best hero or becoming the pirate/wizard king, he just wants to survive the deadly expedition he was sent on, just to reunite with his wife, and if it's only for one more time.
# Pacing
The story is well paced, with almost no parts that feel too fast or slow, even the slower parts have a reason to be, because they, for example, give us some useful new information or plot points, which keeps the readers engaged even while being slow paced. The only thing that felt to be handled a bit too fast, was the final climax of the story like in almost every shounen let's be real. But exactly because the ending is executed a but too fast in so many stories, it isn't really a problem for me anymore. At least as long as I can still get what's going on, it doesn't feel like a total asspull and as long as I can feel the emotions that the author wanted to convey, I can look over this issue, and this is exactly what happened here.
# Issues
Like I said, I liked most of the characters, but I have to say that I kinda dislike how they handled Sagiri, who is, especially at the start, somewhat of a 2nd main character. While everybody gets an almost equal amount of screentime later on, she is especially prominent in the beginning, which makes you believe she will be almost as much of a main character as Gabimaru. Her character and struggles were laid out and portrayed really well at the beginning, but later it all somewhat fell together and got ignored until the end, where she did shine, I gotta say, but as a whole, it still leaves a small bad taste in my mouth about how she was handled as a whole.
There was also one time in the story where Gabimaru lost his memories due to some heavy injuries he got in a fight. While that part allowed him to realise how important the people around him are to him at the end, after he regains said memories, but the part itself felt kinda forced and not something that makes sense, but the issue was solved inside of 2 chapters so it's not a really big minus point
# Art
And now for the artwork, and oh boy, the art is absolutely fantastic. It works good with the small comedic parts to freshen up the mood, but it fully blooms when the authors creativity was given full room to work with in the fight scenes. It also has a way of visualizing things that don't need to be said by words to be understood, and it has a lot of religious imagery, which ties in with the story, which has a lot of elements it borrows from Buddhism and Taoism.
The art style is also really gritty, which again especially shines in the fighting scenes, which are really gory and bloody
The panelling isn't the best I have ever seen, but it's good enough to bring across what it has too, and it never gives the impression of the author not knowing what exactly he wants to portray. It's flow is really easy to follow which makes for a comfortable reading experience, even the it can have a lot of text at times
My absolute favourite part about the art and art style tho, are how the characters are portrayed. Everything just feel so organic and realistic, while also keeping the more supernatural parts, without it feeling unnatural.
The designs alone also give us a rough impression of what kind of personality a certain character has, but the art style is also super expressive and visualises the emotions of characters so well, I never had a problem understanding what a character was thinking, even without any text needing to tell me. This is done through simplicity, rather than details. The characters faces aren't that detailed, but that isn't a weakness. Like I said, it gives the faces much more room to express emotions in a way that doesn't feel unnatural, and also keeping a realistic style. The author proves that he can also draw hyper detailed art that has created honestly some of the most impressive panels that I have seen in any manga I have ever read.
Some examples (spoiler free):
Spoiler, click to view
# Conclusion
Hell's paradise is a series that has touched me deeply. It's one of the most creative and expressive manga I have read in recent time, and I think I'll only appreciate it more with more time that passes. It now only has a lot of moral lessons to be learnt, but also tells us readers good life advice that any of us can implement in any way or form.
I love this series with all my heart and I'm super hyped for the anime. I hope it'll be able to catch the essence of the manga, but it's done by mappa so I'm assured they will be able to do exactly that.
