This series (the anime at least) is my go to example for a great concept done horribly wrong. Maybe that’s a bit too harsh, but it’s because of how much this series let me down. In short, this series is about revenge, it asks the question, “if you could send someone you hate to hell, at the cost of also sending yourself to hell after you die, would you?”. Sounds enticing doesn’t it? It portrays this question through letting people access a website at a certain time, then receiving a doll with a red string. If the string is pulled, their victim of choice is sent to hell post-haste. As aforementioned, while you get to live the rest of your years peacefully, once you pass your soul will also be taken to hell. The person who takes you there is Ai, the hell girl, and her followers known as the Hell Correspondence. After rumors start spreading about people being dragged to hell, a blackmail artist and his daughter (who has some sort of telepathic link with Ai) spend the series getting to the bottom of the hell correspondence and asking themselves if this is something they should be intervening with. Now, with a premise this awesome, why do I hate it so much?
It’s because this premise is diluted by the repetitive nature of this show. If you’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen them all. That’s not to say there aren’t episodes that have different premises. But those are few and far between. On top of that they’re always sandwiched between a plethora of other episodes that follow the same beats as the rest. Each episode usually goes like:
- Person A goes about their business
- Gets bullied or mistreated by Person B
- Person A finds out about Hell Correspondence
- Uses it to get back at Person B
- END
This wouldn’t be so bad, if it didn’t go on for nearly 26 episodes, with only slight variations. It gets so predictable, and if there’s something I dislike more than a show with zero effort or heart put behind it, it’s a show that wastes my time by being so formulaic. Now I’ll give it props for having some very interesting episodes splintered throughout. Some of my favorites include; a hikki-girl who refuses to go to school and only texts one friend. She’s constantly checked on by her teacher to come back to class. Annoyed, she sends him to hell. Only afterwards finding out that her friend was the teacher. Both are relieved they’ll meet each other again in hell. Any episode where we learn the history of Ai/Hell Correspondence. An episode where they visit a haunted sanitarium where Ai meets her match. An episode where a fraud-psychic challenges hell girl. And lastly, an episode where a random drug addict tries to send an innocent girl to hell and this conflicts with the morals of Hell Correspondence. Yes you read that right, these demons have morals and standards.
Had this series been 12, or maybe 16(and even that’s pushing it) episodes, this series would’ve been better. I’ve heard the subsequent seasons of the anime and chapters of the manga add more variety and spice up the story, but after 26 episodes of nothing but a story with foreseeable events, I was in no hurry to pick up the next season. Aside from its repetitive nature, the other aspects are nothing to write home about either. The character designs(aside from hell correspondence) are ugly, they constantly reuse the same animation sequence when they’re about to send someone to hell, though the tormenting sequences are always unique. The music was okay, but the OP and ED were killer. The animation was serviceable, the backgrounds did their jobs. To the show’s credit though, it is very satisfying to see these assholes get their just desserts. But after a certain point, it almost loses that satisfaction because of how often it happens. If I’ve sounded like a broken record this entire review, I apologize, but I think it’s very fitting given the show I’m talking about.
