Pop Culture Gadabout
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
      ( 7/01/2008 07:04:00 AM ) Bill S.  


"TO CURSE SOMEONE IS TO DIG A DOUBLE GRAVE." Horror tales devoted to darkly ironic revenge have long been a comics staple, but few have been as theologically what-th? as Miyuki Eto's Hell Girl (Del Rey). The shoujo manga series, a spin-off from a popular tv animé, centers on a cast of massive-eyed (even by manga standards) young girls who've been brought to the brink of despair by unscrupulous evildoers. In each of the first volume's five independent stories, these girls take their revenge on their tormenters by logging onto a website which only appears at midnight, entering their enemy's name and thus damning them to Hell.

The agent of all this damnation is the title character (in no way related to Mike Mignola's proletarian Hell Boy), a seeming schoolgirl named Ai Enmasan. Ai first appears to each aggrieved party to offer her prospective clients a chance to back out of the deal. But in the first volume, at least, no one takes her sensible advice. She then goes off to enact her clients' vengeance, which essentially consists of sending the miscreants to Hell where they're forced to be on the receiving end of their misdeeds for all eternity.

Thus, for example, an unscrupulous veterinarian who has bilked his human clients out of money while doing nothing to actually care for their sick pets, finds himself caged and tortured by animal-headed demons in lab coats. A wicked baker who has stolen the recipes from a former student and spread malicious rumors that her pastry shop is bug-infested, is himself trapped in a man-sized sheet of flypaper. A young girl who's been blackmailing another student who she framed for shoplifting is herself jailed in Hell for stealing some jewelry.

When their former victims hear of their oppressors' mysterious "disappearances," their individual reaction is primarily one of smiling satisfaction. "I'm going to Hell, but I'm happy coz I got my revenge," the former blackmail victim says. "I'm going to recover," the wheelchair-bound victim of a scheming actress states in another episode, "and live my life to the fullest. Until the day I go to Hell."

It never seems to occur to any of Ai's clients that each of their victimizers would most likely be sent to the fire down below in their own due time, anyway. "You hurt others," Ai tells the greedy vet just before she sends him to the underworld, "and now you have tainted your mortal soul." What matters is the sense of satisfaction each aggrieved heroine feels as the engineers of each villain's destruction. They've taken justice into their own hands – even if it ruins their own afterlife.

In terms of its central gimmick, the aged 16-plus rated manga can perhaps be viewed as a distaff version of Death Note. Though where that pulpish horror noir ruthlessly charted the moral disintegration of its note-bearing protagonist, Hell Girl leaves its consequences in an unseen future. This oh well, I'm goin' to Hell someday theme makes it truer to its readership's own adolescent fantasies, I suspect, though its repeated use adds a sense of incompleteness to the proceedings. Perhaps future volumes (or the animé series?) portray at least one character who manages to turn away from the temptation that the Hell Girl offers, but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't. "People are such sad creatures," Ai tells us more than once in the first volume.

Eto's art is true to shoujo manga conventions, which won't be surprising to readers familiar with other distaff-focused horror manga (Pet Shop of Horrors, for instance), but may be a bit off-putting to newcomers. When a demon rips off his face to freak out that blackmailing schoolgirl, the overall effect is more cute than anything. When Ai sends her assignments to eternal damnation, the panel fills with flat floral shapes like something out of a kitschy sixties bathroom pattern: not very frightening, but the design is interesting.

Hmm, I think I just found my critical tagline for this series. Feel free to use it on the back cover of future volumes, Del Rey.

Labels:

# |



Pop cultural criticism - plus the occasional egocentric socio/political commentary by Bill Sherman (popculturegadabout AT yahoo.com).



On Sale Now!
Measure by Measure:



A Romantic Romp with the Fat and Fabulous
By Rebecca Fox & William Sherman

(Available through Amazon)

Measure by Measure Web Page







Ask for These Fine Cultural Blogs & Journals by Name!

aaronneathery.com News
Aaron Neathery

American Sideshow Blow-Off
Marc Hartzman

Arf Lovers
Craig Yoe

Attentiondeficitdisorderly
Sean T. Collins

Barbers Blog
Wilson Barbers

The Bastard Machine
Tim Goodman

The Beat
Heidi MacDonald

BeaucoupKevin
Kevin Church

Big Fat Blog
Paul McAleer

Big Mouth Types Again
Evan Dorkin

Bloggity-Blog-Blog-Blog
Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag

Blog This, Pal!
Gordon Dymowski

Bookgasm
Rod Lott

Cartoon Brew
Amid Amidi & Jerry Beck

Cartoon Web Log!
Daryl Cagle

Clea's Cave
Juana Moore-Overmyer

Collected Editions

The Comics Curmudgeon
Josh Fruhlinger

The Comics Reporter
Tom Spurgeon

Comics.212
Christopher Butcher

Comics Waiting Room
Marc Mason

Comics Worth Reading
Johanna Draper Carlson

a dragon dancing with the Buddha
Ben Varkentine

Egon

Electromatic Radio
Matt Appleyard Aaron Neathery

Estoreal
RAB

Eye of the Goof
Mr. Bali Hai

Fred Sez
Fred Hembeck

Greenbriar Picture Shows
John McElwee

The Groovy Age of Horror
Curt Purcell

The Hooded Utilitarian
Noah Berlatsky

Hooray for Captain Spaulding
Daniel Frank

The Horn Section
Hal

The House Next Door
Matt Zoller Seitz

Howling Curmudgeons
Greg Morrow & Friends

The Hurting
Tim O'Neil

I Am A Child of Television
Brent McKee

I Am NOT the Beastmaster
Marc Singer

In Sequence
Teresa Ortega

Innocent Bystander
Gary Sassaman

Irresponsible Pictures
Pata

Jog - The Blog
Joe McCulloch

The Johnny Bacardi Show
David Allen Jones

Journalista
Dirk Deppey

King's Chronicles
Paul Dini

Let's You And Him Fight
One of the Jones Boys

Mah Two Cents
Tony Collett

Metrokitty
Kitty

Michael's Movie Palace
Michael

Nat's TV
Nat Gertler

Ned Sonntag

Neilalien

News from ME
Mark Evanier

No Rock&Roll Fun
Simon B

Omega Channel
Matt Bradshaw

Pen-Elayne on the Web
Elayne Riggs

PeterDavid.net
Peter David

(postmodernbarney.com)
Dorian White

Progressive Ruin
Mike Sterling

Punk Rock Graffiti
Cindy Johnson & Autumn Meredith

Revoltin' Developments
Ken Cuperus

Rhinoplastique
Marc Bernardin

Scrubbles
Matt Hinrichs

Self-Styled Siren
Campaspe

Spatula Forum
Nik Dirga

Tales from the Longbox
Chris Mosby

TangognaT

The Third Banana
Aaron Neathery & Friends

Thrilling Days of Yesteryear
Ivan G. Shreve, Jr.

Toner Mishap
B2 et al

Trusty Plinko Stick
Bill Doughty

TV Barn
Aaron Barnhart et al

Unqualified Offerings
Jim Henley

Various And Sundry
Augie De Blieck

Video WatchBlog
Tim Lucas

When Fangirls Attack
Kalinara & Ragnell

X-Ray Spex
Will Pfeifer

Yet Another Comics Blog
Dave Carter



A Brief Political Disclaimer:

If this blog does not discuss a specific political issue or event, it is not because this writer finds said event politically inconvenient to acknowledge - it's simply because he's scatterbrained and irresponsible.




My Token List of Poli-Blogs:

Alicublog
Roy Edroso

Eschaton
Atrios

Firedoglake
Jane Hamsher

James Wolcott

Lance Mannion

The Moderate Voice
Joe Gandelman

Modulator
Steve

Pandagon
Amanda Marcotte & Friends

The Sideshow
Avedon Carol

Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo
Skippy

Talking Points Memo
Joshua Micah Marshall

This Modern World
Tom Tomorrow

Welcome to Shakesville
Melissa McEwan & Friends



Blogcritics: news and reviews
Site Feed



Powered by Blogger



Twittering:
    follow me on Twitter