“Hell Girl,” a Japanese cartoon that begins its American run on IFC on Tuesday, could challenge “Law & Order” when it comes to rigid adherence to formula.
Act 1: A young and attractive person who is being harassed (by a bully-stalker-malevolent boss) goes to a mysterious Web site that promises vengeance and, after much dithering, enters her tormentor’s name. Act 2: The harassee is transported to the home of Hell Girl, a saucer-eyed moppet in a kimono, and her otherworldly helpers, whose human guises incorporate floppy hair or impressive cleavage. The deal is spelled out: We send the bad guy to hell now; you follow later. Act 3: The tormentor is tormented in appropriate fashion (the baseball-star bully’s pitching arm falls off, for example) and then ferried to hell.
Admittedly, this précis is based on only the first five episodes (more are available at ifc.com), and No. 5 showed signs of breaking out of the narrative rut and beginning to fill in the back stories of the Hell Girl team. In the show’s favor, the animation by Studio DEEN is above average and the English-language version was prepared by FUNimation, so the dubbing isn’t embarrassing. But that still doesn’t make this negligible show interesting, beyond what it might have to say about suppressed rage in Japanese society. (Japanese viewers apparently see something I don’t: the series, which began in 2005, is about to start its third season.)
What “Hell Girl” really illustrates is the continuing fallow period in imported television anime. From 2000 to 2005, American audiences saw “Cowboy Bebop,” “FLCL,” “Fullmetal Alchemist,” “Naruto,” “Neon Genesis Evangelion,” “Paranoia Agent” and “Samurai Champloo” for the first time. There have been entertaining series introduced over the last few years — “Blood Plus,” “Death Note” — but reruns of the shows in that earlier wave are still the best anime on television.
Ai Enma, also known as Hell Girl.
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