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Jigoku Shoujo
World
"The home of Enma Ai, the Jigoku Shoujo, exists in eternal twilight. No other houses surround it, and clusters of higanbana grow in its garden. The house itself is an old-fashioned cottage with a thatched roof. However, there is a computer within it which is markedly incongruous with the rest of the decor.
The Jigoku Tsuushin can only be accessed at midnight. And only those who harbour powerful grudges may see it. If a name is entered into the Jigoku Tsuushin, a message is sent to Enma Ai's computer. She is sent a great deal of information, and uses it to decide whether or not to accept the request. In some cases, she will conduct more extensive surveillance on the target and client with her three servants.
When she accepts a request, Enma Ai goes to the client and gives him a straw doll with a red string tied around it. If he pulls the string, his antagonist will be taken immediately to hell. A seal will appear on his chest, a reminder that he too will be taken to hell."
The Jigoku Tsuushin can only be accessed at midnight. And only those who harbour powerful grudges may see it. If a name is entered into the Jigoku Tsuushin, a message is sent to Enma Ai's computer. She is sent a great deal of information, and uses it to decide whether or not to accept the request. In some cases, she will conduct more extensive surveillance on the target and client with her three servants.
When she accepts a request, Enma Ai goes to the client and gives him a straw doll with a red string tied around it. If he pulls the string, his antagonist will be taken immediately to hell. A seal will appear on his chest, a reminder that he too will be taken to hell."
- "The Truth Behind Jigoku Shoujo", by Shibata Hajime
Hell exists, and the proof of it is through the work of Enma Ai, the Jigoku Shoujo (Hell Girl). Four hundred years ago, in the Azuchi-Momoyama period, Ai was once a seven-year-old girl with spiritual powers. Her past is a tragic one, stemming from the custom of "Nanatsu Okuri" (Seventh Sending/Funeral), an appeal to mountain gods for sound health and harvest, and culminating in her death at the age of thirteen. Because of her bid for vengeance, the Lord of Hell (in the form of a spider) gave her the choice of becoming Jigoku Shoujo to exact the vengeance of others, or else let the souls of her loved ones wander forever. For the next four centuries, Ai ferried condemned souls to hell in atonement for her own sins, eventually coming to suppress her memories and emotions.
The methods of contacting her varied throughout history - once, requests were passed along with the use of "Jigoku Ema", a small wooden tablet, and later through the newspaper - but within the context of the series and the invention of the computer, Ai receives requests through a web page. The Jigoku Tsuushin (Hotline to Hell) exists somewhere on the internet, and appears as no more than a black background with the words "Your vengeance, I will dispel" (also translated as "I will exact your vengeance" or "I will dispel your grudge") over top of a text box and a send button.
When the request is accepted, she'll explain the rules of the contract (ie: "When one person is cursed, two graves are dug"), which are not always so simple as they appear, and hand over the straw doll - in actuality, one of her servants. If the string is pulled, the doll disappears, along with the target. Ai's servants then begin to physically and psychologically torture the target within an elaborate illusion. Everyone is fair game when it comes to being the target: young or old, woman or child, innocent or guilty, it doesn't matter. The law of physics don't apply when it comes to their scare tactics either, and the use of irony is often heavily used. Sometimes, if the target is obviously guilty of a crime, they'll repeatedly try to make the person admit what they've done, sometimes they won't. It's unclear what would happen if a person did choose to repent, as it's never happened, but it's impossible for a contract to go unfulfilled once it's been made.
Humanity has a penchant for showing its ugly side throughout the series, and mortal fallacies and turpitude are only enhanced by the temptation of the Jigoku Tsuushin. Jigoku Shoujo makes a point of presenting humankind through the perspective of hell's denizens; rarely do Ai and her three associates (two of whom were once human) find grace in the human world. Most clients deserve pity, most targets don't, and contracts are always unpleasant.
Ai's helpers have said more than once that humans are creatures full of sorrow and bitterness, and believe that the human world is its own kind of hell. Most of all, that the grudges will never cease.
Abilities
As Jigoku Shoujo is meant to mirror the real world, humans don't typically have any supernatural capabilities. Some people, like Ai when she was human, may have psychic abilities and heightened spiritual senses, enough to recognize spirits and Ai's servants for what they are, cause physic phenomenon, or even escape from hell itself. In Japan's past, all manner of youkai and other apparitions once existed, and there have been occurrences of vengeful spirits, but unearthly marvels like that have mostly ceased to be in the present day.
Hell is an association which has been around since the beginning of time, and the Lord of Hell is the omnipotent ruler that presides over it. The most important rule put upon its denizens is that, under no circumstances, are they to affect and influence the outcome of a contract, and are sworn to remain objective, since even Ai's associates have the power to easily change the course of human action. Enma Ai has an incredible amount of power on her own; it's unclear whether her ability is granted to her as Jigoku Shoujo, or if her previous abilities were augmented through her status. Either way, all the people involved with the Jigoku Shoujo system, including her servants, exist on a different plane to the average human, as they're basically spiritual entities themselves, and can't be harmed unless attacked by an entity similar to them.
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, May 3 2007, 12:38 PM EDT
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