YMMV / Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku

• Adorkable:
  • Gabimaru of all people has his moments. He dearly loves his wife Yui who taught him things like politeness and as a result will act in his usual, terrifying manner but pause to thank people for saving his life out of respect for her philosophy.
  • Senta is fonder of studying and art than he is of his sword work and reacts meekly when Sagiri matter-of-factly states how his diligence is far more present in academics than his duties as a samurai.
• Angel/Devil Shipping: A milder example but the hardened criminal Yuzuriha gets quite cuddly with the very moral Yamada Asaemon Sagiri. The work clearly enjoys teasing this one, with the two getting quite close as Yuzuriha casually flirts with Sagiri and even has the two end it travelling together.
• Awesome Art: The manga and anime display a wonderful balance of beautiful and monstrous artwork that display the wonder and horror that are thematically tied together in the tale.
• Awesome Ego: Tamiya is a boisterous swordsman who brags about being able to conquer any challenge set before him and believes his deeds will echo through eternity making him an immortal of sorts. He's also an incredibly fun character who hammily delivers his dialogue and a good companion to the other heroes. Sweetly, he also ends up honoring his dead medicine-loving companion by becoming a healer at the manga's end.
• Awesome Music:
  • The opening song, "Work", is an intense number focusing on the island residents and their surreal world.
  • The closing song, "Paper Line", is a soothing number focusing on Sagiri and Gabimaru.
• Catharsis Factor: After spending the work as a depraved manipulator who made the lives of Gabimaru, Yui and all of the children of Iwagakure suffer, it's so satisfying to see the village chief executed and humiliated as his claims of immortality are proven false, with the shogunate even taking his head to show he's dead.
• Complete Monster:
  • The Iwagakure village chief poses as an immortal to control his people. The chief raises children as ninja via grueling training, which involves them killing each other and consuming a poison which causes one to feel they are being raped and tortured for three days, with nine out of ten dying from the drug's effects. Women of the village are put through the same torment and taught their only purpose is to breed children, the chief is even indicated to use his drug on his ten daughters, and when Yui—the only one known to have survived—states her wish to live a normal life, he cruelly burns her face. With his army of mentally broken pawns, the chief oversees countless bloody assassinations and when his ace pupil, the current Gabimaru, the "Hollow", and Yui try to leave him, the chief sets Gabimaru up to die in an ambush and isolates Yui, hoping she will die alone brokenhearted. When Gabimaru survives and is sent to the island of Kotaku on a mission by the shogunate, the chief dispatches his ninja to the island to kill Gabimaru and reclaim the title, having them slaughter dozens of criminals to prove their skills to the government.
  • Shogun Tokugawa Nariyoshi is a selfish, depraved manchild who loves violence as an art. The Shogun's rule sees a bigoted genocide targeting nomads, with peaceful villages regularly wiped out to the last. Having numerous convicts engage in brutal death matches, the Shogun intends to send them to the mysterious island to hunt for the elixir of immortality despite knowing most will die because the Shogun intentionally sent numerous others to their deaths on "test" voyages first. With an undening appetite for depravity, the Shogun once personally set up the mad Yamada Asaemon Shugen's slaughtering of a crime family and their relatives—including infants—to enjoy the bloody spectacle, and responds to the Iwagakure village chief's treason by wiping out the entire population.
• Creepy Awesome:
  • The monsters of Kotaku have hideous yet cool designs with religious inspirations that add an aesthetic kind of eldritch horror to the island.
  • The Tensen themselves are Humanoid Abominations often gorily torn open to regenerate and can transform into massive, bizarre monsters but all of them have fun, colorful personalities, Awesome Egos in their God Guise and a surprising amount of depth in their backstory and family relations to each other.
• Crosses the Line Twice:
  • Gabimaru is a brutal killer and it's usually shown darkly when he ruthlessly dispatches his foes but the sight of Warped Kenzen boastfully preparing to throw down against the shinobi is made laughable when the cutaway to credits returns with the latter dead and impaled on dozens of weapons.
  • Shugen later gets a similar moment with a Doshi of Kotaku responding to him killing off its minions by jumping off its mount to engage him... only to be shown in the next scene chopped down to a head and shoulders.
  • Iwagakure is shown to be essentially a death cult, teaching its inhabitants to see themselves as tools and to be willing to die on command without questioning. The horrific effects of this on the psyche of the Iwa nin are shown in details, as well as how terrifyingly dangerous this makes them. But it also means that when Nin fight someone they respect, aka Gabimaru, you get a rush of mooks essentially jumping in glee at the idea of dying and fighting while politely thanking the Hollow for murdering them and correcting their form while killing them. They treat the whole ordeal like they are all doing martial arts or something. To call the scene bizarre is an understatement.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: For a character who gets killed off shortly after his introduction, Tenza is surprisingly popular, being ranked 5th in the first Popularity poll, and 7th in the second one, both of which took place after his death. His popularity outweighs many of the still-active characters, including Nurugai—the convict he died to protect, which might explain why he makes a few Not Too Dead to Save the Day appearances in the last few battles.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • The Tensen and their master Rien are Enlightened Antagonists who've manipulated the population of Kotaku for a millennia, get cool monster forms and tons of depth to their character in their relations to each other, rather than just being one-dimensional villains.
  • Shija and the Iwagakure ninja are ruthless killers but they're brave in battle, capable of cunning tactics and prove to be extremely respectful and almost hilariously polite enemies to Gabimaru when they're sent to kill him.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • You'll find that many fans of Jigokuraku are also fans of Bleach due to the stories' similarities in kenjutsu-based battles and themes on life and death.
    • That's also to mention that Gabimaru is rather similar to Ulquiorra.
  • There's a large overlap of Jigokuraku fans with Chainsaw Man fans, thanks to the mangas' more mature, dark tones for shōnen. It definitely helps that Yūji Kaku, the author of Jigokuraku, is a former assistant of Tatsuki Fujimoto, the author of Chainsaw Man, and each of them did an interview discussing each others' manga.
  • With Horimiya of all things due to the leads being voiced by Alejandro Saab and Marisa Duran, respectively. At least in the English dub.
• Genius Bonus: Xu Fu was a Chinese alchemist and explorer under Qin Shi Huangdi and in legend is said to have encountered a hermit who gave him the elixir of immortality.
• Iron Woobie: Yui was scarred by her father for telling him she didn't want to be a Baby Factory and likely made to take a horrible, mind-bending drug that rendered her unable to taste food like many others in her village but she adamantly wants to find a "normal" life for herself and her husband and utterly refuses to bend. Even when her father has Gabimaru sent to be executed and she has no way of knowing her lover still lives, she refuses to give up hope.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Gabimaru himself is a cold killer but he had a horribly abusive past being raised as a weapon by the Iwagakure village chief and despite the massive amount of blood on his hands, just wants to live quietly with his beloved wife.
  • Shugen of the Yamada Asaemon is a brutal Knight Templar who executes even babies related to criminals but he's genuinely screwed up by losing his parents to criminals who escape justice and is convinced the world can't function safely without absolutely ensuring of law and order.
• Heartwarming Moments: Sagiri figuring out the real reason Gabimaru wants to live is that he deeply loves his wife and wants to return to her.
  • The flashbacks throughout the story reveal they had a very tender and loving relationship. One of them is Gabimaru telling her that she doesn't need to hide her burn scar around him, because it doesn't bother him.
  • Yuzuriha showing compassion to Senta in his dying moments, holding him and telling him he's free from his unwanted burdens now and can just think about the things that he really wanted and made him happy.
• Magnificent Bastard: In the dark quest for the Elixir of Life on the mysterious island of Kotaku, some turn the brutal world into a board for truly ambitious schemes.
  • The 58th Gabimaru, the "Hollow", born Tsuki, is the best assassin ever produced by Iwagakure village. A genius killer since childhood, Gabimaru fell in love with his wife Yui and decided to stop killing to live quietly with her. Betrayed by his village chief for his defiance, captured and delivered to the shogunate for execution, Gabimaru was instead recruited to seek the coveted elixir on Kotaku by the Yamada Asaemon Sagiri. Alongside his comrades, Gabimaru uses his predictive abilities and tactical acumen to kill both the villainous Tensen deities of the island and belligerent criminals who joined the voyage, at one point tricking a giant enemy into lowering his head for a decapitation strike. Injecting himself with a Tensen flower and risking his humanity, Gabimaru comes up with a strategy to distract and kill the Tensen leader Rien alongside Sagiri, escaping Kotaku and Iwagakure to live happily with Yui.
  • Jikka, the laidback third rank of the Yamada Asaemon samurai, is potentially the most dangerous of them all. Jikka arrives on Kotaku and immediately plays the convicts against his fellow Yamada. Manipulating his clansman Shugen to confront the Aza bandit brothers, Jikka makes sure to leave everything to his advantage where he benefits no matter who dies just so he can become the Yamada clan head and take a life of luxury. Returning after Rien's defeat, Jikka cheerfully arranges happy endings for all surviving Yamada and convicts, while tricking the monstrous Shogun Tokugawa Nariyoshi to his end in a way that will not reflect poorly on Jikka himself and his complete triumph.
  • Rien, the "Shangdi Samantabhadra", is the cold master of the Tensen and ruler of the ancient civilization on Kotaku. Once the wife of the alchemist Xu Fu, Rien and her husband were assigned to discover the secrets of immortality on behalf of their Emperor Qin Shi Huang on Kotaku, carrying on even after the Emperor's death. Heartbroken when Xu Fu's body is arborified from his experiments, Rien creates the Tensen and convinces them to aid her in reviving her husband and tricks the villagers to believe she and the Tensen are Kotaku's deities. Using the villagers' Tan to expand hers and the Tensen's, Rien makes the Banko flower and spends a millennia adjusting her research to bloom it and use its Tan to revive Xu Fu, undeterred even by each failure. In the present, when her initial plot to use the heroes' Tao fails and the Tensen are defeated, Rien quickly adapts and prepares to bring Xu Fu's preserved corpse to Japan and revive him using the Tan of all living beings in the mainland. Confronted by the heroes, Rien manages to fatally wound Gabimaru and Sagiri before being distracted and mortally injured herself. Gracefully healing her opponents out of respect for Gabimaru's love for his own wife, Rien passes on to reunite with Xu Fu in the afterlife.
• Moe: Mei, the little girl whom the main characters befriend, won the hearts of many readers by her cute design, her kindness and her wholesome relationship with the other main characters, who are protective of her.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Iwagakure village chief crosses this quick by burning his daughter's face for daring to defy his demands and wish to be anything but a Baby Factory.
• Spoiler Opening: The opening of the anime's first season has shots featuring only eleven of the twenty characters sent to Kotaku. Those who don't appear in the opening are killed off during the first day on the island, several of them completely off-screen, and in one case never reach the island.
• Tainted by the Preview: While news of the anime's announcement was met with excitement, the promotional trailers were under fire. While the visuals were praised, the numerous credits at the end of the trailers, as well as the re-use of footage from previous trailers in newer ones, led many to believe the visuals were actually pre-animated. Fortunately these fears proved unfounded when the anime aired.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The story rather ruthlessly culls about half of the characters on the first expedition to the island within a few chapters of their arrival. While this does ensure the story remains tight and focused, it also means basically none of them get any significant characterization, and the handful of the dead who do don't come anywhere close to living up to their full potential. Pretty much all of the characters who make it to the island are well designed too, and have names alluding to fascinating backstories making their immediate and/or offscreen deaths even more disappointing.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Shugen's ability to outright change his elemental Tao through imitating his fellow Asaemon's swordsmanship is literally revealed during the final battle. Rien even lampshades that they would normally be very interested in studying and experimenting on such a unique and unusual phenomenon, but given the urgency of the situation, they have neither the time nor the inclination to do so, and kills Shugen shortly after discovering this fact.
• The Woobie: Mei has spent centuries in isolation due to her refusal to follow through with Rein's unfettered schemes to drain life of Kotaku's people to bring back her husband and by the time she's found with the heroes she's living scared and desolate.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: It can definitely be hard to get into the series, what with its very dark setting, its tendency to kill off interesting characters, the sheer bleakness of the cast's situation, the sparseness of clearly heroic or sympathetic characters barring the female lead - something which remains arguable, given her role as an enforcer and executioner for a fairly nasty corrupt authoritarian state - with the main protagonist in particular bordering Nominal Hero (or even Villain Protagonist) status, at least in the beginning.

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