Anime Review:
Hell’s Paradise
- Episode 5 -
“The Samurai & the Woman”
Hey, guys. Back again for another review of the next episode of MAPPA studio’s anime adaptation of Yuji Kaku’s manga Hell’s Paradise.
The series follows Edo-era deathrow convicts and executioners on a quest to the mystical Shinsenkyo Island to earn a pardon for their crimes by retrieving the legendary elixir of immortality.
Hell’s Paradise’s main character is Gabimaru the Hollow, a legendary ninja assassin who tried to leave his ninja village with his wife but was captured and betrayed to the shogun by his mentor Oso, the chief of the ninja village. In order to win his freedom and hopefully return back to his wife Yui, who also happens to be the village chief’s daughter, Gabimaru hopes to not just survive Shinsenkyo Island but find the immortality elixir as well.
Sagiri waking up after getting knocked unconscious by Shinsenkyo Island’s poisonous butterflies.
Episode five’s title The Samurai & the Woman at first made me think of Gabimaru and his executioner handler Sagiri but then I remembered that Gabimaru’s a ninja, not a samurai. After finishing the episode I came to thr conclusion that the title was in fact about Sagiri herself—her being a samurai and a woman. It wasn’t exactly a mindblowingly addition to her backstory but it was handeled with a subtlelty that wasn’t bad. Sagiri wants to choose her own life path. Freedom requires power so being a samurai is the only route to her. For Sagiri specifically she seeks a more general freedom rather than the literal freedom that convicts like Gabimaru are pursuijg via the shogun’s pardon once they find the elixir of immortality.
Episode five definitely had a lot less action than last time but it did a good job giving the story a breather so we could get more character development and get introduced to two other members of the cast: a blonde headband-wearing executioner named Tenza and his convict charge, Nurugui a young mountain-tribe girl.
Tenza’s a pretty basic character—chivalrous warrior with a heart of gold—but it’s refreshing to meet characters who aren’t super talented or nefarious in anyway. Here he is slicing through kraken tentacles after trying to escape Shinsenkyo with Nurugui.
Nurugui is a dark skinned girl from a mountain tribe. Not sure if this is a reference to an indigenous group but the shogun’s samurai trick her into leading them to her self-sustaining community in the mountains—basically almost an Edo era Waco situation where the government massacres people who want to be left alone.
I couldn’t remember these two characters very well from the manga I read a year or so ago and was worries they’d get slaughtered in their intro episode— but they survive.
Two nice reveals in this episode were the giant kraken with the crown of broken ships around Shinsenkyo and the twist that all the flowers and plants that could not be recognized were actually all the samurai and previous explorers to the island who’d been turned into exotix flora.
So I have to confess I’ve been watching this show online and the links I previously used did not have the anime intro and outro, which is a fun part of the anime experience, especially if you want to hear some cool music and see how talented the animation studio is when it comes to expensive sequences. And I was pretty impressed by what I saw. Some of it was tok fast or a little strange but I grabbed some screenshots that stood out to me:
Gabimaru activating his fire jutsu.
I think this is one or two—or three—of the Tao masters in a pretty trippy lavalamp-like sequence.
A bloodstained much-younger Sagiri brandishing a samurai sword.
The Tao masters are probably one of the cooler villains to come out in recent-ish manga: I’d say more but that would be spoiling the even greater-fun the anime will hopefully reveal.
It wouldn’t be a badass anime without this popular trope, the blind swordsman. I can’t remember anything about this guy but I saw a couple episodes ago he dismembers a convict woman who tries to seduce him.
This intro is pretty dope. Glad I finally got to see it.
I guess two of them are in love—completely forgot about that.
So far I’m enjoying Hell’s Paradise and think it’s pretty decent and will probably only get better from here. We haven’t even met all the characters yet so it still feels pretty early in the story. Not sure how many seasons we’re going to get but if I had to guess at least two or three since quite a bit happens if I remember correctly. While an overall very gory series, I think Gabimaru is a pretty wholesome character and the messages behind a lot of characters backstories is often touching. MAPPA’s doing a great job and I can’t wait to see more. See y’all next time!
If you like anime, fantasy, ninjas, samurai, or just awesome art and cool fights—be sure to check this series out!
Here’s a trailer from Youtube:
Image Sources:
All images are screenshots taken with my phone.
