Jigokuraku (Hell's Paradise)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Paradition, Heavenhell

Japanese: 地獄楽

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Information

Type: TV

Episodes: 13

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: Apr 1, 2023 to Jul 1, 2023

Premiered: Spring 2023

Broadcast: Saturdays at 23:00 (JST)

Producers: Twin Engine

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: MAPPA

Source: Manga

Genres: Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Themes: Gore, Historical, Samurai

Demographic: Shounen

Duration: 24 min. per ep.

Rating: R - 17+ (violence & profanity)

Statistics

Score: 8.11¹ (scored by 349,653 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #485²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #306

Members: 668,074

Favorites: 7,474

Available At

Official Site

@jplus_jigokurak

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AniDB

ANN

Streaming Platforms

Crunchyroll

Netflix

8.11

Ranked #485Popularity #306Members 668,074

Episodes: /13

Synopsis

Sentenced to death, ninja Gabimaru the Hollow finds himself apathetic. After leading a blood-soaked life, Gabimaru believes he deserves to die. However, every attempt to execute him inexplicably fails. Finally, Sagiri Yamada Asaemon, a fledgling member of a famed executioner clan, is asked to take Gabimaru's life; yet Sagiri makes no move to kill him as requested.

Insisting that Gabimaru will not die because of his love for his wife, Sagiri instead offers him the chance to obtain a full pardon for his crimes. If he can travel to the island of Shinsekyo and obtain the Elixir of Life—which supposedly grants immortality—and bring it back for the shogun, then his freedom will be assured.

But of the many who have traveled to Shinsekyo in search of the mythical Elixir, not a single person has returned sound of mind, if at all. Though unaware of the numerous dangers ahead, Gabimaru decides to accept the offer—alongside ten other death row convicts—in hope that he and his wife may finally live in peace.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Episode Videos

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Related Anime

Adaptation:	Jigokuraku
Sequel:	Jigokuraku 2nd Season

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Yamada Asaemon, Sagiri

Main

Hanamori, Yumiri
Japanese

Gabimaru

Main

Kobayashi, Chiaki
Japanese

Yuzuriha

Supporting

Takahashi, Rie
Japanese

Yamada Asaemon, Shion

Supporting

Kobayashi, Chikahiro
Japanese

Aza, Choubei

Supporting

Kimura, Ryouhei
Japanese

Yamada Asaemon, Tenza

Supporting

Kobayashi, Yuusuke
Japanese

Tamiya, Gantetsusai

Supporting

Inada, Tetsu
Japanese

Yamada Asaemon, Fuchi

Supporting

Ichikawa, Aoi
Japanese

Yamada Asaemon, Touma

Supporting

Ono, Kensho
Japanese

Yui

Supporting

Noto, Mamiko
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Ishii, Nozomi

Producer

Kawagoe, Wataru

Producer, Production Manager, Production Assistant

Makita, Kaori

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Ebina, Yasunori

Sound Director

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Opening Theme

"Ｗ●ＲＫ" by millennium parade and Sheena Ringo

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Ending Theme

"紙一重" by Uru

Reviews

Mar 24, 2024

LemonadeSamurai

Recommended

Hell's Paradise is just awesome. Please watch it.

Full disclosure: im also biased because I've read the manga and finished it.

Hell's Paradise is the story of a legendary ninja called Gabimaru the immortal who is sent to this "paradise" along with several other inmates and retainers (who are literally executioners) to find the potion of immortality and in return they get a pardon for their crimes.

The setting? It's in the 1600s. The 1st episode takes place in Japan but the rest take place on the island rumored to be a paradise.

The anime has heavy Chinese influence and Buddhist mythology is also incorporated ...

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Apr 14, 2024

douve_atomique

Mixed Feelings

Jigokuraku is a very interesting show, it features fascinating themes, good character development and an engrossing story and world. However, as good as these individual elements are, the show never capitalizes on its strengths and falls into the trap of overexplanation, forced exposition, rushed character development and terrible pacing, creating a somewhat memorable series served in an extremely clumsy and awkward way. I'm sure this is partly an anime issue but as I've not read the manga I can't speak about it. Instead of showing and not telling, the anime tells and doesn't show much.

The show follows a bunch of criminals sentenced to death, accompanied ... by executioners, embarking on a journey to a mysterious island supposedly holding the key to immortal life. Succeeding in coming back from this perilous adventure would give complete absolution to one criminal. However, things aren't as easy as they seemed as everyone succombs one after the other... Jigokuraku's approach to the way it delivers its story is misplaced, instead of focusing on one character, it constantly switches its focus as the criminals each go their own way trying to find the "Elixir of Life". The show's direction, or lack there-of is its biggest downfall. We get introduced to almost every side character, complete with a backstory told through numerous flashbacks, only for most of them to die right after. The show doesn't know where to focus its attention, it's trying to do everything at once, to be everything, to check all the boxes, but it ultimately fails to keep the viewer's attention. Too many side characters, too many flashbacks, too much exposition, every step forward is followed by 3 steps backwards; watching this show felt like walking through mud or swimming against a strong current.

This is not to say that the characters are bad, in fact I found most of them, alongside their backstory and development, interesting. But because of this overloaded cast of characters, the character development is rushed every single time. I would compare Gabimaru, the show's main character, to Killua, as Jigokuraku seems very much inspired by Hunter x Hunter. They're both very similar, they were trained since birth to be perfect killing machines, but they come to realize their own worth and to accept their own feelings. Their development is pretty similar, but Gabimaru goes through as much development in 2 episodes than Killua does in 100. The payoff is extremely unsatisfying. This tendency to rush development is valid for every other character, it takes them 5 minutes to become a completely different person. Here is also one of the show's issue: characters are very inconsistent, they act in completely unbelievable ways. Gabimaru goes from a stone-cold killing machine to Socrates dispensing moral teachings in the span of a couple episodes. The female main character, Sagiri, is a completely different person in episode 1 and 2. The criminals and their executioners are laid-back and surprinsingly goofy; needless to say, the humour is completely out of place as it kills all the tension the anime is trying to build. On top of that, the antagoniststs are not particularly interesting, they simply lack motivations, they've been fucking each other on an island for 1000 years and that's basically it.

The show's most interesting but also problematic theme is its commentary on Taoism which manifests in the search of the middle-ground. This is a very widespread topic discussed in many different religions and philosophies. Mediocrity used to equate to perfection, the middle state in which nothing needed to be added or removed. This concept is materialized in the antagonists of the series who use it to fuel their strength, but is also embodied by Sagiri. Being a female executioner in a world of men, she must constantly deal with prejudices concerning her status as a woman. She acts as a very remarkable beacon of female empowerment by finding the middle ground in the war of sexes. She finds true strength by being both logical but emotional, both fearless and afraid, both empathetic and apathetic. However, this commentary on sexes comes with a caveat. I'm not sure if the author is sexist or if he's very clumsy in the way he displays the themes of his story, but there's an awkward link between sexes and qualities: men are strong, logical and dependable while women are weak, emotional and fickle. The strong female empowerment achieved through Sagiri is also undermined by the way other female characters are treated: they're all half naked, cunning, and try to seduce men to take advantage of them, and seem mostly there for fanservice.

Jigokuraku is made up of interesting topics and characters that are unfortunately handled in a very clumsy way, in other words the author has all the ingredients but doesn't know how to cook. It's sad to see an anime with such potential squander it in such fashion. I still found it relatively enjoyable to watch. The characters are cool, the fight scenes are nicely animated, the setting is nightmarishly beautiful and fascinating. The author should've tried to apply their own theme to their show by trying to find this golden mean, but they instead went too much to one side, adding too much superfluous expostion, too many needless side characters, too many badly timed flashbacks. Instead of reaching the golden mean, Jigokuraku reaches mediocrity with its pejorative meaning. A 5/10 would've been fitting, but I'll give it +1 for the way it incorporates its themes into its narrative.

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Apr 11, 2024

stonepillar

Not Recommended

What a major disappointment of adaptation from the manga. I honestly thought that the series will get a good animation considering the hype surrounding the manga. Yes, I already read the manga and it an okay series if you turn your brain off and enjoy the gore and the art. some of the flaw in the manga I thought the studio will correct it but guess not. let rate the series shall we.

PLOT (4)
The stories structure doesn't make sense. What I mean by that is the shogun want to gain immortality because there a rumor of an unknown charted island there is elixir of immortality ...

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Jigokuraku

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Characters & Voice Actors

Yamada Asaemon, Sagiri

Gabimaru

Yuzuriha

Yamada Asaemon, Shion

Aza, Choubei

Yamada Asaemon, Tenza

Tamiya, Gantetsusai

Yamada Asaemon, Fuchi

Yamada Asaemon, Touma

Yui

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