The show operates under the premise that the viewer has a basic gist of Japanese Hell, as well as other worlds such as European Hell and Chinese Heaven. It follows the character, Hoozuki, a very sadistic, no-nonsense-but-sometimes-I-want-my-own-fun, advisor to the King of Japanese Hell in a slap-stick and often subtle humor that takes a little thinking of the viewers’ end.
This comedy isn’t just a show where there are simply running gags, well-delivered punchlines, and clichés that you would typically see in a comedy. The jokes in the show evolve. That is because in HnR, the incorporation of different mythologies permits that. You see interactions that you normally wouldn’t see between demons of Euro Hell when meeting their Japanese counterparts. The jokes and gags become even more complex as new characters are introduced, but never does the complexity of a joke require too much information of the actual mythology for one to understand.
One could almost hear the writers thinking ‘What would happen if Lucifer and Enma meet?’ or ‘How do we make a demon piss his pants?’ Suffice the say, the results of the writers’ and directors’ efforts are successfully pulled off and you’re left with one hell of a hilarious concoction.
One of the most fascinating things about the show is the back stories of each character. They’re minced in with truth and fiction, and most of the time they form a very volatile kind of humor that are brought out by the characters’ interaction with each other. IE Hoozuki and Haku, Hoozuki and Enma, Haku and the various women of each Hell, among many other combinations. However, you begin to see a pattern that different combinations have different dynamics, but none I assure you, are boring. Each have their own personality as dictated by the history they’ve been given by the real world, putting you at the edge of your seat to see how they react to one another’s antics.
