Ai Enma's role is fairly small, despite being the focus of the series, and her major role is to simply do her job without question. Things only shift almost halfway into the series when a reporter gets involved and takes it upon himself to stop Ai, and somehow persuade these damaged individuals to not enter the covenant with Ai by pulling the thread. This, too, gets a tad bit redundant after a while, but I stuck with the series, somewhat bored with the pattern, but still intrigued with the personal cases in each episode.
What does make this series worth sticking with are the individual cases in each episode. They're stand alone stories, and some of them are actually very good and gripping. The series does a good job creating tension between the characters and using a variety of methods to display different types of evil, or sins, that are worthy of a boat ride to hell. One thing the series definitely impressed me with is creating that eerie feeling of sacrificing your own soul for instant gratification, and how some people are desperate enough to escape a situation so badly that they would deliberately damn themselves. At the end of many episodes I found myself reflecting, "Would I have pulled the thread if I was in their shoes?"
It took me a while to finish the first season, like a few weeks, because I didn't feel the need to keep going after each episode so I took my time and watched it when I felt like it, which was usually while knitting. I'm hesitant to start the second season, but I heard that the pace has been varied and that it's better than the first.
Overall, Jigoku Shoujo is a good watch if you don't want cliffhangers, or just need a series to work as a filler between other shows.
