Welcome to Anime Rants with 7Mono. I thoroughly enjoyed the first season of Hell’s Paradise in 2023. However, It’s been three years and I have yet to re-watch it. I wanted to watch it to get ready for the new second season, but I didn’t have the motivation. I do know that my opinion on the first season has shifted slightly, since I am far less patient with misogyny in anime than I used to be. I have become grumpier as the anime industry continues its old, sexist trends halfway into the new decade. So, it might be harder for me to enjoy the good parts of this anime now. (The positives include the strong visuals, audio, character writing, and cool fantasy elements.)
Nevertheless, despite myself, I am holding out hope that Hell’s Paradise will impress me so much in other ways that I will have an overwhelmingly positive of the second season, too. Let’s rant about the first two episodes of Hell’s Paradise second season.
Content Warning: Some subjects may be NSFW
Episode 1: Dawn and Confusion
Episode Rating: 9/10
The pilot episode of the new season was strong all around. The fight scenes were cool as fuck, the new characters were intriguing, and it was great to see the old characters again. The music was also fire. Anyway, we started off by meeting two new characters: Shugen and Jikka from the Yamada Aseamon samurai clan. Jikka had just returned alive from Shinsenkyo, the deadly paradise island. He and Shugen were meeting with members of the shogunate, who gave them their next mission. Of course, the mission was to return to the island. This time, instead of criminals, the two samurai would be accompanied by four shinobi from the Iwagakure tribe.
I like both new characters so far. Jikka was voiced by Kouji Yusa, whose performance I am immensely enjoying in Jujutsu Kaisen S3 as well. (He plays Naoya Zenin.) Jikka is a rude man by the standards of samurai etiquette and he has an extremely carefree, self-absorbed attitude. Interestingly enough, he is also openly gay (or perhaps bisexual – we don’t know yet). I’m happy to see an LGBT+ character. Hopefully Jikka won’t be too much of a stereotype. As for Shugen, he is extremely serious, dedicated, and sensitive. He’s a bit like Sagiri, but seems younger and less mature. Shugen gives me emo vibes and I actually like that unironically. I love emotionally intense boys in anime. XD
Next, we went back to Sagiri and her group on Shinsenkyo. Yuzuriha said they should abandon the mission and leave – she said it was especially for the sake of “my beloved Sagirin.” However, Sagiri called bullshit right away. She knew Yuzuriha was only pretending to be affectionate to get on her good side and make a samurai ally who could defend her from the shogunate. However, rather than being annoyed, Sagiri reiterated that she was determined to leave the island together, alive, after the mission was complete. She said this while holding Yuzuriha’s hands, making the ninja girl blush slightly. This is why I love Sagiri. She’s so gallant.
Meanwhile, the Tensen were off being Tensen, which I guess just involves having violent sex and luau pool parties with Tan to drink. No but seriously though, the Tensen seem to spend their time training their Tao, which involves both violence and sexuality. There was a brief scene where two of them were having sex before the more male-looking one (Ju Fa) tore off most of the female one’s head. He rose completely bathed in blood.
That was brief and this scene mostly focused on Tao Fa. From what I can tell, she is an energetic, feminine being who likes to please others. She organzied the creation of the new “training grounds” – which look like a tropical pool resort – and was upset when the Tan she served was not properly prepared. She’s like a little hostess. Though evil and flippant about human life, there’s no denying that Tao Fa is cute.
We also saw a short scene with Rien rambling about complicated Tao stuff. He was speaking to a servant with a skull for a head. Rien is voiced by Junichi Suwabe, a sexy male seiyuu I’ve admired for a long time. It was great to hear him again. As usual, I’m fascinated by the Tensen and their beautiful but unsettling world. I also love their character designs. Most of them are somewhat androgynous and highly sexually appealing. We don’t know much about these supposedly divine beings yet, but the Tensen are fascinating. Anyway, that’s enough about the smoking hot bad-guys. Let’s talk about our protagonist, Gabimaru.
The shinobi boy was badly injured in a fight, resulting in the corruption of his flow of Tao and the partial loss of his memories. From the perspective of Mei, who can see Tao, it looked like the Tao making up Gabimaru’s head was gone. She also said he had no “seed of strength.” I think this means that he’s lost his motivation because he no longer remembers his wife – the basis of his desire to live. Strictly speaking, we don’t know if the wife is real or a lie invented by the Iwagakure chief, who might use brainwashing. Either way, Gabimaru was not on the top of his game. He was unfocused and confused as he led the others – Mei, Fuchi, and Tamiya.
Gabimaru abruptly ran into Choubei and Touma, who were with a nonhuman creature with something like a pale branch for a head and no hips or legs. Though Fuchi said they should work together, it was clear that Choubei wanted a fight. Gabimaru could not back down, so a battle broke out. While Choubei attacked Gabimaru, the legless creature went after Mei and Fuchi. Touma charged at Tamiya, thinking he would be relatively easy to kill. He was very wrong about that, as he learned when the one-armed man beat him up. We haven’t seen Fuchi fight the creature yet, but the other two fights were stunning – especially the violent, beastlike battle between Gabimaru and Choubei.
Before we talk about the result of that fight, I have to mention my thoughts on the characters Choubei and Touma and their relationship. I tend to like the character type of Choubei well enough – though loud and violent, they also have high charisma and (sometimes) good hearts. (Example: Rin from Blue Exorcist). But with Choubei, I don’t feel like we’ve seen anything but mindless desire for bloodshed and personal gratification. His only interesting feature is that he will protect his little brother no matter what and always stay with him. That humanizes Choubei at least a little.
Of the brothers, I actually like Touma a lot better because I can empathize with him more and because he has more than two brain cells. His determination and quickly growing sword skills are not things to be laughed away. I also think Touma is designed so feminely that he can be head-canoned as a trans man. I appreciate characters like this so much more now than I used to. Even if he wasn’t born female, Touma has the struggles of a man who isn’t taken seriously by the culture because of his feminine face and smaller build. That makes him quite sympathetic for many trans and cis men.
Privately considering Touma trans isn’t even my hottest take on these brothers. I might have been ruined by anime, but I can’t stop the urge to ship them. Regular readers know that I have no problems with BL, but I get the ick from incest because there is almost always abuse happening. So, can I really ship two brothers??? I don’t know if I truly ship them or would ever imagine them in a sexual way, but there’s no doubt that what binds them together is deeper and more dedicated than most sibling or familial love. I don’t usually scream, “All I need is him!” about a relative. That’s romantic love. Rather than deny it, I’ll at least acknowledge that it’s there.
Let’s get back to the battle. Choubei had the clear edge now because he could regenerate from fatal injuries and because Gabimaru’s Tao was “not right.” In the end, our protagonist resorted to his signature move with the colorful flames. This was effectively killing Choubei, but it would also doom Gabimaru himself. He didn’t seem to care about dying anymore. Just before both of them burned to death, Choubei released all his remaining Tao at the same time, which turned him into a savage monster. It seems like the ship I was considering is dying before it was fully born, because I doubt Choubei is coming back from this. 
To be continued!
~Thanks for Reading~
Written by 7Mononoke at Anime Rants
Anime Rants 