Girl From Hell (Jigoku Shōjo)

Jigoku Shōjo, also known as Girl From Hell, is an anime series features a mysterious website where you can post a grudge at the stroke of midnight. Soon after you post, a young-looking girl arrives to give you a straw doll with a red string around its neck. Pull the red string, and the person you’re pissed at instanly goes to Hell. In exchange when you die, your soul where sent to Hell too.

Each short story of which the series consists describes the suffering of a different individual caused by one or more antagonists. Somewhere in the vast sea of the Internet, there's a website that can only be accessed at the stroke of midnight by one who harbors a desire for revenge against their tormentor. A website known as Jigoku Tsūshin (Hell Correspondence) rumor has it that if you post a grudge there, the Jigoku Shōjo (Hell Girl) will appear and will offer a black straw doll (first season; in the following season the doll may be either red, blue or black) with a red string wound about its neck. If the string is pulled, she will ferry the recipient of the revenge straightaway to Hell, but on the condition that those who request her intervention fall into Hell as well at the end of their natural lives. The so called Hell Girl is a young red-eyed girl wearing a traditional sailor school uniform named Enma Ai.

Enma Ai lives in a house in an unknown world with her grandmother. She got her three assistant that when they are not in service they stay in the form of straw dolls. Those three are Ichimoku Ren, a handsome young man in casual clothes and takes the form of the blue straw doll, Hone-Onna, a beautiful woman wearing a kimono with the obi (sash) tied in front takes the form of the red straw doll and the last is Wanyūdō, an old man wearing a hat and a red scarf, who takes the form of the black straw doll. They help Ai during the event when their victims are confronted with their own sins, prior to the moment when Ai ferries them to hell.

A journalist named Shibata Hajime, a former blackmailer who turned to investigating the stories involving the Jigoku Shōjo, doesn't agree with Ai's methods to deliver vengeance for her clients, and tries to stop those who contacted Jigoku Shōjo from using her service with Tsugumi's help. Tsugumi is Hajime's daughter, after she encounter Ai she starts to have visions of what Ai sees.

As the series progressed, it was revealed that Hajime and Tsugumi were the descendants of a man named Sentarō Shibata. Sentaro is Ai childhood friends and cousin as well but Ai hates him because of one tragic moment. Every seven years a villager in where they lived has a tradition that a seven years-old child will be sacrificed in order to have a seven more years of prosperity. Ai parent asked Sentaro to hide Ai and he keeps Ai hidden in the mountain for six years, however great famine comes to the village. And when the villager saw the two in their secret meeting, they were accused by angering the Mountain Gods. The villager throw Ai and her parents in pit and force Sentaro to bury them. Ai is conscious at the moment and she feels that Sentaro betray her. One night he sees Ai setting the village on fire, out of his insanity and guilt he run away and grew up regretting what he had done.

The two descendants of Sentaro awakes Ai hatred and she attempts to kill Hajime and Tsugumi but unfortunately she fails. She tries to provoke Tsugumi to send her father to hell by showing Tsugumi how her mother died and her father's denial of his responsibility. Ai keeps pressing Tsugumi to pull the string while Hajime is trapped in Ai's world, but is subsequently able to escape because of Ai's grandmother, who releases him for an exchange. When Hajime admits his faults, Tsugumi returns the straw doll to Ai. Later Ai incinerates the temple built by Sentaro, which is the sign of his regrets to Ai. The season ends with Hajime and Tsugumi going back to normality and Ai continuing what she has been doing for centuries which is sending people to hell.