I know I have found a good story when I decide to read the manga rather than wait week by week to see the anime version of it.
This was my experience with the Hell’s Paradise Mappa adaptation.
I loved the first three episodes so much that I read Yuji Kaku’s manga over three days, being rewarded by a compelling story with incredible characters and inventive fights that worked perfectly with the theme of accepting strengths and weaknesses.
From that point on, I was watching the anime not as someone experiencing this story for the first time but as someone who had read the manga and was judging the anime based on how well it adapted the source material.
This is where a lot of complaints from manga readers came in.
I saw many critcizing the adaptation as it was airing for the quality of its animation.
To be fair, I can understand why this criticism is happening.
The animation is clearly not up to the par of Mappa’s other brilliant adaptations, like Chainsaw Man.
However, the animation is still solid, with numerous excellently animated fights, like in Episodes Two, Nine, Twelve, and Thirteen.
The story is also much the same as the manga, with Gabimaru the Hollow (Chiaki Kobayashi) travelling to a mysterious island with his executioner Sagiri (Yumiri Hanamori) to claim the Elixar of Life in the hope of receiving a pardon from the Shogun so he can see his wife again.
Gabimaru, Sagiri, and all of the other prisoners and executioners are well voiced and just as endearing as they are in the source material.
The themes are also well expressed, with signs of how they will eventually tie into the story in a big way in the coming seasons, how ever many there are.
Hopefully, the following season will have a bigger budget and more time to develop its animation so that it can reach the heights of the manga.
Again, the animation we got in this first season is very good but we know Mappa can do much better.
Although, in saying that, good treatment of their animators should come first because this was one of those anime where I heard rumors about the animators being under a lot of pressure again.
Overall, this was a good first season for Hell’s Paradise and I am anticipating its continutation.
THE REVIEW MONSTER 