Jigokuraku is a little bit hard for me to describe, because it's not really a genre I'm too familiar with. I've never been big on shounens, let alone historical ones, but something about the style and flow of this series had me so captivated I felt a need to sit down and write about it. From the first chapter, something about it just instantly hooked me with the thought of oh, this will be good. And excellent it was.

This is one of those manga where after I caught up to the ongoing releases, I would wait months before picking it up again. I say this to mean that I don't think it's as good when you read each chapter individually, but somehow as a whole the story truly comes together and sings. The premise is almost like a twisted classic in a way, following a group of convicts and their executioners as they travel to a mysterious, spiritual island to find the elixir of life with the promise of being pardoned for their death sentences. Our main characters are the duo of Gabimaru, a well-known, cold-hearted shinobi and his appointed executioner Sagiri, a thoughtful woman trained in swordsmanship by the Yamada clan. As one would expect (this is after all a shounen manga), throughout their journey they gain respect and appreciation for one another alongside some other new friends.

I mentioned that the beginning of the series immediately struck me, and that's because from the very start, Jigokuraku has managed to make me really care about its characters. It's normal to find a series with interesting characters, but to form an emotional attachment is another story. Obviously, nobody in this series is particularly relatable (they're criminals and executioners from historical Japan), but something about their problems just felt real to me, and I was genuinely concerned and sad for almost each and every one of them. Additionally, despite having a decently large and scattered cast (characters spend most of their time traveling separately or in small groups), the author manages to elaborate on all of them in a way that you don't feel like you're missing anyone. Each person has their own carefully sculpted backstory, and there's rarely a feeling of someone being skimmed or missed.

I want to attribute my feeling of connectedness to the atmosphere of the manga. Though very good and engaging, I don't think the plot of the series is remarkably strong, but the author has such a great talent for storytelling. I say this because the world he builds feels so vivid and immersive. I mentioned previously that this is a series that I would binge read rather than keep up with weekly updates, because it was hard to get the full experience reading just one chapter at a time. The series really struck me the most after my first 60 chapter binge read, and then going 15-20 at a time so that I could fall in love with the world again. There was something so stunning about the setting and its incredibly bizarre cast, and being a part of it always made me feel a sense of awe and amazement. I don't love shounen manga, so big fight scenes and toots of friendship aren't usually for me, but the fight scenes in Jigokuraku were so strange and captivating. I also enjoyed how the darker premise played into the series' morals and messages; I appreciated the careful balances between good and evil and light and dark.

I've never seen the show Mononoke so this could be incredibly off base, but something about the art style reminded me of a Mononoke poster. There's this sense of mystery to it, with the floral themes and the genderless villains and the true strangeness of the world. The constant florals representing intersections of life and death were particularly visually stunning. I didn't think that flowers growing from a person's face could feel so macabre. Looking at the villains, this is again incredibly evident, as each is associated with images of nature and growth to a dangerous degree. The juxtaposition of that concept was spectacular.

Ultimately I think Jigokuraku is such a storytelling feat. It's a classic journey-type plot with a dark edge and a thrilling, lovable set of characters. However, its true strength lies in the world-building. There is something so hauntingly beautiful about the story's set-up and slow burn, like being ushered into a rakugo theater or opening an old novel for the author to spin you away in a tale.