Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hell’s Paradise’ on Crunchyroll, a Gory, Action-Packed Tale of Love and Redemption

Ninja Gabimaru the Hollow (Chiaki Kobayashi) is sentenced to be executed for the crimes he’s committed against his village. But despite the efforts that the villager put into attempting to kill him, he comes out unscathed each time. His body is impervious to normal damage due to his ninja training, but he wants to die and even asks for death – at least, he thinks he wants it.

When he’s faced with actual death, he realizes there’s one person in the world he can’t leave alone in the world, and he must come to terms with life and what he thinks he wants. In this shonen action series, romance is the one thread that holds everything together, and it’s a refreshingly original tale that’ll keep you on the edge of your seat.

HELL’S PARADISE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Drops of blood fall on to a white flower swaying in the wind. We see a sword pressed against someone’s neck as a short explanation about how beheading a human works in the real world. Notably, it’s stressed that a clean beheading with a single blow is nigh-impossible. We see what appears to be a samurai attempt to cut a victim’s head off, but their sword breaks instead.

The Gist: The ninja Gabimaru can apparently not be killed. He has a storied history, with rumors surrounding him that he consumed an “Elixir of Life”, which would explain his ridiculously hardy body. But the mysterious woman doing her job to investigate him has questions about all of this. Why would a man who supposedly wants to die try so hard to resist it? Gabimaru asks himself the same questions.

He believes he should be “empty” with no “lingering attachments”, but his body stubbornly hangs on, angering the village who had decided to put him to death. He’s taken for one more execution, which is believed to finally end his life. To his surprise, a so-called inspector who had been observing him throughout all the moments he couldn’t die was actually a sword-tester sent from Edo: the legendary executioner Yamada Asaemon Sagiri (Yumiri Hanamori).

The shogunate charges Sagiri with killing Gabimaru, and he envisions her slicing his head clean off with a single swipe. He breaks out of his shackles, suddenly afraid of death, and works hard to escape it. He realizes he doesn’t want to die after all, asking himself: “Do I not want to die?”

Sagiri attests that Gabimaru has an attachment to life after all: his wife. She is his reason to live, despite him saying how simple she was. He appreciated her kindness and her adherence to the life of a “normal” person. Filled with resolve, Gabimaru fights Sagiri to try and stay alive, realizing the fire inside him has been lit. He wants to live, despite lying to himself about how “hollow” he is, like his nickname Gabimaru the Hollow. Sagiri comes at Gabimaru with a complete pardon from his actions as well as an order of protection in the middle of their fight. He’ll be pardoned on one condition: he goes to the Underworld, or the Other Side, to find a land of fertility and joy: Shinsekyo, also known as Paradise. There, he’ll be tasked with finding and retrieving the immortality-granting Elixir of Life for the shogunate. They believe only Gabimaru can handle the trip there and back, as no one has come back from it so far unharmed.

Gabimaru, seen as expendable, was selected after an entire fleet of criminals. Sagiri’s true purpose in traveling to the area was to find a candidate to send there. Sagiri asks Gabimaru if he will risk everything to potentially have a normal life with his wife if he agrees to the terms of the pardon. When he does, he seals his fate and decides to live to see his wife again.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Hell’s Paradise fits in perfectly with shows like Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man, both series with morbid storylines that focus on fantasy worlds, supernatural happenings, and ultra-powerful characters. It’s also from the anime studio MAPPA, which is responsible for animating each one — to fantastic effect. If you like those, there’s a high chance you’ll enjoy Hell’s Paradise, too.

Our Take: Hell’s Paradise has an excellent premise that immediately hooks you. From watching the grisly ways Gabimaru is nearly put to death to seeing the heartbreak he experienced when separated from his wife, this is a story that has you empathetic to a killer in a just 20 minutes.

It has all the building blocks of great shonen anime, with a setup that will no doubt allow for other complex characters, as well as plenty of questions posed to the audience straight away. What is the value of life? What would you sacrifice for the person you love? And what’s going on with the so-called “paradise” where people are turned into flowers and sent back to the village in pieces and body parts?

There are so many moving parts in this first episode, and it’s all done fantastically. MAPPA knocked it out of the park as usual with the art style, and the voices fit each character perfectly. We’ve already got so many questions about Gabimaru, his wife, and his past, as well as his mysterious executioner. It’ll be a treat to see it all play out across the rest of the series.

Sex and Skin: Not any in this episode, though there is gore and grisly imagery galore. It may not be out of place to see light nudity or sexuality going forward, but it doesn’t appear in this episode.

Parting Shot: After showing Sagiri his ninjutsu abilities, Gabimaru sits atop a pile of bodies, victorious. “I’ll do it. I’ll find this Elixir of Life,” he says, and Sagiri directs him to go with her to Edo. Gabimaru vows that he’ll make it back alive for his wife.

Sleeper Star: Yumiri Hanamori is not technically a sleeper star seeing that she’s a prominent character in the episode, but she comes into her own later on as the story is further established. She gives Yamada Asaemon Sagiri a serious rasp, one that ensures you pay attention to her, and avoids the cutesy cliches of most female protagonists.

Most Pilot-y Line: Gabimaru questions the reason he’s still alive despite multiple attempts on his life. “Why? Why can’t I die? No, why won’t I die? I have no attachment to life.” He asks himself these questions often, and they’re the basis of the entire series.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Hell’s Paradise grips you from the moment the first episode begins, gives you a sympathetic protagonist, and a reason to keep coming back each week. It’s got everything a shonen series needs to be successful: gore, action, romance, intriguing characters with complex back stories, and a mystery you want to see solved as soon as humanly possible. This is one anime you’re going to want to come back to again and again, and it’s going to be one of the bigger hits of the season. You’re going to want to get in on the ground floor with this one.

Brittany Vincent has been covering video games and tech for over a decade for publications like G4, Popular Science, Playboy, Variety, IGN, GamesRadar, Polygon, Kotaku, Maxim, GameSpot, and more. When she’s not writing or gaming, she’s collecting retro consoles and tech. Follow her on Twitter: @MolotovCupcake.