Strong start, Okay end

Jigokuraku is the epitome of everything a shonen battle manga is, with the events of it taking place on what is essentially the Dark Continent of HxH in a no holds barred arena slugfest style.

The beginning does a perfect job at showcasing this, managing to perfectly depict the otherworldy nature of the island with the help of amazing art, it also manages to introduce the cast of characters in a way that shows their character off really well, particularly focused on Gabimaru who is already one of the more fleshed out characters in the entire story, overall a very good beginning.

Though from here its flaws as what is essentially a pure battle shounen become more apparent, particulary in its cast. While one can't really argue that most if not all of the cast performs some amazing feats in the story, that's basically what it all boils down to, "Criminals Do Cool Shit And Kill Each Other, The Story" While it has well choreographed fight scenes and great art to boot, it sacrifices most of its character nuance or depth for it, which is perfectly encapsulated in one of the main characters, Sagiri.

Sagiri shows exactly why the show don't tell mentality of writing is so important, constantly being touted as having the potential to rise above her peers and possessing a strong motivation for doing so, but always falling short and requiring rescue at every step of the way, with some brief moments of badassery here and there, making this facade of a strong character that grows into their own when in reality they never quite achieve their goal, it doesn't help that she's not very interesting as a character

It doesn't help much either that on the other end of the bland protagonists, are the even more bland antagonists that serve as the major conflict of the series, the Tengen. They possess absolutely any individual character that could let you even identify any distinct qualities between them, sans two, that would allow you to know who you're even following the narrative of, they are the rawest purest form of villan fodder, existing simply for the protagonists to have a goal to tend towards, and nothing more. Even their origin story does them no merits, its no surprise you'd never see any in contention for character popularity because outside of their role in the story, they have no purpose.

The later chapters don't do well to rectify this problem, its flaws get even more amplified with the introduction of Shugen and his crew, characters who arrive far too late to really be anything more than additional muscle to tip the odds in our main characters favours. They only ever get the obligatory origin story coupled with a flashback and nothing more, simply providing some level of conflict and continuing the grand fight slog that is the manga, and nothing more, the worst part is that this would probably have been the case regardless of when they were introduced into the story.

While it clings to some themes and few characters show some level of potential, it never really dwells on them long enough for what the story did to be anything impactful. It only ever succeeds with Chobe, a character who starts strong and remains consistently good and interesting throughout the duration of the story, on top of managing to top out practically all of the cast in badassery, an indication of the potential the writing had in later chapters, but ultimately didn't really reach.

Its ending never quite finishes on a grand note either, wrapping everything up completely but in what was perhaps the most boring predictable way possible, while ultimately the events of the ending are liked or disliked on preference, I can't help but feel it was a bit too abrupt and condensed, not really giving off the feel of a definitive ending to the series.

Overall, jigokuraku is a very solid battle manga, but a very average series on its own, recommended if you just want to read a manga where people beat the shit out of each other, but you may be disappointed if you were looking for something a bit less predictable and generic in its narrative.