Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku (Volume 9) - Love and Hate. Life and Death.

Hells Paradise Jigokuraku Volume 9 Cover

The battles with Lord Tensen intensify. Shion is struggling to fight one alone, while Gantetsusai, Fuchi, Aza and Toma are having a hard time keeping up with two that have merged into one. Only death can end the battle!

Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku (Volume 9) – Love and Hate. Life and Death.

What happened?

Gantetsusai and Fuchi thought they had defeated Tao Fu, but Lord Tensen is never so easily put down. It merged with Ju Fa to create a winged beast that seemed to be untouchable. It was able to alternate the exterior allowing one half to recover while the other continued the fight. Of course, they only had the elemental powers to land the killer blow to one of them. Anything less and they would be able to regenerate. Gantetsusai and Aza worked together… kind of… to strike at Ju Fa, while Toma was tasked with giving Fuchi the strength to finish off Tao Fu. It appeared to be hopeless, but then Aza pulled out his ace. He had jars of Tao-infused water inside his guts. He ripped them out and stopped Ju Fa from regenerating.

Meanwhile, Shion faced Zhu Jin with Nurugai for support, but neither was a good match elementally. That left Shion with the task of slicing Zhu Jin up until she couldn’t recover anymore. He estimated it would take a thousand death strokes and so far he had only managed two hundred and fifteen. He was growing tired and wasn’t sure he would be able to keep going, so it was time to move to the next plan. He was going to pierce Zhu Jin’s naval and hold his blade in place, stopping the regeneration. Of course, Zhu Jin fought back with her vines, but Shion would not budge. He told Nurugai to run and find the others, but she couldn’t leave him. She tore the vines away and embraced him, recharging his Tao. She told him about Tenza and how he smiled when they escaped.

Sagiri and Mei found Gui Fa watching over the Ritual of Just Consumption. He was not concerned with fighting them provided they didn’t attack him. Sagiri tried to apologise for their invasion of Lord Tensen’s island, but also pointed out that they wanted humans to come so they shared the blame. Gui Fa showed them a vision of what Jofuku was planning. Everyone on the mainland would become Tan, perfecting the Elixir of Life. Then, he noticed that everyone else had fallen and decided to leave to report to Jofuku. There was a sudden crash as Shugen and his team reached Horai.

Hells Paradise Jigokuraku Volume 9 Shion fighting Zhu Jin

What did you think?

I’m still not over Yuzuriha’s death, especially when everyone survived the battles in this volume. No doubt, they are going to need her powers in the next volume as the ninja from Gabimaru’s clan swarm Horai and then there’s Shugen just behind them. It’s going to get incredibly messy. Anyhow, back to this issue and the fights were spectacular. Brutal, horrific, and spectacular. I was pleased to see that Shion survived as he is one of my favourites, especially with all of his sight jokes.

I am a little surprised to see so many survive but then I don’t think that will continue. Shugen’s team have burst into Horai and is quite clearly fresher than everyone involved here. They don’t even have Lord Tensen to thin out their ranks. There are four more volumes and judging by this one, I’m expecting three and a half of them to be purely fights. It’s going to be insane. I can’t see any other way for it to go and really that’s great. The fights have been incredible from the beginning so they are only going to get better going forward.

I’m still holding out hope that Yuzuriha is going to make a miraculous recovery, although part of me knows that’s not going to happen. Anyhow, this series is amazing and if you’re reading this and not the manga, you need to go take care of that right now.