In a sharp divergence from last season’s chipper harmlessness, Spring 2023 we’ll be following Hell’s Paradise, which is anything but either of those if the first episode is anything to go by.
Our story begins with a brutal execution. Or, at least, it begins with the first attempt at one, as the condemned, a ninja known as Gabimaru the Hollow, appears to be quite indestructible. The sword meant to behead him breaks against his neck, he shrugs off fire and boiling oil, the bulls meant to tear his legs off get tired before they can manage, you get the idea. All the while, he professes to have no desire to continue living as an odd woman interrogates him about his past between execution attempts.
Eventually, that woman is herself revealed to be an executioner, and one of peerless skill sent by the Shogun at that. She tries to strike Gabimaru down, but his body moves before he realizes what’s up, evading sword strokes that might actually drop him. During their fight, she questions his convictions and drags out the truth.
In their former interviews, Gabimaru claimed that he attempted to leave the ninja life in order to leave his wife, whose kind and simple nature threatened to dull his edge, and that he was imprisoned as he was because the ninja clan didn’t take kindly to his request. In the fight, we see that’s only partially true: he did try to give up the ninja life, but he did it to be with his wife (the ninja chief’s daughter, who was scarred by her father so she’d give up on “normal”) and he still clings to life because he wants to see her again.
The executioner, Sagiri Yamada Asaemon, reveals that there is a way forward: a pardon from the Shogunate, absolving him of all crimes and offering him the nation’s protection, which not even a ninja clan could defy. The pardon is Gabimaru’s… if he takes the plot hook for what I presume to be the rest of the show.
That plot hook is this: There is a mysterious island that many believe to be the physical location of the Underworld. Expeditions sent there have so far failed to return as anything other than mutilated (or mutated, perhaps) corpses. However, somewhere in that destination is the Elixir of Life. Thus, a new plan has been drawn up, to use expendable but skilled people like Gabimaru and send them to the island with the pardon as the prize for whoever returns with the Elixir.
Gabimaru accepts, the local lord is powerless in his frustrated attempt to have the two of them killed (seriously, dude, you couldn’t even take one of them when he wasn’t really fighting back), and thus we are all set to properly begin the story.
Oddly enough, I’ve done a seasonal writeup of another show produced by Twin Engine (though no other creative talent is related) that also started with recruiting condemned criminals for a crazy job. From the first episode alone, this one is by far the more promising. It takes its time establishing the characters and has a good vision of both brutality and action, suggesting we’re in for a dark, crazy trip once we actually make our way to Underworld Island. All I really have to say right now is that I’m looking forward to more.