the rev

The Rev Death

Jimmy Sullivan aka the Rev is dead. Avenged Sevenfold drummer James Owen Sullivan has died, the Rev’s death confirmed by Avenged Sevenfold tonight. The. The Rev Death Videos, Blogs and Tweets RIP The RevHeroes of Our Time – Solo 2A FC description pl0xThe Devil Went down to Georgia, score 468069On 10 to 15: The Rev DEATHThe Rev DEATH. Menurut The Orange County Register . Rev Death Victory Solo FC, Holy shit DeAtH434 on USTREAM. Xbox The Rev DEAD – Death of Jimmy Sullivan Avenged Sevenfold Drummer Aug 25, 2008 . Rev Death Victory Solo FC:Holy shit recorded on USTREAM. Xbox.
The Rev Death


May 12, 2008 . Reverend George Exoo says he has helped 102 people to commit suicide. . Jon Ronson39s documentary, Reverend Death, is on Channel 4 on May . Jon Ronson talks to Reverend George Exoo on assisted suicide. >And Li-Lith stood, ignoring the blood pooling about her feet, waiting for the Pleasure Saucers to come. Wait a minute. It took a few days, but I got through digging through my . THE DEATH OF REV. SHELDON V.4 — Popess Lilith von Fraumench Statement from Avenged Sevenfold web site: It is with great sadness and heavy hearts that we tell you of the passing today of Jimmy The Rev Sullivan. Jimmy was not only one of the world’s best drummers, but more importantly he was our . The Rev Death Easy Blog by 9u8.org

On The Death Of Rev. Mr. George Whitefield – by Phillis Wheatley . HAIL, happy saint, on thine immortal throne, Possest of glory, life, and bliss unknown We hear no more the . Avenged Sevenfold Drummer Jimmy Sullivan aka The Rev Dead Jimmy Sullivan The Rev The Rev Dead Avenged Sevenfold Drummer Dead James Owen Sullivan The. On The Death Of Rev. Mr. George Whitefield by Phillis Wheatley Avenged Sevenfold Drummer Jimmy Sullivan aka The Rev Dead Jimmy. Real name: Reverend Death Website: http://reverenddeath.com/TheWord. Send message. You must be logged in in order to perform this action. Sidebar . . The Rev Death

The Sermons of John Wesley 1872 Edition Thomas Jackson, editor SERMON FIFTY-THREE On The Death of The Rev. Mr. George Whitefield. Preached at the Chapel in Tottenham-Court . The Rev DEAD Death of Jimmy Sullivan Avenged Sevenfold Drummer. Jimmy Sullivan aka the Rev is dead. Avenged Sevenfold drummer James Owen Sullivan has died, the Rev’s death confirmed by Avenged Sevenfold tonight. The Rev’s cause of death is believed to be natural causes. James Owen Sullivan would . Reverend Death 2008 TV Sermon 53 – On The Death of The Rev. Mr. George Whitefield Reverend Death is a documentary on a assisted suicide Unitarian minister named George Exoo who has questionable ethics. But his ethics may be light years .

The Rev Death >Then Sheldon joined the dead SubGenii underneath, leaving Lilith alone to finish the climb. No, no, no, no, fuck NO. Thataposs all wrong. I remember the whole thing–here, finally, is . Jimmy Sullivan The Rev The Rev Dead Avenged Sevenfold Drummer Dead James Owen Sullivan The Rev A7X The Rev Died The Rev Death A7X Drummer Jimmy Sullivan The Rev The Rev Dead Avenged Sevenfold. THE DEATH OF REV. SHELDON V.3 — Popess Lilith von Fraumench Nov 9, 2009 . In 1978 over 900 people led by Rev. Jim Jones died in the largest mass murder- suicide in . MySpace profile for Rev.Death. .

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The Rev Death Jimmy Sullivan DEAD The Rev Died Avenged Sevenfold Drummer DEATH YouTube – The Jonestown Death Tape, Rev. Jim Jones. Pt 3/5 RSA Screens – Reverend Death. 19th May 2008 18:30. Join us for this exclusive screening and QA with director Jon Ronson. . Apr 2, 2009 . . Part 3 of the final 44 Minutes of the Jonestown Cult. The Jonestown Death Tape FBI No. Q 042 November 18, 1978 The Rev. Jim Jonesapos, et al. Avenged Sevenfold would win 2006’s Best new Artist at the MTV Video Music Awards. The Rev’s cause of death is believed to be natural causes. James Owen Sullivan would also be know as the Reverend Tholomew Plague, Rat Head, and mr. .

Part 5 of the final 44 Minutes of the Jonestown Cult. The Jonestown Death Tape FBI No. Q 042 November 18, 1978 The Rev. Jim Jonesapos, et al. Reverend Death YouTube – The Jonestown Death Tape, Rev. Jim Jones. Pt 5/5 Reverend Death is written and directed by Jon Ronson executive produced by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato and produced by World of Wonder productions the . Jimmy Sullivan DEAD The Rev Died Avenged Sevenfold Drummer. Jimmy Sullivan DEAD – The Rev Died – Avenged Sevenfold Drummer DEATH watch full video with news, photos of Jimmy Sullivan DEAD – The Rev Died – Avenged Sevenfold Drummer DEATH at this link tinyurl.com From: smoviepart93 Views: 0 0 .

British Women Romantic Poets Project Jimmy Sullivan DEAD – The Rev Died – Avenged Sevenfold Drummer. Poem, Written on the Death of the Rev. Thomas Spencer. Robinson, Ellen. Avenged Sevenfold drummer James Owen Sullivan is confirmed dead, cause of death for Jimmy Sullivan aka the Rev believed to be natural causes. Sullivan is s. Reverend Death http://www.mentallyinteresting.org.uk Pole to Polar. May 15, 2008 . There39s a documentary called Reverend Death on May 19th on Channel 4 that some of you might be interested in watching. .

hell girl (jigoku shoujo)

Story

Most episodes are self-contained short stories in which the series narrates the suffering of a different individual caused by one or more antagonists. In general during each arc, the protagonists' dramas are explained in detail from the start of their grudges, through the escalation of their torment until it becomes unbearable and they resort to accessing the Hell Correspondence website. Although in general, the client gives the antagonist a chance, he or she usually ends up pulling the string on his or her doll and sending the antagonist to hell. Once they have pulled the string, before taking the antagonist to hell, Ai Enma punishes the person for his or her sins with the help of her companions.

In the first season, the story soon follows a journalist named Shibata Hajime, a former blackmailer, and his daughter Tsugumi who shares a strange connection with the Hell Girl as they investigate the truth behind the Hell Girl. In the second season, a mysterious young girl from Hell, named Kikuri who is able to travel freely between Earth and the Twilight realm where Ai resides, is introduced. Later, the plot centers around Takuma Kurebayashi, a boy who is blamed by his townsfolk for causing disappearances around the town that are in reality caused by the townsfolk using the Hell Correspondence. In the third season, some time after Ai's death, Kikuri returns to recruit Ai's assistants along with a yōkai named Yamawaro, who accepts an old offer from Ai to become her fourth assistant. The story follows Ai's mysterious revival from death and subsequent inhabitation of the body of a young schoolgirl, Yuzuki Mikage.

Hell Correspondence

The medium through which a client contacts Ai Enma has changed over the centuries. Initially clients would write the names of whom they hated on an ema, which later changed to sending a letter to the address appearing in a three-column newspaper advertisement only visible to those with enough hatred. Once the internet became available, people could access the Hell Correspondence website, otherwise known as the "Hotline to Hell". Soon after, the site was adapted into a mobile version that could be accessed from cell phones.^[4]

Each medium can only be used at midnight by one who harbors a desire for revenge against their object of hatred. Should someone submit the name of someone against whom they bear a grudge or immense hatred, and their request is accepted, Ai Enma will take them to a realm of perpetual twilight where she offers them a straw doll, one of her companions, with a red string wound around its neck and describe to the client the details of their contract; should the client pull the string tied around the doll's neck, she will ferry the target of the revenge straightaway to Hell. However, once the client's life has ended, he or she too will go to Hell, and a black crest-shaped mark appears on the client's chest to serve as a permanent reminder of this and their decision to send someone to Hell. However, this mark is no guarantee that the person themselves won't be sent to hell by another client...

Characters

Main characters

Ai Enma (閻魔 あい, Enma Ai^?)

Voiced by: Mamiko Noto (Japanese), Brina Palencia (English)

The primary protagonist of the series, who is arguably an anti-heroine as well. With long, straight black hair, ruby-red eyes and pale skin, she is a spiritual entity with a tragic past, who lives in a place frozen in time as it basks in eternal sunset, along with her grandmother. Through an old computer inside their house, Ai is able to receive the names,the clients have typed on the website, and delivers their revenge. She normally wears a black seifuku, or sailor uniform, but always wears a kimono with floral (or temari, hand-wovern thread balls) designs when delivering the vengeance of a client. Ai started her career as the Hell Girl by her own act of vengeance on the villagers who sentenced her to a sacrificial death as part of their village's tradition. Her eyes, once a deep brown, turned red arguably at the point where Sentarou (her childhood friend and cousin who gave in under the villagers' pressure to bury her alive) gave the first shovel of soil onto her face. She broke out of her grave after a while, and took revenge on the entire village with her wrath, burning it to the ground. Her task of fulfilling other people's vengeance and ferrying people to Hell is her punishment, a task which she had performed for 400 years after that incident. A Spider, which is later revealed to be the God of Hell, gave her new life again and made a pact with her; in exchange for her immortal form, she cannot enter Hell and must remain on the shores of Hell, acting as the deliverer of people's hatred and vengeance. In order to serve these tasks, The God of Hell demanded that Ai forget her own hatred, numbing herself to the sufferings of others and becoming a mere observer of any happenings. If she hadn't this punishment, the souls of her beloved ones would have to forever wander in Hell, lost for eternity. Having no other choice, Ai agreed with the God of Hell and became the Hell Girl.

Although this task is presented as atonement, it is unknown whether she will ever be freed of it. Wanyūdō noted she still had feelings, though, although she did not express them strongly, and it was later revealed that Ai had been ordered to close her heart by the Spider. But the experiences she has with the Shibatas reawakened her discontent with her terrible fate and later apparently reawakened other emotions, or at least Ai's ability to express them. When enraged, Ai demonstrates the ability to hurl great blasts of energy, as well as the power to create elaborate illusions and teleport. She also has the ability to show someone the future of a grudge, as she showed Yuzuki in Episode 16 of Mitsuganae. Though, this ability may be limited to some degree, as Ai was unable to predict her confrontation with the Hell Boy, Gilles de L'enfer.

In the second season, Ai becomes more expressive and shows more emotions, being more willing to interact with her "clients" and victims. She even puts up a "V for Victory" sign in front of her target by way of mocking him as he is dragged to his doom. She had also been seen reading from a fashion magazine while her compatriots watch over their client, and had showed concern towards a mother who willingly ended her life so that her daughter doesn't have to send her to Hell. As she witnesses Takuma Kurebayashi's disheartening persecution, Ai recollects her emotions pertaining to her own wrongful persecution and she defies her 'employer', the God of Hell, and becomes restored to human life, and killed shortly thereafter, when saving Takuma from his tormentors. After Ai's self-sacrifice, her body dissolves into sakura petals and drifts into the sky.

In the third season, Ai return to the series after. In the beginning of the season, she transports another girl, Yuzuki, to a strange illusion and dream state, where Ai possessed her. Eventually, her body is later released during The Six-script Lantern ceremony in her town in which the gate to Hell is temporarily open allowing Ai to be released from her body. Ai eventually reveals to Yuzuki that she is destined to become her successor. Ai disappears without a word after Yuzuki becomes Hell Girl. She returns however, to take the role of Hell Girl once again in order to spare Yuzuki from being sent to Hell.

Wanyūdō (輪入道^?)

Voiced by: Takayuki Sugo (Japanese), R. Bruce Elliott (English)

Wanyūdō is the first of Ai's three companions. He generally appears as an old man whose eyes remains shut, wearing a traditional yukata with a long-sleeved haori, and a red scarf around his neck. When needed by Ai, he takes the form of the black straw doll that Ai hands to her clients in the series. He also frequently takes the form of Ai's coach with burning wheels when she goes to the human world to claim a soul. The coach bears the same black flame-crest that appears on the chest of those people who contract with the Hell Girl. Despite appearing quite mild-mannered, frail and weak with age at most times, Wanyūdō possesses considerable skills in martial arts and is capable of hurling fireballs and performing feats of inhuman strength. Wanyūdō's name is derived from the yōkai of the same name and means "A wheel entering the road". In episode 12 of Futakomori, it is revealed that he was a princess' entourage carriage, which fell off a cliff. The coach caught fire and all aboard were killed. As a result, he became a yōkai terrorizing people in the form of a flaming wheel with his own enlarged, infuriated face as a hubcap, until he met Ai and she invited him to join her as her first companion. Wanyūdō revealed to Ai his ability to shapeshift. Wanyūdō lives out his life in peace as a human after Ai dies at the end of the second season, but is soon recruited by Kikuri to become Ai's assistant again. At the end of the third season he comes to the aid of the newest Hell Girl, Yuzuki, but returns as Ai's assistant after she becomes Hell Girl again.

Ren Ichimoku (一目 連, Ichimoku Ren^?)

Voiced by: Masaya Matsukaze (Japanese), Todd Haberkorn (English)

Ren is Ai's second companion, and usually takes the form of a young man. He has the ability to see the inside of a building through projecting the eye on the walls and ceilings. The large eye can also be used as a weapon through projecting intense flashes of light. When required, Ren becomes a blue straw doll. Ren's name means "one glance company". He is sometimes referred to as "Moku" or "Ishimoto Ren". His powers in human form is a reference to Daidarabocchi, a type of mythological giant that is enshrouded in shadow. It is later revealed that Ren is a tsukumogami, a type of spirit that originates from an artifact which has gained sentence after a long period of existence. In Ren's case, he was once a katana, forced to be aware and watch whatever was done with him. He was given his current form(s) by Ai, who collected him after he was abandoned on a large rock after a battle, during which his most recent owner was slain. Ai thinks that he is looking for something and asks him to accompany her. He agrees saying that the rock he was abandoned on was getting pretty boring. Since that time, Ren has apparently grown quite fond of his human form, displaying considerable vanity from time to time. Ai claims she invited him to join her because there is something that Ren is looking for, a fact perhaps manifested in Ren's occasional puzzlement and inability to understand the things humans do. Alternatively, some of Ren's comments indicate that what he was looking for was companionship, something to fill the emptiness of his existence as a sword used for endless killing. Ren has apparently developed feelings for his colleagues, seeing them as family. Ren lives his life in peace as a human between the events of the second and third seasons. This proves to be short lived after he is recruited by Kikuri to become Ai's assistant again. Ren serves as a science teacher at Yuzuki's school several times while investigating clients that attend the school. At the end of the third season when Yuzuki becomes Hell Girl, he and Hone investigate why Tsugumi is moving out of town. They suspect it was because of Hajime and because Tsugumi was unable to save Yuzuki. Ren becomes Ai's assistant once again after she replaces Yuzuki as Hell Girl.

Hone Onna (骨女^?, Bone Woman)

Voiced by: Takako Honda (Japanese), Jennifer Seman (English)

Hone Onna is Ai's third companion, and she often takes the form of a woman in a kimono with its obi tied in front. She dislikes being called "old lady". She becomes the red straw doll when necessary by tossing her red obi jime over her shoulder. Hone Onna and Ren investigate the people who make a contract and the ones they have a grudge against. She usually infiltrates human society in casual clothing to investigate cases, on these occasions she tends to use the pseudonym "Sone Anna". She has used throwing knives as weapons in the first season of the show, and has shown considerable skill with these weapons. Hone Onna also seems to have some skill as a contortionist, which allows her to squeeze into very small places. The name Hone Onna comes from the legendary creature of the same name, literally meaning "bone woman", which reflects her ability to expose the bones in her body to scare the victims of the revenge Ai delivers. It is revealed that she had been a geisha named Tsuyu who was betrayed by a man whom she had fallen in love with after he sold her to a brothel to be able to pay off his own debts. Tsuyu was betrayed again when she attempted to arrange the escape of a fellow geisha named Kion with a man who had come to truly love Tsuyu. Tsuyu and the man were later murdered by a Yakuza, and that same Yakuza cast Tsuyu into a river afterward. Spirits rising from human bones thrown into the river before merged with Tsuyu's restless spirit, transforming Tsuyu into the yōkai Hone Onna, in which form she later met Ai. Hone lives out her life as a human after Ai dies at the end of the second season. This proves to be short lived as Kikuri comes to recruit her several years later to become Ai's assistant again. After Yuzuki becomes Hell Girl, she and Ren investigate why Tsugumi is moving out of town. The two suspect it is because of Hajime and because Tsugumi was unable to save Yuzuki. Hone becomes Ai's assistant again when she replaces Yuzuki as Hell Girl.

Ai's Grandmother (あいの祖母, Ai no Sobo^?)

Voiced by: Eriko Matsushima (Japanese), Juli Erickson (English)

She is never actually seen in the series, other than as a shadowy silhouette behind a paper screen that is always spinning thread in her room. She occasionally notifies Ai when a new client beeps on the computer and advises her, occasionally commenting on the cases she takes up. She doesn't talk to anyone except Ai, although in an episode in season one, she made the exception of talking to Shibata Hajime. A single human eyewitness in Futakomori who had observed Ai's grandmother ran in terror, implying that her appearance may be other than human. During the final episode of Futakomori she stops spinning threads for the first time and thanks Ai's three assistants for everything they have done. Ai's Grandmother doesn't appear in the third season until episode 14. That is due to the fact that neither of Ai's companions reside in the realm of Eternal Twilight anymore, and until that episode, instead of the usual ritualistic bathing and the grandma preparing Ai's nagajuban, Ai simply took over Yuzuki's body and appeared already dressed.

The Spider (人面蜘蛛, Jinmen Gumo^?)

Voiced by: Hidekatsu Shibata (Japanese), John Swasey (English)

An oddly-coloured spider with three eyes upon its abdomen, which appears in the sunset world where Ai and her assistants reside between assignments. It speaks with the voice of a man and is apparently Ai's superior, having been the one to pronounce sentence on her after she killed the people of her village. It appears to be holding the souls of Ai's loved ones (her parents) as hostage. If Ai does not do the task she has been given, The Spider has threatened that her parents would wander in darkness for eternity. The Spider demonstrates an ability to pilot the ferryboat to Hell and tries to restrain Ai, having decided to take her to Hell after her feelings of rage reawakened and she violently attacked the Shibatas. Ai turned out to be too strong for it to hold her without her consent. The Spider is neither liked nor trusted by Ai's assistants, with whom it in turn does not speak. In the last episode of Futakomori, Wanyūdō identifies The Spider as the God of Hell. It can be inferred that The God of Hell deliberately exposed Ai to a situation reminiscent of her own death in order to test whether she would obey its will or act on her impulse to interfere with Takuma's plight. The God of Hell returns in season 3 to punish the newest Hell Girl, Yuzuki, after she breaks the rules and tries to send a grudge of her own to Hell. Ai then returns to save Yuzuki from being sent to Hell by The God of Hell, and she offers to replace Yuzuki as Hell Girl. The God of Hell accepts and restores Ai's position as Hell Girl.

Kikuri (きくり^?)

Voiced by: Kanako Sakai

An enigmatic girl introduced in Futakomori. Some people said she is similar to Nemesis (mythology) in Greek as goddess of vengeance. Little is known about her except the fact she is not human. She can wander freely between the mortal plane and Ai's house in the sunset world, sometimes interfering with her and her companions' job; in one instance, she brought a human into the sunset world out of mischief. In stark contrast to Ai, Kikuri has completely purple eyes and her personality is far more childish than Ai's. She has stated that she likes Ai, and some of her actions and use of powers seem to be causing the greatest amount of suffering and fear possible. She seems to take delight in acts of low-level destructiveness, such as chopping off flowers or destroying anything that Ai cares for. She has shown incredible skills with her loincloth, using it to catch or hit objects with considerable accuracy and skill. Despite the fact that she wreaks havoc freely, she has only taken orders from Ai alone. This is seen when Kikuri touches Ai's grandmother's spinning wheels despite the woman's protests, ceasing only when Ai tells her to. In the last episode of the second season, it is revealed that Kikuri is a host for the will of The God of Hell, which can take over her body as it pleases. Hence, it becomes questionable how many of her malicious acts were of her own will and which were instigated by her master. Some of her acts could have been to ensure that Ai's clients would pull the string and send their tormentor to Hell. Nevertheless, she is still compassionate, showing a brief bout of grief immediately after Ai's death. After Ai's death and the release of her beloved ones to wander as lost souls, Kikuri rides on the boat and says "It's over... that was Ai's answer... Well done". As she says those words, she pokes a cherry the color of Ai's eyes in her former childish way. In the third season, Kikuri possesses a wind-up doll that often needs to be rewound by Yamawaro. She also expresses a desire to become Hell Girl several times. She is possessed by The God of Hell again at the end of the third season, but reverts back to Kukuri after Ai becomes Hell Girl again. She is apparently unaware of the fact that she is a host of The God of Hell, as she merely expresses a sensation of feeling sick before being possessed.

Yamawaro (山童^?)

Voiced by: Hekiru Shiina

A hellish creature commanded by the new Hell Girl in season 3, who takes on the look of a young boy, though he can also become a yellow straw doll. In human form, he calls himself by the name of Huang (黄). Often quiet and having a gentle demeanor, not much is known about him as of yet. He follows Kikuri on their assignments in the real world, referring to her as princess. His name is derived from the same name given to a legendary mountain-dwelling creature in Kyūshū from Gazu Hyakki Yakō, an illustrated book on Japanese folklore demons. In episode 6 of Mitsuganae it is hinted that Yamawaro has the power to manipulate objects. In Episode 17 of "Mitsuganae", it is revealed that his name basis holds some truth. He was a ghostly boy who roamed a mountain but whenever he was seen by humans, he looked like a walking pile of mushrooms. It seems in his time before joining Hell Girl, he looked upon a family by the name of Ashiya. Their son Hikaru had gone missing many years ago. The father of the household was a scientist trying to obtain eternal life. Yamawaro stepped in as their son. Ms. Ashiya accepted him with no worry. Mr. Ashiya, knowing that Yamawaro was obviously not human, used Yamawaro for his "Caterpillar fungus" experiments which still manifests in him till this day. He stated it was "to extend his wife's life". After learning of this, Ms. Ashiya shooed Yamawaro away, hoping to spare him from the parasitic experiments at the cost of her own life. She contacted Hell Correspondence to gain revenge on her husband calling it "Hikaru's vengeance". Despite Yamawaro's begging, she pulled the string. Yamawaro watched as the Ashiya mansion swirled away into a cloud of dust. Ms. Ashiya along with it, clutching what seems to be a young boy. This was a key experience to Yamawaro. After Yuzuki becomes Hell Girl, he and Kikuri simply walk away. He is not seen again until The God of Hell possesses Kikuri. After this happens, he returns and helps save Yuzuki from the grasp of The God of Hell by using a powerful supernatural blast. He comes to the aid of Ai again at the end of the third season.

Recurring characters

Hajime Shibata (柴田 一, Shibata Hajime^?)

Voiced by: Yuji Ueda (Japanese), John Burgmeier (English)

A former journalist who earns money by blackmailing celebrities with evidence of their scandals. He began to investigate rumors about the Hell Correspondence website merely out of curiosity, but becomes more heavily involved once he realizes that it is more than just a rumor and people are actually being dragged into the pits of Hell. His daughter Tsugumi seems to have a mysterious connection with Ai Enma, which allows her to see anything significant that Ai sees. Using this ability, Hajime and Tsugumi track down Ai's clients in an attempt to stop them from damning one another. His motivation for doing this is that he believes revenge to be wrong and that it only causes more pain. Later on in the first season, Hajime and Tsugumi are shown Ai's past, which reveals both of them to be descendants of Sentarou, a former friend of Ai who had betrayed her. This motivates Ai to tempt Tsugumi in to sending Hajime to Hell. Much to Hajime's relief, Tsugumi refuses the grudge.

In Futakomori, Hajime is shown to be Ai's biographer. A Detective in Futakomori, named Detective Meshiai, attempts to track him down for questioning, but ultimately fails in locating him; revealing Hajime to have disappeared mysteriously between the events of the first and second season.

In Mitsuganae, Tsugumi does not have contact with Hajime. She explains that after a while of trying to save people, Hajime had become exhausted and had finally given up in trying to stop people from sending one another to Hell. Sometime after that, he had written Ai's biography and disappeared without a trace. Ai's assistants appear to be unaware of what happened to Hajime, revealing Hajime was not sent to Hell by Hell Correspondence. What has happened to him remains unknown.

Tsugumi Shibata (柴田 つぐみ, Shibata Tsugumi^?)

Voiced by: Nana Mizuki (Japanese), Luci Christian (English)

Hajime's daughter who often refers to him as Hajime, rather than father or dad. She sees Ai one day and has a mysterious connection with her ever since. At first, she reports everything she sees through Ai to Hajime, but as the series progresses, she becomes more reluctant to do so as she begins to disagree with her father on whether they should try to stop Ai or not. However, after an innocent nurse is sent to Hell by a drug addict, she begins to realize revenge is wrong. At the end of season one, Ai shows Tsugumi visions of how her father and mother argued just before her mother's death, which lead her mother into leaving the house and dying, in an attempt to blame Hajime for her mother's death so she would send him to Hell. Tsugumi however, refuses.

She is briefly shown in the second season as a source of information for an investigator. She tells Detective Meshiai that Hajime had written Ai's biography for someone, maybe him. She tells him to trust her father and runs away to confront Kikuri, revealing that she has a similar relationship with Kikuri in Futakomori that she had with Ai in the first season.

She is a nurse at Yuzuki's school in the third season. During The Six-script Lantern ceremony she advises Yuzuki not to go in the Gates of Hell, and then disappears in the fog mysteriously when Yuzuki looks away. She appears to have uncanny knowledge of the supernatural, having known that Yuzuki wouldn't be able to come back if she entered the Gate of Hell. This knowledge may be due to her spiritual connection with Ai and Kikuri. Later on in Mitsuganae, Tsugumi, along with Ai and Yuzuki, are simultaneously lured into a mansion. Upon entering the mansion, Ai and Tsugumi greet each other, showing that that they have known each other for quite some time. The mansion that they entered is owned by a man named Mizuragi Shogo, who is holding a pact against Tsugumi. Just as Shogo begins pulling the red string off the straw doll, he is sent to Hell by one of his assistants who held a pact against him; thus sparing Tsugumi from being sent to Hell. Upon leaving Mizuragi Shogo's mansion, she is confronted by Yuzuki, who questions how she avoided becoming Hell Girl, as she was fated to be. Tsugumi responds with saying she believes it is fundamentally impossible to avoid fate, hinting that she had become Hell Girl at one time. Tsugumi expresses how lonely she is several times, confirming that she has no longer contact with her father Hajime. When Yuzuki asks about Hajime, Tsugumi tells her that like her father, she too had become exhausted in trying to stop people from sending their tormentors to Hell, and had given up just as Hajime did. Towards the end of the third season, she leaves her apartment and moves out of town. She is confronted by Ren and Hone, who suspect Tsugumi is moving out of town because she was unable to save Yuzuki.

Ayumi Shibata (柴田 あゆみ, Shibata Ayumi^?)

Voiced by: Hitomi Nabatame (Japanese), Colleen Clinkenbeard (English)

Hajime's late wife. Hajime devoted more time to his work than to his family, but with the intent to make his wife happy through earning large amounts of money to improve their lifestyle. In her loneliness, Ayumi had an affair with a politician that Hajime happened to be spying on. Because of that incident, he cast her out of the house and forbade her from ever seeing Tsugumi. A few moments later, Ayumi dies in a car accident. Tsugumi keeps her mother's earrings as a memento. Hajime still loves Ayumi very much, and regrets not forgiving her because he believes she would not have died if he had. On the other hand, Ai tried using her death to tempt Tsugumi to send her own father to Hell.

Takuma Kurebayashi (紅林 拓真, Kurebayashi Takuma^?)

Voiced by: Ayumi Fujimura

Takuma is a quiet boy who lives in Lovely Hills. He is misunderstood and often bullied by his fellow townsfolk who believe he's the "Devil's Child", much like Ai was in her village. When he first made his appearance, his mother was killed by a friend of his father, who was also seriously injured in the incident. As the murderer was about to kill Takuma, he was sent to Hell; but at this moment the police arrive, and the townsfolk end up thinking that Takuma is the murderer. It is unclear if he possesses as much spiritual powers as Ai, but he does have the ability of foresight and he has been observed by Ai for some time throughout the story. In the end, Ai saves him from the townsfolk, but ends up being killed by the townsfolk. At the end of the show it is revealed that his father has recovered almost completely and that his friend, Hotaru Meshiai, will soon wake up from her cold induced coma, as Takuma hopes.

Yuzuki Mikage (御景ゆずき, Mikage Yuzuki^?)

Voiced by: Satomi Sato

First appearing in season 3, Yuzuki is a 9th grader schoolgirl who currently studies at Saigawara 4th Junior High School. Although a normal everyday girl, she actually has deep relations to the Hell Correspondence website. While Yuzuki is in the bathtub one night, Ai appears before her, suddenly kissing her. After that event, Ai possesses her and uses her as a human vessel to carry out her duties as Hell Girl. When a person forms a contract with the Hell Correspondence, Yuzuki will become Ai to send the victim to Hell. Much like Tsugumi in the first season, she is able to see visions of those who have called upon Hell Girl; although it should be noted that many of the people are acquaintances of her. About halfway through the series, Ai releases herself from Yuzuki during The Six-script Lantern ceremony in her town in which the gate to hell is temporarily open. After Akie is sent to Hell, Yuzuki's eyes were seen to flash red for a moment, foreshadowing future events. After Akie is sent to Hell, she tries to keep Ai's clients from sending their tormentor to Hell. Despite the fact that the cycle of hatred is human nature and a part of life, she never stops trying to end it. Even after being shown visions by Ai proving that there's no way to stop revenge, she continues to try. Later, Ai reveals that she is destined to become the next Hell Girl. Later on, Yuzuki's existence begins to fade away. She becomes unable to contact her mother and finds her herself not being able to find personal possessions of her own, such as a student ID card that disappears into thin air. Furthermore, she finds that Tsugumi and the members of the Hell Correspondence are the only ones who can recognize her. Later, Tsugumi tells Yuzuki that she should just accept what is happening to her, just as she had done when disappeared from the world long ago. Yuzuki cannot accept this and desperately runs back home to her apartment, which is shown to be in terrible decaying condition. Upon entering her apartment room, she discovers the skeleton of a child hugging a stuffed animal. Ai appears with the Hell Correspondence, and confirms that this skeleton is indeed Yuzuki. Yuzuki did not believe the skeleton to be her, until Ai showed her that she had died as a young child a short while after her Mother died. After Ai shows Yuzuki her past, she accepts the fact that it is destiny for her to become the Hell Girl. She puts on a kimono and her eyes turn red. Her first request is by Akie's Dad, who is begrudging Azusa, the girl who had sent Akie to Hell. However, Mr. Takasugi finds himself unable to pull the string. Yuzuki becomes angry and decides to take revenge upon Azusa herself, using her newly acquired powers. This revenge proves to be short lived after The Spider appears to stop Yuzuki, discharge her as Hell Girl, and send her to Hell as punishment for acting on feelings. Yuzuki is saved from being sent to Hell by Ai. Ai later proposes to replace Yuzuki as Hell Girl, and is accepted as her replacement.

Akie Takasugi (高杉 秋恵, Takasugi Akie^?)

Voiced by: Kanae Oki

Yuzuki's best friend since childhood, also a 9th grader schoolgirl at Saigawara 4th Junior High School. Unlike Yuzuki, Akie possesses an outgoing and broaded-mined personality. Her father is the commander of Saigawara Metropolitan Police. Akie employs a private teacher, Azusa, to help her with her studies. After Akie becomes emotionally intimate with Azusa, Azusa brings Akie home to show Akie her father, who had become paralyzed and bedridden due to a traffic accident, that was ordered to not be investigated further by Akie's father. Akie gets mad and moves out from her father, but then Azusa reveals her true intention, to bully Akie with rape and use the Hell Correspondence to send Akie to Hell to torment her father. Azusa finally chooses to send Akie after the Six-script Lantern ceremony. In the later episodes, Akie turns back from the Hell and to come to the aid of the new Hell Girl, Yuzuki. In the final episode of the third season, it is revealed that Akie was indeed in Hell and did not turn back and come to Yuzuki's aid. The Akie that supposedly turned back from Hell to aid Yuzuki was an illusion created by The Spider to tempt Yuzuki into trying to send Azusa to Hell.

Media

Anime

Part of a painting by Kawanabe Kyōsai, featured in the opening theme of Hell Girl

Main article: List of Hell Girl episodes

The Hell Girl anime series is produced by Aniplex and Studio Deen. It is directed by Takahiro Ōmori and written by Hiroshi Watanabe. The first season spanned 26 episodes and premiered across Japan on Animax between October 4, 2005, and April 4, 2006. The series' second season, premiered from October 7, 2006 across Japan on Animax. Animax also later translated and dubbed both the first^{[citation needed]} and second seasons^{[citation needed]} of the series into English for broadcast across its English language networks in Southeast Asia and South Asia, and also aired the series across its other networks worldwide in various other languages, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Europe and other regions. The first season of the series was also licensed for North American distribution by FUNimation. The U.S. cable/satellite channel IFC announced in September 2007^[5] that it acquired Hell Girl from Funimation, which then premiered on July 9, 2008.^[6]

CDs

Main article: List of Hell Girl soundtracks

Two original soundtrack albums were released for Hell Girl. The first album contains twenty-four tracks and was released on January 25, 2006 by Sony Music Entertainment under the catalog number SVWC-7331.^[7] The second album contains twenty-six tracks and was released on April 19, 2006 by Sony Music Entertainment under the catalog number SVWC-7348.^[8]

Two original soundtrack albums were released for Jigoku Shōjo Futakomori. The first album contains twenty-three tracks and was released on January 24, 2007 by Sony Music Entertainment under the catalog number SVWC-7440.^[9] The second album contains twenty-three tracks and was released on March 21, 2007 by Sony Music Entertainment under the catalog number SVWC-7454.^[10]

Two original soundtrack albums were released for Jigoku Shōjo: Mitsuganae. The first album contained twenty-eight tracks and was released on December 17, 2008 by Sony Music Entertainment under the catalog number SVWC-7597.^[11] The second album contained twenty-seven tracks and was released on March 4, 2009 by Sony Music Entertainment under the catalog number SVWC-7612.^[12]

Manga

The Hell Girl anime series was later adapted into a manga, which featured art by Miyuki Etō (永遠 幸, Etō Miyuki^?). It has been serialized in Kodansha's Nakayoshi shōjo manga magazine since October 2005. While the stories are mostly original, chapters 4 and 10 are adapted from their respective anime episodes (in the first season), while chapter 2 is adapted from anime episode 9. Chapter 17 is adapted from episode 8 of the second season.

Due to the difference in media, Ai's modus operandi in the manga is somewhat different from the anime. Ai has been seen attending the same schools as some of her student-clients. Also, the straw figurine with the string was not featured in the first few chapters. Subsequently, its appearance is no longer as ubiquitous as its anime counterpart. Ai's clients need only to accept the contract, and the victims' torture by Ai and her helpers would then begin. In some cases, the torture begins after she has rung her bracelet in front of her victim (and not before as seen in the anime). The appearance of the boat in which Ai uses to ferry her victims to Hell is reduced as well. Notably, although Sentaro Shibata is featured, Tsugumi and Hajime are not. Also, Kikuri has made appearances from volume 4 onwards.

The manga has recently been licensed by Del Rey Manga, and the first volume, titled Hell Girl, was released January 2008. The second volume was released in May 2008.

Live action

Hell Girl was adapted into a single live-action television drama series that premiered on Nippon Television from November 4, 2006 spanning 12 half-hour episodes. The series was directed by Makoto Naganuma. The theme song for the series is "Dream Catcher" by Olivia Lufkin.^[13]

Hisahiro Ogura, the actor who portrays Wanyūdō in the live-action adaptation is also the Japanese male narrator at the beginning of every episode of the anime series. Eriko Matsushima retains her role as Ai's grandmother in the live action series.

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emo

Emo (pronounced /ˈiːmoʊ/) is a style of rock music typically characterized by melodic musicianship and expressive, often confessional lyrics. It originated in the mid-1980s hardcore punk movement of Washington, D.C., where it was known as "emotional hardcore" or "emocore" and pioneered by bands such as Rites of Spring and Embrace. As the style was echoed by contemporary American punk bands, its sound and meaning shifted and changed, blending with pop punk and indie rock and encapsulated in the early 1990s by groups such as Jawbreaker and Sunny Day Real Estate. By the mid 1990s numerous emo acts emerged from the Midwestern and Central United States, and several independent record labels began to specialize in the style.

Emo broke into mainstream culture in the early 2000s with the platinum-selling success of Jimmy Eat World and Dashboard Confessional and the emergence of the more aggressive subgenre "screamo". In recent years the term "emo" has been applied by critics and journalists to a variety of artists, including multiplatinum acts such as Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance and disparate groups such as Coheed and Cambria and Panic at the Disco.

In addition to music, "emo" is often used more generally to signify a particular relationship between fans and artists, and to describe related aspects of fashion, culture, and behavior.

Contents [hide] 1 History 1.1 Origins: 1980s 1.2 Reinvention: Early 1990s 1.3 Underground popularity: Mid 1990s 1.4 Independent success: Late 1990s and early 2000s 1.5 Mainstream popularity: 2000s 2 Fashion and stereotype 3 Criticism and controversy 3.1 Gender bias 3.2 Backlash 3.3 Criticism 3.4 Suicide 4 References 5 Bibliography 6 External links

History

Origins: 1980s

	"Remainder" by Rites of Spring The melodic guitars, varied rhythms, and deeply personal lyrics of Rites of Spring broke from the rigid boundaries of hardcore and helped launch the "emotional hardcore" or "emocore" style.
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Emo emerged from the hardcore punk scene of early-1980s Washington, D.C., both as a reaction to the increased violence within the scene and as an extension of the personal politics espoused by Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat, who had turned the focus of the music from the community back towards the individual.^[1][2] Minor Threat fan Guy Picciotto formed Rites of Spring in 1984, breaking free of hardcore's self-imposed boundaries in favor of melodic guitars, varied rhythms, and deeply personal, impassioned lyrics.^[3] Many of the band's themes would become familiar tropes in later generations of emo music, including nostalgia, romantic bitterness, and poetic desperation.^[4] Their performances became public emotional purges where audience members would sometimes weep.^[5] MacKaye became a huge Rites of Spring fan, recording their only album and serving as their roadie on tour, and soon formed a new band of his own called Embrace which explored similar themes of self-searching and emotional release.^[6] Similar bands soon followed in connection with the "Revolution Summer" of 1985, a deliberate attempt by members of the Washington, D.C. scene to break from the rigid constraints of hardcore in favor of a renewed spirit of creativity.^[2] Bands such as Gray Matter, Beefeater, Fire Party, Dag Nasty, Lunchmeat, and Kingface were connected to this movement.^[2][6]

The exact origins of the term "emo" are uncertain, but date back to at least 1985. According to Andy Greenwald, author of Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo, "The origins of the term 'emo' are shrouded in mystery [...] but it first came into common practice in 1985. If Minor Threat was hardcore, then Rites of Spring, with its altered focus, was emotional hardcore or emocore."^[6] Michael Azerrad, author of Our Band Could Be Your Life, also traces the word's origins to this time: "The style was soon dubbed 'emo-core,' a term everyone involved bitterly detested, although the term and the approach thrived for at least another fifteen years, spawning countless bands."^[7] MacKaye also traces it to 1985, attributing it to an article in Thrasher magazine referring to Embrace and other Washington, D.C. bands as "emo-core", which he called "the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life."^[8] Other accounts attribute the term to an audience member at an Embrace show, who yelled that the band was "emocore" as an insult.^[9][10] Others contend that MacKaye coined the term when he used it self-mockingly in a magazine, or that it originated with Rites of Spring.^[10] The Oxford English Dictionary, however, dates the earliest usage of "emo-core" to 1992 and "emo" to 1993, with "emo" first appearing in print media in New Musical Express in 1995.^[11][12]

The "emocore" label quickly spread around the Washington, D.C. punk scene and became attached to many of the bands associated with MacKaye's Dischord Records label.^[9] Although many of these bands simultaneously rejected the term, it stuck nonetheless. Scene veteran Jenny Toomey has recalled that "The only people who used it at first were the ones that were jealous over how big and fanatical a scene it was. [Rites of Spring] existed well before the term did and they hated it. But there was this weird moment, like when people started calling music 'grunge,' where you were using the term even though you hated it."^[13]

The Washington, D.C. emo scene lasted only a few years. By 1986 most of the major bands of the movement—including Rites of Spring, Embrace, Gray Matter, and Beefeater—had broken up.^[14] Even so, the ideas and aesthetics originating from the scene spread quickly across the country via a network of homemade zines, vinyl records, and hearsay.^[15] According to Greenwald, the Washington, D.C. scene laid the groundwork for all subsequent incarnations of emo:

What had happened in D.C. in the mid-eighties—the shift from anger to action, from extroverted rage to internal turmoil, from an individualized mass to a mass of individuals—was in many ways a test case for the transformation of the national punk scene over the next two decades. The imagery, the power of the music, the way people responded to it, and the way the bands burned out instead of fading away—all have their origins in those first few performances by Rites of Spring. The roots of emo were laid, however unintentionally, by fifty or so people in the nation's capital. And in some ways, it was never as good and surely never as pure again. Certainly, the Washington scene was the only time "emocore" had any consensus definition as a genre.^[16]

MacKaye and Piccioto, along with Rites of Spring drummer Brendan Canty, went on to form the highly influential Fugazi who, despite sometimes being connected with the term "emo", are not commonly recognized as an emo band.^[17]

Reinvention: Early 1990s

As the ideals of the Washington, D.C. emo movement spread across the United States, many bands in numerous local scenes began to emulate the sound as a way to marry the intensity of hardcore with the complex emotions associated with growing older.^[18] The style combined the fatalism, theatricality, and outsiderness of The Smiths with the uncompromising and dramatic worldview of hardcore.^[18] Although the bands were numerous and the locales varied, the aesthetics of emocore in the late 1980s remained more or less the same: "over-the-top lyrics about feelings wedded to dramatic but decidedly punk music."^[18] However, in the early 1990s, several new bands reinvented the emo style and carried its core characteristic, the intimacy between bands and fans, into the new decade.^[19] Chief among these were Jawbreaker and Sunny Day Real Estate, both of whom fostered cult followings, recontextualized the word "emo", and brought it a step closer to the mainstream.^[19] According to Andy Greenwald:

Sunny Day Real Estate was emo's head and Jawbreaker its busted gut—the two overlapped in the heart, then broke up before they made it big. Each had a lasting impact on the world of independent music. The bands shared little else but fans, and yet somehow the combination of the two lays down a fairly effective blueprint for everything that was labeled emo for the next decade.^[19]

In the wake of the 1991 success of Nirvana's Nevermind, underground music and subcultures in the United States became big business. New distribution networks emerged, touring routes were codified, and regional and independent acts were able to access the national stage.^[19] Teenagers across the country declared themselves fans of independent music, and being punk became mainstream.^[19] In this new musical climate, the aesthetics of emo expanded into the mainstream and altered the way the music was perceived: "Punk rock no-nos like the cult of personality and artistic abstraction suddenly become de rigueur", says Greenwald. "If one definition of emo has always been music that felt like a secret, Jawbreaker and Sunny Day Real Estate were cast in the rolls of the biggest gossips of all, reigning as the largest influences on every emo band that came after them."^[20]

	"Kiss the Bottle" by Jawbreaker "'Kiss the Bottle,' more than any other song, captures the sensitive boy machismo that drew (and continues to draw) male listeners to the altar of Schwarzenbach."[21]
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Jawbreaker has been referred to as "the Rosetta Stone of contemporary emo".^[20] Emerging from the San Francisco punk rock scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s, their songwriting combined the heft of hardcore with pop punk sensibilities and the tortured artistry of mid-1980s emocore.^[20] Singer/guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach focused his lyrics on topics that were personal, immediate, and lived, often lifting them directly from his journal.^[22] Though they were often obscure and cloaked in metaphors, their specificity to Schwarzenbach's own concerns gave the words a bitterness and frustration that made them universal and magnetic to audiences.^[23] Schwarzenbach became emo's first idol as listeners related to the singer more than the songs themselves.^[23] Jawbreaker's 1994 album 24 Hour Revenge Therapy became their most-loved amongst fans and is a touchstone of mid-1990s emo.^[24] The band signed to major label Geffen Records and toured with Nirvana and Green Day, but their 1995 album Dear You sold poorly and they broke up soon after, with Schwarzenbach later forming Jets to Brazil.^[25] Their influence lived on, however, through later successful emo and pop punk bands openly indebted to Jawbreaker's sound.^[26]

	"Seven" by Sunny Day Real Estate Sunny Day Real Estate's epic sound challenged other bands to reach further with their own music. "Seven" helped bring emo towards the mainstream when it received airplay on MTV.
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Sunny Day Real Estate formed in Seattle during the height of the early-1990s grunge boom.^[27] In contrast to Jawbreaker, its members were accomplished musicians with high-quality gear, lofty musical ambitions, intricate songwriting, and a sweeping, epic sound.^[27] Frontman Jeremy Enigk sang desperately, in a falsetto register, about losing himself and subsuming himself in something greater, often using haphazard lyrics and made-up words.^[28] The band's debut album Diary (1994) was over-the-top and romantic, and the music video for "Seven" received airplay on MTV.^[29] The band's ambitious sound challenged other bands to reach further with their own music in sentiment, instrumentation, and metaphor, and represented a generational shift between grunge and emo.^[30] Other emo-leaning punk bands soon followed suit, and the word "emo" began to shift from being vague and undefined to referring to a specific type of emotionally overbearing music that was romantic but distanced from the political nature of punk rock.^[31] Sunny Day Real Estate fell apart after Diary, as Enigk became a born-again Christian and launched a solo career while the other members drifted into new projects such as the Foo Fighters. They released three more albums through a series of breakups and occasional reunions, but are remembered primarily for the promise of their debut and the shift it engendered in the tastes of underground rock fans.^[32]

Underground popularity: Mid 1990s

In the mid-1990s the American punk and indie rock movements, which had been largely underground since the early 1980s, became part of mainstream culture. After Nirvana's success, major record labels capitalized on the popularity of alternative rock and other underground music by signing numerous independent bands and spending large amounts of capital promoting them.^[33] In 1994, the same year that Jawbreaker's 24 Hour Revenge Therapy and Sunny Day Real Estate's Diary were released, pop punk acts Green Day and The Offspring had mutiplatinum successes with their respective albums Dookie and Smash. In the wake of the underground going mainstream, over the next several years emo as a genre retreated, reformed, and morphed into a national subculture, then eventually something more.^[33] Drawing inspiration from bands like Jawbreaker, Drive Like Jehu, and Fugazi, the new sound of emo was a mixture of hardcore's passion and indie rock's intelligence, bearing the anthemic power of punk rock and its do-it-yourself work ethic but with smoother songs, sloppier melodies, and yearning vocals.^[34] Many of the new emo bands originated from the Midwestern and Central United States, such as Braid from Champagne-Urbana, Illinois, Christie Front Drive from Denver, Colorado, Mineral from Austin, Texas, Jimmy Eat World from Mesa, Arizona, The Get Up Kids from Kansas City, Missouri, and The Promise Ring from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.^[35] According to Andy Greenwald, "This was the period when emo earned many, if not all, of the stereotypes that have lasted to this day: boy-driven, glasses-wearing, overly sensitive, overly brainy, chiming-guitar-driven college music."^[34]

	"If It's Here When We Get Back It's Ours" by Texas Is the Reason Texas Is the Reason bridged indie rock and emo by blending melody with punk musicianship and singing directly to the listener. "Knives, Bats, New Tats" by Lifetime Lifetime's brand of melodic hardcore with introspective lyrics inspired numerous later New Jersey and Long Island emo bands.
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On the east coast, New York City-based Texas Is the Reason bridged the gap between indie rock and emo in their brief three-year lifespan by melding the melodies of Sunny Day Real Estate to churning punk musicianship and singing directly to the listener.^[36] In New Jersey, Lifetime gained a reputation as a melodic hardcore act, playing shows in fans' basements.^[37] Their 1995 album Hello Bastards on rising independent label Jade Tree Records fused hardcore with emo's tunefulness, turning its back on cynicism and irony in favor of love songs.^[37] The album sold tens of thousands of copies^[38] and the band inspired a number of later New Jersey and Long Island emo acts such as Brand New, Glassjaw, Midtown,^[39] The Movielife, My Chemical Romance,^[39] Saves the Day,^[39][40] Senses Fail,^[39] Taking Back Sunday,^[38][39] and Thursday.^[39][41]

The Promise Ring were one of the premier bands of the new emo style. Their music took a slower, smoother, pop punk approach to hardcore riffs, blending them with singer Davey von Bohlen's goofy, picturesque lyrics delivered with a froggy croon and pronounced lisp, and they played shows in basements and VFW halls^[42] Jade Tree released their debut 30° Everywhere in 1996 and it sold tens of thousands of copies, a blockbuster by independent standards.^[43] Greenwald describes the effect of the album as "like being hit in the head with cotton candy."^[44] Other bands such as Karate, The Van Pelt, Joan of Arc, and The Shyness Clinic incorporated elements of post-rock and noise rock into the emo sound.^[45] The common lyrical thread between these bands was "applying big questions to small scenarios."^[45]

	"El Scorcho" by Weezer Pinkerton's abrasive sound and confessional lyrics led to critical and commercial failure in the short term, but in retrospect it is regarded as the most important emo album of the 1990s.
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A cornerstone of mid-1990s emo was Weezer's 1996 album Pinkerton.^[46] Following the success of their mutiplatinum debut, Pinkerton turned from their power pop sound to a much darker, more abrasive character.^[47][48] Frontman Rivers Cuomo's songs were obsessed with messy, manipulative sex and his own insecurities of dealing with celebrity.^[48] A critical and commercial failure,^[48][49] it was ranked by Rolling Stone as the second-worst album of the year.^[50] Cuomo retreated from the public eye,^[48] later referring to the album as "hideous" and "a hugely painful mistake".^[51] However, Pinkerton found enduring appeal with teenagers just discovering alternative rock, who were drawn to its confessional lyrics and themes of rejection and came to believe that it was directed at them.^[52] Sales grew steadily as word of the album passed between fans, over online messageboards, and via Napster.^[52] "Although no one was paying attention", says Greenwald, "perhaps because no one was paying attention—Pinkerton became the most important emo album of the decade."^[52] When Weezer returned in 2000, however, they did so with a decidedly pop sound. Cuomo refused to play songs from Pinkerton, dismissing it as "ugly" and "embarrassing".^[53] Nevertheless, the album held its appeal and eventually achieved both high sales and critical praise, and is noted for introducing emo to larger and more mainstream audiences.^[54]

	"If I Could" by Mineral Andy Greenwald calls "If I Could" "the ultimate expression of mid-nineties emo."
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The emo aesthetic of the mid-1990s was embodied in Mineral, whose albums The Power of Failing (1997) and EndSerenading (1998) encapsulated the emo tropes of somber music accompanied by a shy narrator singing seriously about mundane problems.^[55] Greenwald calls their song "If I Could" "the ultimate expression of mid-nineties emo. The song's short synopsis—she is beautiful, I am weak, dumb, and shy; I am alone but am surprisingly poetic when left alone—sums up everything that emo's adherents admired and its detractors detested."^[55] Another significant band of the era was Braid, whose 1998 album Frame and Canvas and B-side song "Forever Got Shorter" blurred the lines between band and listener, as the group was a mirror-image of its own audience in passion and sentiment and sang in the voice of their fans.^[56]

	"Why Did We Ever Meet" by The Promise Ring The Promise Ring's Nothing Feels Good was the most commercially successful emo album of the mid-1990s due to its effective blend of pop and punk.
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Though the emo style of the mid-1990s had thousands of young fans, it never broke into the national consciousness.^[57] A few bands were offered contracts with major record labels, but most broke up before they could capitalize on the opportunity.^[58] Jimmy Eat World signed to Capitol Records in 1995 and built a following among the emo community with their album Static Prevails, but did not break into the mainstream despite their major-label association as their music was mostly lost amongst the popular ska movement of the period.^[59] The Promise Ring were the most commercially successful emo band of the time, with sales of their 1997 album Nothing Feels Good topping out in the mid-five figures.^[57] Greenwald calls the album "the pinnacle of its generation of emo: a convergence of pop and punk, of resignation and celebration, of the lure of girlfriends and the pull of friends, bandmates, and the road."^[60] He refers to mid-1990s emo as "the last subculture made of vinyl and paper instead of plastic and megabytes."^[61]

Independent success: Late 1990s and early 2000s

Beginning in the late 1990s emo had a surge of popularity in the realm of independent music, as a number of notable acts and record labels experienced successes that would lay the foundation for the style's later mainstream breakthrough. As emo gained a larger fanbase the music business began see its marketing potential, and as big business entered the picture many of the acts previously associated with the term intentionally distanced themselves from it:

As the '90s wore to a close, the music that was being labeled emo was making a connection with a larger and larger group of people. the aspects of it that were the most contagious—the sensitivity, hooks, and average-guy appeal—were also the easiest to latch onto, replicate, and mass market. As with any phenomenon—exactly like what happened with Sunny Day [Real Estate]—when business enters into a high-stakes, highly personal sphere, things tend to go awry very quickly [...] As fans threatened to storm the emo bandwagon, the groups couldn't jump off of it fast enough. The popularity and bankability of the word—if not the music—transformed an affiliation with the mid-nineties version of emo into an albatross.^[62]

In 1997 Deep Elm Records launched a series of compilation albums entitled The Emo Diaries, which continued until 2007 with eleven installments.^[63] Featuring mostly unreleased music from unsigned bands, the series included acts such as Jimmy Eat World, Further Seems Forever, Samiam, and The Movielife.^[63] The diversity of bands and musical styles made the case for emo as more of a shared aesthetic than a genre, and the series helped to codify the term "emo" and spread it throughout the community of underground music.^[62]

	"Lucky Denver Mint" by Jimmy Eat World Clarity was an underground hit for Jimmy Eat World even though it was not a commercial success, despite the promotion of "Lucky Denver Mint".
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Jimmy Eat World's 1999 album Clarity was one of the most significant emo albums of the late 1990s and became a touchstone for later emo bands.^[64] Writing in 2003, Andy Greenwald called it "one of the most fiercely beloved rock 'n' roll records of the last decade. It is name-checked by every single contemporary emo band as their favorite album, as a mind-bending milemarker that proved that punk rock could be tuneful, emotional, wide-ranging, and ambitious."^[64] However, despite warm critical reception and promotion of the single "Lucky Denver Mint" in the Drew Barrymore comedy film Never Been Kissed, Clarity was commercially unsuccessful in a musical climate dominated by teen pop, and the band left major label Capitol Records the following year.^[65][66] Nevertheless, the album gained steady popularity via word-of-mouth and was treasured by fans, eventually selling over 70,000 copies.^[67] Jimmy Eat World self-financed the recording of their next album Bleed American (2001) before signing to Dreamworks Records. The album sold 30,000 copies in its first week and went gold shortly after. In 2002 it went platinum as emo broke into the mainstream.^[68]

Drive-Thru Records, founded in 1996, steadily built up a roster of primarily pop punk bands with emo characteristics such as Midtown, The Starting Line, The Movielife, and Something Corporate.^[69] Drive-Thru's partnership with major label MCA enabled their brand of emo-inflected pop to reach wider audiences.^[70] The label's biggest early success was New Found Glory,^[70] whose 2000 eponymous album reached #107 on the Billboard 200^[71] with the single "Hit or Miss" reaching #15 on Modern Rock Tracks.^[72] Drive-Thru's unabashedly populist and capitalist approach to music allowed its bands' albums and merchandise to sell heavily through popular outlets such as Hot Topic:^[73]

In a world where cars are advertised as punk, Green Day members are platinum rock stars, and getting pierced and tatted up is as natural as a sweet-sixteen party, everyone is free to come up with their own definition of punk—and everyone is ready to embrace it. Emo had always connected with young people—it had just never aggressively marketed itself to them.^[74]

	"Action & Action" by The Get Up Kids The Get Up Kids' Something to Write Home About helped Vagrant Records expand into a much larger label and sign numerous other emo acts.
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Independent label Vagrant Records was behind several successful emo acts of the late 1990s and early 2000s. The Get Up Kids had sold over 15,000 copies of their debut album Four Minute Mile (1997) before signing to Vagrant, who promoted the band aggressively and put them on tours opening for big-name acts like Green Day and Weezer.^[75] Their 1999 album Something to Write Home About was an independent success, reaching #31 on Billboard's Top Heatseekers chart.^[76] Vagrant signed and released albums by a number of other emo and emo-related acts over the next two years, including The Anniversary, Reggie and the Full Effect, The New Amsterdams, Alkaline Trio, Saves the Day, Dashboard Confessional, Hey Mercedes, and Hot Rod Circuit.^[77] Saves the Day had built a large following on the east coast and sold almost 50,000 copies of their second album Through Being Cool (1999)^[40] before signing to Vagrant and releasing Stay What You Are (2001), which sold 15,000 copies in its first week,^[78] reached #100 on the Billboard 200,^[79] and went on to sell over 200,000 copies.^[80] In the summer of 2001 Vagrant organized a national tour featuring every band on the label, sponsored by corporations such as Microsoft and Coca-Cola. This populist approach and the use of the internet as a marketing tool helped Vagrant become one of the country's most successful independent labels and also helped to popularize the term "emo".^[81] According Greenwald, "More than any other event, it was Vagrant America that defined emo to masses—mainly because it had the gumption to hit the road and bring it to them."^[78]

Mainstream popularity: 2000s

	"Screaming Infidelities" by Dashboard Confessional "Screaming Infidelities" helped Dashboard Confessional reach #5 on the Top Independent Albums chart in 2002. "The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World The Middle reached #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart and helped Bleed American reach platinum sales.
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Emo broke into the mainstream media in the summer of 2002 with a number of notable events:^[82] Jimmy Eat World's Bleed American album went platinum on the strength of "The Middle", which reached #1 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks chart.^[82][83][84] Dashboard Confessional reached #22 on the same chart with "Screaming Infidelities"^[85] from their Vagrant Records debut The Places You Have Come to Fear the Most, which was #5 on Top Independent Albums,^[86] and became the first non-platinum-selling artist to record an episode of MTV Unplugged^[82] (the resultant live album itself was a #1 Independent Album in 2003 and quickly went platinum).^[86][87] New Found Glory's album Sticks and Stones debuted at #4 on the Billboard 200.^[82][88] Saves the Day toured with Green Day, Blink-182, and Weezer, playing large arenas such as Madison Square Garden,^[89] and by the end of the year had performed on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, appeared on the cover of Alternative Press, and had music videos for "At Your Funeral" and "Freakish" in heavy rotation on MTV2.^[78][80] Articles on Vagrant Records were published in Time and Newsweek,^[90] while the word "emo" began appearing on numerous magazine covers and became a catchall term for any music outside of mainstream pop.^[91] Andy Greenwald attributes emo's sudden explosion into the mainstream to media outlets looking for the "next big thing" in the wake of the September 11 attacks:

The media business, so desperate for its self-obsessed, post-9/11 predictions of a return to austerity and the death of irony to come true, had found its next big thing. But it was barely a "thing," because no one had heard of it, and those who had couldn't define it. Despite the fact that the hedonistic, materialistic hip-hop of Nelly was still dominating the charts, magazine readers in the summer of '02 were informed that the nation was deep in an introverted healing process, and the way it was healing was by wearing thick black glasses and vintage striped shirts. Emo, we were told, would heal us all through fashion.^[92]

In the wake of this success, many emo bands were signed to major record labels and the style became a marketable product.^[93] Dreamworks Records senior A&R representative Luke Wood remarked that "The industry really does look at emo as the new raprock, or the new grunge. I don't think that anyone is listening to the music that's being made—they're thinking of how they're going to take advantage of the sound's popularity at retail."^[94] The depoliticized nature of emo, coupled with its catchy music and accessible themes, gave it a broad appeal to young mainstream audiences.^[95]

At the same time, a darker, more aggressive offshoot of emo gained popularity. New Jersey-based Thursday signed a multi-million-dollar, multialbum contract with Island Def Jam on the strength of their 2001 album Full Collapse, which reached #178 on the Billboard 200.^[96] Their music differed from the prominent emo bands of the time in that it was more politicized and lacked dominant pop hooks and anthems, drawing influence from more maudlin bands such as The Smiths, Joy Division, and The Cure. However, the band's accessibility, openness, basement-show roots, and touring alongside bands like Saves the Day made them part of the emo movement.^[97]

Fashion and stereotype

Today emo is commonly tied to both music and fashion as well as the emo subculture.^[98] Usually among teens, the term "emo" is stereotyped with wearing skinny jeans, sometimes in bright colors, and tight t-shirts (usually short-sleeved) which often bear the names of emo bands. Studded belts and black wristbands are common accessories in emo fashion. Black Converse sneakers and skate shoes, such as Vans, are popularly worn among people of the emo fashion. Some males also wear thick, black horn-rimmed glasses.^{[99][100][101]}

The emo fashion is also recognized for its hairstyles. Popular looks include long side-swept bangs, sometimes covering one or both eyes. Also popular is hair that is straightened and dyed black. Bright colors, such as blue, pink, red, or bleached blond, are also typical as highlights in emo hairstyles. Short, choppy layers of hair are also common. This fashion has at times been characterized as a fad.^[102] In the early 2000s, emo fashion was associated with a clean cut look^[103] but as the style spread to younger teenagers, the style has become darker, with long bangs and emphasis on the color black replacing sweater vests.

Emo has been associated with a stereotype that includes being particularly emotional, sensitive, shy, introverted, or angst-ridden.^{[104][105][106]} It has also been associated with depression, self-injury, and suicide.^[107][108]

Criticism and controversy

Gender bias

Emo has been criticized for its androcentrism and the tendency of most emo bands to relegate women to the role of muse or heartbreaker in their lyrics.^[109] Andy Greenwald notes that there are very few women in emo bands, and that even those few do not typically have an active voice in the songs' subject matter: "Though emo—and to a certain degree, punk—has always been a typically male province, the monotony of the labels' gender perspective can be overwhelming."^[110] The triumph of the "lonely boy's aesthetic" in emo, coupled with the style's popularity, has led to a litany of one-sided songs in which males vent their fury at the women who have wronged them:^[110]

The way typical emo bands sing about women is a volatile mixture of Ian MacKaye's strident puritanism—as in sex equals fear, failure, weakness—and self-obsessed sexist solipsism. If mid-nineties emo was mostly about not meeting girls or running away from them, emo's national generation dumbed it down and amped it up. Now emo songwriters were one-sided victims of heartbreak, utterly wronged and ready to sing about it, with the women having no chance to respond.^[110]

Many emo songs both admit sadness and revel in it, exhibiting a phobia of women that seems to celebrate a perpetual adolescence:^[111] "The singers may pretend to hang themselves out to dry by copping to crying and being sad at night, but in the heightened emo environment, where broken hearts are badges of honor, it's a hollow boast. Their scars are a sign of pride—you're the one onstage bragging about how upset you are—but there's no attempt at actual conversation or relationship building."^[112] Some emo bands' lyrics go so far as to disguise violent anti-women sentiments in a veneer of pop music.^[112] Greenwald cites Chris Conley of Saves the Day, whose metaphors of bodily pain are sometimes used to describe bitter revenge fantasies directed at mistreating females,^[112] and Glassjaw's Daryl Palumbo, who has sometimes used explicitly violent fantasies in his lyrics.^[113] However, despite emo's frequent portrayal of women as powerless victims, fans of the style are almost evenly split between genders and some acts have even greater popularity with women than with men.^[114] One explanation for this is that the unifying appeal of emo, its expression of emotional devastation, can be appreciated equally by both sexes regardless of the songs' specific subjects.^[115]

In his BBC chart blog, Fraser McApline criticised Paramore singer, Hayley Williams for the lyrics to her song Misery Business naming her "one of the worst offenders."^[116]

Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy questioned why girls sing along to their songs at concerts when the lyrics are often derogatory to women.^[116]

Backlash

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Warped Tour founder, Kevin Lyman stated that he believes there is an emo backlash saying that he sees "I hate emo" t-shirts and that there was hostility among bands on the tour towards emo groups.^[117]

In 2008, Time Magazine reported that "anti-emo" groups attacked teenagers in Mexico City, Querétaro, and Tijuana.^[118][119] One of Mexico's foremost critics of emo was Kristoff, a music presenter on the popular TV channel Telehit.^{[citation needed]}

In Russia, a law has been presented at the Duma to regulate emo websites and forbid emo style at schools and government buildings, for fears of emo being a "dangerous teen trend" promoting anti-social behaviour, depression, social withdrawal and even suicide.^[120][121]

Criticism

Gerard Way, the lead singer of My Chemical Romance stated in an interview "emo is a pile of shit", and that his "band was never emo".^[122][123] Panic at the Disco also stated in an interview with NME: "emo is bullshit."^[124] These two bands, however, tend to be classified as emo.^{[125][126][127][128][129][130]}

Fans of emo are criticized for purported displays of emotion common in the scene. Complaints claimed that emotions were expressed in an histrionic manner.^[131]

Suicide

Emo music has been blamed for the suicide by hanging of teenager Hannah Bond by both the coroner at the inquest into her death and her mother, Heather Bond, after it was claimed that emo music glamorized suicide and her apparent obsession with My Chemical Romance was said to be linked to her suicide. The inquest heard that she was part of an Internet "emo" cult ^[132] and her Bebo page contained an image of an 'emo girl' with bloody wrists.^[133] It also heard that she had discussed the "glamour" of hanging online^[132] and had explained to her parents that her self harming was an "emo initiation ceremony".^[133] Heather Bond criticised emo fashion, saying: "There are 'emo' websites that show pink teddies hanging themselves." After the verdict was reported in NME, fans of emo music contacted the magazine to defend against accusations that it promotes self harm and suicide.^[134]