REVIEW: ‘Hell’s Paradise’ Episode 5 — “The Samurai and the Woman”

Hell’s Paradise, the MAPPA and Twin Engine anime based on Yuji Kaku’s manga of the same name, is off to a stunning start. And in the last episode, the vibrant and hideous dangers that Paradise has to offer made itself known. As our ensemble judges whether they’re surrounded by gods or devils on the island, the search for the Elixir of Life is still at the forefront, with each group of Asaemon and convicts moving on their own path. But ending with a shock, Hell’s Paradise Episode 5, “The Samurai and the Woman,” opens up where the last left off with Sagiri passed out. Haunted by a memory, she awakes to Gabimaru, Senta, Yuzuriha, and Genji are all, well, getting along.

The core of Hell’s Paradise Episode 5 is gender and how it impacts even a life-or-death situation. As a character, Asaemon Sagiri has been through an emotional wringer, and as we get more of her background, we’re also understanding how her determination has built up. In Episode 2, MAPPA showed us how they both are two sides of one coin. More specifically, we see how Sagiri handles her job as a Yamada Asaemon and how she comes to terms with taking life. But while we see hints of the sexism she has faced in the past episodes, in Hell’s Paradise Episode 5 Genji represents the starkest example. After repeatedly telling Sagiri that her role is to bare children for the Yamada clan, and that’s why she needs to make it off the island, Genji would rather kill her than have her be a samurai.

The title of the episode “The Samurai and the Woman” isn’t about Genji and Sagiri; it’s about Sagiri and the two sides of herself that, to everyone, are irreconcilable. To be a woman is to not be a samurai, and to be a samurai is to cease to be a woman. When Sagiri confronts this explicitly, she explains why she won’t leave the island. Because if she does, she loses every choice she has made in life. To leave now, to believe that she is a woman first and a samurai second instead of both, her struggle would have been all for nothing.

Peeling back the layers of Hell’s Paradise’s characters allows the audience to see the way in which they relate to the situation and mission as much as the people around them. Additionally, this episode introduces Nurugai. A kid whose only crime is being a Sanka, an indigenous people who didn’t bow to the Shogunate or their views on cultures. Carrying the guilt of alerting a samurai group to their village, which results in her grandfather’s death and the death of her village, she is on the island out of the care of her Asaemon Tenza. Unlike the others in his clan, Tenza wants Nurugai to survive because she is innocent. But in her eyes, the survivor’s guilt morphs into balancing on a razor’s edge of welcoming death by the island’s monsters as divine retribution or surviving just to do so. A young but complicated character that exists to showcase the sins of the Shogunate, she was one of my favorites in the manga and she remains so in the anime.

Outside of character moments, Hell’s Paradise Episode 5 also continues to build out the world. With texts that detail the island’s religion and the malformed gods that live there, we learn as the characters learn. The key points are clear as they interact with the land and try to survive. The vibrant and beautiful flowers are the corpses of samurai, and the malformed gods with no internal or external organs may be immortal. I mean, as Gabimaru says, if they have no organs, they must be immortal, right?

Don’t worry, though. Hell’s Paradise Episode 5 also delivers action and monsters to keep the pacing of past episodes. As monsters on the island expand and we get to see the devastating elements waiting in the water. Action balances out emotion and keeps the series at a steady pace that is ramping up in each episode. Additionally, if it wasn’t clear before, no character is safe from death.

Hell’s Paradise Episode 5 tackles some larger character beats while still feeling action-packed. MAPPA is building empathy with each character while ensuring that you understand that their place in the story can be easily wiped out by a giant swinging their hand or a tentacle monster with teeth. The future is uncertain for every character, yet I’m all bought in.

Hell’s Paradise Episode 5 is streaming now on Crunchyroll with new episodes every Saturday.