Hells Angels; the failing success

Hells Angels, Maze Runner, and Percy Jackson. Three different movies with a single common point. That common point being the fact that they are all book series that had too much crammed into them causing an unsuccessful movie adaptation.

Hells is an anime adapted from the original manga by Shinichi Hiromoto. The story revolves around a girl named Linne and how she is skilled and sent to Hell High, a literal high school in hell under the leadership of Helvis Presely. The film begins light-hearted by giving Linne a basic goal that she can escape hell by graduating high school in hell. Naturally, her time is school is very rocky given that she is the one of the few humans in a school of demons and monsters. The story then accelerates by hosting a volleyball tournament in which the winner is granted one wish of their desire. The story further speeds up when Hiromoto introduces the tragedy of Cane and Abel from the bible due to Linne accidentally discovering that her cat is God. The truth behind Helvis is that Helvis is actually Cane who murdered Linne and is guarding Abel’s madness which stems from his grudge from his murder. The story is pushed full throttle when Mikuriya, Linne’s crush and Abel himself, regains his madness and wreaks havoc upon the entirety of hell. From then on, it is a literal quest and battle of philosophy over the meaning of life, humans, and etc. The very concepts of philosophy is realized to the point where it is an actual weapon for the characters. Eventually, Linne’s argument wins out and she and her best friend, Stealer, must deal with the aftermath. Linne goes home like she wished in the end.

The reason why I believe Hells to be a failing success is because of the way it was adapted. The acting and concepts are definitely powerful, but it falls short in terms of storytelling. By storytelling, I mean how the flow of the movie went. The movie is a two-hour long film while the original manga is an entire three volume series. Naturally, there is too much to cram into a single film. In my opinion, I believe that the anime movie would’ve been more successful as a tv series rather than a single film. Because of the intense cramming, much of the content involving the concepts explanations, character development, and crucial events were lost completely.

In the movie, everything was over the top and lacked a steady flow. Instead of a steady flow, it was more like a dam bursting and all of the ideas put into it were rushing out at the audience. So in conclusion, the act of cramming a three volume book series into a single movie is unsuccessful for the Hells anime.