Rating: ★★★★☆

"Hell's Paradise is the least known member of what I've seen referred to as Shonen Jump's "Hell Trio", consisting of this manga, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Chainsaw Man. However, least known does not mean worst in this case, as I'd put Hell's Paradise on par with either of the aforementioned series (It's written by a former assistant of Chainsaw Man's author, and the eye for quality shows). While the action scenes are awesome, it's the character interactions and art direction that really distinguish this series from other Shonen Jump titles. The main reason why I found myself so engrossed in reading this manga when I first picked it up last summer was just how likable all of the characters are. This may seem strange if you've only read the synopsis, seeing as half of the characters are death row inmates, but the author does an excellent job of explaining the circumstances surrounding each character's imprisonment. You can safely assume that any character that doesn't die immediately after they're introduced has redeeming qualities beyond their criminal history and genuine depth. This is especially true for the main character, who I kept forgetting is the most feared assassin in all of Japan due to how endearing he is. The samurai executioners who are assigned to each criminal are understandably biased against their partners in the beginning, so seeing them gradually begin to warm up to the criminals is also really fun to watch. The other aspect of the manga that really shines is the art and overall style. This series incorporates elements from several different religions, and blends them into a disturbingly beautiful island that looks as much like heaven as it does hell. Watching the characters be hunted by disturbing imitations of divine figures is both exciting and surreal, and each character having a unique fighting style and demeanor keeps the action scenes varied and interesting. I often found myself going back through a chapter after reading it just to look at some of the art again. One last thing I want to touch on is how different the character's attitudes towards death is in this series. Most typical Shonen has every death be drawn out and the characters have to be sad about it for a full five chapters before the story can get back on track, but not Hell's Paradise. Given that each character has seen their fair share of death in their lives, deaths tend to push characters forwards towards their goals rather than driving them to despair, which I really liked. This is necessary to the story as well, seeing as characters die pretty often in this series. TL;DR - Hell's Paradise is an exciting dark Shonen with beautiful art and one of the most interesting and likable cast of characters I've seen in any manga. I'd absolutely recommend this series to anyone looking for a new action manga to read, and I'm excited for what the author does in the future. I'm also excited for the upcoming anime to release, so if you're here from that then 100% give the manga a shot too. "

Rating: ★★★☆☆

"Overall relatively mediocre but with good art. The manga has some very good visuals especially at the start, and the mystery aspect of it is pretty engaging, however it quickly starts to fall apart. The characters are mostly boring until they're about to die which is when the author remembers they forgot to make you care about them, so they have to put in some backstory to make it sad. This happens for most of the characters at the start, some characters are developed later and do actually have good arcs, Shion/Nurugai being the best written characters in the entire manga. They actually change in a meaningful way as the events of the story play out, it's nothing spectacular but it's well done and the two are a likeable team. The main characters Sagiri and Gabimaru are unfortunately pretty boring. Gabimaru's entire character is really that he seems like a bad guy but because he loves his wife he's actually a nice guy, and Sagiri's entire arc is that accepting her weaknesses make her strong. Ultimately I found the side characters a lot more interesting, they're more stakes and character development, Gabimaru is just an extremely boring shonen protaganist, while Sagiri is better I still didn't care that much. All the side characters like the brothers, Yuzuriha and Tamiya Gantetsusai are more interesting albeit still not great. Another major problem is the pacing, it seems like the author had the structure planned out but didn't put much thought into how these events connect or why. For about five fights in a row we hear from characters that they're at their limit from fighting and could die if they make one mistake, well the fight ends and then not even few hours later another fight starts and the process repeats. The issue here is there's just no tension, characters are pushed to their limit and then go on to fight an even tougher enemy in this weakened state multiple times, it's not a one off occurence. Even a quick explanation of "I need to rest for 30 minutes to gather tao from my surroundings before I can fight" would have sufficed but especially from the middle to the end it's just a nonstop string of fights with increasingly tougher enemies. This pacing issue is also really noticeable at the end, it's almost comical how the way the author tries to increase tension is adding a bunch of characters we don't care about to die to really up the stakes. During the final confrontation a second group out Iwagakure and Asaemon show up, it's been teased throughout the manga, these characters are tough and you're looking forward to how they impact the story, and then they really don't. The Iwagakure except for one are all just cannon fodder, they could have brought 50 or 100 or 500, it's totally irrelevant. The Asaemon are all boring and extremely forgettable, none of them except for Shugen and Jikka are memorable. Shugen is only memorable because he plays a major role in the ending confrontation with the main antagonist, however his character is another that is just extremely boring. If Jikka had never left the island and a second expedition was never launched, it would have almost no affect on the story, the only point to it was to try and make the ending more exciting by introducing a ton of new characters to fight who are even more boring than the ones we already have. The ending aside from that is fine, I liked the final antagonist Rien more than the rest of the Tensen group, Tao Fa and Ju Fa were the only other Tensen that were interesting. What happens after the final confrontation was also good. The author does have talent no doubt but I was not surprised to see this was their first full work. I'd pay attention to their future works but Jigokuraku as it is has a lot of issues that are hard to ignore. "