Her Empathy
Though Ai very rarely shows any emotions, she is not incapable of feeling. In fact, there are quite a few times where Ai is obviously sad or feels for another person. For example, a painting of Ai begins to cry when it is time for Fukumoto, the man who painted it, to die. He had sent someone to Hell years ago and it was now his turn to fulfill the contract. Fukumoto had spent the remainder of his life "devoted" to Ai in a way; he painted numerous pictures of her (including the mural on the wall of his apartment that ended up crying), wrote an article about her and her job and longed to see her one more time. She doesn't torture him before bringing him to Hell, and simply sits across from him instead of steering the boat with eyes glazed over and a detached gaze.
All of the other cases where Ai shows any sort of emotional connection with anyone have a common theme. One of Ai's clients, Yumi, is a young girl that is physically and emotionally abused while her twin sister is pampered. They both perform in a traveling circus, and though Yumi does nothing wrong, she is constantly yelled at, beaten and locked in a cold and bare storage room. After pulling the string, Ai kneels down next to her and puts her hand on Yumi's face. I was surprised, at first, because touching someone's cheek is generally an act of compassion and caring. Up until that episode, the viewer had never seen Ai act that way towards anyone. Though nothing is said, a moment of true understanding is conveyed. The next person worth mentioning would be Kanako, a much-loved nurse. Despite always doing good and putting others in front of herself, a random guy she never met sent her to Hell. She never did anything terribly bad in her life, much less did anything to the man. Though Ai does not cry, her eyes show that she is having a hard time. Wanyuudo also comments that he can hear "the sound of [Ai's] heart grating" while she rows the boat towards the gate of Hell.
In Jigoku Shoujo Futakmori, Ai's extreme interest in Takuma's plight quickly becomes apparent. It didn't take me long to realize the reason why, either. A string of unfortunate events brings despair and puts blame on Takuma for things he did not do. After losing his mother to death and father to a coma, he was greeted with ostracizing rather than sympathy. He was labeled a "devil's child" and used as a scapegoat for anything that went wrong. Takuma did nothing wrong and was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and yet he had to suffer so much. Not only does Ai spend a great amount of time observing Takuma, but she also goes to great lengths in order to save him. After Hotaru accesses Jigoku Tsuushin, Ai is very touchy about making the contract with her because she wants to send Takuma to Hell. Ai has never been seen to show any sort of emotion while explaining the rules of the contract. Even so, she forces herself to do so and brings Takuma towards the gate because she has no choice. Or so you think, anyway. Her eyes become less and less glazed over and she almost looks like she is going to begin crying by the time she stops the boat. Even after bringing him back to life and thus bringing herself back to life, she still goes through agonizing pain to make sure he is safe. She can barely move, much less walk, yet she chases him all the way back to the town in order to prevent anything bad from happening. Ai gets beaten to death in order to save Takuma.
Similar events are seen in Jigoku Shoujo Mitsuganae. Yuzuki and her mother were abandoned by the town they lived in because of an accident that they had no control over. Yuzuki's mother was very ill and no hospitals or doctors would look at her. Even though they did nothing wrong, they both died because people looked away from the despair in front of them. The only other time Ai is shown crying for others is when she and Yuzuki are looking at one of Yuzuki's last memories before she dies. Ai touches child Yuzuki's face and tears slip down her face. Again, the caring and compassion are shown both by tears and the act of gently touching another's face. After Yuzuki is about to be sent to Hell as punishment for opening her heart, Ai comes to the rescue and takes her punishment. She accepts being Jigoku Shoujo forever; sacrificing herself for someone else once more. But why?
All of the incidences that I briefly discussed above can be drawn parallel with Ai's own past. She never did anything bad, but she was still shunned by her village, left to die in the mountains as a sacrifice and then beaten and buried alive with her parents for wanting to live. Even though she simply paid them back for what they did to her, she still had to carry the weight of being Jigoku Shoujo as a punishment for over 400 years anyway. Ai has seen all kinds of hatred hundreds of times. She has probably witnessed all sorts of depressing cases. But the reason she gets so emotional over the ones where the person is suffering without doing anything to deserve it is because she has empathy for them.
Empathy: Direct identification with, understanding of, and vicarious experience of another person's situation, feelings, and motives.Please note that empathy differs from
Sympathy: The harmony of feeling naturally existing between persons of like tastes or opinion or of congenial dispositions.
Ai doesn't simply feel bad for these people because she can imagine it being a tough or painful place to be in. She actually understands and can identify with their feelings. She knows what it feels like to have no other choice but to release her rage and carry the consequences afterwards (Fukumoto), what it is like to be treated poorly, to be alone and have no escape (Yumi), to be punished with death for doing nothing wrong (Kanako), to be rejected by the people of her community because of false rumors and being in the wrong place at the wrong time (Takuma), and being abandoned by those same people who couldn't overlook their own protection in order to help someone else in need (Yuzuki). Seeing all of those people didn't create new feelings, it stirred up old ones. Simply feeling bad for others is not even an option considering she closed her heart. Creating new emotions without allowing yourself to feel would be impossible. Heart string-pulling empathy on the other hand is different. It's harder to ignore your own feelings than the feelings of someone else. Even if Ai felt bad, once time passed after bringing someone to Hell, there would be nothing left to stimulate any emotion. Feeling her own emotions is another story. People generally have a difficult time ignoring strong emotions, especially painful ones. Ai is not an inhuman monster and is therefore not an exception.
Ai also doesn't just stop at understanding their feelings. She acts on them. As can be seen with the cases of Takuma and Yuzuki, Ai's feelings cause her to sacrifice herself so that others don't have to undergo the same pain and torment she did. She probably couldn't bare to see someone else fall into despair the same way she did. It would be like watching herself get hurt from an outside point of view while knowing how much pain it caused. Of course Ai doesn't think highly of herself and couldn't care less about what happens to her, but I still don't think that is as strong of an influence on her impulse reactions to save them. Because her existence was so painful, I believe she became more sensitive to pain being inflicted on others and therefore became more caring in a way. Because Ai is so used to thinking with cold logic, I don't think it would be impossible to believe that once emotions do spark, any decisions following happen in a flash without thinking. Therefore, I don't think Ai's sacrifices were selfish in any conscious way.
All in all, I thought the series was so well done because it took Ai's past and weaved it into other stories that she encounters. Somehow, it wasn't overkill either. You can draw many parallels between the various hatreds from the past and the present time she has to deal with. I personally thought it was a great way to show that Ai not only had weaknesses, but could also identify with people and had emotions despite being hardened over hundreds of years.
b a c k . c l e a r . f o r w a r d Heaven's a Lie and its contents are © Samantha, however Ai and Jigoku Shoujo are © Aniplex, Studio Deen and other rightful owners. Heaven's a Lie is a part of AFTER-DEATH.ORG.