Ai and her associates keep receiving messages asking for help via the Jigoku Tsushin website on a daily basis and are convinced that this is the work of a prankster. As such, they choose to ignore these messages but Ai seems concerned about this matter.Meanwhile, at the stroke of midnight, Urano Chisato is trying to access the website under Kaibu Riho's orders but to no avail. Riho decides to call it a day and instructs Chisato to come to the office tomorrow morning. When Chisato explains that she can't do it because of the end-of-term exams, Riho "reminds" her that Chisato can continue with her studies thanks to her. As such, Chisato cannot say anything and has to oblige reluctantly. Chisato leaves the office in low spirits and greets the security guard who is actually Wanyuudo in disguise. When she reaches home, Chisato stares at the office building of Deadline Enterprise from her apartment's window and sighs in despair.
The next day, Hone-Onna enters Deadline as a part-time worker to find out more on Riho and the company. The company was set up by Riho with her friends during her schooling days but she is the only person managing it now. The employees are full of praise for Riho's computing and management skills which has made Deadline a famous online shopping company in just 4 years. While they are talking, Riho happens to pass by and introduces herself to Hone-Onna with Ai looking on from the side.
During the board meeting, a staff mentions that the director of Midori Tsushin is against the collaboration project with Deadline but Riho tells him to proceed with the negotiations and she hints at something happening which will make the director change his mind. Later, when she brings up the proposal of changing the company's host server, the directors leave it to Riho since they are convinced that she's more familiar with such things as compared to them.
When Riho enters the office, she complains to Chisato that the directors are just a bunch of fools who know nothing. At the same time, Hone-Onna tries to find out the identity of Chisato from the staff who reveal that she's a distant relative of Riho and her parents had passed away. For the sake of gaining work experience, Riho had arranged for Chisato to work part-time in Deadline but apparently, Chisato is said to know nothing about computers.
In the evening, news of Midori Tsushin's director's death is reported on TV and Riho instigates Chisato to forge a document so as to transfer the shares of Midori Tsushin to her. Before Chisato hacks into that director's computer to put the document inside, she asks Riho on whether she should change the file directory and server but Riho says that she doesn't care since she is actually the one who knows nuts about computers.
Just then, the clock strikes midnight so Riho tells Chisato to access the Jigoku Tsushin website again. However, nothing happens so Riho gets furious and orders Chisato to investigate the webmaster's details. Chisato explains that this isn't possible since their computer system was counter-hacked when she tried to do it a few days back. Riho does not buy her explanation and threatens to expose Chisato's shoplifting deeds in the past if the latter does not listen to her. Although Chisato is angry about being threatened, she is unable to do anything in retalliation.
Ren goes to a franchise shop under Deadline and tries to find out from the shop owner as to why the company employs women only. According to him, the company used to have male employees like him but when Riho took charge, the guys were sent to the subsidiaries thus leaving only female employees in the company. In addition, Ren also finds out that there was a weird order passed by Riho one year ago where she instructed all shop owners to report shoplifting cases to her first before going to the police. In fact, Chisato was one of those caught at his shop.
Ai and her associates gather at the shop to watch the surveillance video of Chisato's shoplifting act where Ren reveals that Chisato is actually a computer expert contrary to what the company employees assume her to be. On the other hand, Riho knows nothing about computers. Besides that, Wanyuudo also finds out from the town office and police records that Chisato and Riho are not relatives. Hone-Onna shares her findings about Riho's ex-boyfriend being a computer expert but they were said to have broken up before Deadline developed into the way it is now. As such, it is clear that Riho was trying to find a computer expert to fill the void of her ex-boyfriend so as to boost the growth of her company thus explaining why she is making use of Chisato.
In the middle of the night, Chisato is awoken by Riho's call to her mobile phone where the latter tells her that someone has threatened to expose her company's secrets and demanded 100 million yen. Riho orders Chisato to check the identity of the person before she turns up for work tomorrow. Chisato has no choice but to go to the office at 3am. The next morning, she passes the report to Riho who allows her to go to school. Riho also mentions that she will leave the matter of Jigoku Shoujo aside for the time being because it's bad for her skin to stay up late. Chisato leaves the room and smiles to herself in a evil manner.
A man is killed and dumped inside a drain and he turns out to be the guy whom Chisato had named in her report as the blackmailer. Unknown to Riho, Chisato had installed a surveillance camera to record footage of her giving orders to the yakuza to kill that man. Just when Chisato thinks that she can finally break free from Riho, she finds out from Riho that the latter had also killed her father when he had tried to go to the police after being blackmailed by her.
Chisato is seething with anger when she realises that Riho has found out about her identity right from the start as Chisato entered the company purposely to take revenge. When Riho's subordinate tries to kill Chisato, the latter activates the water sprinkler and makes use of the chance to run away. Upon hearing the clock strike at midnight, Chisato uses the computer to enter Riho's name into the Jigoku Tsushin website. She is then transported to Ai's world and given the usual drill on how the system works. Chisato removes the red thread from the figurine without hesitation.
This sends Riho back to her past where she relives the nightmare of killing her boyfriend and good friend who cheated on her. When she finally regains her senses, Riho finds herself being sent to hell by Ai...
Chisato inherits the company as well as Riho's assets and she recalls the latter's words about enjoying life until the day she dies. As such, she decides to follow Riho's principle since she's going to hell anyway and has a smirk on her face...
Well, Riho might be a villian but I have the feeling that Chisato might become a worse person since she doesn't have any reservations about committing evil deeds. Given that she will head to hell anyway, it doesn't make sense for her to be a good person so that seems to be a logical explanation why she has decided to go by Riho's ways despite them being the very reason why she was in so much anguish. In this case, Ai and her associates may not have gotten rid of an evil person from the world but rather aided in the creation of a worse version. It just goes to show that the so-called revenge mechanism in Jigoku Shoujo is not without its flaws since this depends very much on personal feelings of hatred rather than an objective assessment of who's really good or evil.
I know I'm falling behind in the progress of covering some of these anime series especially for some which had already finished their run. With the upcoming season within a few weeks' time, I am going to end up with a bigger backlog but I'll try to complete as much as I can while trying to maintain a certain quality in the reviews.
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