Ai Enma

Ai Enma is the main protagonist of the Jigoku Shoujo anime.

Ai is a Hell Girl. As such, she makes a regular appearance in the series, although her appearance is smaller and less frequent in "Hell Girl Three Vessels".

Due to the nature of the duties which she is required to carry out, Ai can also be claimed to be the anti-heroine of the series. She also almost never exposes signs of being moralistic or idealistic, and occasionally opposes even those who are attempting to stop her from carrying out her job for a good cause.

Appearance
Ai is a pale-skinned young girl with long, straight black hair styled in a hime cut that she keeps untied, red eyes (although they were originally brown before she was buried alive) and light pink lips. She maintains a thirteen-year old girl's physical appearance, which was how old she was at the time of her death and has remained as such for well over four-hundred years.

Her usual attire consists of a dominantly black seifuku, similar to Japanese school uniforms, with some parts colored white and red. However, while performing the act of taking someone to Hell, Ai always wears a kimono instead, which changes motifs every season. In season 1, it was a black kimono with large flower patterns. It is also shown as the first kimono Ai was given when she became the Hell Girl. In season 2, the kimono has flowery petals covering most of it, save in flashback scenes where Ai was still wearing her first kimono. In season 3, it carries pictures of fans and toy air balloons, the patterns of which appear to be moving. In season 4, it is black but mostly covered with flowers, butterflies, strings and roses, it's obi's color is golden and is decorated with flowers.

Personality
Although not originally this way, Ai has a cold personality. Even in emotion-evoking situations, she doesn't appear moved in the least. Additionally, Ai is oddly silent and serious. She seems to only talk when the need arises, rarely speaking simply for the sake of it. In the event that Ai does talk out of ordinary circumstances, it is about something which she believes is necessary for someone to know, or to correct somebody where needed. The main reason for her introverted personality is due to her emotions being locked up when she was made into the Hell Girl.

As the series went on, Ai did become slightly more expressive, and a tad less cold, serious, and silent. However, the difference is extremely minor. Interactions from her side are a little more varied, and less grim later on, especially toward her clients and victims. In some scenarios, Ai actually goes to the lengths of mocking clients a bit like her servants before sending them to hell. She has also increased her attention and shown concern toward the more innocent clients and victims. An example of this would include the time when she reassured a lady who was requesting her to have Ren, one of Ai's companions, watch over her daughter after she willingly ended her life so that her daughter didn't have to be sent to Hell.

Later on it is revealed that the Master of Hell ordered Ai to close off her emotions; however, in rare instances Ai defies that order to use her emotions, especially hatred, to guide her actions, as opposed to only following the duties given to her. The first of such occurs near the end of the first season when she tries to take revenge for Sentarou Shibata's actions upon his descendants Tsugumi Shibata and Hajime Shibata. In many forms, Ai unsuccessfully urges Tsugumi to ask her to send her father, Hajime, to Hell. Nevertheless, she burns down the temple which the adult Sentarou had built for her centuries before, suggesting that she refuses to accept contrition. In another example, Hone Onna reveals that when Ai was forced to send an innocent person to Hell, Ai silently screamed in her heart for having to do it, but she was unable to express or act on those emotions. There are other brief glimpses of Ai's emotions throughout the three seasons of the anime, including the welling of tears in her eyes.

Abilities
Dark Energy: Ai has shown the ability to hurl large, deadly blasts of black-colored energy. This is first demonstrated when she meets face-to-face with the Shibatas, having remembered her past and hatred.

Teleportation: She can teleport from one place to another. Throughout the series, Ai appears out of nowhere, therefore startling her clients.

Taking People to Hell: Able to take the lives of her clients' tormentors, Ai can do so without necessarily making any physical contact with them, or damaging them physically. After terrorizing them with her illusions, she takes their lives away as the floral designs in her kimono washes over her victims. The victim appears to dissipate, afterward. By taking the lives of her clients' tormentors, she personally takes them aboard her boat on the Sanzu River for transportation into Hell.

Possession: She seems to have the ability to possess others, but considering the fact that there has only been one case to argue this, it is difficult to say for sure whether it is her ability or not. The only event where Ai displayed this was when she was physically dead for some time and she possessed the body of Yuzuki Mikage in order to have a vessel to perform her duties as the "Hell Girl". Later on, after the Gate to Hell was opened for a while during the Six-Mon Lantern festival, she left Yuzuki's body, and retrieved control of her own physical body, as if she was resurrected.

Illusion Manipulation: Ai is capable of creating large, intricate illusions, in which she often does to frighten her victims before taking them to Hell. She also creates illusions at other times, like when trying to convince Tsugumi Shibata to send her father to hell.

Showing Someone the Future of a Grudge: Ai has displayed the ability to show someone the future of a grudge, as she showed Yuzuki Mikage, in Episode 16 of Three Vessels.

Resurrection: Is an ability of Ai, as shown when she was buried by the villagers, and managed to rise from the dead to set her village on fire. Also, during the Six-Mon Lantern festival, she may have resurrected herself, though then the question would remain as to why she didn't revive herself until that point.

Fire Manipulation: Ai also has the power to create fire, which she has only used on two occasions. The first time it was shown, she burned her home village down to the ground with a wave of her hand. The other time, a similar ability was shown was when she created a ball of energy or fire, and used it to create a blast of fire to destroy the temple that Sentarou built. It seems that she creates fire, or perhaps she maintains the ability to create fire only when she gets emotionally-evoked, usually with anger.

Seeing Past: She has the ability to show someone the past of a person, which Ai has performed on multiple occasions, first in the first season, and second in Two Mirrors.

Trivia

 * Ai was physically injured every season, once in Two Mirrors, and twice in Three Vessels, and the first season each:
 * In the first season, she was beaten up by the villagers of her village when she was alive.
 * Later on, in the first season, she was thrown around through Gilles de L'Enfer's telekinetic abilities in the episode Hell Girl vs. Hell Boy. However, she showed no sign of pain or resistance.
 * In Two Mirrors, she was beaten to death again by some of the individuals of Lovely Hills.
 * In Three Vessels, she was kicked in the stomach in the episode My Teacher.
 * Furthermore, in Three Vessels, Ai was hit in the stomach with a dark bolt of energy fired by Yuzuki Mikage.
 * Ai and Sentarou has been hinted to have had romantic feelings for each other multiple times.
 * Ai has been shown to be able to play flutes, though their only use which happened before sending someone to Hell raises doubts as to whether it was just an illusion or not.
 * She is similar to the ferryman Charon from Greek mythology, who carried the souls of the dead across the river Styx to the Underworld.
 * Unlike Michiru Sagae, Ai's flames are blue which is a stronger form of yellow fire.