“The Underworld (冥界, Meikai) or Inferno (地獄, Jigoku) is the realm of the dead where souls are placed after death. What area the souls reside in are determined by the Three Judges. It is the habitat of all Specters, including the god Hades (in classic myth, it is also the second residence of Hades’s wife, Persephone).
“The Meikai Underworld was created by Hades to forever punish humans for their crimes. No life is possible in the Underworld without the Eighth Sense (or special devices), as all things in the Underworld normally fall under the control of Hades. Specters are unaffected, and may enter and leave at the discretion of Hades because they wear Surplices.
“As depicted by Masami Kurumada, the Underworld is composed of eight prisons, with further subdivisions (the 7th prison is divided in three valleys, the 8th in ten pits, the 9th in four regions). All of the Prisons correspond to the nine Circles of Hell depicted in Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, which itself borrows heavily from Greek myths. In addition, it also contains the passage to the Elysian Fields, where only those chosen by the gods can go.” —Seiyapedia, September 12, 2018
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