Type: Television Show
Episodes: 13 (Containing Suspected OVA)
Rating: Teen (Male), Any Age (Female)
Runtime Per Episode: 24 min
Director: Kobayashi Tsuneo
Produced By Bandai and others
Year Produced: 2004
... Otherwise known as Midori Days, Midori no Hibi was inspired by the manga of the same name by the mangaka (God, woot); Inoue Kazurou, who is also the author of some of my personal favorites (in case you couldn't tell) like Aoi Destruction and Ai Kora, and a couple others that look interesting, but I am too lazy to translate for myself.
Either way, this anime is the first that I am doing that was (more of less) directly translated from the manga.
And... it held up really well!
I don't know if Inoue Kazurou consulted on this or not (since it didn't credit him or anything), but it was still really funny (to me, there were apparently a lot of complaints about Aoi Destruction, but then again, it might be either an acquired sense of humor... or just inspired lunacy).
I'm not sure how to tell this without spoiling it, but the story's essentially a slice-of-life comedy about a delinquent (with a good heart, obviously) who's reputation has built itself around his "Devil's Right Hand". The man's name is... Sawamura Seiji.
Surprisingly accurate depiction of a beginner...
... 20?
As you can tell, Seiji has been having some "Lady Problems"... he can't get one (that's about the worst Lady Problem). Girls are afraid of him because... well... he might pull a shiv and shank them. Either way, it is his fate, no, his curse never to have a girlfriend... ever.
Teens
Twenties
Thirties
Retirement Home
Little does he know that there is a girl out there who understands his poor, tortured soul... well, not for long.
How rude.
Yes, you've seen it now, the secret behind the whole story. He finally got himself a girlfriend! And she's always close at hand, literally!
I hope you'll excuse the poor joke/pun/whatever, but it's true, a dream come true! He should be happy, right? Well... maybe not, but still, what a turn of events! Just thinking about it, you shouldn't have been able to see this one coming!
Now Seiji has to get used to having a girl (Kasugano Midori) who's totally into him... as his right hand.
What'll happen to his delinquent life?! Well, it'll have to keep going because he's built up such a reputation that everyone wants a piece of him now! An unfortunate situation, you might say.
The slice-of-life comes from the fact that the anime is mostly about their daily life together, but with the underlying main story of trying to get Midori back into her original body (which is sitting in bed all this time with a mysterious illness), and trying to get Seiji better understood by his classmates, with some classic Inoue twists, turns, fan service, and plenty of...
Full...
Frontal...
Nudity.
... I am so getting banned.
... Um... Yeah, okay, could you... stop staring and let's... get back to the re... view...
... Okay!
Since I read the manga before the anime (as I am want to do, whatever this means, since the literal translation does not make any sense), I had a hard time figuring out how to write about the character development. It was... good?
The characters remained true to the manga, I can say that much without a doubt. Each character was allowed enough flash-back time to make their point, and the relationship between Seiji and Midori was integrated into their characters over the course of the show.
The art style was awesome, as a huge fan of Inoue Kazurou, I also came to appreciate his classics.
And my friend's personal favorite...
Okay, granted. The second one isn't exactly and original, but it's still a classic and funny as hell.
The animation was smooth and flowed well, there were even a couple of fight sequences that were pretty good.
More importantly, there were also some sequences that weren't technically action, but rather random mayhem, which I can't display here because I don't have the skill. Basically, most of them are in the first episode during house-call by the gangsta' girls (is this in correct form?).
There's also an epic car-punching sequence in there.
The Japanese version of this anime was really good, and the English one wasn't so hot, as usual. Actually, you should probably just stick to listening to the Japanese acting exclusively unless I tell you that the English version is worth a try, which isn't very often.
The music wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite to my tastes. I'm more into rock music than what appears to be the norm for anime intro and outro music.
To put it as simply as I can, watch this anime, and then read the manga... or the other way around. Inoue Kazurou is awesome at what he does, plain and simple, and even if it is a take-off of Love Hina, Ai Kora is the best manga I've read in a while. Too bad nobody's WORKING ON IT!
I'm pretty sure that I still like the manga better, but the best thing about this anime is that it didn't hurt my view of the manga at all, and it actually brought up some stuff that I never thought about before I watched the anime, cool, yeah?
Oh, and this is one of the main reasons that still I like the manga better...
Something gets lost in translation, I'm afraid.
If you've agreed with anything that I've written here, then you should check it out... even if you're an adult who doesn't give a crap about anime and manga and shit for teenagers like that, you should still read it.
Just do it!
Midori no Hibi Minitheatre
Coming up next!
Mugen no Juuin!
There's nothing really to spoil here. Midori doesn't really have some kind of fantastic illness, actually, she's actually not sick at all. Her spirit appears to have left it's body of it's own accord and transferred itself to Seiji's right hand. They get her back to her original body and the two start to date.
... I mean, how else could it end, geez.
There are a couple other characters that you didn't need to know about unless you got this far (not necessarily in order of appearance);
You've got Miyahara, Seiji's kōhai and the little buddy who's constantly getting picked on and beaten up. Despite that, he remains carefree and dense, not to mention seemingly as unlucky with women as his master.
There's also Ayase, another classmate and the much-needed tsundere character.
Shiori, the other much-needed loli character.
You've also got one of the better characters; Shuichi, the Otaku.
The last character is Seiji's older sister, Rin. Considered to be the best character by another one of my friends. She's the one who taught him how to fight... and continues to beat him up mercilessly and take his living money to this day.
The animation was smooth and flowed well, there were even a couple of fight sequences that were pretty good.
There's also an epic car-punching sequence in there.
The Japanese version of this anime was really good, and the English one wasn't so hot, as usual. Actually, you should probably just stick to listening to the Japanese acting exclusively unless I tell you that the English version is worth a try, which isn't very often.
The music wasn't bad, but it wasn't quite to my tastes. I'm more into rock music than what appears to be the norm for anime intro and outro music.
To put it as simply as I can, watch this anime, and then read the manga... or the other way around. Inoue Kazurou is awesome at what he does, plain and simple, and even if it is a take-off of Love Hina, Ai Kora is the best manga I've read in a while. Too bad nobody's WORKING ON IT!
I'm pretty sure that I still like the manga better, but the best thing about this anime is that it didn't hurt my view of the manga at all, and it actually brought up some stuff that I never thought about before I watched the anime, cool, yeah?
Oh, and this is one of the main reasons that still I like the manga better...
'Nuff said, x2.
Something gets lost in translation, I'm afraid.
If you've agreed with anything that I've written here, then you should check it out... even if you're an adult who doesn't give a crap about anime and manga and shit for teenagers like that, you should still read it.
Just do it!
Midori no Hibi Minitheatre
Coming up next!
Mugen no Juuin!
If you don't like spoilers, or still want to watch the show now, you'd better stop reading!
There's nothing really to spoil here. Midori doesn't really have some kind of fantastic illness, actually, she's actually not sick at all. Her spirit appears to have left it's body of it's own accord and transferred itself to Seiji's right hand. They get her back to her original body and the two start to date.
... I mean, how else could it end, geez.
There are a couple other characters that you didn't need to know about unless you got this far (not necessarily in order of appearance);
You've got Miyahara, Seiji's kōhai and the little buddy who's constantly getting picked on and beaten up. Despite that, he remains carefree and dense, not to mention seemingly as unlucky with women as his master.
... Woah. For a Closet-Otaku to do this... for any Otaku to do this is suicide.
And Midori's classmate from her old school; Kouta. They changed a couple of things about him (or at least didn't support a couple of things about him), like the fact that he's apparently gay for Seiji (in the manga, this was a lot more clear). Despite the fact that they didn't have the time to flush out this part of his character, Kouta is still...
... remarkably stupid.
One of the cooler things about Kouta was that he was voiced by one of my favorite actresses (FYI (that's For Your Information, FYI) in Japan (and maybe here too), the parts of young boys are usually given to female voice actresses because guys, even at that age, are apparently not squeaky enough); Kugimiya Rie. She was the lead female part in two of my more favorite animes; Toradora! and the Zero no Tsukaima series.
The last character is Seiji's older sister, Rin. Considered to be the best character by another one of my friends. She's the one who taught him how to fight... and continues to beat him up mercilessly and take his living money to this day.
She also figures out about Midori.
That's about it.
My favorite episode would (hands down) be Episode 6: Shiori's Big Love Love Strategy! If you don't agree with me, please leave a comment and I'll be sure to disregard it because that arcade sequence, followed by the cosplay thing was awesome!!
Watch it!
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