Spring Anime 1: Midori no Hibi

March 22, 2004 | 1 Comments

I just got the new issue of Animage magazine and it's full of previews of the upcoming Spring 2004 Anime lineup. And what lineup this one turns out to be! I probably haven't mentioned it before but I haven't been happy with the two previous anime seasons. But this season looks to be quite interesting for me. My must-watch lists include Midori no Hibi (Days of Midori), KonoMini (This Ugly and Beautiful World), Mai Hime and Le Portrait de Petit Cossette. I'll try to scan the images for the other shows later on but for now, I'll like to focus on my favourite, Midori no Hibi. Please note that there will be spoilers about the series on some of the paragraphs below. So if you don't want to be spoiled, just skip straight to the last paragraph.

For those of you who didn't know much about this series, Midori no Hibi is the story of Seiji Sawamura and Midori Kasugano. Seiji is a high school boy who's feared by his friends because he's often involved in gang fights and therefore unable to find a girlfriend. The truth is, Seiji is a very kind guy who often fights to help those who are in trouble. Midori, on the other hand, is a shy high school girl who has diffculty expressing her feelings. Although Midori goes to a different school from the one that Seiji attends, she has been having serious crush on Seiji just by looking at him from afar while he helps people from time to time. However, Midori's introvertness makes it impossible for her to even approach Seiji and have a small talk with him.

One day, a frustated Seiji laments his fate for being unable to get a girlfriend and asks (God, presumably) that he'll be granted one. Upon saying this, he wakes up and realises that his right hand has now turned into Midori. This revelation shocks the two of them and neither can understand how this happened. Later on, Seiji finds out that Midori's body is actually lying in a coma in her bedroom. So how can Midori materialises into a mini version of herself on Seiji's right hand? Will Midori's body ever regain consciousness again? How can Midori returns to her body? How will Seiji hides his new secret so that he won't be turned into a lab rat by various people who wants to get their hands on him and Midori?

Those are just some of the questions that are asked by the series right off the bat. In addition to this, Seiji's involvement with Midori has brought some changes for the two of them as well. Midori is no longer the shy girl that she was when she's on Seiji's right hand. At the same time, Seiji learns to get along better with other people and as a result, a bunch of interested parties start to become attracted to him, much to Midori's dismay. This include a girl called Takako Ayase, a guy called Shingyouji Kouta, as well as a slew of other 'story of the week' girls. Having said that, the heart of the story lies in the weird co-dependent relationship that Seiji has with Midori and it is a rather sweet one despite how the idea must have sound like in the first place.

I have seen a preview of the anime and I must say it looks good so far. All of the characters look the way I imagined them if they're animated, and the show looks unbelievably good-looking. I do wonder about the addition of a bunch of cute cat characters in it though. I hope it's not because they try to make it appealing to little kids. The manga was in no way can be called children's reading material. There are a lot of profanity and sexual situations. So I hope they don't tone down the anime much. I've also heard a glimpse of what looks like the opening theme for the show, it's called 'Sentimental' (センチメンタル) by CooRIE. In addition to this, Nakahara Mai provides the voice of Midori. Anyway, I'll be looking forward to this show when it starts airing this 4th of April 2004.

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