Midori Days

My plan with this show initially was to have a review up within a couple of days from starting it. Midori Days is a 13 episode series so I was anticipating completing it a lot sooner than I did. Even though I did manage to complete the show by the end of the week, I was still a little disappointed in myself that it has taken me 2 days from finishing to get my post up. All that aside though, I am here writing now, so here is the account of my experience with Midori Days.

This show is was pretty interesting. It had a good combination of "tough guy" appeal coupled with typical shoujo romance. The story follows Seiji Sawamura, a delinquent who is constantly fighting local gangs from other schools. He is often referred to in the show as Mad Dog Sawamura along with references to his "Demon Right Hand". Because of Seiji's reputation, he is not the most popular with girls and as of the beginning of the story has already been rejected 20 times. One morning Seiji wakes up to find out that his Demon Right Hand has been replaced with a girl who is no larger than a hand puppet. It is revealed that the girl is Midori, a young school girl who has had a crush on Seiji. Over the course of the story it is revealed that Midori's spirit has left her body to be with Seiji and as a result she is in a constant state of sleep. Her parents are financially well endowed and because of this they try a number of different spirit healers from all over the world to try and wake her. Meanwhile in the story, Midori and Seiji become closer, and Seiji's true character is revealed. It turns out that he is not the bad ass that everyone makes him out to be, and that he fights to protect people who can't protect themselves. The two characters begin rubbing off on each other and Seiji becomes kinder towards others, while Midori begins to come out of her shell.

I'm not really into the romantic genre of anime, but I did enjoy this show a lot. I think the fact that they were able to to use a character that you would not really expect to be compassionate towards others helped make this show so interesting. In fact, all of the characters in the show brought something interesting to the table. The development and design of characters was effective in making this show something to watch. I also found that the story was such that I didn't get bored. The episodes had a nice flow even though they all had a conclusion by the end. I did find the art style used was favorable to my tastes as well. Others may disagree, but I found the drawing style and colors used were easy on the eyes. Music was nothing groundbreaking. The BGM often reminded me of shows such as Onegai Teacher (Please Teacher) and Onegai Twins (Please Twins).

As a whole, this show was really worth watching. Even as a person who really isn't into this genre, I was impressed. I would recommend taking the time to watch Midori Days. It is a short series so it lends for nice light viewing.