Chika Gentou Gekiga: Shoujo Tsubaki (Midori)

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Alternative Titles

Synonyms: Maiden Camellia, Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show

Japanese: 地下幻燈劇画少女椿

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Information

Type: Movie

Episodes: 1

Status: Finished Airing

Aired: May 2, 1992

Producers: Imagica

Licensors: None found, add some

Studios: Mippei Eigeki Kiryuukan

Source: Manga

Genres: Drama, Horror

Themes: Gore, Historical

Duration: 47 min.

Rating: R+ - Mild Nudity

Statistics

Score: 4.74¹ (scored by 34,075 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #12969²

² based on the top anime page. Please note that 'Not yet aired' and 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #2688

Members: 65,928

Favorites: 398

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Synopsis

In the 1920s, a poverty-stricken 12-year-old girl named Midori resorts to selling camellias in the slums of Tokyo. Midori finds little success until, one day, she is approached by a gentleman who offers his sympathy and aid. When her bedridden mother succumbs to an illness, and with no one else to turn to, Midori visits the man's address. To her horror, she discovers that she has been conned into joining his circus troupe, Aka Neko Za—a traveling freak show consisting of vulgar and deformed performers.

Midori compares her new fairground lifestyle to hell. Not only is she responsible for caring for her colleagues and cleaning up after them, but she also is frequently belittled and cruelly abused. Suffering and uncertain of what will become of her, she finally begins to feel at ease when Wonder Masamitsu, a master illusionist, joins the lineup. Smitten by Midori's beauty and innocence, Masamitsu takes her under his wing; but even as their love grows, dark times loom ahead for Midori and her fellow freaks.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

The "Shoujo Tsubaki" or "Camellia Girl" character was a common stock protagonist regularly featured in Japanese street theater throughout the 1920s. The character typically manifested as a young and impoverished female adolescent who sold camellia flowers on the streets. One incarnation of the character features in a short story, also titled "Shouji Tsubaki," within an anthology—eventually repurposed as a full-length graphic novel by Suehiro Maruo, known as Mr. Arashi’s Amazing Freak Show in English. This, in turn, was adapted into the animated film Chika Gentou Gekiga: Shoujo Tsubaki, which roughly translates to "Underground Projected Dramatic Pictures: The Camellia Girl." The film is known simply as Midori in releases outside of Japan.

Aside from the music, sound effects, and an uncredited voice cast, the entirety of the film was created almost exclusively by Hiroshi Harada under the pseudonym "Hisaaki Etsu," who handled directing, scripting, drawing, and animating. Composer J. A. Seazer assisted with the soundtrack. Production began in 1987, the film took five years to produce, and it consists of over five thousand hand-drawn sheets of animation. Due to the film’s graphic imagery, the production received no sponsors and was instead funded using Harada’s life savings and retirement fund.

The early marketing for the film was deliberately cryptic, and Harada intended for it to only be viewed at specially held screenings. The film premiered in May 1992 under a large red tent at the Mitake Jinja Shinto Shrine in Tokyo. It was accompanied by realtime special effects, including confetti and smoke bombs. Underground theater group Aka Neko Za performed stunts from the film and interacted with the audience throughout its duration. These performances would complement the film in succeeding years, before its ban.

Chika Gentou Gekiga: Shoujo Tsubaki was screened unedited until 1994, when Japanese film censor board Eirin made 26 cuts and alterations. From 1994 to 2006, the film could only be viewed in its heavily censored state at film festival screenings and theaters. During this time, there were no home releases.

In 1999, the film was screened at the San Sebastián Horror and Fantasy Film Festival in Spain. When the tapes were returned to Japan, they were seized and destroyed by Japanese Customs at Narita Airport; it was thereafter banned from domestic imports and screenings in Japan. Nonetheless, it was specially screened at the Tokyo International Fantastic Film Festival in 2004, where it won first place in a fan vote. Directly after, a ban was placed on the film at the request of the police, which lasted eight more years in Japan.

In 2006, the French company Ciné Malta obtained the rights to release the film on DVD in its original form. This was the first time the uncensored version of Midori was accessible since screenings before 1994. The DVD also included English, Spanish, Italian, and German subtitles, as well various features—including a recorded interview with Harada and a 16-page booklet. However, the tapes initially sent to France were confiscated as "obscene material" at De Gaulle Airport due to cautionary notices attached to the shipments by Narita Airport. As of the 2010s, the film was screened frequently throughout Asia and Europe—especially the latter—but never in the United States, due to import laws regarding certain types of pornography.

In 2013, the original 16 mm negatives of the film were discovered in a warehouse belonging to Japanese post-production company IMAGICA. The film was remastered and screened in digital format, including at the Kanazawa Film Festival that same year. Regardless, Chika Gentou Gekiga: Shoujo Tsubaki will forever be notorious for its taboo content and complex history. It is in some regards considered lost media and is also considered one of the most controversial anime due to being banned almost everywhere, including in Japan.

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Related Anime

Adaptation:

Shoujo Tsubaki

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Midori

Main

Naka, Minako
Japanese

Wonder Masamitsu

Main

Morishita, Norihiko
Japanese

Tokkuriji, Muchisute

Supporting

Kanabun

Supporting

Snake Woman

Supporting

Midori's Mother

Supporting

Jirou

Supporting

More staff

Staff

Harada, Hiroshi

Director, Episode Director, Script, Key Animation

Maruo, Suehiro

Original Creator

Seazer, J. A.

Music

Asanuma, Kouichi

Sound Effects

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Opening Theme

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Ending Theme

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Reviews

Mar 20, 2008

dvlsweet666

Recommended

The movie was really great. Some people might be a little disturbed by some scenes and how the story plot goes or might not feel comfortable with the artwork, but it is to know that the director, Hiroshi Harada, drew the entire movie by himself and he wanted to make it look like a sort of japanese paper play. At first I was being dissapointed about the animation, but later it gets better and really breath takes you for some scenes. The story is wonderful , the characters are wee thought. After seing some drawings from the graphic novel it was based on ...

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Jul 14, 2012

Solemnmind

Mixed Feelings

Story: 4/10

The world is not beautiful, therefore it is; a thought-provoking proverb popularized by Kino's Journey that nonetheless leaves its trail in lots of anime. Midori is in this sense the ultimate combo breaker in its determination to depict a cruel world whilst rejecting the vaguest of indications that beauty may lie around the corner. Its unpleasant worldview manifests itself perfectly in young Midori who is taken in by a group of deformed circus artists after the death of her beloved mother.

Her various experiences with these individuals are as far from beneficial as they are from being mutual and the movie is eager to explore ... its grotesque combination of childhood innocence and sexual perversion in the most surreal ways imaginable. The titular character is not only physically, sexually and mentally abused by her colleagues but also finds herself in a frightening relationship with a dwarf magician whose affection mixed with terrifying abuse creates the foundation for a story that thrives on using jealousy as the ultimate plot device towards tragedy.

From the first two paragraphs you may have anticipated a disturbingly thought-provoking tale that borders on nihilistic in its repulsive take on a classic Cinderella story? Unfortunately, Midori is far too preoccupied in featuring as much twisted imagery as possible, whether or not it has any relevance. As the disturbing content escalates into an intense inferno of immensely haunting images of absolute terror, the narration loses its initially morbid flare to incomprehensive, yet interesting slideshows that make it painfully clear that Hiroshi Harada's true passion lines in twisted artwork rather than storytelling.

Animation: 7/10

I'll be seeing more of Midori's imaginative and repulsive imagery in my nightmares. The director who animated the movie single-handedly does not hide the fact that he treasures grotesque visual expression over beauty but by no means does it change the fact that his work is memorable and disturbing.

Movement is limited due to financial reasons and nobody would ever mistake Midori for anything but an independent feature, but the stills are skillfully animated to repulse and chock, questionable tasks that they nonetheless succeed in.

Sound: 3/10

Despite suiting the material relatively well, Midori's soundtrack is surprisingly forgettable. Furthermore, given the controversial content it's no surprise that Harada had to rely on voice actors whose experiences must be close or equivalent to none as the performances throughout the movie are passable at most.

Characters: 5/10

Contrary to Tod Browning's Freaks which portrayed deformed circus artists in a fairly humane and positive light, the characters in Midori are mostly repulsive enough to really warrant the derogatory term "freak". As they disregard any form of mutuality or decency in their sexual activities they work surprisingly fine as the semi-antagonists who abuse the poor and innocent Midori to the borders of madness.

She herself leads a tragic existence. There are some optimistic parts of her life, but they all end up inevitably defiled by those around her and without anything worth enduring seemingly perpetual misery for, she ends up in a pedophilic relationship with a magician whose strange magic sends the story into a surreal and twisted world. The characterization in Midori remains unambitious but can also be described as simplistically sufficient.

Overall: 5/10

The word "pretentious" is constantly misused to describe anything intelligent or artistic regardless of its execution. This is one of the cases where it actually fits as Midori seems to regard itself as a visually distinguished journey determined to expose the cruelty of mankind and the darker territories of love, whilst only managing to deserve the first description. Viewers looking for something disturbing and morbidly fascinating would be wise to give this infamous sleazefest a chance while any other form of audience should avoid it at all cost.

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Oct 9, 2013

ktulu007

Not Recommended

Welcome back, my friends, to horror anime month. This week I'll be looking at Midori: Shoujo Tsubaki. Yes, I know that it was supposed to be Blue Gender. My apologies, but I lost Internet service for several days and wasn't able to quite finish it. So it'll have to wait for next week. In the meantime, let's take a look at this film that was banned in Japan when it came out on account of its imagery. The film was crafted by a single man, Harada Hiroshi. Supposedly he found it impossible to gain sponsors for it and spent his life savings on the project. ... Is it a Magnum Opus or were there very good reasons that Harada couldn't find anyone to take up the project? Let's delve into this obscure piece and find out.

The story follows young Midori. She loses both of her parents and has no one to take care of her. She finds her way to a traveling circus where she is physically and sexually abused. I wonder why Harada couldn't find sponsors? To be fair, it's not shown in great detail. You see just enough to know what's going on. Then a magician with dwarfism enters the scene and things start to change. The story is very simple to the point of being one-dimensional. It follows the simplest structure it can. Where it tries to draw you in is with shocking and grotesque imagery. The problem with that s that there's nothing even remotely substantive behind that imagery. This is another anime that lacks horror. It's conceptually disturbing and some of the images do have shock value but the execution lacks impact. You'll get a scene in which things start out normally enough, there's a twist and some shock images and then it'll hurriedly wrap up and shift to the next scene. There's no good build up or payoff. They don't extend things or build on them enough to give it actual horror.

The characters in this are fully one-dimensional. Most of them get one or two scenes where they're allowed to do something. Even, Midori, the major character that you're supposed to gain some measure of investment in, is more of a passive object than any kind of proactive character. They never really delve into the actual impact the events shes going through are having on her. Except in one brief nightmare scene that comes, goes and leaves no impact. I literally just finished watching the film and I couldn't recount what happened in that scene in any kind of detail.

The art is kind of impressive when you consider that the bulk of it was done by one guy. It's still not really decent, though. It's very sloppy and the animation is jerky. But you have to give Harada credit for getting it done and making it passable.

The voice acting is very amateurish and the sound quality isn't very good. I'm sure that Harada did the best he could without studio support or sponsors. It still sounds terrible

The ho-yay factor is a 3/10. There is a very brief scene between a grown man and a younger teenage boy. Why you would want to see that, I have no idea. Dude should find a boyfriend his own age.

This film reminds me of an independent exploitation film. It's lacking in budget, the technical aspects are amateurish, the execution is pants and the story is beyond weak. The major focus is on being shocking but without anything substantial to back it up it ends up being largely forgettable and stupid. While it is pretty impressive that the bulk of the work was done by a single man, that doesn't excuse the terrible story, complete lack of even semi-developed characters or rubbish execution when attempting horror. It's nothing but shock value and spectacle for the sake of shock value and spectacle. Final rating: 2/10. I would only check it out if you're very curious about it as an independent piece or as a previously banned piece. Otherwise I'd leave it in obscurity where it belongs. Next week will actually be Blue Gender.

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Chika Gentou Gekiga: Shoujo Tsubaki

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