Midori-ko

This is going to be my first review ever even thought i've already completed a huge amount of different shows, this one had something i just wanted to write about.

Store: 6
I gave the story 6 because it was somehow unclear what the show was about.
just, untill the end when the plant-baby was fully grown and was actually an edible vegeble for all species (that's how i interpreted it)

Art: 8
The art was really creepy, but it was lovely to watch. The thing that most kept my attention was the nightmarish design on the entire show, the abominations and mutationated(mutated) characters had me every time. Their extremely, ... yet briliant appearence reminded me of how wide our imagination could be. The sudden appearence of some characters gave me a slight jump scare sometimes... :P

Sound: 9
For me, sound is one of the most important part of an good anime. when an anime has a stunning story, stunning art and great characters, but still lacks the right soundtracks, sound effect and music. I just can't seem to appreciate that show. This show had a great collection of soundtracks and sound effects. The sound effects really gave the nightmarish art more impact!

Character: 5
As i loved the girl and the characters designs, i didn't really see much character personalities in them. The girl was to me one of the only ones with a bith of personalized character. The others were all pretty primative in behavior. They see food, they want to eat. :P The girl however took care of this baby-vegeble. Well.. At the end, she ended up eating it herself too..

Enjoyment: 6
The show was decent. If it wasn't for the great artwork and sound, the anime woulld've been alot less interessing to watch. The story was really interessing, but i wished it had a bit more detail about what caused the near-apocalyptic envoriment.

Overall: 7
I usually never rate any anime under 5 score. I think every show has atleast something that's worth praising. This show had great art and sound for example. Also the envoriment it played itself in got my attention. I would reccomend this to anyone who wants to watch something different for a change and isn't afraid of abominations and nightmarish artwork.

-TeaCup-

NARRATIVE: 7.25/10

A short story, yet 50 minutes was all that was needed to flesh out the world and to bring a climactic ending a bit more grandiose than what I would have expected. The preternatural aspect of the film is evident right after the intro sequence ends, and continues right up till the end. I won't summarize the story here, but it was very well paced and features all the story elements / structure you would expect in a feature-length film. While the story, setting, and characters all really do work well together, I felt there were multiple scenes that while entertaining, and succeeded in ... building and fleshing out the world, really didn't add anything to the plot, and there were a few too many filler scenes of "everyone wants to eat the lil plant dude". Perhaps some of the events in the anime were a little to mundane in contrast to the wacky world and characters, but at the same time it feels more realistic and grounded that way. All things considered, every little detail of the film still comes together so nicely, and is so engrossing that you really just forget about all that.

CHARACTERS: 7/10

A regular young girl alone, surrounded by a number of strange almost dangerous feeling oddball creatures of all kinds. Not many of the characters in the film are very friendly; most of them seem to just live their own lives, and who aren't revolved around the main character. Many don't serve much purpose and don't drive the plot forward in any meaningful way, but rather exist as antagonists who have no real desires or driving force other than to consume that which the girl seeks to protect. The peculiar cast while ultimately insignificant, were great at creating the dream-like setting, and each one was indeed very unique and felt like they were their own fleshed out people in this living-breathing world.

PRESENTATION: 10/10

10 years in the making and it really shows. You could take any still from this film and hang it on your wall, it's that good. Most of the animation is fairly choppy but it still works well with the art style and doesn't detract from the experience at all. Plus there are multiple scenes which are very fluently animated and look absolutely gorgeous. I can't imagine how much work must've went into animating all this, and it's a shame this masterpiece hasn't gotten much attention. If realistic hand-drawn art is your thing you cannot pass this anime up. Kurosaka's art is at it's peak in this film and with it, all the oddities, and grotesqueness you would expect, blended with the unique fully hand-drawn and animated cells, bring a real treat to your eyes the whole way through. Stunning.

SOUND: 8/10

Many of the sound effects used were generic stock sounds I've heard hundreds of times in other media, but they were all used so expertly that it really didn't matter. There aren't too many sounds in this film but every sound effect clearly has it's place and purpose. The music fit the atmosphere quite well. Most of the film has mainly oriental / orchestral sounding atmospheric tracks that gives the whole setting a almost peaceful feeling, and takes some of the edge off the gory art and somewhat disturbing scenes. The music helps the anime feel more like a fantasy dream world rather than the more depressing dystopia the plot and art lead it on to be. Oh yeah I loved the voice acting performance for the main character too, it was really well done and had just the right amount of energy.

OVERALL: 8.15/10

This film strikes the balance of being eccentric, and disturbing enough to pull you in, yet grounded enough in reality with believable actions and circumstances to immerse you in the draw-droppingly gorgeous world that is presented to you, and has enough of a story to keep you interested until the conclusion. If nothing else, watch it for the beautiful, gross, and twisted animation that Kurosaka is known for.

Over the years I have seen the snippets of Keita Kurosaka's work; some may have came across it randomly while exploring, especially the work "Mochibei", which has garnered some notable bewilderment. Kurosaka has a striking style, you know his work when you see it.

To see his style in a fully realized way, through a motion picture, is something I have always wanted to see. Midori-Ko is that achievement, created over the time span of 13 years and over 30,000 drawings.

The trailer sets us up for something ominous already. A girl living in an unnamed place in Toyko in the year 20XX has a fascination with ... plants, eventually happening upon a "forbidden" hybrid of plant and human named Midori-Ko. Things go wild from there.

The story, while interesting, is hard to parse at times; events happen, but sometimes feel random, as do the characters and such. At 55 minutes, the movie feels quite fast paced at times and out of control.

But this surreal world, with this surreal gloomy soundtrack, with this surreal, breathtaking, scary-at-times artwork is what makes this worth a watch. It is the fact it feels out of control that hooks me. The sheer effort made for this film is incredible, and its style is what carries the film alongside the wonderful score. And with how relatively short it is, it is something that can be rewatched to further attempt to grasp this fascinating, violent, erotic and exotic world without much issue.

I enjoy this immensely, and you probably will too if you enjoy Kurosaka's works or have an affinity for non-standard anime like this.