Welcome everyone, to the halfway point of Michiko & Hatchin! This is… it’s an interesting week, not entirely good reasons. I have some concerns about what happens and where the series is going. Still, that means there’s plenty for us to talk about so lets just jump right into it!
Getting right into it, first up is episode 11, “Starting Line Downpour”. At it’s core, this is a good episode. Michiko & Hatchin has the right idea here. It’s all about Michiko and Hatchin coming back together. Taking their solo episodes, meeting back up, reconciling some differences and realizing that they need each other. This is way sooner than I was expecting Michiko & Hatchin to do this, sure. I thought we would have a few more episodes of them solo. And the opening segment of the episode is just as confusing as it always is. But overall the show has the right idea. These two are the emotional core of the show after all. There’s just one major issue. It doesn’t feel like they actually resolved anything. Well ok I lied, 2 major issues, they also rushed the shit out it. What do I mean? Let me explain.
Both of these issues stem from the same core problem: the entire episode feels way to condensed. It feels like it could, and should, have been at least 2 episodes. My reasoning being that there really isn’t any time for us to understand what’s happening, or to build up their reconciliation, before it’s already over. We start the episode with Michiko already knowing where Hatchin is somehow. Some throw away dialogue later explains she saw her on TV, sure, but how? Hatchin doesn’t have an act. And it’s not like the opening TV spiel shows her either. This leads to Michiko showing up and trying to take Hatchin back, getting rejected, and then trying to rescue her all on the same night she’s about to be sold off. There was no time for reconciliation or any real introspection. They are just forced together by the circumstances of the night.
It’s a real shame because I think with another episode or two, this could have been incredible. Give Hatchin more time alone with the circus. Let her come to like and trust them, to earn a place with them, to establish herself on her own merits, all before learning they are actually bad people. Sprinkle hints about it throughout the episode, maybe have Hatchin not believe them and side with the circus a bit to. Turn it into an “Us vs the World” criminal community that also likes Hatchin and wants her to join them. Give her a family away from Michiko so that there’s an actual conflict about which she would pick. Instead we just skip ahead maybe a month, watch her be mistreated, and barely see Rita’s involvement in the circus/their friendship at all.
And the same thing could be done for Michiko as well! Let us watch her hunt Hatchin down, figuring out where she is. Maybe team up with the reporter to find her, trying to convince her only to be rebuffed. It becomes an amusing situation where for once Hatchin is on the wrong side of the law while Michiko is on the right. A reversal of their usual positions, representing how they have to actually think about the others thoughts and opinions before they reunite in full. Basically what I’m asking for is that Michiko & Hatchin give us anything at all beyond “Michiko shows up, they want to sell Hatchin, rescue her, back together again”. It feels like a massively wasted opportunity.
That said there was one thing I really liked about the episode, and that was the reporter. I found it really funny how he came off as a lying sleaze at first, wanting to create a story out of thin air. I thought for sure he was the bad guy of the episode. But he ends up being proven the hero, as they actually were a child trafficking ring. An unexpected subversion to have him be a decent, if still a bit sleazy, dude. Sadly much like the rest of the episode I feel he could have been a lot better if given another episode. Let him fail a bit before he comes back in earnest the next episode, succeeding there. As it is he takes up a bit to much of Hatchin and Michiko’s time.
With that we come to episode 12, “Purgatory 108°C Telepathy”. Unlike the last episode, this one doesn’t have any major mistakes that take away from it. However it also doesn’t really do anything interesting whatsoever. In fact, it’s really kind of a nothing burger episode. Sure, we do get to see Hatchin start to be a bit more independent and responsible. She comes out of her shell, takes care of Michiko, and isn’t afraid to show us a bit of what she learned on the streets. Hell she almost takes a baseball bat to a scammer’s knees! Meanwhile Michiko starts to show us a more vulnerable side of herself and we even get a hint as to where Hiroshi is now, an actor apparently. Decent stuff! To bad it doesn’t really go anywhere interesting.
Hatchin’s whole sidetrack with Deus, the bullshit faith healer, took up way to much of the episode. As such, much like episode 11, Michiko & Hatchin fails to really explore their relationship in any meaningful way. It knows what it wants to do. And it sets up situations for meaningful relationship progress to happen. But it never does, always playing 2nd fiddle to whatever episodic story is the center of that episode. It’s a damn shame, because I see the idea of a show that I would like a lot. And I occasionally get it! But then episodes like this come along and I’m just left wondering why this is 22 episodes long.
And it’s a real shame to, because there was good content to explore. Hatchin, the girl scout who wants to pay for everything, was about to kneecap a dude! There was a chance for her to go full underground, maybe for Michiko or her own conscience to stop her! I was here for it, I was excited. But instead Michiko, high as a fucking kite, shows up and does it for her. And rather than join in, rather than succumb to the instincts she was already in the process of falling to, she gets all sanctimonious again. You could make the argument that Michiko & Hatchin is trying to protect her innocence in this failing society, but that argument only works if Michiko did this as a conscious decision to protect her innocence. And she didn’t. She showed up because she thought he cursed her. Nothing more.
So yeah, all in all I found this weeks pair of episodes to be incredibly disappointing. They both had great potential, 11 way more than 12, and they both squandered it. And that’s starting to feel like the tagline for the entire show: Squandered potential. Michiko & Hatchin’s setting is absolutely great. The world design, the backgrounds, the cities, communities, etc etc, it’s all fantastic! Every town, every building, every person, all feel like they belong to the same place and world. It really is one of the best built settings I’ve seen in a long time! But it’s playing host to a story that doesn’t care enough to make good use of it. And I’m really starting to get annoyed at that. Hopefully as we move into the 2nd half Michiko & Hatchin will start to change that up. If it doesn’t, I won’t have much nice to say.
P.S. I will say that Deus’s psychedelic healing and Michiko’s resulting trip was probably some of the best animated bits of the whole show, looked great. So that was nice.
