Welcome everyone, to another week of Michiko & Hatchin! This week is our first 2 parter, so we have a lot to talk about. From getting more of Michiko’s past to Hatchin going out on her own, it’s all inside. So lets dive right in!
First up we have episode 5, “The Saudade of Fools, Part 1”. This was a really interesting episode, and definitely my favorite of this week. We get loads and loads of backstory for Michiko, not only arriving at her home town but meeting who raised her, seeing how she met Hiroshi, and learning how she fell into a life of crime. All the while we see the knock on effects of these moments in the present as Michiko returns to town with Hatchin. I cannot understate, I really really liked this. Backstory is generally hard to do in anime, and is often just a forced flashback during a climactic moment. And while this was a flashback at times, it was done via Michiko revisiting those locations in the present and remembering them herself. They had in-narrative effect on her own emotional state, making them feel so much more purposeful.
Getting into the details, I wasn’t expecting her first meeting of Hiroshi to go this way. For him to try and rob her at gunpoint, no bullets in the gun, thinking she was someone else? And to then offer her a shirt seeing she’s naked and get punched in the face? It was cute! He’s very different from the hard-boiled criminal I was expecting. He actually seems very out of place in Michiko & Hatchins world, with even Michiko calling him a coward. It makes me wonder how he wound up here and what his circumstances were to push him to murder/threatening people with guns, as well as what Michiko sees in him. Does she like that softness, because its so out of place in this city? Does she find it endearing? I don’t know! But I’m really curious to find out.
What we do know though is that he is the reason Michiko got sent to prison. Or at least… I suspect it. In this episode we learn that, according to the locals, Michiko filled a gang leader by the name of Kiril. From what little we saw he seemed pretty chill and well respected, so this would ruffle a lot of feathers. But interestingly, Michiko denies this. So… who killed him? And why did she take the blame for it, going to prison for a few years? My guess is that Hiroshi killed him, either in self-defense or something else, and she took the blame because she loved him. She knew he wouldn’t be able to survive in prison here, so rather than let him get sent off she took his place. That would also explain her continued love, desire to find him and care for his daughter, Hatchin.
The only wrinkle in this guess is Hiroshi’s friend, and current leader of the Monstro I believe, Satoshi. Where does he fit into all of this? I’d be willing to be he’s the reason Hiroshi got involved with Kiril’s killing at all. Maybe he pushed him towards it, or Hiroshi said he would take care of it for his friend and that’s how Michiko got roped in, etc. Maybe he even betrayed Hiroshi, or set him up after killing Kiril himself! I’m really not sure. All I have at the moment is that he’s being setup as a villain, and a decent one at that. Maybe it’s a misunderstanding, maybe he did it all on purpose, I don’t really know. But just like Hiroshi, I’m interested.
Finally for this episode we need to talk about the “orphanage”, and yes I say that with quotes. Why? Because I’m not actually sure it’s an orphanage. In fact the manager lady, the one above the house mom, seemed very keen on the government not learning what they were doing. Maybe it’s because they are selling kids without a license, or because where they are being sent aren’t actually good homes, maybe it’s because they are skimming off the top I’m really not sure. But it definitely seemed very shady, and so far Michiko & Hatchin haven’t done a very good job of making me believe in the indomitable kindness of the human spirit. I’d love for there to be moments of hope, better than the ones we got in episode 6 at least. But so far it hasn’t lead me to believe in them.
This brings us to episode 2, “The Saudade of Fools Part 2”. This is the follow up and conclusion to our time in this city, wrapping up Hatchin’s kidnapping, Visily and giving us a direct line to Hiroshi via Satoshi. Basically, this episode sets out our plot for the foreseeable future and gives Michiko & Hatchin an actual path to follow. Considering it’s sort of just been wandering through the streets without a clear goal in mind until now, I think that’s a good thing. We are 6 episodes in, it’s time to begin our main narrative in earnest. The only downside to this episode is… well everything else that happens in it. I won’t mince words here, I was really disappointed in this episode. It felt like it dropped the ball for everything episode 5 setup. Visily, Monstro, the Bullfight, Michiko’s gay friends. They all sort of… fell over.
To illustrate what I mean, lets start with Visily. The idea behind Visily is really, really good. This is a guy thrust into a position of power after his mentor was killed. He gets caught under the thumb of a larger gang and can’t get out, stress eating etc. Basically his life is falling apart at the seams. And then Michiko returns, the women who killed his boss, who screwed all of this up. He has a plan, he kidnaps her little friend, he’s ready to kill her… And then he gets turned into a joke. The big confrontation at the bullfight, the music, him getting pushed around like a fat ball. Michiko & Hatchin had this beautifully pitiful and tragic character, this serious gang war thing all lined up, and it got turned into a joke.
In some places that’s fine. The whole matador thing, the gay couple and their sass towards Michiko. Those are good places to lighten things up, those were nice. But turning the big confrontation into a silly joke, downplaying Visily’s descent and his feelings towards Michiko after Kiril’s death, it just doesn’t sit right to me. Maybe this is my fault for wanting a level of seriousness out of Michiko & Hatchin that it never intended to give. But after last weeks episode, with Pepe getting gunned down in the street and her little sister abandoned in a city of enemies, I thought that was what we were going to do from now that. That this was Michiko & Hatchin’s main goal. But maybe… Maybe I was wrong about that? In which case, I’m a bit concerned about story moving forward?
Visily isn’t the only thing this climax messes up either. I also think it mucks up Michiko and Hatchin’s reunion. They split up for good, clear reasons. Hatchin doesn’t want to be abandoned again with people she doesn’t know and Michiko thinks she is taking care of her by keeping her out of violence despite knowing she herself may not come back. They wanted 2 competing things. My hope was that Hatchin’s kidnapping would show Michiko that she could never keep Hatchin out of this life, not while still searching for Hiroshi at least. But because the big climax got turned into a joke, they end up reuniting like nothing was ever wrong to begin with. Their issues with each other don’t actually get resolved, just pushed on the back burner. Now sure, if they get addressed again later that’s great. But for now? For now it’s disappointing.
So yeah, all in all I really liked the backstory we got and the structure the story is gaining, but I found the way the story treated its own characters to be very disappointing. I was really hoping it would treat them, and their story, with more respect. The same way it did with Pepe and her sister. I get that we need levity to break up the dark moments and some, such as with the orphanage matron, were done quite well. However I don’t think the climax of a broken man meeting the woman who killed his mentor is the time or place. Not if you want me to actually care about his struggle and Michiko’s involvement in it. It’s a real shame, because I think that Vasily confrontation could have been really memorable otherwise.
