Anime
First Impressions: Michiko to Hatchin
Synopsis: Michiko is a criminal who escaped from prison. Hana is a young girl who endures the days she spends with her abusive foster family. With Michiko coming for Hana, the two form an unlikely pair.
usagijen posted a twit on how A Little Princess should be like Michiko to Hachin — if someone slaps you, you should slap back. And so, while watching the show, I waited for Hana to fight back. Eventually, she got fed up with all the abuse and ridicule heaped upon her that she lashed out all her bottled feelings on her sister Maria. I couldn’t help but cheer for her.
Michiko to Hatchin screams Shinichiro Watanabe, the man who brought us such offbeat and funky anime as Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo. However, unlike the two where Watanabe was the director, Watanabe is the musical producer for Michiko to Hatchin. The anime would be Sayo Yamamoto’s directorial debut.
Before I got to watch the first episode, Hana, from promotional pictures, reminded me of Ed from Cowboy Bebop. Hana, however, is a lot different from Ed. She is serious, shy and innocent. It would be interesting to see her transformation as she travels with the brash Michiko. It would be interesting to see Michiko’s transformation as well.
Since Shinichiro Watanabe is the musical producer for Michiko to Hatchin, I am looking forward to the soundtrack. In Cowboy Bebop, Watanabe employed jazz while in Samurai Champloo, he employed hip-hop (though more of the chill-out kind). I wonder what genre of music would be associated with Michiko to Hatchin. So far, however, the music is jazzy. Nothing that is too different from some of the Cowboy Bebop tracks.
Michiko to Hatchin is supposedly set in Latin America. The producers could have used Latin American names instead of Japanese names to make the setting more authentic.
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12 comments for “First Impressions: Michiko to Hatchin”
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Michiko’s seiyuu certainly could be better.
@Panther Michiko’s seiyuu is actress Yoko Maki. It seems Michiko to Hatchin is her first anime voice acting experience. I think As Michiko, her speaking somehow sounds muddled.
This anime is inspired on Brazil. It has things writen in brazilian portugueses – but with a lot of mistakes. The scenario also is does not look like Brazil enviroment. Looks more like Cuba…
It’s like that game… “Samba de Amigo”. Ok, samba is from brazil, but maracas not. Maracas is from other latin america countries. Here we just don’t have these things. We can’t dance samba with maracas. LOL.
I think that they just FAIL about this. LOL.
@André Thanks for shedding light on Michiko to Hatchin’s setting. At first, I thought it’s set in Mexico or some other Central American nation.
@absolute0 There are brazilian things in this anime, but there are thigs that are from other contries (Mexico, Cuba).
The language (portuguese) is brazilian; the songs too. But there are some mistakes, like the name o the cat, “Blanco” (White). It’s spanish. In portuguese would be “Branco”. LOL.
The buildings too. Their style are from Mexico. In Brazil we almost dont have that kind of buildings. LOL.
It’s a good anime. But I think that they should use spanish language because almost all the things in the anime refers to Mexico or Cuba, not to Brazil. LOL.
@André Yeah, they should have researched more on the setting. I still think they should have used Spanish (or Portuguese, depending on where it’s actually set) names.
@everyone complaining about how the setting isn’t “authentic”.
Of course it’s not going to look exactly like it should if it were actually Brazil, simply because that would require a lot of in depth research on the subject which would cut into the production budget. It is rare to see any foreign settings portrayed in anime with a high degree of accuracy. The only reason that anime that are set in Japan look more like the real thing is because that’s what they know & it’s cheaper & easier to research a location if needed.
Japan is not one of the most multicultural countries around, maybe even a little xenophobic, mostly due to the fact that they are kinda separated from outsiders due to geography & a history of isolationism. So coming across people that are completely knowledgeable in foreign subjects is kind of rare even today. Finding & hiring a gaijin consultant just for the art direction of a totally untested series with a first time director would be expensive, not to mention kinda pointless since it’s primary intended audience (Nipponjin) probably wouldn’t notice or care very much anyway.
Sometimes it’s difficult to understand that so much can change by just crossing a line on a map. Thinking like that it’s actually pretty easy to see their reasoning when they combined so many elements of various Latin American countries. Most L.A. countries speak Spanish (& written Portuguese is very similar to Spanish), & the people, buildings, & cars probably all look pretty much the same. Even if it is stereotypes they aren’t that far off … for the most part (kinda like all Americans are tall, blonde, blue-eyed, & wear cowboy hats … or Black Rap stars). Besides they are all speaking Japanese & I find it harder to believe that the entire country of Brazil can speak fluent Nihongo… ne?
If you can’t get over the fact that it’s not an “authentic” Brazil, just think of it as a fictional country that combines all of Latin America together in a big wannabe US style melting pot of multi-ethnic harmony. We’ll call it los Estados Unidos de América Latina (the United States of Latin America).
I think it’s better to be happy that they concentrated so much more effort on making the show enjoyable rather that worrying about the fact that they are slightly off on some of the finer details of the supposedly portrayed country. The story, soundtrack, & artwork are wonderful regardless. From what I have seen so far (2eps) it looks like it will be a great series. I am not going to fault the art guys for not making it a perfect representation. I still managed to figure out that it was probably Brazil even with the “mistakes”.
I would be willing to bet that a lot of Americans don’t even know that Portuguese, not Spanish, is the main language in Brazil let alone that the architecture is wrong… even more so for most Japanese
~
Of course that it’s foult of the of the production team. I’m not saying that the anime is bad or something like this – the first episode was amazing.
But the FACT is: the reproduction of Brazil is this anime was almost entirely wrong.
If it’s wrong, we have to say this. I think that we can’t try to avoid de criticism. We are not scolding the production team. We are just showing the mistakes. LOL.
If the anime was just inspired on Brazil, O.K. But the marketing of the anime is all about Brazil. Just go to official website to see the brazilian map e photos about the country.
But I belive that in the next episode the show will be better. Well, thereare some artworks in the website that shows an landscape that looks like Rio de Janeiro (very similar).
In the website there are photos of Recife, the city where I live. Here we have a lot of baroque buildings and things from the 16 sentury. We are one of the oldest cities here in Brazil (much older than São Paulo or Rio de Janeiro). I hope that they can show thess historicals things that we have here.
Hi guys, i been reading all your comments and must say the locations are not either mexico or brazil, its just a mix of what they think latin america is, a bunch of expresions in portugese spanish settled in very poor enviroment and thats it, and of course this vision its wrong, thats why the japanese all always surprised when they come to major cities in latin america, because they dont see to much diferent places from other places of the world, but of course if you go to Tijuana, you will see a place very like the one seen in cowboy beeboB.
In any case the anime is great and this details really dont matter for the show be enjoyable.
I checked out the official site (http://www.michikotohatchin.com) and there they said they went to Brazil to gather reference material and photos. They even show a bunch of such photos on their site. Probably the writers do not intend to recreate the real world, but rather create a fictional locale based on latin american motifs which would be suitable for Michiko to Hatchin.
As for the various misspellings, the Japanese aren’t very good spellers anyway even with English. (They have improved in recent years but still far from good.) I’d say all the typos are perfectly normal for the Japanese production crew.
Can a priest have wife and kids?