“Finally,” I thought to myself while I was getting ready to read Midori Days last night. It was back in June when I made a trip to New York City and found a Book Off where I bought some Japanese manga, including the first volume of Midori Days. I don’t really know what I was thinking because I didn’t know a lick of Japanese. All I knew was that it looked cute and was only a dollar.
But at a local bookstore just a few days ago I spotted a used copy of volume 1 of Midori Days … in English! Now I could finally read and understand what the hell the characters are saying!
If you’ve read Midori Days, you already know how messed up this manga is. This isn’t like Naruto, where a nine-tailed demon fox doesn’t strike you as odd in the completely fictional world of Konoha Village. No, this is present-day Tokyo in a fairly realistic setting. Girls don’t come out of nowhere and replace appendages. Whatever. Let’s get on with the story.
Near the beginning, Seiji goes on a emo rant about how he has never had a girlfriend and how all the girls are afraid of him because he beats up other guys at school all the time. He declares that, “At this rate my only lover will be my right hand!” I hope you see the irony here. Kinda gross, too, that we were given this information.
We are then introduced to Midori. An adorable character, yet something seems horribly wrong; she is attached to Seiji where his right hand should be.
I don’t know about you, but waking up to find a tiny girl (or boy, or anything for that matter) attached to any part of my body would scare THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF ME. Really. I’m not sure if I could maintain control over my bodily functions. Just take 10 seconds and ponder how you would react if this happened to you. I probably would’ve ran to the hospital to get this THING chopped off.
How did she get there? Why is she there? Is this a dream? Were shinigami, vampires, alchemists or English boy wizards teaching at a Japanese academy involved? Did a ninja sneak into his room and perform highly complex surgery that probably isn’t even physiologically possible? Did he remember to sterilize his shuriken that doubles as a scalpel? How did she get so small? I’m sure these questions and more will be answered eventually, but give me something!
You’ve got to be wondering: How does Midori feel about this situation? Surprisingly, she doesn’t seem too fazed about it. Seems like she’s overwhelmed with happiness now that she’s united with her crush. No need for legs or the ability to do pretty much anything on your own now that you’ve become your crush’s right hand! No one could be this happy if this happened to them.
The biggest problem I had with this manga was how much I disliked the characters. The only character who’s likable is Midori. How did I determine this? Well, I thought about each character in the story and asked myself: Would I want to be friends with this person if he or she were real? I had to answer “no” nearly every time. Sure, Seiji really is a brave and compassionate guy, but he’s also a dick to Midori sometimes (although she is kind of annoying).
Even the minor characters who probably don’t have names are worthless. At one point, a girl student was slapped by a gang member and was being taken away by to have some “fun” while the other students in Seiji’s class did nothing. Not a damn thing. A little help, anyone? Seriously, there must have been at least 10 or 15 other people there and no one even ran to alert the principal or a teacher. Come the fuck on!
I really hope I haven’t turned anyone off on this manga because I don’t hate it. I just hate most of the characters and how little information we are given about how Midori and Seiji became a chimera. Other than that, it’s not a bad way to kill half an hour.
