Michiko & Hatchin (2008) - Review
"So...how far should we go this time?"
Michiko and Hatchin is a 22 episode series that came out in 2008 - it was produced by Manglobe, who had previously done Samurai Champloo and Ergo Proxy, and was directed by Sayo Yamamoto, who prior to this had been an episode director on a few things including both Samurai Champloo and Ergo Proxy, but Michiko and Hatchin was her first overall series director work - though she would go on to helm such projects as Lupin the Third: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine and Yuri On Ice.
Michiko and Hatchin is an adrenaline ride that manages to be a blend of Cowboy Bebop, Thelma and Louise, and City of God. It centers around a rude, foul mouthed escaped convict named Michiko rescuing her long-lost daughter, Hatchin, from an abusive foster family. The two then go on a journey across a country inspired by South America to find Hatchin's birth father who supposedly died many years prior.
It's a mostly episodic story with a new set of characters and circumstances in each place they stop, which all boil over into one another, leading them from one place to the next. It's chock full of social and pop-culture references (I even spotted a reference to A Trip to the Moon!), while being a riveting emotional exploration of the basically found-family story between the two main characters.
The writer for the anime was Takashi Ujita, who is otherwise only known for Japanese live action scripts - which likely accounts for the film-buff references and inspiration for the series. The animation director was Hiroshi Shimizu, who has also worked on productions like The Girl Who Leapt through Time and Sword of the Stranger, which you can ABSOLUTELY see bleed into all of the character animations and sweeping camera movements throughout Michiko and Hatchin.
All in all, this anime is a rollercoaster of an adventure that showcases a part of the world not often shown in anime, while telling a poignant story of a mother and daughter discovering themselves through their hastily built relationship. It can be breathtaking in moments, relentless in its pacing in others, and laugh out loud crazy in yet more. The only things that the series could stand to use are more emotional beats between the titular character sprinkled through their journey, and a... slightly altered ending. It's a definite contender, but solely because of those two missing ingredients, I'm unsure at this point if it'll make it on the Top 100 Anime of All Time List - I’ll revisit as the list builds!
My Current MAL Rating: 7/19
Top 100 Contender: Tentatively no
