Michiko and Hatchin

"Just who do you think you're sassin' off to?"

“Michiko and Hatchin” is a 2008-2009 anime brought to you by the creators of acclaimed shows “Samurai Champloo” and even “Cowboy Bebop.” The show is stunningly similar to “Champloo,” which is no surprise, considering that Shinichiro Watanabe was involved in both productions. The 22-episode series follows an escaped convict, Michiko Malandro, and her child, Hana Morenos. The two are as opposite as they come, but both are partners in crime being hunted by gangs and police, and they have no choice but to look for their supposedly dead husband (and father) Hiroshi together.

While that basic synopsis has been hailed as the standard description of the show, I beg to differ. While looking back on everything that led up to the conclusion, it seems pretty obvious that the show isn’t about looking for Hiroshi, rather it’s about our main characters: Michiko and Hatchin. It truly is about their interactions, relationship, and, overall, who they are. The main plot of finding Hana’s father is just a tool to analyze our two female leads.

The setting is also a thing of beauty. Brazil is almost never featured as the setting for anime, so it’s a nice refreshing setting that really shines and fits with the story.

Among the other good tidbits is the humor. A good amount of anime try so hard to be funny, so much so that it just comes off as forced. However, the subtle humor in “Michiko and Hatchin” is portrayed through the dialogue, which allows for some good laughs that feel natural.

Production and the division of money is important in anime, and just about any other media in general. With anime, you have to keep a status quo of money per episode in order to keep the animation consistent. Dividing your money right is one of the most pivotal things in anime. “Michiko and Hatchin” does this horribly. The first 3/5 of the show keep near-consistent quality, but near the end, it all turns into a sloppy mess. Faces become unmoving and distorted, the consistency is all but gone, and, quite possibly the worst of all, the animation tricks become disgustingly apparent (i.e. panning shot with only one mouth moving to fabricate movement, car chase scene only focusing on a single tire). All in all, bad planning kind of tainted the experience near the end.

8/10- While the production steadily declines overtime, “Michiko and Hatchin” is still a fun and unconventional character piece.