Midori Days

That's not a hand puppet, folks.

Why does my hand have breasts on it?!

Midori Days (Midori no Hibi) is a story of a boy whose girlfriend is also his right hand. No, not like that.

Seiji Sawamura is a high school delinquent—a rude, disrespectful punk with a "bad dude" air and a skill with fighting that can lay out entire gangs with his "devil's right hand". But underneath his tough guy exterior is a noble soul who won't hesitate to defend an underdog. He's also lonely and unlucky in love—his reputation is so frightening that no girl he knows (other than 11-year-old neighbor Shiori) wants his attention or to be seen with him.

This state of affairs grates on him—failure after failure weighs on Seiji's mind, until one day, alone at home, he bemoans the fact that he seems destined to live his life with only his right hand as his lover, and swears that he will accept any girl who will have him. When a strange girl's voice echoes "Really?" in the empty room, he is understandably surprised and confused—but it's nothing on how he feels a few moments later when he discovers that his right hand has turned into a miniature teenaged girl named Midori Kasugano. He really should have picked a better choice of words...

Midori, it turns out, was a perfectly normal girl from another school who idolized Seiji from afar. How she turned into his hand neither knows, but she's happy with the situation even if Seiji isn't. She has surprising mobility—not only can she move his arm at will, but if she wants to go somewhere, she can, and drag him along behind her however unwilling he might be. And to be honest, under any other conditions Midori would be a stunning catch — beautiful, smart, domestic, utterly devoted to him, and filthy rich. But it's all outweighed (for Seiji, at least) by the fact that she's now not much bigger than a Barbie doll and grafted onto the end of his arm. Then there are the complications borne of the fact that his deadly, gang-beating right cross now has big aqua eyes and a cute giggle... And on the distaff side, what about Midori's original body, now in a coma and watched over by her tearful mother?

Although against his will, Seiji finds he's starting to like Midori, he still has vast problems with both her existence as part of his body, and the impact this has on his "tough guy" image. Often he treats Midori like an embarrassing acquaintance with whom he doesn't want to be seen. Still, Midori's love forgives all, and as it turns out she has a playful and even mischievous side that no doubt helps her extract a little revenge for his more brusque and insulting moments.

Naturally there are always complications—attempts at revenge by the gangs whom Seiji has defeated, pressures at school, unpleasant relatives, the constant strain of hiding Midori from the world, and of course, now that he is in an apparently permanent relationship with a girl, other candidates finally start appearing. What's a poor tough-guy type supposed to do?

Despite its bizarre (indeed, borderline-nightmarish) premise and the gang-based violence that kicks it off, Midori no Hibi is actually a comedy, although it blends a few surprisingly sober and serious elements with its mostly-slapstick humor. There are hints that it will actually develop into a strange kind of love story between Seiji and Midori (who by the third episode habitually wears a tiny shirt dress emblazoned "I ♥ Seiji"); getting there will probably be a trip. Surprisingly, the show is free of the obvious Hentai humor it could generate about their relationship.

It's surprisingly well-animated, especially for a television series; the opening credits have some positively glorious animation of clouds and other natural phenomena, character movement is smooth and natural, and it isn't stinting on multiplane and other depth-simulating effects.

Now available in the United States under the title Midori Days.

Tropes used in Midori Days include:
  • A-Cup Angst: Midori suffers from this a couple of times.
  • Adaptation Distillation: The Manga goes off on some long tangents, but the anime focuses on Midori and Seiji.
  • Adapted Out: The anime only had thirteen episodes, but the manga had eighty-five in total. Which means that characters, like Shirou, his daughter, Nao, and Lucy were removed.
  • Adventurer Archaeologist: Hisashi Sakisaka
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Subverted and defied. Seiji looks like a bad boy and displays the typical teenage rebelliousness but that's all he does. However, his reputation is such that women shun him rather than being turned on by him.
  • All Just a Dream: Seiji and Midori both had the same dream: Midori was back in her body, but Seiji ended up as HER right hand. See Freaky Friday Flip below.
  • All Love Is Unrequited: Kouta loves Midori. Midori, Ayase, and Shiori love Seiji. And Seiji confessed his love to twenty girls and was rejected by every one.
  • Americans Are Cowboys: When Lucy's friend Daniel shows up to try and bring her back to America, he's dressed in...well, typical cowboy attire.
  • Anti-Hero: Seiji is a Type II or a Type III.
    • At the series starts he has some elements of type 1. He's struck out with over 20 women and he is a delinquent.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: "... Am I a burden?"
  • Armor-Piercing Slap: Shiori's step mom belts her one, to show her how much she cares.
  • Attractive Bent Gender: When Seiji dresses as a girl to catch a pervert on the train, his buddy finds Seiji "just his type". Likewise, when Kota cross-dresses, Seiji finds him incredibly attractive. So did the female gang that forced him into it.
  • Audible Sharpness
  • Barehanded Blade Block: By Midori, of all people
  • Best Beer Ever: Rin.
  • Beyond the Impossible: Averted. One of Seiji's classmates claimed he did this by punching out a car but Seiji sweatdrops and says that's impossible.
  • Big Fancy House: Midori's
  • Bittersweet Ending: Midori loses her memory of being Seiji's hand, but is able to finally confess her love for him in her real body.
  • Bland-Name Product: Game Non Stop, Takamizawa's "Camon IOS" camera, and Play Girl.
  • Blank White Eyes: How would you react to meeting Midori...?
  • Blinding Bangs: Suzuka, Kamaki's right-hand woman. The first time an eye is seen is when she's horrified to hear Kamaki confess to Seiji.
  • Blue with Shock
  • Bottomless Bladder: Averted for comedy, since Midori has to go everywhere Seiji goes. And when he lost the use of his other hand too...
  • Breast Sponge: Midori to Seiji of course. She keeps her towel on, though.
  • Bromantic Foil: Miyahara
  • Cannot Spit It Out: Midori before she becomes Seiji's hand, and Ayase after Seiji saves her.
  • Captain's Log: Midori's diary, written while Seiji is asleep.
  • Caretaker Reversal: In one episode, Seiji accidentally drinks a bottle of sake, and Midori tries to take care of him. When he wakes up, he feels great, but Midori is sick.
  • Catgirl: A costume, not a "true" catgirl, but nonetheless...
  • Cat Smile: Nekobe, a minor character, has this effect constantly
  • Character Development: Midori took a big jump at the start of the series (which we don't find out until much later). After being a rather extreme Shrinking Violet for much of her life, when she finds herself attached to Seiji's arm, she takes a leap of faith and confesses her love for him. This, combined with the fact that she doesn't have to be shy since she's hidden from sight most of the time, causes her to go from garden variety Shrinking Violet to an eccentric, fun-loving, Hypercompetent Sidekick.
    • Seiji himself goes through some throughout the series, moving away from Violence Is the Only Option and developing a gentler, more socially apt side, underlined by his becoming less and less critical of Midori as the series goes on. While he tends to blow off Midori's advances as airheaded or insincere, after reading her diary he comes to appreciate the depth and complexity of her feelings, giving him the courage to acknowledge that he appreciates and cares for her as a human being and not just a hand.
  • Chekhov's Gun: Seiji and Midori think they've gotten Takamizawa to forget about the whole thing. But his digital camera didn't.
  • Cherry Blossoms: In the opening credits, also in one picture Kota has of Midori.
  • Chick Magnet: Seiji
  • Class Representative: Ayase, or at least the audience is led to believe. One panel in the manga shows that Ayase isn't the actual class rep, it's just that everyone always looks up to her instead of their real Class Rep.
  • Costume Porn: Some of Midori and the doll's outfits.
  • Cool Big Sis: Rin is a brutal and drunken version, but still loving.
  • Covert Pervert:
    • Midori has had some pretty lewd dreams and fantasies, though she doesn't actually get more explicit than This and That. She also seems pretty eager to help Seiji in the bathroom...
    • Ayase happily fantasizes on how Seiji in going to save her from drowning, including mouth-to-mouth, and later on how they'll warm each others bodies while naked (and not only the temperature goes up).
Ayase's most blatant moment was when she and Seiji accidentally switch video tapes after running into each other. She was expecting to have a story about a young boy and his faithful dog. She ended up with a piece of Seiji's Porn Stash. Her response? Take notes.
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