Midori
Director: Hiroshi Harada
Year Released: 1992
Rating: 3.0
A rare, disturbing animated gem - hand-drawn (!?) by director Harada over a five-year period (!!?) - that is based on the ero-gro manga (read: 'erotic grotesque nonsense' according to Wikipedia) by Suehiro Maruo. Innocent little girl Midori, following the death of her parents, goes to live with circus folk who rape and abuse her - her Personal Messiah comes in the form of a midget magician named Mr. Arashi who claims to love her, but turns out to be another abuser. Coherence gives way to the fantastic, and the combination of crude animation, extreme acts of violence (dismemberment, rape, disfigurement, gore) and haunting musical score make this the equivalent of a bad LSD trip; the nihilism is hard to justify, but no one watching this should be expecting Miyazaki-type humanism.
