(Part of a 12-day series fondly remembering some of the best moments in anime this year. Participants include: lolikitsune, lelangir, FuyuMaiden, Zeroblade, Nazarielle, ghostlightning, TheBigN, ETERNAL, Mike, A Day Without Me, digitalboy, Josh, otou-san, Culchann and Pontifus, IcyStorm, Cokematic,
koneko-chan, and miz, and you’re welcome to join too!)

Returning to the story of yesterday, you will recall that I mentioned that there were two bloggers whose moments I was exceptionally struck by. I covered one of them in my endless attempt to convince people that H2O is at least marginally worth it.

Today, is my other story.

As I’ve mentioned a few times, my feelings regarding anime tend to run in cycles. As much as I feed and survive on raw moe-moe harem visual-novel megane anime power, sometimes my palate grows tired. Maybe the season grown sucky. Cynicism sets in.

Although my cynicism pales to that of more vocal bloggers, I still do find myself in a bit of a lull, wondering what really is the point to watching the next episode for Shiny Sparkly Shoujo VII or I Can’t Believe It’s Siscon.

Luckily, I’ve found a fairly reliable remedy … or perhaps, it found me.

A simple love story is enough to cure many a heart, or in my case, to get it restarted again. And although I have plenty of those to turn to everywhere I go, sometimes, the bitter angst or brutal conflict of a standard dramatic story is too much for me.

I just want something simple, something soothing. And I found such a thing is very prevalent, in exceptional examples of the shonen romance. The emotional side, as opposed to the fanservicey ones I tend to bring up and lambast every other post.

I’ve already brought up two examples in Haruka’s Secret and Toradora, earlier in this list. But this time I’ll cite a manga, one that I was lucky enough to have the ability to marathon in one day.

For although I have shown much proof over the last week or two of the ability of simple things to reduce me to simple components (that is: mush), Midori Days really probably is the best example I could cite for such a characteristic.

Midori Days, helped me remember love.

12 Moments of Anime 2008
#05: Midori Days ch. 82
with assist from Genshiken ch. 47 and Kare Kano

I keep insisting I don’t really like manga. It’s probably a failure on my part. My lack of imagination makes it such that the lack of color and animation tends to be at least a minor annoyance.

But more than that, pacing tends to be somewhat of … a problem. I read fast. Really fast. Too fast. As a result, a lot of manga that might be ‘good’, skim right over my head.

The forced-pace, 25-minute segment size of anime is much better for me, since it allows me to match more naturally to the pace the writers desired, and as thus notice things more, and really become enveloped in the world the anime creates.

However, I’ve discovered that my inability to read manga in slow, bite-sized sections can, sometimes, work as a plus.

It effectively makes the rich richer, and the poor poorer, in terms of manga quality. The titles that don’t grab me rather quickly, tend to go right back into the bookshelf from whence they came. But the ones that do …

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the throes of unproductivity. Probably some of my worst instances of such as when I insist the world stops for a manga that seizes my heart and doesn’t let go.

Of course, considering how emotionally and creatively enriched such a mangathon makes me (similar to the case of narcissu), one can hardly call it unproductive.

Midori Days was probably one of the more memorable manga that I read to conclusion or to the cutting edge this year in one sitting.

This is already a rather elite class – off the top of my head: Midori Days, Liar Game, Kodomo no Jikan (as mentioned in day 4), Hayate, Ressentiment – and even still, Midori Days was probably the only one to have that sort of grip on you, that makes your stomach churn and your heart burn.

Perhaps this is because while the other titles listed thrilled me psychologically, intellectually, or comedically (insert rolling on floor), Midori Days functioned on such a simplistic and basic level that it basically breaks through all shields a person could put up.

Well, that’s what I felt of it anyway.

I cannot remember my emotional mood at the time (other than the fact that I was rather bored with whatever I was watching), but I know such a thing tends to influence me. For example, while the shoujo manga Marmalade Boy
may be a touch on the angsty side nowadays, back in middle school when I was young and restless, it fit me rather well, and I enjoyed it as such.

In any case, I feel I can safely disprove such a claim; I was perusing the final volumes of Midori Days again last night, looking for a particular chapter (the one with the cute homely megane osananajimi – who, me, biased?).

And still, I felt myself drawn into the story again like I was reading it for the first time. And I certainly feel like I am in a sane state of mind, even at 1:30 am (that’s sleepy, but still sane).

The power of Midori Days probably comes from its character cast. Although it is quite large, it never feels unwieldly.

The core cast is strong and well developed, and the while the side characters take turns rotating in and out of the spotlight, each one has a role to play and an effect on the story.

While vague, I say this mainly because everyone is fairly uncomplicated and has a simple, yet effective story. Naturally for a romance-of-life (yes, I am coining new genres), nearly everyone’s interactions revolve around love, but the differences in relationship dynamics makes every character worth it.

Whether it’s the person searching after a lost childhood love (or really any love at all), the person franticually pursuing their first love, the one that is confused by their own love, or so on, I think, it’s easy to say you’ll find someone to sympathize with in Midori Days. And that’s what can create a strong bond between person and manga (or anime, etc).

And come on. Seiji has a freakin’ girl grafted onto his arm. You try to tell me that’s not creative. The stories in Midori Days are similar, but not repetitive, in this sense.

In fact, this gets to the point where picking a moment in specific becomes very hard. There really is no one crowning point of Midori Days, simply because as soon as it had me, the emotional awesome-o-meter was just sort of pinned off the charts at any good chapter – which is really a lot of them; the serious chapters are touching, and the comedic chapters are legitimately funny.

The one I eventually picked, in chapter 82 near the end, is the final fanfare of Runner-Up Girl, Takako Ayase. After trying and failing in a number of ways to confess to our man Seiji, she finally brings down the hammer in a fairly appropriate setting, at sunset after school.

It’s a relatively typical confession, but that doesn’t stop one from really -feeling- it. It couldn’t be done better on Takako’s part, how she announces her feelings with pride and confidence; and Seiji’s refusal, citing, of course, his love Midori, is done with maturity and warm fuzziness.

And your heart can’t help but ache for this event, how Takako maintains a composed, confident demeanor until she is finally left by herself under the lonely streetlights. You really get that feeling, “if this is how my love is going to end, it would be all right.”

The emotional equivalent to yesterday, how Otoha physically went out in style, Takako’s feelings went out gracefully.

It’s really how Midori Days handles itself in this manner, not just in this moment but in all its moments.

And it works, because you don’t have to be pretentious to enjoy it. You don’t have to work to understand it. There’s no analysis, no 3000-word blog posts. Just emotion.

And that’s masterclass work.

-CCY

(In the end, I never really discussed the second blogger, Pontifus (http://superfani.com/?p=2542), who picked a moment from Genshiken, a manga which, to be honest, I never really read. Skimmed the first few volumes, and I didn’t hate it; but I was overall nonplussed, and put it back on the shelf.

So the fact that, when checking out the chapter Pontifus cited, I felt like I had been hit with a bullet train of emotion, speaks that much more for the power of the emotional moment in manga – or for my weakness to this kind of stuff, but I digress.)