5:

Contrary to my expectations Michiko to Hatchin turned away from any further development of the Pepe Lima/favela kids plotline. Leaving Pepe’s corpse behind like an irrelevance, we jumped right into the main story again – and found ourselves in quite the stew. A look at the past, the arrival of serious villains, a look at Hiroshi, Hatchin kidnapped. Even a hint at the explanation for why exactly Michiko ended up in prison – presumably covering for Hiroshi killing Cyril.

So, yeah, Hiroshi. A pathetic indolent blonde with an unloaded gun, sexually victimised by Michiko.

Moe?

Guess Michiko wants to be the one who wear the trousers. Not that she ever seems to get much further through her wardrobe than putting on her underwear. Certainly we now know that the reason it’s her seeking him is because he’s a coward. Though perhaps this suggestion of impotence on his part is only being introduced in order to be subverted.

Michiko believes in this coward! From what we see of the younger her, she has that same combination of intimidating gorgeousness and occasional useless rage. Still, I think it’s highly significant that we get a clear view of her youth so early on, even seeing bits of her childhood in the next episode.

Many a show springs the past as an explanatory-tool late on in the plot. But rather than using her backstory as information, the show is using it in bits and pieces to build her personality up slowly. It’s part of the exposition rather than the key to the puzzle. There is continuity in her character across time, rather than a single formative experience for us to refer back to. In case you hadn’t guessed, this is another one of those dramatic devices which makes me admire this production.

It’s part of M2H’s general tendency to show rather than tell. We’re allowed to spot that Hatchin indeed has the fateful tattoo. Before that, we see Hatchin getting pissed off at Michiko. That (temporary) farewell scene in front of the orphanage showed a faux-mature kid trying to be stern, but ultimately only revealing herself as useless and weak. She’s up against a big tough cold grown-up dressed for action (is all that bare skin to distract her opponents? shall the gleam off her smooth legs dazzle them?). The duo go their separate ways, and Hatchin doesn’t last long alone.

The orphanage turns out to be run by a tough old misanthrope with dodgy hips. There’s no refuge for the kid in the old home. Michiko’s recourse to old friends is problematic – help is going to be hard won and reluctant. In this episode, even the camp/gay afro’d guy (I dub ye Campfro) was markedly unhelpful. So, with all this plot and pessimism going on, it looked like stuff was getting real.

6:

So here we were in the proper story then? Apparently not. Instead we got a return to the random action nonsense. Vasili turns out to have only incidental value, a comic errand boy. Indeed, despite the nobility of Michiko’s rescue attempt, Hatchin manages to rescue herself from his clutches by a fluke (kicking the car boot into a gangsters head) – and then get on with putting herself in danger independently. Walking into a bullfight with a ladle.

I think budget took a definite hit fin this mini-arc. Things looked markedly less slick in sillytown. But there were, of course, compensatory amusements.

Swinging from the curtain, swordfighting the fatty (he’s waited 100 years!), the ensuing defeat (death? dunno) by bull (poetic justice) for said villain – and then the girls drive off on the bike. I laughed, and wondered just where all the serious had gone off to.

The total retreat of meaning from the audience? To be fair this episode did throw up the flashback scenes of Michiko rebelling as a kid, used in parallel to the anger of Hatchin and the scenes of the boy who tried to run away. And we did have another chance to see Michiko stating her decisive belief in belief. So the meaningful side didn’t disappear altogether, even if it retreated from the fore.

Thing is, one second it’s Michiko getting symbolically beaten up by an old woman (asserting seniority and continuing power for the matriarch) in a grim urban drama. A matter of minutes on and our heroine is fighting teams of armed gangsters unarmed, getting persistently missed by sniper rifle fire, and playing at aerobatics in a bullring. There’s enjoyment to be found here. I found that there was also a degree of bafflement at the disjointed collision between functions in this series.

Shall we call it the gap between the style of the multicolour da-da-dah OP and the melancholy ED? That’s a common distinction in anime series which want to be both fun week to week and genuinely affecting. It’s a distinction which is present in this show between the stand-alone stories of episode 4 (hard hitting) and episode 2 (hilarious). Which is to say, episodes tend to operate as stand-alone’s in one sense or the other – serious or funny. In this particular pairing of episodes the distinction between functions was utterly blurred. The serious event went ridiculous – something which I think might come to define this series as a whole.

The two episodes are united by Vasili and the matriarch and the kidnapping – they are a unit in the wider story. Yet as an experience they are disunited. Not enough cohesion for the misery to be fully effective, but enough misery to complicate the comedy. The result was not bad by any means, just somewhat perplexing as an experience. I wonder what form the real plot proper will take? Is this a sign?