| Ja Kanji: | 少女椿 |
| Genre: | Body horror, eroguro |
| Type: | manga |
| Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show | |
| Author: | Suehiro Maruo |
| Publisher: | Seirindō |
| Demographic: | Seinen |
| Magazine: | Garo |
| Published: | September 1984 |
| Type: | film |
| Midori | |
| Director: | Hiroshi Harada |
| Producer: | Hiroshi Harada |
| Music: | J. A. Seazer |
| Studio: | Mippei Eiga Kiryūkan |
| Licensee: | Ciné Malta (France) |
| Runtime: | 47[1] –56 minutes |
| Type: | live film |
| Midori: The Camellia Girl | |
| Director: | Torico |
| Producer: | Masahiro Tashiro |
| Music: | Hitomi Kuroishi |
| Studio: | Link Rights |
| Licensee: | Midori-Impuls (Germany) |
| Runtime: | 90 minutes |
| Portal: | yes |
is a stock protagonist of kamishibai during its revival in early Shōwa period Japan. The character and her story is traditionally attributed to a creator known as Seiun, though the plagiarism and retelling in sundry variants that was the norm for popular-proving tales make its true origin uncertain. Generally speaking, the character is a stereotypical adolescent or preadolescent ingénue, a daughter of a penniless family who goes from selling camellias on the streets to being sold or forced to perform in a revue show.
The character is known to western and contemporary Japanese audiences predominantly by way of Suehiro Maruo's ero guro reinterpretation in comics, first in a short story as part of an anthology and then in a full-length graphic novel of the same name (published in English as Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show), and Hiroshi Harada's semi-animated film based on Maruo's version, screened at film festivals and released on DVD-Video with English subtitles as Midori.
The graphic novel is considered a classic of Maruo's 1920s-inspired brand of ero guro and its out-of-print English edition has become much sought-after. Harada's film is also infamous in itself and for the elaborate expanded cinema presentations it was originally only shown in, though it has been allowed to screen in conventional movie theaters and even released on home video outside of Japan. A live-action film adaptation of the manga was released in Japan in May 2016.
Born into a poor family in 1938, Midori is a young girl who lives with her bedridden mother. To make ends meet, Midori drops out of school and begins selling camellia flowers in the city, where she meets a man by the name of Koijiro Arashi. He tells her that if she's ever in trouble, she can come visit him. Upon returning home, Midori finds her mother dead and partially eaten by rats. Now an orphan, she decides to visit Arashi, who takes her to his freak show.
Unfortunately, Midori's life does not improve upon joining the circus. She is forced to work as a servant, and she is constantly bullied, abused, sexually assaulted, and tortured by the bizarre and disfigured freak show performers.
The circus has also been falling on hard times, and in order to bring in more money, Arashi hires a magician named Masamitsu. Masamitsu is an overweight middle-aged man with dwarfism, as well as a pedophile who eventually takes Midori as his child bride. He acts as her "guardian", protecting her from the abuse of the other performers and grooming her into loving him. He goes so far as to brutally murder one of the performers who makes advances towards Midori.
Arashi eventually runs away with the circus's money, forcing the troupe to disband. Midori and Masamitsu end up leaving the circus together. Masamitsu leaves Midori at a bus stop while he goes to buy them a bento. On his way, Masamitsu is stabbed to death by a thief. Unaware of his death, Midori believes that Masamitsu simply abandoned her and never really cared for her. Midori attempts to run away somewhere, and begins to hallucinate the circus troupe mocking and bullying her once again. As she attempts to attack the hallucinations, they all disappear.
Traumatized and completely on her own, Midori suffers a mental break. The story ends with her alone and sobbing. It is implied that Midori may have committed suicide.
is a 1992 Japanese independent semi-animated ero guro fantasy horror drama film by Hiroshi Harada, based on Suehiro Maruo's comic version of the kamishibai standard. The film (which Harada wrote for the screen and directed under the pseudonym of [2] and whom he presents as a lost filmmaker he worked on it under[3]) consists primarily of paintings and cels of drawings by Harada held, panned, or zoomed over with music, sound effects, voice acting, and occasional touches of traditional animation.
In 1994, a censored version of the film was produced for future screenings at the request of Eirin, the Japanese film censor board. This version optically censored nudity, sexual assault, and violence towards animals, while removing discriminatory language from the audio track in the form of audio muting. The 2006 Ciné Malta DVD release of the film contains the original 1992 version, albeit with two short sections intended for audiences at live screenings omitted.
For many years, a videotape transfer of the film was all that was known to exist of the film, aside from censored post-1994 film prints screened at various international film festivals. In 2013, the original 16 mm negative of the film was rediscovered in an IMAGICA warehouse. A new print and digital master were made from this negative and began to be screened in digital format in Japan numerous times. Harada's production company plans to release a restored Blu-ray Disc of the new film master in 2020.
The film was single-handedly created by Hiroshi Harada. Given the subject matter, Harada had found it impossible to gain sponsors. He then used his life savings to make the film over a five-year period. Harada hand-drew over 5000 separate sheets of animation.
The film was for many years very rare to see at all, as Harada will only screen Midori in Japan if the venue is presented as a carnival freak show. From 1994 to 2006, outside of standard definition videotape transfers of the original master, the film was only available in the form of prints with visual and audio censorship in place. However, in 2006, a region 2-locked PAL-style DVD-Video of the film with subtitles in French, English, Spanish, Italian, and German was released in France by Ciné Malta containing the film's original, uncensored version.
, a live-action film adaptation of the manga directed by Torico and starring was released in cinemas in Japan on May 21, 2016.[4] [5] Other cast members include Shunsuke Kazama,, Takeru of the band Sug, and .[6]
The film was shown in Germany in 2017 at the 18th Japan-Filmfest Hamburg,[7] and it was released on limited edition DVD (limited to 1000 copies in total) with Japanese audio and both German and English subtitles in German-speaking Europe by the distributor Midori-Impuls in 2020.[8]