Short Synopsis: We learn what happened to Atsuko after episode 10.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Good to finally see a bit of quality airtime devoted to Atsuko. Most of her airtime so far has simply been a few minutes here and there, but this time she has an entire episode for herself, and she uses it quite well. It’s a shame that there wasn’t even a second of Hatchin, but nevertheless I really enjoyed this episode.

What I especially loved is how much Atsuko hates her new job. She never actually mentions it, but her expression says a thousand words. The once proud police woman who climbed her way up from a mere street-punk is now cleaning cans at a local Aztec ruin and chasing runaway pet monkeys. This episode was mostly about her getting her motivation back, and that’s mostly done by her, meeting a child who strangely resembles a younger Michiko. (And her, finding a newspaper article about Hiroshi’s newest movie, of course).

I do hope that Satoshi is also going to get an episode like this one. Like most people in this series, he’s been a very interesting character, but only appeared in one episode for as far as my memory doesn’t deceive me. Imagine the potential when he gets even more time devoted to fleshing out his character. But then again, that’s probably going to come along with Hiroshi’s development, who also is about to get into the spotlights. What is the guy doing on the silver screen, and if he’s that rich, then why did he abandon his daughter to some random evil pastor family?

Short Synopsis: Michiko catches a cold.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 9/10 (The clear winner of the “most original fish-placement”-award)
This episode showed that Hatchin isn’t the only one who is made out of awesome and win in this series. Hatchin may be the Wonder Woman of this series, but Michiko also has proven to be downright awesome to watch. Especially in this episode, where she caught a cold and was supposed to stay in bed, her stubbornness made the entire episode a delight to watch.

You also have to love the weird ideas that the creators put into this episode. A psychedelic doctor/fraud who pulls fish out of his patients’ bellies?What? The visions Michiko had were also hilarious. Never thought it would be this disturbing to see Hatchin with an evil laugh…

But progress has been booked! Michiko actually tried to hide from Hatchin that she’s been smoking and drinking, despite her cold. It might be because she didn’t want to get into any useless arguments with her, but at least it’s a start: she’s finally starting to take Hatchin into consideration. Hatchin on the other hand has started breaking rules because of Michiko’s cold. I loved that line “If you need to become an angel, I’ll become the devil”. It’s a phrase that you see in more anime (out of the top of my head, Kaleido Star also used it), but the context in this episode that it appeared in is most definitely interesting.

And it’s finally confirmed: Hiroshi’s still alive. Okay, so Michiko was drunk and sick when she saw him, but his images were somehow different from the visions she had after that.

Short Synopsis: Hatchin gets used to life within the circus, when she meets a certain Michiko
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Seriously, Hatchin is an awesome character. At this point, I don’t care what kind of direction this series is going to go into: when she’s around, it’s going to be lots of fun either way. Another thing I like so much about this series is that it rapidly switches from hilarious comedy to powerful drama, and especially this episode was good at that. The news reporter in this episode was hilarious, even though he was trying to deal with such a serious topic as child exploitation.

It seems that Michiko didn’t have to search long for Hatchin. I’m not sure what part I missed where she found out about the circus, but I expected a lot more time to be spent on it. I’m still surprised at how long it took for the two of them to make up: normally things like these are resolved in one episode, in extreme cases two. The way they made up was also delightfully far from cheese, and it felt really true to their characters.

In the end, Michiko’s pride and Hatchin’s responsibility just remain adorable. I loved it when Michiko found out that Hatchin preferred her to the fat lady Michiko, and Hatchin, even though she despises Michiko, did rescue her in the end. There are a lot of things in this series left unsaid by the two of them, but that’s also what makes them such great characters to watch.

Short Synopsis: Satoshi plans to hand Michiko over to the police.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
Wow.

I must say, that I’m really impressed by this episode. The huge intensity of this episode was amazing, considering it’s finally showing the development of the past nine episodes. The entire episode was really intense, and formed a huge contrast with the heart-warming previous Hatchin-episode. On top of that, the art looked better than ever in this episode.

I also really appreciated the bit of background about the time when Hiroshi and Satoshi met each other. They’re really fleshing out these characters, and I can’t wait to see the second half of this series. According to MyAnimelist, this series is going to be only 22 episodes, but I want to wait for other sources to confirm that before believing it. The problem with MyAnimelist and especially its episode numbers is that they just take any rumour, without checking whether it comes from a valid source.

Heh, I remember how I compared this series to El Cazador when I first saw it. How wrong I was to assume that. The beatings that Michiko received in this episode were downright gruesome, and nowhere near the cheerful tone that El Cazador brought us. I’ve probably said this before, but damn, that OP is misleading!

Atsuko’s change of heart may have been a bit too sudden, but at least I can understand it, having been betrayed by her superiors like that. I just think that she was a bit too burned on catching Michiko in order to just forgive her and let her escape.

I also think that there’s much more to Hatchin than her being a simple random girl. On top of that, we’re still not sure whether Hiroshi lives or not. Satoshi is convinced that the guy died at the bus accident, and yet Michiko seems convinced that he’s still alive somewhere. But then again, that could also be simple lovesickness.

Short Synopsis: Hana meets a circus girl of her age.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
Oh, this series makes writing random stories seem so easy, even though there are plenty of anime who suffer from being unable to put in a satisfying filler episode, or fill up their airtime. This was a wonderful episode, and the creators really managed to bring Rita (the circus girl) to life, along with her love for the person who raised her, even though he’s in love with someone else.

And at the same time this episode also made sure of some good development for Hatchin. She really is a strange character in Brazil, being raised in such an uptight family. She’s incredibly polite, and this episode really helped her to open up to someone, and loose up a bit. It feels to me that she’s finally found someone she can trust. How the heck is Michiko going to get her back like this?

What also caught my attention is that Hana isn’t quite able to get rid of her real name like that, since she introduced herself to Rita as Hana, rather than Hatchin. At first she began using Hatchin to forget about her foster parents, now ironically she stopped using it to forget about Michiko.

Short Synopsis: Michiko arrives at a city where Satoshi might be.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 7,5/10 (Good)
This series has a really strange broadcasting protocol. I’m away for less than two weeks and suddenly there are three new episodes… I really wonder where that third one came from…

In any case, this episode was mostly building up, although it featured some interesting chase scenes through the trams of a Brazilian city. Michiko and Hatchin’s relationship is really different from most other series where a strong character takes care of a weak one, since Hatchin really seems to hate Michiko. Only when she’s really in danger and is scared for her life, she forgets about her anger and accepts Michiko as her guardian.

We also finally get to see more of Atsuko, who seems to have chased after Michiko for the time that she was away from the screen. I like that: when she’s away from the screen, she just continues with her own agenda instead of randomly sitting somewhere until the storyline focuses on her again.

Short Synopsis: Michiko finds love while Hatchin’s shoes get stolen yet again.
Highlights: Very subtle romance.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
You know, usually in travelling series that have more than one main character, the different episodes usually centre either around one of these characters, or multiple characters involve themselves with the same storyline, while the others play cannon fodder and stay in the background. In Michiko to Hatchin however, both Michiko and Hatchin have their own stories for the past few episodes.

This episode too: Michiko developed a crush on a married guy who was planning on committing adultery, and Hatchin yet again got attacked by childpunks who stole her shoes. And even during the episodes that are really focused at one of the two, you can see that the other one isn’t just doing nothing or watching paint dry.

This episode was also about the growing conflict between Michiko and Hatchin. Michiko obviously isn’t suited to raise a child (she slapped her like what, four times just this episode?), while Hatchin has finally someone that she consider as a mother that she doesn’t seem to get that Michiko just isn’t fit for raising her. And yet at the end of this episode, Michiko does show that she cares about her (although ow did she know that Hatchin was about to drown?).

Short Synopsis: Michiko tries to get Hatchin back.
Highlights: No, don’t ask me why two episodes aired on the same day.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
While the strange broadcast schedule of this series is beyond me, I’m definitely not the one to complain at this point. This episode ranked among the best of the series so far, along with episode 4. It’s ironic: just when I labelled this series as a mostly serious one, it comes with such a fun yet exciting climax. I must say though, that this series knows exactly when it needs to be serious and funny, although it’s a bit unorthodox in this aspect. Most series that have a bit of comedy feature a fun build-up and a dark climax, but instead this series has a dark build-up and a fun climax. That’s something you really don’t see very often, but it works like a charm.

In this episode, we get confirmed that Atsuko and Michiko grew up at the same orphanage as where Michiko tried to dump Hatchin at in the previous episode. What I especially like is the relationship between the caretaker and Michiko right now. Michiko used to fight all the time, but right now they’ve got a strange sort of hate/friends relationship that’s interesting to watch. The caretaker was surprisingly well developed in such a short time. I really like her.

But yeah, the highlight of this episode was really the climax. The previous episode seemed to suggest that the fat guy was someone to take into consideration, but instead he’s just one big loser who happens to have a bit of power and eats too much. It was fun to see Michiko dress up as a matador and chasing him. It was awesome to see Hatchin escape from him, and trying to fight the bull with a ladle. The reunion also was really cute.

This series has proven to not only be well written, but also very diverse. Next week had better not be a hiatus, but either way: I’m sold.

Short Synopsis: Michiko tells Hatchin a few things about her past.
Highlights: It becomes more and more apparent how misleading that OP is…
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8/10 (Excellent)
That OP… it definitely belongs in the category of misleading. It’s a very colourful and cheerful piece of art, that makes you think that this series would have the same fun factor as Samurai Champloo…

Well… no. I feel that this is the episode where this series shows its true colours. As it turns out, Michiko was involved into a huge gang-fight and power-struggles before she got locked up. This episode seems to suggest that she ended up in prison because she once made a wrong move and provoked the wrong kinds of people. This episode really showed that there’s much, much more to her character than she originally showed.

I mean, she remains an irresponsible woman. In this episode however, we can see that she’s starting to regret what she did, as she suddenly realizes that the gang-fights are still out there. I’m still not exactly sure what she did to invoke the wrath of a gang for twelve years, but hopefully the future episodes will shed light on that. Anyway, because she finally starts realizing that Hatchin could get in trouble, she drops her off at a local orphanage for safety. Obviously, she didn’t take into account that it costs money to do that, so Hatchin ends up getting kidnapped at the end of the episode.

And the whole mystery around what happened with Hiroshi still isn’t much clearer. First I thought that he was the fat guy, but that turns out to be somebody else (who I guess was the one who made sure that Michiko ended up in jail). This episode still doesn’t explain why Hiroshi abandoned Hatchin, though, or who was Hatchin’s mother, but I do now understand why Michiko is so keen on Hatchin. She probably sees Hiroshi in her, and the good times they had together. And this episode also confirms: Hatchin has the tattoo on her belly.

Seriously, here I thought that this series would be a fun-filled travel adventure, in the same veins as El Cazador. Boy, was I wrong, but this series makes optimal use of its setting this way. That’s why I’m so annoyed that 90% of all anime takes place in Japan. The samurai-period is nice and all, and it has produced some awesome series, but there are many more interesting settings with potential all over the world, in lots of different time settings. You just have to have the guts to find them and base a story around them. Gunslinger Girl is also a good example of this: it took the political power struggles of the country, added a bit of science fiction, and voilá: an excellent set-up for a story.

Short Synopsis: Michiko meets a local party-girl with a few problems of her own.
Highlights: Drunk Hatchin was awesome.
Overall Enjoyment Value: 8,5/10 (Awesome)
With this episode, I’m convinced: Michiko e Hatchin is going to be an excellent series. The big question was of course whether the creators would make the random stories that will form the large part of this series well enough, and this episode proved that the creators are excellent at even that. This was one of these episodes where everything felt right, just like every single episode of this series since the second one.

I’m especially a big fan of how this episode progressed, and we got to know more and more about Pepe: she started off as a cocky whore, but then it turns out that she didn’t chose for that life of hers. She once was a rich lady, but lost everything when her parents died. It sounds really cheesy on paper, but the way the episode presented it made it really exciting.

I also really like Hatchin, even though she just had a supporting role in this episode. Seeing her getting drunk on what she thought was orange juice was hilarious, and I was also really surprised to see her still working at that restaurant, and how he hasn’t been sacked yet for just running off after the previous episode.