Sólo unos pocos comentarios. Midori es probablemente el anime más grotesco que he visto nunca. Es un mediometraje de 50 minutos con una animación precaria a ratos, pero comprensible si se conoce el proceso de gestación de la película. Ni idea de dónde se ha ripeado, porque por lo que yo sé, sólo se ha proyectado en contados festivales de animación y no se ha editado jamás en vhs o dvd (con deciros que sólo he encontrado el archivo haciendo búsquedas en japonés...).

No hay subtítulos de ningún tipo, aunque habiendo leido el comic original no creo que haya problemas de comprensión, dada su fidelidad. Por cierto, incluyo el enlace al comic en inglés para quien guste. También recuerdo que Glenat reeditó esta y otras obras de Maruo en España hace muy poco tiempo.

Basado en un clásico de la literatura japonesa, "La chica de las camelias" cuenta la historia de una niña desamparada que, a partir de su trabajo en una feria de monstruos, entabla una relación como asistente y amante de un misterioso mago enano. A causa de esta relación, Midori acaba confundiendo progresivamente las fronteras entre la realidad y el sueño o la pesadilla. No obstante, bajo esta apariencia surreal, subyace la trama argumental ejemplar de Maruo, muy ligada a su propia experiencia vital. Tras el abandono o asesinato de los progenitores, la protagonista ingresa a través de un maestro iniciático en una nueva familia sin lazos de sangre o, bueno, con otros lazos de sangre.

Suehiro Maruo, el Sade del manga, es el más famoso de los autores de manga alternativo y "Midori" es para muchos su obra maestra. Publicada en la legendaria revista Garo de Ediciones Seirindo en 1984, "La chica de las camelias", continuación de una breve historieta homónima del año 1981, supone un punto de inflexión en su carrera entre una primera etapa de relatos breves, en la que elabora un catálogo de perversiones sexuales, y sus posteriores obras de mayor extensión y elaboración narrativa.

De línea fotorealista, el dibujo de Maruo se inscribe en la tradición del gekiga y, en concreto, en la de su inmediato antecesor y maestro Kazuichi Hanawa. Éste, por su tendencia al horror macabro y escatológico, fue encasillado como ero-gore, a pesar de la elegancia de su personal estilo, detallado y oscuro. No obstante, Maruo pule este estilo decadente y siniestro para hacerlo estallar puntualmente en delirio psico-pop con cambios al registro cartoon o con el concurso de motivos extraordinarios, sombras y negativos. Este escenario antinaturalista es organizado por Maruo en composición de tendencia espiral: la swastika guía el recorrido del ojo por la página.

"La chica de las camelias" marca el molde de las historietas más extensas de Maruo, éstas toman predominantemente una forma: el relato de aprendizaje.

A modo de advertencia: éste es un cómic de vanguardia. Por norma general, los tebeos de Maruo se encuentran trufados de referencias inequívocas al surrealismo tanto en motivos visuales y títulos como narrativamente, inscribiéndose en la tradición de la escritura automática, cadáver exquisito o libre asociación. Esta estrategia narrativa introducida en los años 60 por Yoshitaru Tsuge, el padre del underground japonés, se ha convertido desde entonces en rasgo característico del manga de vanguardia. En consecuencia, la fuerza visual de algunas de las secuencias de "Midori" se paga con una cierta incoherencia del relato.

Where to begin? First of all, Midori is a rather hard film to classify. It's anime, but it's not. Anime is known for being rather limited, but this film takes limited to a whole new level. It's closer to a kami shibai or paper play, a type of one-man entertainment that was popular in pre-WWII Japan. Maruo's original comic is in fact an adaptation of a kami shibai, so it's an appropriate analogy. And the remarkable thing is that this anime version really is a one-man entertainment: every drawing you see in the 52 minute film was drawn by one person, thereby making it true to the spirit of the original - a modern kami shibai. Attempting such a thing is pretty much pure insanity. It wound up taking this person five years to make the film. The madman in question is one Hiroshi Harada.

He knocked on doors everywhere conceivable looking for sponsors, but no company was willing to back the overly daring project. So he did the only thing he could: he broke open his piggy bank and threw his life savings into the project. Having been decisively refused by the establishment for the last time, he finally did the obvious, and turned to the underground, which is where his audience had been all along. By gathering support from various sectors including avant-garde theater, his film became a sort of emblem of the 80s subculture scene. The music was contributed by J. A. Caesar, who had taken over as the leading figure of the underground theater after the death of guru Shuji Terayama. He started in 1987, worked from home, and drew everything himself. Only finishing was done elsewhere. Five years later, the incredible task was done, and Midori, the sad, strange story of a young girl sold to a travelling freak circus, was premièred in 1992.

But this is where things get interesting. Harada had already shown that he wasn't satisfied with going the normal route as a creator, and perhaps it was taking inspiration from the underground theater that he now went in a really new direction. Rather than doing regular advertising to attract the public to see the film, and holding an ordinary screening somewhere, Harada instead kept things hush hush and staged the screening as a fantastic show complete with tent, strange exhibits, music and theater -- just like the freak show in the story -- with the film as the centerpiece of the event. To accentuate the mood of the film, smoke machines filled the room with an eerie fog and fans blew cherry blossom petals through the air. At another screening, people who had reserved tickets were given maps providing directions to a secret location, where people were then individually separated and sent through a series of mazes and rooms in order to arrive at the screening room. The audience, no passive spectators, had to make considerable efforts to take part in the experience.

Rather than a mere night at the movies, then, going to see the film thus became a new kind of theatrical experience, bringing together various underground arts and artists under one three ring tent. Harada has in fact refused to allow the film to be screened without a number of these theatrical devices, nor to allow it to be released on video. So the film also comes across as a statement against the behind-closed-doors consumerism represented by the video. It is an event to be experienced in public among others on a special occasion only. For all anybody knows, the screening at the FFF, which will be a full-fledged kosher screening with attractions and all, could very well be the last. Every instance thus takes on an incredible immediacy because it is (for now) shut off from this on-demand media age. In the end, all these clever theatrical ploys have only succeeded in adding to the film's eerie mystique.

Of course, there's also the fact that the film contains graphic depictions of animals being killed, pubic hair, taboo sexual acts, and discriminatory language, which would probably be enough to prevent the film from being shown in almost any regular theater without considerable cuts even if Harada hadn't taken steps that happen to keep that from becoming an issue. The film also contains direct depiction of the emperor Hirohito, which, unless I'm mistaken, was illegal while he was still alive. The complete, original film was in fact confiscated and banned from being shown in theaters in Japan by Narita Customs (though full video prints still exist), but apparently this doesn't hold any force, since the film is still being shown, albeit presumably in censored form. Even if one never gets to see the film, as is quite likely, it's still a film that fires the imagination, and it almost beckons one to try to come up with it in one's own head, which is perhaps what was intended from the start.

Buff, opiniones hay tantas como personas, pero la mia sobre este autor es bastante dura. Lei "la sonrisa del vampiro", y puedo decir que es la mayor mierda que he leido nunca, una autentica ponzoña repugnante, feista y desagradable. Afortunadamente no era mio, me lo habían dejado, pero si no, te aseguro que lo habría tirado sin pensarlo. Y mira que nunca he tirado un comic, por malo que sea.
Pero es mi opinion... pensé que a nadie le podría gustar este engendro de autor, pero si se siguen publicando cosas de el es que gusta y a bastante gente... que miedo oye...
Tenía que decirlo, es que odio a este enfermo mental de Maruo.

Erótico grotesco seria una opción, pero lo erótico es mas bien lo contrario… ¿anti-erótico grotesco?