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Shōjo Tsubaki

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Shōjo Tsubaki
少女椿
GenreEroguro, Alternative manga
Manga
Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show
Written bySuehiro Maruo
Published bySeirindō
English publisher
MagazineGaro
DemographicSeinen
Original runAugust 1983 – July 1984
Volumes1
Anime film
Midori
Directed byHiroshi Harada
Produced byHiroshi Harada
Written byHiroshi Harada (screenplay)
Music byJ. A. Seazer
StudioMippei Eiga Kiryūkan
Licensed byCiné Malta (France)
Released
  • May 2, 1992 (1992-05-02) (Tokyo)[1]
Runtime47[2]–56 minutes
Live-action film
Midori: The Camellia Girl
Directed byTorico
Produced byMasahiro Tashiro
Written byTorico (screenplay)
Music byHitomi Kuroishi
StudioLink Rights
Licensed byMidori-Impuls (Germany)
ReleasedMay 21, 2016 (2016-05-21)
Runtime90 minutes[3]
icon Anime and manga portal

Shōjo Tsubaki (少女椿, "The Camellia Girl") is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Suehiro Maruo. Serialized in the seinen magazine Garo between August 1983 and July 1984, it was published in a single volume in September 1984 by Seirindō. The story is an ero guro reimagining of the eponymous Shōwa period kamishibai about a young camellia flower seller named Midori who is tricked into working for an abusive freak show.

Reviewed editions of the manga were published by Seirindō in 1999 and Seirin Kogeisha in 2003, and Blast Books published an English translation in 1993 under the title Mr. Arashi's Amazing Freak Show. The manga was adapted into an anime film by Hiroshi Harada in 1992, released in English as Midori. A live action film adaptation by Torico, titled Midori: The Camellia Girl, was released in 2016.

Shōjo Tsubaki is considered is considered a classic of Maruo's 1920s-inspired brand of ero guro and remains one of the most acclaimed manga in its genre. The anime film is notorious for the elaborate expanded cinema presentations it was originally only shown in. The live action film features animated segments and a expanded story with elements from the kamishibai.

Background

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Shōjo Tsubaki is Suehiro Maruo's adaptation of the eponymous kamishibai 21-volume play by Naniwa Seiun. Seiun's play is a Shōwa period melodrama about Midori, a young girl with a bob haircut who starts to sell camellia flowers on the streets to help her mother after her father disappears. Human traffickers force her to perform in a revue show and as she becomes famous, her parents try to rescue her. The story ends with Midori's family reunited.[4]

Maruo's reimagining utilizes the premise of an ingénue flower seller being trafficked, but replaces the revue show with a freak show circus and retells the story as an ero guro with depictions of abuse and a tragic ending that heavily deviates from Seiun's story.

Plot

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Born into a poor family in Shōwa 13 (1938), Midori is a young girl who lives with her bedridden mother after her father abandoned them. To make ends meet, Midori drops out of school and begins selling camellia flowers in the city, where she meets a man named Arashi who 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, Midori decides to seek Arashi.

Arashi's address turns out to be the Red Cat Circus, a freak show where he forces Midori to work as a servant for the disfigured performers who bully, abuse, and sexually assault her. Midori dreams of escaping but has nowhere else to go and becomes despondent. As the Red Cat starts to lose money, Arashi hires Masamitsu, an older man with dwarfism who is proficient in Western magic. Masamitsu takes an immediate liking to Midori and turns her into his assistant and lover, using his magic to protect her from the abuse of the circus troupe.

However, Masamitsu's relationship with Midori becomes more controlling and abusive. He uses his magic to murder a rival performer and prevents Midori from starting a new life as an actress. Midori becomes even more afraid of Masamitsu after his powers spiral out of control during a show and temporally cause all audience members to become grotesquely deformed, prompting the police to shut down the Red Cat. As a result, Arashi runs away with all the circus money, leaving the performers to their own devices.

Masamitsu apologizes to Midori and promises her to start over. They leave the troupe members, who have grown to become friendly to Midori. Masamitsu asks Midori to wait for him at a bus stop while he buys her a bento, but on his way, he is stabbed to death by a thief. Midori becomes desperate and tries to find Masamitsu, eventually believing he has abandoned her. She begins to hallucinate that the circus troupe and her parents are mocking her, and she attacks the hallucinations until they disappear. Alone, Midori cries in desperation and the story ends.

Characters

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  • Midori, the Camellia Girl: An adolescent girl with a distinctive bob haircut who sells camellia flowers for a living after her father abandons her mother. After her mother's death, Arashi tricks her into working for a freak show where she is abused and tormented by the performers. She dreams of escaping the circus and becoming a famous actress and initially finds solace in Masamitsu, but he ends up becoming abusive towards her as well. In the anime film, she is voiced by Minako Naka. In the live action film, she is portrayed by Risa Nakamura and given the surname Hanamura.
  • Wonder Masamitsu: A middle-aged magician who is an expert in Western magic. His signature trick involves him fitting himself inside a small bottle, which proves very popular with audiences. He has a pedophilic attraction towards Midori and makes her his assistant in the show. Though he has a gentle demeanor, he becomes enraged when people make fun of him for his dwarfism. In the anime film, he is voiced by Norihiko Morishita. In the live action film, he is portrayed by Shunsuke Kazama and given a more extensive background.
  • Koijiro Arashi: The boss of the Red Cat freak show, who first appears as a benevolent man but forces Midori to work as a servant and allows her to be abused. Arashi is a pedophile who is attracted to young boys and he has a fetish for oculolinctus, which he engages in with Kanabun. He seems to care for the troupe and greatly appreciates Masamitsu, but he ultimately takes the Red Cat's money and abandons the performers. In the anime film, he is voiced by Keinosuke Okamoto. In the live action film, he is portrayed by Akihiro Nakatani.
  • Tokkuriji Muchisute the Mummy Man: A disfigured man with missing arms and a face covered in bandages, resembling a mummy. Depending on the adaptation, he is either a leper or a burn victim. He uses his feet in place of his missing hands, and performs archery with them in the show. He is a pedophile who prefers young girls to older women, so he stalks and eventually rapes Midori, who he claims to have feelings for. This makes Masamitsu jealous, so he murders Muchisute using his magic to suffocate him with dirt. In the anime film, he is voiced by Kinshi Nomura. In the live action film, he is portrayed by Daichi Saeki.
  • Akaza the Giant: A sword swallowing, one-eyed strongman with a shaved head and tattoos. He is a laid-back "tough guy" who enjoys eating, money, and having sex with Benitsu. He is temperamental but protective of the troupe members, and he goes along with their sadism and fetishes. In the anime film, he is voiced by Kazuyoshi Hayashi. In the live action film, he is portrayed by Motoki Fukami.
  • Benitsu the Snake Woman: A sadistic and promiscuous snake charmer who engages in sex with her fellow troupe members except Arashi, who is indifferent to her advances. Despite also taking part in assaulting Midori both violently and sexually, Benitsu would later defend her and wish her happiness. In the anime film, she is voiced by Sanae Kato. In the live action film, she is portrayed by Misaki Morino.
  • Kanabun the Boy-Girl: AN adolescent with male genitalia who dresses like a girl and is advertised as a futanari in the freak show, where he performs a fire breathing act. He is in a sexual relationship with Arashi, which affords him certain privileges within the troupe. Kanabun is vain and extremely adversarial towards Midori, even killing puppies she adopted to make her eat their meat. After Arashi leaves the circus, Kanabun stops dressing as a girl and stops antagonizing Midori. In the anime film, he is voiced by Yumiko Takagi. In the live action film, he is portrayed by Takeru.
  • Midori's Mother and Father: Midori's mother becomes the sole breadwinner after her husband leaves her. She eventually falls ill and becomes bedridden, depending on Midori for support. She dies in bed and is eaten from the inside out by rats. Midori misses her parents and asks Masamitsu to let her see them again with his magic. In the anime film, she voiced by Akiko Tanaka. In the live action film, she is portrayed by Miyuki Torii.

Anime film

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The word "Midori" is displayed in dark heliotrope, pseudo-oriental Roman letters above a multicoloured background and "Shōjo Tsubaki" in white, pseudo-European Chinese characters with floating heads of characters from the film below.
Cover of the 2006 Ciné Malta DVD of the film

Midori (地下幻燈劇画 少女椿, Chika Gentō Gekiga: Shōjo Tsubaki, roughly "Underground Projected Dramatic Pictures: The Camellia Girl") 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 Hisaaki Etsu (絵津久秋, Etsu Hisaaki)[5] and whom he presents as a lost filmmaker he worked on it under[6]) 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.

Production

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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.

Screenings

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The film was for many years very rare to see at all, as Harada would only screen Midori in Japan if the venue was 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.

Live-action film

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Midori: The Camellia Girl (映画 少女椿, Eiga Shōjo Tsubaki), a live-action film adaptation of the manga directed by Torico and starring Risa Nakamura [ja] was released in cinemas in Japan on May 21, 2016.[3][7] Other cast members include Shunsuke Kazama, Misaki Morino [ja], Takeru of the band Sug, and Daichi Saeki [ja].[8]

The film was shown in Germany in 2017 at the 18th Japan-Filmfest Hamburg,[9] 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.[10]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Screening data". Airtight Lantern Theater Kiryukan. Archived from the original on 25 September 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  2. ^ All Cinema. "映画アニメ 地下幻燈劇画 少女椿 (1992)について 映画データベース" (in Japanese). Stingray. Archived from the original on 25 September 2021. Retrieved 25 September 2021.
  3. ^ a b "Midori – The Camellia Girl". Japanese Film Database. Archived from the original on 25 September 2021. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
  4. ^ "裏次元の一日 紙芝居 少女椿". Archived from the original on 14 March 2023. Retrieved 8 September 2024.
  5. ^ http://www.kinejun.jp/cinema/地下幻燈劇画%E3%80%80少女椿 [dead link]
  6. ^ "Midori: The Girl in the Freak Show | Zipangu Fest". Archived from the original on 16 November 2010. Retrieved 20 January 2017.
  7. ^ "Midori/Shōjo Tsubaki Horror Manga Gets Live-Action Film Starring Risa Nakamura". Anime News Network. 11 February 2016. Archived from the original on 16 March 2016. Retrieved 14 March 2016.
  8. ^ 少女椿(2016). allcinema (in Japanese). Stingray. Archived from the original on 14 March 2016. Retrieved 14 March 2016.
  9. ^ Midori-Impuls (24 April 2017). "Midori präsentiert auf dem 18.JFFH" (in German). Retrieved 24 June 2023 – via Facebook.
  10. ^ Midori-Impuls (17 December 2020). "Midori the Camellia Girl von Torico demnächst verfügbar" (in German). Retrieved 24 June 2023 – via Facebook.
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