Plot: Ichigo is on top of the world. Aoyama knows her secret, their relationship is going great, and he’s even keeping his promise of hiding her ears when she gets excited.
Her fun times are put on hold, however, when Taruto and Pai initiate their newest plan – using a new Chimera Animal to infiltrate the dreams of the Mew Mews. They’ve been continuously chastised by Deep Blue for their failures in defeating the Mews, and they’ve had to basically abandon a still wounded Kisshu in order to stay loyal to him, so they’re more determined now than ever to take them down.
The Chimera Animal puts Ichigo to sleep, becomes her and takes over her life. As fake Ichigo enjoys some sweets with the other Mews back at the café, she manages to lure them all into Ichigo’s dream. Taruto reveals that, as long as Ichigo’s asleep, they’ll be stuck in the dream forever and he and Pai will be able to go about their business uninterrupted.
The girls transform and battle the Chimera Animal, but find that their attacks are ineffective in this dream world since the Chimera Animal can control much of what happens within the space.
Pai and Taruto can destroy all of the Mews the instant they kill Ichigo since the others are trapped in her dream, but they decide to torment her friends within her dream as revenge for Kisshu.
A still badly wounded Kisshu stops Pai from finishing off Ichigo and, by extension, the other Mews, claiming he’ll be the one to destroy her since he blames her for everything going wrong with his plans. Surprisingly, however, this results in Kisshu forcibly waking Ichigo up, allowing the other Mews to escape from her dream.
Ichigo transforms and she and the Mews take the opportunity to attack the Chimera Animal. Now, outside of Ichigo’s dream world, the Chimera Animal has no control and is easily felled by the assault. However, the fight’s not over yet. Kisshu brandishes his sai and gives Ichigo an ultimatum – become his or die.
Ichigo easily bats away the attack since Kisshu’s so weak and he falls onto the ground, perpetually confused as to why Ichigo won’t listen to him or accept his offer.
Taruto and Pai continue to be confounded by Kisshu’s feelings for Ichigo, and Ichigo angrily confronts them about attacking her friends. They counter by saying she attacked and wounded Kisshu as well, and they fight for the people they care about just as much as she does. They collect Kisshu and leave the scene, leaving Ichigo and the other Mews in a state of shock as they realize that the aliens have feelings as they do.
Breakdown:
– Gotta feel bad for Kisshu. Poor guy’s just trying his best for his people and getting wrapped up in love in the process…..He’s still trying to kill people…….but still.
Also, how long has it been since he got wounded? He’s sitting on a building with blood dripping down his body, clutching his chest. He didn’t even try to patch himself up if Pai and Taruto weren’t able/allowed to?
– I can’t believe how much I’m getting into the adorableness of Aoyama and Ichigo. I’ve watched this series like three times now and I don’t remember getting that much into them and now I’m practically pausing at their moments to say ‘awwwww!!’ Dear god, I think age is turning me into a sucker for fluff.
– This Chimera Animal looks weird as hell.
– Taruto: “We won’t kill you yet.” The motto of every super villain that regularly loses.
– How, exactly, does dream stealing equate to becoming another person and pretending to be them?
– Ya know, a great way to stop the Mews might be to just….take their pendants away. They can’t transform otherwise, and they’ve had many chances to just swipe them.
– I’m not saying this to be an anti-shipper, I am very much supportive of all ships, and Kisshu/Ichigo can be quite cute…..but…Kisshu literally just told Ichigo to become his girlfriend or he’ll KILL HER…..It’s hard to overlook that.
– I like how they’re keeping the morality somewhat gray-ish when Ichigo chastises the aliens for hurting her friends and Taruto and Pai chastise her for hurting Kisshu. It’s still easier to sympathize with the Mews/humans, but this coupled with the earlier reminder of what the aliens are fighting for makes for an interesting dynamic.
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Overall, this episode was pretty darn good. The dream world aspect was interesting, and they had a plan that nearly worked had Kisshu not interfered. The beginning with Aoyama and Ichigo was pointless but incredibly adorable. And the conflict between the aliens and the Mews reaching a point where they realize that the situation isn’t as black and white as they once thought is very compelling.
The animation was a little off here and there, but nothing much worse than normal. It’s like this episode kept flitting back and forth between ‘budget episode’ and ‘we saved our budget for this episode’ It’s weird.
I like that they kept Kisshu wounded, too. So many times in shows like these we have one-off wounds that disappear in an episode, making tension dissipate and making it seem like nothing has weight, but here Kisshu is barely able to walk and is covered in blood. (4Kids would’ve been in a digital paint nightmare….Hey, we came full circle with the dream motif, yay. Also, strange that his blood’s only just now appearing…)
Next episode, speaking of shipping, we get some adorable Taruto and Pudding goodness!
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The Anime Madhouse 