SSBS – Tokyo Mew Mew Episode 47: The Power of Love – I Will Protect Aoyama-Kun!

Plot: Deep Blue has changed Pai and Taruto’s directive to destroying The Blue Knight.

Meanwhile, Aoyama proves to be a huge hit as a waiter in the café since all of the local girls crowd in to gush over him in his uniform. Shirogane, however, continues to be wary of their new team member.

The next day, the aliens attack with a floating blobby squid-like Chimera Animal. Aoyama and Ichigo rush into action together, soon met with the other Mews. After transforming, they try to take down the Chimera Animal, but to no avail. With a smokescreen, the Chimera Animal is able to blindside the girls and ensnare them all in its tentacles.

The Blue Knight tries to save Ichigo, but Pai stops him. The Chimera Animal lines up razor sharp tendrils to Ichigo’s head and threatens her life if he resists. The Blue Knight has no choice but to relent. Pai and Taruto then mercilessly beat The Blue Knight with intent to kill him. Ichigo is forced to watch her beloved get beaten within an inch of his life and all for her sake – all because he wants to protect her and nothing else.

Ichigo cries out for Aoyama as several of her tears fall on The Blue Knight’s cheek. As his consciousness starts to wane, he remembers his dreams of Mew Ichigo crying on the ground.

With a flash, Ichigo is suddenly imbued with massive power, allowing her to break free and protect The Blue Knight from a surely fatal blast. Ichigo has taken it upon herself to be Aoyama’s protector just as much as he is hers. With the most powerful Ribbon Strawberry Surprise she’s ever conjured, she blows the Chimera Animal away and the aliens retreat.

The group and city are safe once more, but Kisshu looks on with suspicious eyes. That power may have been impressive, but it wasn’t Ichigo’s.

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– Eugh, this episode has the same weird eye problem the previous episode had. In fact, it might even be worse.

– I understand that Aoyama’s the reason why all of these girls are there, but why are the other Mews standing there watching him instead of….ya know…waitressing?

– OH MY GOD, AOYAMA WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU IN THIS SHOT?!

Oddly, this shot reminds me a LOT of how Aoyama tends to look in the manga. It’s creepy, knock it off.

– Ichigo draws fanart of her boyfriend…..Okie dokie.

– The animation on that Chimera Animal is so weird and not in a good way.

– Why haven’t Ichigo and Aoyama transformed already? Don’t they travel a lot faster that way?

– Wait, Aoyama got an entirely new and somehow shorter transformation animation for this episode. He flies up, glowing blue, then as they focus on his eye, we fade into the Blue Knight, and then we see him in front of a much better background than he had last time. Why was his transformation changed literally one episode after he first got his transformation? And why cut out the part with his sword? That’s really the only thing he was really doing in the original version.

– Wow, one of the only times I’ve ever seen legit streams of blood in this show. Why is it that blood only appears when the guys are on screen? The last time, it was Kisshu getting wounded, now the Blue Knight’s sword strikes to the Chimera Animal cause it to bleed profusely even though Zakuro just hacked one of those same tentacles into several pieces and there was no blood to be found.

– I can’t keep quiet anymore – the animation budget and this episode apparently never met. It’s a tossup between this episode and the last as to which is worse, and I’m inclined to put more chips on this one. There are numerous odd faces and so many instances of paper-cutout animation that it’s hard to ignore.

– Pai’s acting really weird in this episode. Usually he maintains his composure and attacks with his powers, but here he’s losing his temper for some reason and is just wailing on the Blue Knight with his fists.

– Guys, you have lightning powers than can take out whole towns, incredibly powerful poisons, so many ways to just kill the guy you were instructed to just kill, but you’re taking your sweet time pummeling him instead.

– Hrmmmmmm……I wanted this episode to be a real true example of Ichigo taking the reigns and being the protector this time around after last week angered me so much. Sad to say, it didn’t really work out that way.

The only reason Aoyama was in trouble in the first place was because Ichigo became a damsel in distress again, and the only way she protected him in the end……*sigh* was through her tears. Granted, she did come to the realization that it’s important to not always rely on Aoyama to be protected and that she needs to protect him right back (Which is something that she shouldn’t really need to learn. She’s protected Aoyama several times at this point) but she still only gained massive main character powers because she cried over Aoyama.

Also, again, the others Mews were entirely useless in this battle. You might as well save on animation and replace them all with sock puppets at this point. No one would notice.

– By the by, she’s glowing bluish with this attack and the power was triggered by intense emotions, so was Mew Aqua involved or somethi–

Kisshu: “Wrong.”

….Que?

Kisshu: “That power was not Ichigo’s.”

………….*rubs temples* Wait, let me back up.

Ichigo….cried….which gave her lots of power….lots of….blue power…..Her tears…..landed on the Blue Knight’s face before it happened, and we saw an overlay of her face meeting the Blue Knight’s right before she exploded with power.

…..Are

you

kidding

me?

Are you saying the Blue Knight transferred his power to Ichigo or something, which allowed her to have this massive increase in power to take out the Chimera Animal in one fell swoop?

Are you saying, by proxy, the Blue Knight saved HIMSELF…and proved, again, that he is the most powerful person in the group?

Okay, okay, hang on. Maybe I’m just jumping to conclusions. Maybe I’m reading too far into this. I’m going to do the rational thing and peek through the next episode to see–

*one peek later*

Fuck off. No, really. Do that. Fuck off. And fuck what I said about the Knight not being as bad as Tuxedo Mask in regards to making off like a guy is constantly saving the heroines – he is officially much worse. I know the twist of his true identity, I do, and logically it would make sense for him to be this powerful, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is basically the enraging previous episode only worse. Wanna know why?

Because either consciously or subconsciously, Aoyama knew he couldn’t fight the aliens because, if he did, Ichigo would die. So he transferred power to her to let her take the reigns so he could save himself and HER by proxy. In short, Aoyama was both the hero and heroine in this episode, and that’s just bullshit.

I may complain about Ichigo getting all the best powers and stuff, but this is one step short of when parents do something and secretly let their kids think they did it to make them believe they’re grown up or magic or something.

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This episode was 75% utter bullshit. The 25% is the first part of the episode where I really got jazzed because Pai was so intent on getting the Blue Knight to the point where he was kinda frightening, he had a solid plan to do so, and I really wanted to see Ichigo just kick a door down or something and badass her way to protecting Aoyama.

But that’s not what we got is it? What we got was a lie. Even without the whole concept of the Blue Knight transferring his powers to Ichigo, whether he meant to or not, he was only in danger because Ichigo was damsel’d, and she only triggered these powers through her goddamn tears. Far from the badassery I had anticipated.

Do I even need to bring up the other Mews? Mew Blank, Mew Open Space, Mew Placeholder and Mew Error 404 Not Found? They literally come out of nowhere, try to attack, but prove fruitless, then they’re also damsel’d but the focus is given to Ichigo because she’s most important. At least there’s finally one instance of the Blue Knight trying to save a Mew other than Ichigo for a damn change, but that’s obviously just exacerbating the problem isn’t it?

I honestly don’t remember having this severe of a problem with the Blue Knight the last couple of times I watched through this series. Granted, both of those times I wasn’t really so deep into reviewing or analysis, but seriously, how did I overlook this?

Plus, despite the gravity of this episode, the animation is distractingly terrible. There aren’t so many laughable frames as your typical mess fest Mew Mew episode, but they are there and there are so many instances of paper-cutout movement it’s ridiculous. They even do it when the movement is entirely unnecessary. Like, hey, Ichigo’s prepping to attack – let’s make her character layer bigger and create the illusion that we’re zooming in on her for no reason.

Next episode, a nice barbecue for the team, but they’re quickly targeted by Kisshu who wants to make his true final stand against the Blue Knight.

…Previous Episode 

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