Mint-centric stories tend to be hit or miss with me usually because, on one hand, she has some of the deepest development and layers of the main characters, but on the other hand she still frequently reverts back to just being her annoying and spoiled self.
This episode basically melds her original origin story with the episode where she deals with Zakuro rejecting them and calling her annoying. Not only does it manage to do that without being clunky and weird, but it makes its own unique story and shines brighter than the previous two stories.
After Zakuro rejects the invitation to be a Mew Mew and calls Mint annoying, it sends Mint into a depression. She’s doing her best to cover it up by working and being generally pleasant, but her friends know something is very wrong with her. To cheer her up, they visit her at her mansion.
Mint initially is annoyed by them, not understanding their efforts in cheering her up or hanging out with her. The situation is made worse by the presence of her older brother, Seiji. He was a one-off character in the original anime they brought over into the reboot, which is something I welcome because I think Mint having a brother creates an interesting dynamic for her.
Seiji is a very sweet kid. He’s extremely polite, accommodating and kind to the girls while clearly loving his sister very much. However, Mint hates the fact that Seiji treats her like a little kid who needs constant protection and guidance and can’t be trusted to do things on her own. A mindset that is particularly weird considering she’s literally being brought up with intentions on making her an important figurehead in her father’s massively successful company alongside Seiji.
I dunno if the idea is that Seiji is doing all of the legwork and actual training and studying while Mint will just be able to pop in and have her brother take care of everything while she coasts or something.
Being brought up in an incredibly rich household does tend to breed sheltered children who just inherit powerful jobs because their parents give them those positions. Many times, they really don’t have to do much in life because their parents will pay for everything. Maybe they have to put in an effort at school, but, sadly, even that seems more unlikely every day.
Having the foresight to look at yourself in that situation and actually be sad that everyone around you pretty much just wants you to be taken care of instead of allowing you to take care of yourself would certainly be frustrating. Many kids would just gladly accept the free pass through life. Her parents don’t care at all about her own desires and are basically just shaping her into what they want her to be.
When she found out she was a Mew Mew and Shirogane and Akasaka told them they needed her to help save the world, her outlook changed drastically because that was the first time anyone had ever told her they needed her.
While this is a great change to Mint’s origins, it’s also disappointing because we never really get to see the circumstances surrounding how she became the first Mew Mew. Maybe this will be covered in a future episode, but I’m starting to really doubt it.
A few years prior to the start of the series, she discovered Zakuro and was enamored by how strong-willed and independent she was despite being ‘the same age’ as her…..Gonna question the ‘same age’ thing pretty hard because Zakuro may have been aged down a tad between versions, but she certainly still looks a couple years older than the other girls. I mean, look at Zakuro in that video in the flashback and compare how Mint looks.
Anyway, finding out Zakuro was a fellow Mew Mew was a huge moment for her. When Zakuro not only turned them down but called her annoying, she was obviously gobsmacked. However, she took the time afterward to try and understand why Zakuro would say that. Then she realized that she was putting Zakuro on a pedestal. Despite loving her from a distance, she had no idea who Zakuro truly was as a person outside of her public persona. She just made assumptions about her and pushed her own desires for Zakuro onto her without learning what she wants or respecting her views, so of course Zakuro would see her as annoying.
That last part I inferred on my own because she stops the explanations at the part where she explained she didn’t know anything about her besides her public persona, but it was implied that’s what she was going for.
All of this is being conveyed to Ichigo, Pudding and Lettuce during a really sweet and emotional extended conversation that they were having during a sleepover.
I really appreciate that they actually took the time to stop for a bit and analyze Mint’s reaction and thoughts on what happened with Zakuro because they really didn’t do much with it in the original anime. She was just sad until Ichigo convinced Zakuro to join up with them.
The scene is similar in the manga, as far as I remember, but they only really have them coming over to cheer Mint up and starting a pillow fight. They didn’t have a long conversation between the pillow fight and Kisshu’s appearance like they do here.
It may sound weird that I’m appreciating a mere conversation being included here, but I don’t think we ever got enough of the girls just talking regularly and having deep conversations without it being about Mew Mew stuff or Ichigo and Aoyama. I think scenes like these are really necessary to help solidify the friendship between the group, especially when all too often it felt like the girls weren’t organically a collective group friends instead of just being support for Ichigo.
The weakest part of the episode happens after this conversation. Kisshu just shows up out of nowhere, asks Ichigo on a date, then he turns Mickey (Mint’s dog) into a Chimera Animal when she says no. They really couldn’t think of any better way of introducing the conflict into the episode. No big evil plan or anything – just ‘Date me Ichigo!’ ‘No!’ ‘Oh whatever then. Guess I’ll try to kill you all.’
He did basically the same thing in the last episode. What gives?
They transform, and we get a slight glimpse into Lettuce’s transformation. From what I saw of it, it seems pretty cool. She’s swimming like a mermaid, and her flip before what I think is probably the shot before her pose is all underwater. Really want to see the full version, but looks cool so far.
They try to battle Mickey, but Mint doesn’t have the heart to do so, not wanting to hurt her dog. None of the others can attack Mickey either because of Mint’s apprehension. You’d think if one of them would be suitable for this job it’d be Pudding. Her attack just encases in the enemy in gelatin.
Either way, it looks like the girls are legitimately screwed for a bit. They just keep getting viciously smacked away and can’t hope to overpower Mickey without their Mew Mew abilities. They are totally reliant on Mint making the choice to step up and do what she has to in order to save all of them.
This is certainly a tough choice, even if she knows Mickey won’t die. (I’ve never seen any of the animals they free from being a Chimera Animal be severely hurt or killed) she still has to hurt him a little in order to free him. The other girls obviously don’t want to hurt Mint’s dog, so they leave the decision in her hands, knowing she’ll do what’s right for everyone. And she does. She saves Mickey. She saves her friends. Everything’s good again.
Kisshu decides to take advantage of Ichigo’s weakened state to try and kidnap her, but Mint isn’t having that. She declares Ichigo as a good friend of hers, which is a big deal considering she denied calling them her friends before to her brother. She threatens Kisshu with her bow, forcing him to leave, but not until he makes it clear that he’s going to kill Zakuro next so she will never be able to join their team.
So yeah outside of the laughably weak motivations for Kisshu’s appearance and the slight disappointment that is the possibility that this is the only glimpse into Mint’s new Mew Mew origin story, this was a really great episode for both Mint and their friendship group as a whole.
I really enjoyed it, and I hope these types of episodes keep coming.
Next time, can the Mew Mews save Zakuro and convince her to join their team?
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Today’s episode is a bit of a mixed bag. I didn’t firmly dislike anything I’m about to mention, but I feel like this could have been organized a bit better.
As I mentioned, today’s episode is Pudding’s debut, but you don’t see her until the episode is nearly half over. The rest of the episode is taken up by Aoyama and Ichigo on a date at the zoo. The date is really relatable, adorable and sweet, I just kinda wish it was in a different episode.
In the original anime, Pudding’s debut got a dedicated episode, so I don’t know what the logic was with slicing her debut in half. She’s kinda just thrown in there, too. We learn absolutely nothing about her besides the fact that she’s very energetic, desperately wants tips and is basically like a human monkey. She suddenly performs her circus routine in the zoo during Ichigo and Aoyama’s date, and Quiche also debuts to give Ichigo her kiss, further derailing the attention from Pudding.
Then Quiche turns a bunch of animals at the zoo into Chimera Animals, the girls (Lettuce and Mint show up – Lettuce doesn’t transform in this episode *pout*) try to fight them off, but there are too many. Ichigo is about to get crushed by an elephant that is either insanely slow or they purposefully slowed the footage for dramatic effect, it’s hard to tell, and Pudding transforms to save her. She also encases all the animals in the gelatin thing she makes. Really helpful of them to group up so tightly for her to target. Then Ichigo blasts them all, and that’s that. Pudding’s a Mew Mew now.
Kinda disappointing, to be honest. I guess it’s safe to assume that her backstory and whatnot will be explored more later, but, still, it’s her debut episode. Why was she shoved into the sidelines like this?
That being said, oh my god, Pudding’s so adorable in this, guys. I love her new hairstyle. I love her tiny pigtails. I love her denim suspender shorts. Her transformation – GUYS – she has like one of the cutest magical girl transformations I’ve ever seen. It’s so perfect for Pudding. I love the way her hair changes to make her braids look a little like monkey tails. I like her shoes and her socks (although….would those not be more suited for Mint? They’re basically ballet slippers.) I like her gloves, even if they are missing the faux fur.
……Okay, so someone commented somewhere (sorry, I forget where) that they didn’t care for Pudding’s new outfit, and one of the main points of contention was the fact that they changed her from a pair of shorts, or I guess it was more of a romper kinda thing (I’m sorry, I don’t know fashion), to a dress.
……and yeah, I totally agree. A dress just doesn’t fit Pudding. She jumps all over the place. She’s literally the monkey of the group. A romper type deal or something with shorts is way more preferable for both agility and avoiding showing off her underwear to everyone she sees whenever she’s hopping around in the air like Tarzan.
I also don’t really like how wide the waist is. For her age, it just looks wrong. Also, the bottom of it being that wide just makes it more awkward to wear when she’s jumping around. It will easily catch the air and flip up.
Do I prefer the original design over her new one?….In this case, yes. Her original outfit made much more sense and suited her personality more than this one does. Even the shoes/socks are better since the way the socks bunched up around the strings gave off a little bit of a circus vibe. And I really do miss her faux fur gloves, even if her new gloves are pretty cool in their own right…..are they even gloves? They’re more like wrist bands that go up over the back of her hand without wrapping around any part of her hand.
One last note about Pudding before we move on…..what the hell was that last joke about? She offered Ichigo a special medicine from her family that she suggests slipping to Aoyama without his knowing……..Is this….a date rape joke? Please tell me I’m misinterpreting. I honestly can’t imagine any innocent intention behind this suggestion. Even if it’s an aphrodisiac or something it’s still very wrong to suggest slipping to him without his consent.
Back to Ichigo and Aoyama’s date, this was very sweet. I did enjoy it quite a bit for what it was worth. They were both nervous, he was being quiet because he was nervous, neither could express how nervous they were until they were forced to address it in a more comfortable setting. It was very nice and it reflected how they’re both becoming more comfortable around each other while also realizing that that level of comfort is actually scary to a degree – a good scary. And it somehow managed to make the scene in which he gives her a bell choker not as creepy as it originally was in either the anime or the manga.
They saw a little black cat in some cat…petting…room….that they have at a zoo? It was wounded, so they wrapped up its paw in a little bandage. I dunno why they didn’t contact anyone who worked at the zoo about it, but that was nice anyway. The cat had a bell on it tied with a red ribbon. Later, when the Chimera Animals attacked, the cat came back to save Aoyama, who had been separated from Ichigo before the attack, from a Chimera Parrot. In the process, the bell fell off, and then the cat ran off.
After being shaken so badly at losing Ichigo again, and realizing she lost her own choker in the battle, he ties the bell around her neck saying that he needs the bell to ensure he never loses track of her. He then calls her his kitty, which is weird, but then he says that was a corny thing to say so I guess it’s not that bad.
I mean, it’s kinda weird to give her a literal cat bell that was on an actual cat as a necklace, but it’s a sweet gesture.
What I’m wondering is, is there something with this cat? Why did it save Aoyama? It was a bird Chimera Animal, so maybe it was just instinct, but that’s still a really weird coincidence. Also, the cat is watching them as they walk away after this interaction. I’m pretty sure this cat isn’t Shirogane because his cat form is in the ending credits and his colors don’t match this cat. Is it just a weird cat? Hm.
Anyway, I liked this episode, truly I did, but I just wish the date and Quiche had been in an episode separate from Pudding’s debut. She kinda got shafted here. Just a bit. Hope we see look more into her character soon.
Next time, Zakuro’s debut!
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Lettuce’s debut! Or should I say De-Mew–Nonono! Must stop! *ahem* Anyhoo, Lettuce is here! How did they cover everyone’s favorite finless porpoise? Let’s check my notes.
– So apparently all legendary creatures are actually Chimera Animas?…..Mmm….Okay.
– Also, the reason they chose endangered species for the Mew Project was because those animals are naturally more motivated for fight for their survival? I guess that’s cool, but doesn’t really make much sense. How do animals know they’re endangered?
– She can change back from her Mew form by just saying “Change back”? I wonder if that will work on her full cat form. Probably not. That is a slightly interesting inclusion, though.
– Wow, Shirogane. It’s rude as hell to call her a bioweapon…
– I like that Mint snickers when Ichigo spills the parfait on one of the bitchy girls. I think I’m liking their dynamic a tiny bit more in this version, even if the differences between versions aren’t that stark. Mint is still a bossy stuck up girl, but she’s a little less abrasive and meshes with Ichigo just a tiny bit better here.
– While it is really cool that Lettuce gets powers over water when she’s really upset, why doesn’t she get all mermaid-y like Ichigo gets cat traits, ears and a tail? It’s weird that once again the series explains that Ichigo has cat traits because of her powers but they never adequately explain why the other girls don’t have traits of their animals. At least, not yet, I guess. Kinda doubt they will go down that route, but I feel I can have some hope.
– OOOOHHHH Mint’s new transformation is awesome! I like how they had the door shift to being on bottom so they could show the birds flying up out of it instead of just out of the door.
Not crazy about her pose, though, because she seems like she’s turned too much. She’s not facing the same direction as the bird, and she’s not facing us. I get that she’s meant to be facing up towards the sky, but I still feel like maybe turning her a little would feel more natural. Maybe that’s just me. I love the added touch of the sunbeams, though.
– Disappointed that we didn’t get to see Lettuce’s true transformation today nor her proper attack animation, but that’s fine. I’m sure we’ll see it in the future…….Does give me bad flashbacks to 4Kids’ basically all but removing her transformation entirely, though.
– As for her new look when transformed, I like it. I particularly like how they styled her hair. Not crazy about the skirt, but that’s about it.
– I like the minor tweaks they did to Lettuce’s breakdown here. It’s not her taking advantage of her powers to lash out. She’s losing control of her powers and basically herself because she’s having a massive breakdown over her internal struggles with making friends. I also like that they included brief glimpses of Lettuce throughout her life showing that, no matter what she did or how much she tried to make friends she’d always end up alone.
I always kinda disliked the original version (whether sub or dub anime version or manga – though the dub was the worst offender) because it’s like they were shaming her for how she was feeling when it was totally validated. Here, Ichigo’s not only making the effort to ensure that Lettuce knows she legitimately wants to be her friend because she’s nice and cares about others, but she’s also saying that learning to love herself is more important than pleasing others, and that friendship is more than just spending time with people.
They actually managed to pull off a very emotional scene here where it always frustrated me in the original versions. It really struck a chord with me, personally. I actually kinda felt like tearing up. I am quite impressed, TMMN.
And they showed her rejecting the bitchy friends! AND doing her best to be more legitimately sociable! AND the customers cheering her on!
This is pretty much everything I ever wanted from Lettuce’s reveal. Bravo!
In the end, this is definitely the best version of Lettuce’s debut, and the episode as a whole was very enjoyable. I like they ended with her not only getting some legitimate friends but also showing that she’s becoming a bit more confident, even if she clearly has more work to do. I hope we see some cool things from Lettuce in the future. She was always one of my favorite characters.
Next episode is Pudding’s debut. Will TMMN continue to impress me? I certainly hope so.
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Oh should I say re-MEW?! Ahahahahahahaha! Ahaha…Hah…..*cough*
Well, the Tokyo Mew Mew reboot came out recently. I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t notice because it’s basically been silent on all fronts since it came out. That actually kinda concerned me. I mean, I guess no news is good news…..or good MEWS! Ahahahaha….hah….That 4Kids retrospective kinda broke me. I apologize.
But outside a few mentions here and there, I haven’t heard anyone actually discussing it. It’s like the Shaman King reboot. I barely heard a word about that once it was finally out even though people waited for it forever.
I, personally, was interested in what direction they would go with it. Would they rely more on the anime version, try to be more loyal to the manga or would they just do their own thing? Or even some melding of all three?
Well, after watching the first episode, I can tell you that it definitely seems like it’s trying to be more its own thing than anything while also trying to be more loyal to the manga than the original anime did. If it takes anything from the anime, it’s that it tries a lot harder to give the others girls spotlight, which I am very, very thankful for. So far, they’re actually getting more focus than they even got in the original anime, which is very nice.
I’m not going to be doing another AniManga Clash on this series for the reboot, but I will try to bring up the differences as much as memory allows.
As in the manga, all of the Mews are in the endangered species exhibit on the day that their powers are given to them. Ichigo is there with Aoyama on a date, and Shirogane and Akasaka choose this as their moment to shoot off their……Pbbbt Mew Mew beam or whatever that is. In the hubbub, Ichigo and Aoayama accidentally have their first kiss (which is unlike the original anime where it was changed to Quiche stealing her first kiss). After that, Ichigo wakes up to Aoyama checking up on her when a Chimera Anima attacks. I know I’ve called them Chimera AnimaLs in the past, but that was a habit born from the subs I was reading. I will refer to them as Chimera Animas from now on.
Aoyama is knocked unconscious, Shirogane saves Ichigo from the Chimera Anima and tells her about her transformation powers, telling her to transform into Mew Ichigo to defeat the Chimera Anima. She manages to do so and that’s pretty much it.
There are some key differences between the reboot and the manga and original anime, however.
Ichigo seemingly doesn’t know Aoyama at all during the start of this show. Their story is still roughly kept the same, but Ichigo seemingly knew Aoyama for a while and had a crush on him for some time at the start of both the manga and the original anime. They weren’t super close or anything, but she clearly had spoken to him a few times and had a crush on him, and she was confident enough in her standing with him to ask him out right at the start.
I’m not sure how much I care about this change. I think it kinda made their development go by a little too fast in this version. She goes from not knowing who he is to being intense about wanting to get to know him, leading her and her friends to basically covertly gather intel to asking him on a date in only a few minutes. Not saying it’s unrealistic because these are teenagers we’re dealing with, but I preferred the pacing that the original manga and anime went through is all.
However, to kinda balance that out, I did greatly appreciate that Ichigo was honest with Aoyama about the circumstances involving their date. Usually in situations like this, the protagonist would just lie and pretend that they’re interested in the stuff their crush is interested in just because they want to get all up in that goodness, especially when asked about the topic as Aoyama does to Ichigo here. However, Ichigo was actually honest with Aoyama when he asked how long she had been interested in conservation and told him that she just got the tickets to the exhibit and thought it would be interesting to go with him. She even got really into the subject matter when Aoyama started explaining everything to her.
I do think it was kinda silly for a teenage girl to not know what “endangered” means. “Red data animal” I get because that’s not a common phrase, but most people know what “endangered” means.
Anyway, while it was the slightest bit preachy, I did like how much Ichigo got into it. Plus, this series just tends to be a tiny bit preachy by default, so it’s alright.
The second biggest change to the series kinda shocked me. Mint, for some reason and somehow, already has her powers and is teamed up with Shirogane and Akasaka before Ichigo even goes to the endangered animal exhibit. She also goes to her school and helped arrange Ichigo to be at the exhibit supposedly to set up her being imbued with the powers.
This confused me so much, and I still don’t know if I like it. In the manga and the original anime, Ichigo being given powers was like a matter of circumstance. She just happened to be the one who had a good match with an iriomote wild cat out of everyone who was there. She wasn’t a literal chosen one. However, here, it seems very much intentional. Mint even grabbed her and threw her into some other location somehow that didn’t seem like it was in the same area as the exhibit so she could test out her new powers.
On one hand, I kinda like the Mint change….at least I think I like it. I know so little about what’s actually going on there that it’s really hard for me to formulate any actual opinion on it. It does get at least one of the girls a little more invested in the overall story, and Mint got to help in the big battle sequence. Plus it doesn’t seem that Mint is nearly as abrasive as she usually is, so that’s good. I’m just wondering how this change impacts both her and the story as we move forward.
I’m also kinda confused because I sincerely doubt the other Mews got the same test-drive kind of experience, so are they getting kicked to the side again? Like “Oh we had to ensure Ichigo got to activate her powers first, because she’s the leader.” Does this mean they know who the other Mews are right now or was Ichigo the only ‘chosen one’? How did Mint wind up with Shirogane and Akasaka? Why is she with them?
I know all these questions will be answered in the future, but it really threw me for a loop. I’d think if anyone made sense to be in with Shirogane and Akasaka from the start, it’d be Zakuro given the way her character was introduced in the past, but I guess I’ll reserve judgment on how I feel about this until I know a bit more about it.
A slight change that they made was giving Moe and Miwa stuff to do and personalities beyond just being Ichigo’s friends. One of them wants to be a journalist, and the other wants to be a counselor. Very minor, but I take what I can get. I also appreciate that they helped Ichigo learn more about Aoyama so she could have a chance with him. They seem like pretty good friends.
I like the new art and animation. I think everyone’s characters designs are pretty nice. I also like how the Mews have more different hair styles when they’re transformed. Before, they just kinda looked the same barring brighter colors, but now they get slightly different styles as well. I particularly like that Mint’s hair is being kept down in her normal state and only has the buns in her transformed state while also making her hair a little longer and wavier when transformed. I also like Mint’s dress. It finally doesn’t give off “towel” vibes. That little fringe at the bottom does so much. I also like the bows, I think those are cute.
I liked the new transformation for Ichigo. I love that the cat appears behind her when she poses. While I did think it looked really cool, I don’t think it was a good idea to have her body appear with a galaxy/starry sky pattern on her as she transforms because it comes off way too much like Sailor Moon. It also doesn’t make much sense. What do their powers have to do with space? I also liked the new animation for her attack. I thought that was cool.
The little sequence they tagged on at the end with her in the truck was funny. It was also amazing how well they captured Café Mew Mew. It looks dead on to how it is in the manga and original anime, at least on the outside. I was very impressed.
The music is pretty good. I like it. Not sure I’m fully onboard with the ED quite yet, but it’s alright.
The voice acting was also pretty good. We did lose Megumi Ogata as Aoyama, but I think his new VA, Yuuma Uchida, does a pretty good job. Despite not appearing in this episode, I also learned Daisuke Sakaguchi wasn’t back to voice Quiche (and yes, I’m switching to calling them Quiche, Tart and Pie as well) which sucks. He was so much fun in the role, but hopefully his new VA will be good. I think everyone got a voice change, but don’t quote me on that.
Not sure if it will ever see a dub. That’d be surreal, quite frankly. I’d love to see a new English dubbing studio take on TMM, but after going through all of the 4Kids dub, it’d be a very strange experience. Welcome, but strange.
So…yeah…I was pleasantly surprised by this. It’s actually getting my hopes up a bit. It seems like it might be answering quite of a few of the criticisms I had about the original manga and anime. But I am treading lightly. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I look forward to more, and I hope this is the start of something really great for the franchise. See you in episode two!
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Or should I say, episode MEW?! Ahahahahah!….Hahah…ha…Is there some 4Kids detox I can do?
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On January 22, 2005, 4Kids announced that they would be rebranding the Fox Box as 4Kids TV and would be greatly increasing their marketing efforts through TV, the internet, print sources, tie-ins and more to help 4Kids grow.
Time for another round of new 4Kids content – this time releasing their new animated series based on the new GI Joe toy line, GI Joe: Sigma 6, and dubbing two new shows, Ojamajo Doremi, which would be renamed Magical DoReMi, and Tokyo Mew Mew, which would be changed to Mew Mew Power.
Mew Mew Power got off to a weird and rough start, and it was one of the first real indications that Al Kahn’s views on the company’s content was….a bit odd. It was first licensed in February 2, 2004, and was obviously another effort to help draw in a female audience. When discussing the dub with Animation World Network, he said the more female-oriented shows in Winx Club and Tokyo Mew Mew weren’t purely directed at girls, but were more to attract both genders by “empowering girls while giving boys cute babes and plenty of action to look at.” which is definitely one of the creepiest things I’ve ever heard him say, especially considering he’s talking about children. It’s also backwards. Like, yeah, talk about how the girls will be empowered while you also objectify the girls in the shows as being eye candy for the boys in the audience.
What I find most interesting about this interview is that they talk about the possibility of dubbing more mature shows. While the article mentions Shaman King, this was before One Piece had been announced. He said,
“It’s interesting, network TV is always complaining about the loss of their 18 to 35-year-old males. It was a big story a couple of months ago with the Nielsens; all the networks were very hard pressed. If you look at the anime ratings, even the stuff on Saturday morning, you will find that primetime ratings don’t do any better than us, even with our much smaller base. All of which suggests that much older boys will watch anime. I believe anime products that are much more aggressive and sensual are going to become more available in the appropriate timeslots. Certainly we, as a company, are looking at how we can expand our programming opportunities in order to do different things at different times.”
Add “Sensual” to the list of words I never ever want to hear Al Kahn say ever again.
Maybe I’m tin-foil-hatting right now, but this kinda leads me to believe that them acquiring One Piece was less of an accident or oversight. Some sources did suggest that Al Kahn actually did know what he was getting into with One Piece, some people in the company warned him, but he didn’t care…..Purely conjecture on my end, probably a reach, but still, it’s interesting to consider.
Al Kahn also said some things that anime fans probably weren’t too happy with. When discussing importing anime, he talked about how he downplays the fact that they’re imports at all.
“I think the term ‘anime’ is misleading; I think kids don’t know from whence we cometh. By the time we localize the programs, kids don’t even know they’re from Japan any more. We as adults tend to label this stuff, but kids don’t really know it.”
So, apparently, despite the fact that 4Kids was a big part of the anime boom back in the day, and they kept encouraging fans to appreciate what they did in making anime more widely available in the west, they didn’t want kids to know what they were watching was anime?
Indeed, as Tokyo Mew Mew’s original dub title was to be Hollywood Mew Mew. It was later changed to The Mew Mews sometime between February and August, and it was finally changed permanently to Mew Mew Power in August of 2004.
The airing of the show was odd as well. 4Kids released episode 12 as a preview for the show on February 19, 2005. The episode was smack dab in the middle of the mid-season finale and included a shocking plot twist in Aoyama, Ichigo’s love interest, meeting her in Mew form, causing her to panic as she believed this outed her secret identity to him. 4Kids changed this, including changing Aoyama’s, now named Mark, expression from a frown to a smile, and instead of him not really saying much to Ichigo, now named Zoey, they had him accept her and tell her it’s okay to be different. And instead of Ichigo reacting in shock and dismay before running away, Zoey happily responds.
Unlike with the way Battle Aboard the St. Anne was launched as a preview episode before the start of Pokemon, this preview didn’t drum up tension for what was to come. In fact, it did the polar opposite. This basically spoiled the entire plotline about Zoey trying to keep her identity a secret from Mark out of fear that he’d reject her, even though the series would never revisit this again and act as if nothing happened. It would have been much more tense and interesting if they had left it alone because it was a legitimate cliffhanger. They could have had the girls in the audience wonder how badly Mark is actually taking this revelation and how this will affect their relationship, instead of just brushing it off and having him immediately accept her without question.
The next episode preview also called the show The Mew Mews, meaning they didn’t correct the mention of the title in the preview despite it already being changed everywhere else to Mew Mew Power.
As my only fully complete Sub/Dub Comparison, I stand by my assertion that Mew Mew Power is one of 4Kids most mutilated titles. They really went all out with trying to make the show as unrecognizable from the original as possible. In addition to all of the normal edits and localization efforts, they also made everyone very unpleasant, cut out large parts of episodes and swapped scenes for no real reason. They changed storylines a lot, the dialogue was awful, the catchphrase in particular gives me ulcers to this day, and it’s just a very unpleasant experience for the most part with only some songs on the soundtrack being any solace.
The show ended with only 23 episodes being aired on 4Kids TV, and the final three episodes of the first season being aired on Canada’s YTV. The series ended in a cliffhanger, which was driven home further by 4Kids when they overlaid a foreboding shot of Deep Blue over the final scene to end the last episode on, and wrote “To be continued…” on the bottom of the screen.
Why Mew Mew Power ended before it ran the full 52 episodes is unclear.
One theory is that 4Kids’ only licensed the first season and were unable to acquire the second because the original creators of the anime, Studio Pierrot, Tokyu Agency, We’ve Inc., and TV Aichi, didn’t like what they were doing with it, so they refused to allow them to license the second season.
An admin on 4Kids’ forums said,
“Sorry everyone – I’ve seen the 4Kids TV schedule – from now thru April and there is no Mew Mew Power on.
I’ve checked with the television scheduler and 4Kids does not HAVE any more Mew Mew Power episodes – they’re working on trying to get more, but can’t say when or IF this will happen.”
The wording is confusing. Because you can either take this as 4Kids not having anymore episodes and they’re trying to get more, or the television scheduler didn’t have anymore episodes to list and they were working on getting more to fill out the schedule, or 4Kids didn’t have anymore episodes dubbed and they assumed they were working on getting more episodes dubbed.
I can’t imagine 4Kids only got the rights to season one and they planned so poorly that they aired all the way to the end and were like “Oh shit! I forgot! We have to get the rights to season two!” That doesn’t make much sense to me. It also doesn’t make much sense that they’d pull the show three episodes from the end of the season if they were intent on getting the second season. In everyofficialannouncement I’ve read on them acquiring the licensing rights, nothing ever mentioned they were only for season one.
In 4Kids’ documents, it said they had the rights to Tokyo Mew Mewuntil 2010 and doesn’t say it was just for one season. Why would they only get the licensing rights to one season if they were keeping it for six years? Why would Studio Pierrot, Tokyu Agency, We’ve Inc., and TV Aichi give the rights to season one for six years but not season two at all?
Also, that’s typically not how licensing works. You either get the license to the anime or you don’t. They typically don’t separate the license by seasons unless the show is currently airing and is in the middle of a season or something, and Tokyo Mew Mew had long since been over since January 26, 2003.
Either way, I don’t believe this was a case of them revoking the rights because they didn’t like what 4Kids was doing. Partially because it doesn’t add up very well, and partially because I believe the other theory a little more.
The theory in question posits that 4Kids wasn’t getting much revenue from Mew Mew Power since they couldn’t secure a toy or merchandising deal with anyone. I don’t know where the merchandising thing came from. I see a few people saying it, like TV Tropes and even the Wiki, but nothing actually confirming it. The forum thread which contained the initial announcement has 17 pages of comments, but the 4Kids forums are long since dead, and the Wayback Machine can’t access anything beyond the first page.
My one hangup with this theory is – how could they easily get merchandising deals for literally every other property, but not Mew Mew Power? Especially considering that 4Kids has decades of experience with tons of merchandising companies. Japan was able to release merchandise – dolls, CDs, art books, posters, DVDs, toys – they even had all of the transformation items as life-size toys. And isn’t one of the things they say they always do when acquiring licenses is determine if it’s profitable from a merchandising aspect? I can’t imagine no merchandising company would want to take this show, especially since they’ve managed to get toy deals for even their most obscure shows. It’s just very strange.
There IS no Mew Mew Power merchandise in America (there are some DVD releases in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and France, but that’s about it) and revenue for the show was poor, according to 4Kids’ financial reports, so it’s quite possible this theory is correct, but I just can’t see why they would have such trouble with it, especially considering that Mew Mew Power wound up being their highest-rated show on 4Kids TV at the time.
2005 would also be the year 4Kids released Ojamajo Doremi, retitled Magical DoReMi. This had been in the works for years. They started discussing the licensing deal with Toei in October 2003, but they wouldn’t solidify the contract until 2004 and the show wouldn’t air until late 2005. DoReMi was another effort to hook in a female audience to 4Kids TV. Unlike Mew Mew Power, however, they intended to have the audience be even younger by having a lighter tone.
4Kids teamed up with Bandai to launch a huge line of merchandise for the show comparative to Winx Club. There were dolls, figurines, toys and even costumes. I’m surprised they managed to get such a massive merchandise deal for DoReMi but not Mew Mew Power. They’re both team-based magical girl shows. The only difference is one is based on witches (which you’d think would make deals more difficult because parents’ groups would probably get pissy) and one is based on animals. I’d actually think Mew Mew Power would be more popular toy-wise considering the cute animal vs. witch thing, but what do I know?
DoReMi was obviously given the same 4Kids editing treatment as any other show, but many people assert that the dub was one of their better efforts. Not great, but it could’ve been worse.
4Kids aired episode four on 4Kids TV on August 13, 2005 as a preview with regular broadcasting from episode one starting on September 10, 2005.
4Kids aired 26 episodes on 4Kids TV and then moved the rest of the series, barring one episode they never dubbed (Due to the on-screen death of a child, religious references, a shot of a dead character, and the frightening atmosphere of a cemetery at night being the backdrop for most of the episode.) to stream on 4Kidstv.com. 4Kids opted not to acquire the license for the second series, Magical Doremi Sharp, reportedly due to poor performance. Despite this decision, they had definitely planned to keep dubbing the series beforehand as evident by their unreleased merchandise for the second series which had been previewed at a toy fair, but I guess it didn’t pan out.
The reasons for the poor ratings were attributed to the show being aired at 7:30AM, which was way too early for many kids even for Saturday morning cartoons, the fact that it was aimed at an even younger audience than usual, and the sad facts that both Saturday morning cartoon blocks were dying and magical girl shows just weren’t entirely popular in America. I mean, I mentioned how Winx Club and Mew Mew Power were doing well, and of course there was Sailor Moon and Cardcaptors, but they really weren’t massive media franchises in anywhere near the same realm as Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh!
The fact that 4Kids chose to stream what episodes they had left on their website instead of 4Kids TV kinda drives that point home. Yeah, at this point, we had some modicum of streaming. Kids no longer had to wake up early on Saturday mornings to watch their cartoons. They could either watch VHSs or DVDs or watch shows online. It wasn’t nearly all that good back then considering the video quality was typically bad, there wasn’t a huge selection, and internet connections, usually dial-up, sucked for watching videos, but it was an option.
Airing the show on TV and also airing the show online was always a great idea, but moving the entire show to streaming was basically a death sentence back then. It’s kinda like how when Disney Channel or Nickelodeon wants to silently kill a show they typically move it to Disney XD/NickToons.
Magical DoReMi would be aired one last time on The CW4Kids in 2010 in an effort to get some more mileage out of the show right before their license would be up. It’s really, really depressing that 4Kids had two brand new shows for girls premiering this year and both wound up being canceled within the year.
But enough of the girly stuff. It’s MAN TIME.
Since the girls got new shows, 4Kids had to bring in new blood for the boys. In order to tie-in with the new generation of GI Joe toys being launched by Hasbro, 4Kids created GI Joe: Sigma Six, which shared the name of the new toy line. While the production of the series was handled by 4Kids, famous anime studio, Gonzo, handled the animation.
I watched some of the series recently, and, honestly, it was okay. Not great, but pretty okay. Perfectly watchable, kinda fun, and I say this as someone who loved the classic GI Joe show in her childhood and still enjoys the franchise to this day.
But the toyline bombed, and they returned to the classic version two years later. The show didn’t do any better. 4Kids produced 26 episodes of the show, but stopped airing the episodes on 4Kids TV sometime around or after season one (13 episodes). YTV, however, completed airing the entire run of the series.
The fact that all three of these series bombed rather quickly was bad enough, but 2005 would hold one of the biggest blows the company would ever take. One that they never really recovered from.
Plot: Deep Blue has arrived, and it’s time for the final climactic showdown!
——————————————–
– I mentioned in my review of the anime that it bothered me a little that Ichigo was so shook by the revelation that Aoyama was Deep Blue that her friends got hurt trying to protect her from her own perilous behavior. However, I also gave some leeway due to the fact that she was rightfully and lovingly chewed out by the other Mews after this occurred. They had been fighting in her stead to give her time to process and grieve, but when the situation got too dire, it was time to slap some sense into her and get her back in the game.
The manga…..WHOO BOY. I got a bone to pick with you, manga. A big bone. Dinosaur sized.
Sssooooo….in the manga….Ichigo is still too shook by the Deep Blue/Aoyama revelation that she’s in a daze just watching the girls try to fight Deep Blue….In her daze….she picks up her bell….and ATTACKS THEM TO DEFEND DEEP BLUE.
What….the hell?
She did immediately regret what she did, but she still consciously did it. No mind control, no nothing – she willingly attacked her friends. There’s a world of difference between being unable to accept reality to the point where you can’t defend yourself properly against a threat, which puts others in danger as they try to protect you, and consciously making the decision to attack your friends. I really thought she would just jump between the Mews and Deep Blue and she’d get hurt, which would be incredibly reckless but so much more understandable than attacking her friends.
That was the first time I’ve ever been really shocked while following this series. Sure the Aoyama/BK/Deep Blue revelation was surprising when I first watched the series, but Ichigo attacking her friends….wow….I just lost untold amounts of respect for her. I really don’t care about the circumstances. There’s no excusing that, if you ask me.
– Mint still chews out Ichigo, but the speech is much shorter and no one tries to bring her spirits up afterward – they just say they’ll die if they don’t fight.
– Likewise, even after all of that, manga!Ichigo seems to have much less faith in Aoyama than anime!Ichigo did because, in the manga, when she’s having her first clash with Deep Blue, she’s acting like it’s hopeless and Aoyama might have been lying to her this whole time. In the anime, she was either adamant he was still the same person or hopeful that she could get him to come back to her. Even when she was faltering, she still never gave up on Aoyama. For a girl who just tried to kill her friends for this dude, her faith is sure flighty.
– Alto/Ryou still comes in to save Ichigo, but whereas in the anime where he stopped the attack and pointlessly scratched Deep Blue’s face, here he takes the brunt of Deep Blue’s attack and badly wounds his arm as a result. There’s actually quite a bit of blood for this series.
– In the anime, Pai was really the only one who had such strong faith in Deep Blue that he realized the destruction he was about to bring and accepted it with open arms. Kisshu was silent about it for a long time, though clearly torn and upset. Meanwhile, Taruto was visibly upset and turned on them immediately, wanting the fighting to end. He also quickly went to Pudding’s aid after she was de-transformed from Deep Blue’s attack.
In the manga, all of them are tickled pink that Deep Blue’s going to destroy the world. They’re also taking great pleasure in the knowledge that the Mews will all die soon. Kisshu even quickly jumps at the chance to ask Deep Blue if he can be the one to end Ichigo.
– As if there wasn’t enough Ichigo favoritism around, there’s this ridiculousness. When Deep Blue’s base appears, Ichigo and the other girls need to reach it. Since the girls can’t seem to confusingly fly on their own in this manga like they can in the anime (sometimes?), Ichigo asks them to lend her their power, which combines in her bell….
….and allows her to grow butterfly/angel wings???????????????????
And then she engulfs the other Mews in light that allows them to fly with her???????? And she just knows how to do this even though this is the first time she’s ever shown to have this ability????
I cannot compute…..What is this? It doesn’t make a lick of sense that Ichigo would have this kind of ability, even with the other Mews helping. This is the kind of thing I’d expect a Mew Aqua’d MINT to be able to do – with her, ya know, being a bird and all – but nope. Ichigo, the CAT of the group can suddenly sprout angel/butterfly wings and not only fly but extend a public transport service to the other Mews.
– And just so we’re keeping score with the favoritism, the same old ‘Ichigo’s the only one who can save the world’ spiel is alive and well in the manga.
– In another grand example of the poor pacing the manga tends to have, the battle between Pai, Taruto and the Mews is literally over in less than two pages. They launch one attack at their Chimera Animal and then…that’s it. They’re defeated. Battle of the century.
In the anime, while the girls couldn’t do much against it, at least the battle between the Chimera Animal and Pai was somewhat entertaining and lasted quite a while. They were suffering from hits, they were landing hits, they were clashing and struggling – it was decent enough. This was a flash in the pan not-battle.
And the sweet moments from the aliens? Basically gone. Pai just says with a smile that it seems like the humans were stronger than them afterall, and Taruto tells Pudding that he never hated her, which makes Pudding cry out his name. Both moments are contained on one page.
In the anime, Taruto and Pudding got two very sweet and tender moments after he turned heel. He helped prop her up when she was de-transformed, and Pudding’s speech as she cradled his dead body after being killed by Pai was really heartbreaking. And while Pai’s ‘emotional’ sacrifice was rushed and somewhat nonsensical, it was at least cool.
In the manga, it’s just kinda sad and really out of left field considering they were all still having tons of fun trying to kill the Mews and destroy the earth. Taruto stuttered once before the battle started, when he was talking to Pudding for a second, but that’s about it.
The next page has the girls all toppling over, near dead from exhaustion. I nearly laughed out loud. They didn’t even get hit by Pai and Taruto’s Chimera Animal or anything – they’re just really tired.
Granted, it’s hard as hell to keep up with the timeline in this manga sometimes, especially when it comes to the other Mews because the focus is so squarely on Ichigo most of the time, so maybe they have more of a reason to be so exhausted than I’m aware of. Hm. Maybe they got blasted in the face with Mew Mew power by some traitor or something. Hm.
– In another weird heel-turn, despite itching to kill Ichigo earlier, Kisshu is now defending Ichigo and challenging Deep Blue to a duel to protect her. I was going to mention how he’s a bit nicer here in that he doesn’t imply that the world and everything in it can be destroyed as long as Ichigo’s okay, but he kinda lost those points where he started snuggling up on her boobs after he got mortally wounded….
There are some good things to note here, though. Kisshu seems to have accepted that Ichigo doesn’t love him, even if he’s trying so hard to get her to do so. He doesn’t care, though. He still loves her anyway and will do whatever it takes to protect her. He also manages to sneak a cheek kiss and tells her he loves her twice before passing away.
Then Aoyama just kinda appears. There’s no sudden revelation that Ichigo looks exactly as she did in his nightmares (even if she was in completely different clothes in that nightmare), no dealing with an internal struggle, just Kisshu dies and then boop Aoyama pops up.
– In the anime, Aoyama doesn’t really pay any mind to the fact that he just murdered Kisshu in cold blood – besides that Ichigo was upset about it. In the manga, he touches Kisshu’s face and acknowledges that he did this horrible thing, which I appreciated.
– In the anime, the Mew Aqua within Aoyama gets revealed when Ichigo triggers it with her emotions. In the manga, the Mew Aqua is revealed by Aoyama crying and one of his tears turning into a plant, which I thought was cool and should have been added to the anime version.
– Aoyama bubbles up Ichigo to protect her from Deep Blue, which actually panics her because Deep Blue tries to unleash a massive Mew Aqua explosion over Tokyo, which would kill all of her friends, but leave her alive.
– Aoyama’s sacrifice was similar, but in the manga he impales himself on his sword, whereas in the anime this was changed to having Ichigo attack him. I actually like the anime version quite a bit better. It showed that Ichigo was willing to do something so terrible and painful for both of them because it was what Aoyama wanted. In the manga, she’s very passive and just kinda has to let it happen.
– Anyway, Ichigo’s naked now. I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I don’t….know.
She’s about to transfer her life energy to Aoyama to resurrect him and she’s just suddenly naked.
Oh and she has her light wings back somehow, in a more angel-esque shape this time, there are even feathers flying around, somehow, even though they’re wings made of light. Cats sure have feathers.
– And now she has her clothes back on, again, inexplicably. Also, despite the fact that the others girls have all de-transformed, like in the anime, Ichigo is still in her Mew outfit, despite being ‘dead.’
– So I guess Aoyama is still magic even without Deep Blue or the Mew Aqua, because he bubbles them both up and floats them back down to the ground.
– This also means that the Mews and the aliens find out about Ichigo’s ‘passing’ on the ground, not in the base. It also means the base doesn’t just turn into a spaceship so the aliens make a quick getaway without a strong goodbye for them.
– Ichigo’s naked again, but I guess this time it makes sense because all of the Mews are naked when they transform – only makes sense to have them be naked on the de-transform.
Gotta love Kisshu’s face right as it’s happening though. Lol
– Speaking of giving the aliens their proper sendoff, Kisshu expresses that he’s fine with Aoyama and Ichigo being together, but is still clearly disappointed. Ichigo stops him before he leaves and tries to come up with the words to thank him for everything, even if it’s awkward for her. Kisshu kneels before her and tells her that the only thing he wishes is for her to be happy. In inner monologue, he also thanks her for giving him the chance to love her, even if it was hopeless.
He manages to sneak one last cheek kiss before running off.
Taruto and the others are about to head home when Pudding stops him. He says he doesn’t have a reason to stick around anymore and Pudding kisses him!
N’AW!
I remember seeing the pic of this a long time ago and was so happy. They’re so adorable.
Granted the kiss is an excuse to give him a candy drop, which just makes it…..SWEETER.
She pleads with him to not say goodbye, but Taruto says he might return sometime for another candy drop…OoooOOOOooooohhhh Taruto’s such a charmer.
– Instead of the aliens finding a bit of Mew Aqua left behind from Aoyama/Deep Blue, Shirogane just gives his last bit of it to them in the manga.
I’m not….sure I really like this version of events. Shirogane doesn’t have much of a reason to trust them. The only one who turned heel in the manga was Kisshu. The others were just defeated by the other Mews. But hey, take the last bit of this superpowerful material we’ve been spending seven volumes specifically trying to keep away from you lot.
Also, the whole ‘this itty bitty amount of Mew Aqua is enough to rejuvenate our world into being as beautiful and lush as earth so we totally didn’t need to do 99% of all of this to help our people.’ plot hole is alive and well.
They also leave without a spaceship somehow? Can they teleport all that way?
– The anime ended with the cafe shutting down, the Mews spending weeks or months apart and somehow all ending up at the cafe like they were being called there. Shirogane and Akasaka explain that a new enemy has arrived and they need the Mews to take them down. Ichigo and others were rightfully confused, but Akasaka explained that their loss of powers was only temporary due to the Mew Aqua. Now that some time has passed and there’s a new threat, they have their powers back and are being called into action.
In the manga, the girls still work at Cafe Mew Mew, though some time has passed. Ichigo explains that Aoyama is now studying abroad in London to learn about red data animals, specifically the animals the Mews were based on since their abilities helped save the world.
Ichigo acts like she’s okay with this since she’s supporting someone she loves, but the other girls know she’s secretly very lonely and sad. They come up with the plan, Mew Project W, to cheer her up. They kidnap her and bring her to a church. They put her in a wedding dress (the W stood for wedding if you’re not catching on) and have invited Aoyama to have a fake wedding ceremony.
They ‘get married,’ but not before a strange new figure arrives at the cafe (I assume she’s Berry from the sequel?)
As Ichigo says ‘I do,’ her ears and tail suddenly sprout, indicating that her powers aren’t really gone and their story is not quite over.
The end!…For now!
—————————————-
So, who wins the final battle in the finale battle in the end finally?…..Uhmmmmm….
This is actually kinda difficult. I think, out of all of the volumes, this one both has the most drastic differences from the manga version but also has the most discrepancy in whether the changes were good or not. For example, I really hate that the manga has Ichigo attacking her friends while she’s in shock. I thought that was going way too far and really tainted my view of Ichigo. The Mews get shafted enough in nearly every way possible without her basically acting like they’re the bad guys and blasting them in the face with her bell.
The Mews’ pep talk to her after the fact was also better in the anime.
However, I love the absolute ending the aliens got in the manga more than the anime, especially the really sweet moments between Kisshu and Ichigo and Taruto and Pudding, even if they were less earned.
I didn’t like that the aliens stayed firm on Deep Blue’s side, barring Kisshu, until the very end because it kinda ruins their redemption if they don’t….ya know…have redemption arcs. Or even just a redeeming scene. I complained that Pai’s heel turn was just too sudden and didn’t make a lot of sense in the anime, but at least it was something and at least it was pretty cool to watch.
Taruto’s turn in the anime made total sense, and it was one of the more emotionally impacting moments of the series to have Pai kill him in order to carry out his orders. Pudding cradling Taruto’s body and her speech to him was also incredibly sweet.
Would you rather have those cool moments or two lines that take up all of one page? Pai basically compliments the Mews on how strong they are, and Taruto tells Pudding he never hated her. And that’s it. They’re redeemed.
The other Mews got even less to do in this finale. Their big battle was just one attack on some random Chimera Animal that instantly wins them the match and kills Pai and Taruto.
Another negative mark for the manga is that the Mews killed the aliens themselves instead of Pai killing Taruto, who was trying to help the Mews, or Deep Blue’s Mew Aqua beam killing Pai as he tried to sacrifice himself to save the Mews.
Granted, they didn’t technically get to do a lot in the anime finale battle either, and both side battles ended on disappointing notes, but it was still an actual battle that lasted longer than a sneeze and things happened in it.
I guess Ichigo using the girls’ powers to summon weird butterfly/angel wings of light can be interchanged with the anime using their powers to create an attack, but the anime also wins out here because the girls were completely exhausted, collapsed on the ground, when they did that in the anime – and they were doing it to create one final attack on Deep Blue, not to turn Ichigo into a flying Uber. In the manga, they were fine and this ability comes right the hell out of nowhere.
Ichigo, shockingly, didn’t even get a big moment other than her reviving Aoyama….while naked. She barely got a shot off the whole battle besides one clash with Deep Blue and that whole ‘attacking her friends’ fiasco. She gets bubbled by Aoyama and then he kills himself instead of having Ichigo attack him. Then it’s just over. Kisshu fought him properly, Aoyama fought him internally, the Mews fought him properly – the only one who didn’t really legitimately fight the main bad guy in the series was the main character.
Ichigo narrowly avoided suffering the same fate in the anime, but she did deliver the final blow to him.
The epilogue was much better in the manga, if you ask me. The anime’s absolute end made very little sense. The girls gather at the cafe for no reason. It’s suddenly right as a new enemy is attacking somehow. Their powers have suddenly returned right then, even if we physically saw Ichigo’s cat leave her (which doesn’t happen in the manga, by the way. She just de-transforms) and Shirogane and Akasaka have no guilt over throwing the girls back into Mew duty even when they promised they’d live a normal life afterwards. We don’t learn who or what this new threat is, especially considering the main and only threat they were created for was the aliens and Deep Blue. And we never will learn who it is because the anime never got a sequel.
In the manga, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for Aoyama to suddenly study abroad and leave Ichigo behind, but the wedding was really sweet. The little bit at the end where we catch a glimpse of Berry and we see that Ichigo’s cat powers are still present was enough of a cliffhanger to want to continue on to the sequel, Tokyo Mew Mew A La Mode. Being fair, Shirogane said their powers would disappear once they weren’t needed anymore, not that the Mew Aqua had any hand in it. So her gaining her ears and tail again is both a nice nod that she’s still a Mew while subtly indicating that a new threat might be around the corner.
Logically, if we tally things up here, the anime would probably win, but I’m struggling with handing over the point so easily. I had a lot of issues with the anime ending, culminating in the opinion that it was ultimately middle of the road. I think the same can be said of the manga’s ending. What they did so much better in the manga is balanced out by what they did so much worse.
It’s a close call, and if you pulled my arm I’d probably say the anime won here, but I’m going to just say it’s a tie.
Winner: TIE
And so, we’ve come to the end of this AniManga Clash! Only one thing left to do, and that’s crown an overall champion.
Overall AniManga Clash Champion!:Anime
I wish I could say I struggled with this decision more, but I really didn’t. While the manga does have a lot going for it, numerous things I wish the anime had kept, the anime just made, overall, better choices with the way the story unfolded.
If there was one thing I was really looking forward to in regards to the manga, it was getting to see the other Mews use the Mew Aqua Rod, considering they got no new powerups in the anime. However, that was a disappointment. I got a bit too excited when Mint got her shot with it because it was the first time – and it was a moment that was wrenched away to Ichigo in the anime. When Pudding’s time came, it was also a cool moment, but, again, I might have been more excited than I should have been, especially considering the anime actually did something arguably better with this moment, and it was for the sake of Taruto and/or PuddingxTaruto. However, after that point, you realize what is going on.
They literally all did the exact same thing with it. It was the same thing with each Mew. They sense the Mew Aqua, they find it and then they use Mew Aqua Drops to solve the problem. They could have had the Rod react differently to each Mew or something, but nope. It’s just copy/pasted on all four of them.
Ichigo technically remains the only Mew with actual powerups, of which she got even more in the manga than she did in the anime.
Like I mentioned before, filler also worked in the anime’s favor in regards to giving a better degree of characterization to the other Mews. While the focus typically did lie with Ichigo most of the time, the filler allowed us to have more episodes centered on the other Mews, like Mint and her brother, Zakuro and that lonely little girl, Lettuce and her one-sided crush on that guy who was about to propose to another woman, Pudding getting sick, prompting the girls to help take care of her little brothers and sisters, and several others.
In the manga, let’s be real, the other girls might as well have not been there at all. They’re glorified props with rare times where they have an actual purpose. The girls did get some small storylines here and there, but it felt more like an obligation than the author actually wanting to explore their characters.
That makes sense considering the series was originally designed to be about one girl, Tokyo Black Cat Girl, which was shown in a special bonus chapter of Tokyo Mew Mew, but then then the editors told Mia Ikumi, the artist and co-creator (alongside Reiko Yoshida) it would be more appealing to audiences if it was a team. I don’t think either of them had any resentment towards being forced to make this change, but it’s quite possible their hearts just weren’t fully in making a team series.
We don’t even get a lot regarding Ichigo’s relationships to the other Mews. They just hang out a lot because they work and fight evil together, so they must be important to each other. The other Mews are endlessly loyal to Ichigo, and we can tell she’s fond of them, but it pretty much ends there. It definitely comes to a screeching halt during the scene in which she attacks them to protect Aoyama/Deep Blue. In any other situation like this, the main character would be far too torn between her love of her friends and her love of her boyfriend to likely do anything outside of either yell at them to stop, commit self-sacrifice or do literally nothing.
I can’t help but imagine how the series would have gone had she actually seriously harmed them or killed them. And you can’t tell me these girls don’t have endless loyalty to Ichigo considering they didn’t even actually get mad at her for doing this. Like in the anime, they were moreso mad that she wasn’t seeing the situation for what it was, getting up and taking on the actual threat of Deep Blue. But unlike the manga, the anime just had Ichigo being so out of it that she nearly got herself killed as a result. I could never imagine the Ichigo I know from the anime ever, and I mean ever, attacking her friends like that, which is probably why it was rewritten in the first place.
I mentioned how lackluster Mint’s yelling of ‘Ichigo!’ was when she realized Ichigo was dead in the anime because her VA just didn’t seem like she was putting enough oomph into it. She does the same thing in the manga, but the reason I had a problem with it here, despite having no audio accompaniment, was because the dramatic collapse and yelling didn’t really feel warranted. In the anime, she and Ichigo had a relationship akin to Rei and Usagi from Sailor Moon. They seemed like they got along the least, but Rei was basically the closest Sailor Scout to Usagi.
Likewise, despite butting heads a lot, Mint is the closest Mew to Ichigo, so it makes perfect sense, in the anime, that she would be the one to collapse and yell out her name when Ichigo died. In the manga? Not so much. They have the same relationship in the manga as the anime, but there is much less exploration into it and moments between them to build the type of relationship necessary to warrant such an outburst.
It was so odd. And the art didn’t even actually focus on Mint, so I was confused as to who was even saying that line when it happened.
Even the aliens and Deep Blue are done better in the anime. The aliens have more time focused on them and their individual dynamics, and Kisshu defecting started their actual redemption arc as a whole. He had a crisis of faith, essentially, and even though it made him go mad, it also gave him more perspective on everything and lead him to the real source of power that he needed. Him also getting severely wounded and Deep Blue abandoning him while he’s laid out on the floor also sewed the first seeds of doubt into Pai and Taruto’s heads that Deep Blue might not be so great afterall.
Taruto choosing to save Pudding instead of letting her die was also a massive turning point for him, even if he didn’t defect as Kisshu did at the time.
Having Pai be the only one who stood by Deep Blue, even leading him to kill Taruto, was quite powerful also. It was the most understandable for the stoic emotionally muted one of the group to be the most loyal to Deep Blue, even under the circumstances, but it never felt like he was irredeemable. It was weak that his big turnaround was unearned, but it was still better than the manga’s explanation.
Deep Blue got more time to talk with the aliens, be more of an imposing figure lurking in the shadows and even got a tad more characterization once he was actually awakened than he did in the manga.
Speaking of Deep Blue, they don’t give any explanation as to his situation in the manga either. In the anime, they explained that Deep Blue was one spirit/being that broke off into Aoyama and The Blue Knight until Deep Blue could be properly awakened, in which case those personalities should have vanished, leaving only Deep Blue.
In the manga, Aoyama becomes Deep Blue and they kinda don’t talk about why or how that is. They just accept it without question. Likewise, no one talks about how or why Aoyama is The Blue Knight, either. Granted, the anime also doesn’t explore this before the Deep Blue revelation, but still.
Even Aoyama doesn’t escape this because he’s nothing but a sweetheart in the anime, but there are so many times that he’s super creepy in the manga. I don’t dislike him or anything, but it’s still unnerving to have those moments in there.
Some might say the anime is too drawn out, but I’d argue that the manga is too compressed. Yes, there are seven volumes to this story, but 80% of it feels like it’s going way too fast, especially when you compare it to the anime. The battles are the worst examples of this. So many times I was reacting to scenes going ‘What, that’s it?’ or ‘Wait, it’s over already?’ In a similar manner, there were moments where I was shocked a plot thread was still going on, like with the giant moth or the heat dome, because the manga got distracted and went off elsewhere, usually to something Ichigo was doing.
You’d think that the one thing the manga would explicitly have over the anime would be the art. Afterall, I had my fair share of time complaining about Studio Pierrot’s art and animation that ranged from ‘Good’ at its best to ‘Please gouge out my eyes with a cork screw’ at its worst. However…….eh.
The art of the manga is by no means consistently bad, it’s pretty good most of the time, but there is always at least one moment in every chapter where I’m left scratching my head as to a decision they made in the art.
You remember me being confused as to the shot where Mint yells out ‘Ichigo!’? Why was Mint in the background of that shot? Why did the speech balloon not connect to her? It honestly looked like either Kisshu or Shirogane could have been yelling that, but even they were shot from behind or not on-panel so it was hard to tell. Why are there so many moments where Aoyama gets this glazed over ‘I’m going to murder you’ look in his eyes? Is that to hint at Deep Blue or is the art just inadvertently making him look 100x creepier than he should, even when he’s not acting creepy? Why was Ichigo drawn with a massive blush and looking at Shirogane with bedroom eyes when he said she could go with Aoyama? Why was she drawn in day clothes/negligee crying in Aoyama’s future vision when she was in her Mew form when that happened (Something the anime fixed)? Why are there several fight scenes where I honestly can’t even tell who or what they’re attacking?
That coupled with the fast pacing really makes the manga a little difficult to keep up with sometimes.
I definitely don’t feel like I can give the art award to the anime either since there was just mounds of derp, and I still don’t forgive them for cheaping out on the series finale, of all things, so let’s just call that a tie there.
But yeah, at the end of the day, I feel more comfortable giving this clash over to the anime. I still really enjoyed the manga, there was a lot to like about it, and I look forward to A La Mode, but I was mostly just disappointed that, even though they did some things right that the anime did poorly and even did some things better that the anime did well, there were too many instances of the anime doing things better or just not doing things as badly as the manga.
And that’s that, my friends. At least until the reboot comes out. I don’t think I’ll be doing another AniManga Clash when the reboot comes out, but I’ll certainly talk about it in relation to the first anime and manga. I hope it takes all the best parts of the anime and manga, adds even better stuff to it and makes something amazing. I really do truly enjoy this franchise, and it has so much potential, they just need to draw it out.
Coming soon, A La Mode!
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Plot: Aoyama/The Blue Knight finally joins the ranks of the Mews, but things take a turn for the worse when Kisshu and the other aliens reveal a dark secret that leads to the awakening of their leader, Deep Blue.
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– The anime and manga vary quite a bit in Shirogane’s backstory. He was never bullied, and, sadly, he had a pet dog named Daisuke who also died in the big explosion at the lab. Shirogane was actually home when the lab exploded. Both he and Akasaka witnessed it.
Also, Akasaka looked kinda weird in the flashback.
One change might have also fixed a big problem I had with his anime backstory. In the anime, the lab was attacked by a supposedly fire-based (?) Chimera Animal that just attacked the lab, killed everyone in it and then disappeared forever. This bugged the hell out of me because we never see this Chimera Animal again (until the very end of the show). It was supposedly freed from a fossil Professor Shirogane was experimenting with, but we have no idea why it attacked everyone nor where it went afterwards.
The manga gives no reason for the explosion, which is also a problem but not as bad.
The rest of the story and the scene afterwards goes exactly the same between anime and manga. (However, I’m still left wondering why and how Shirogane can transform into a cat at will and seemingly doesn’t need kissing or adrenaline to do it.)
– Aoyama’s dream of Ichigo is a little different. They’re both still images of her crying, but the anime has her in her Mew gear crying on the floor….The manga has her in…..
Is that lingerie? It’s very flowy and see-through. Am I reading too much into this? What is up with her pose and expression? She doesn’t look like she’s upset more than she looks…I dunno, drugged? In the anime, she’s practically bawling while kneeling on the floor, and that’s much more impacting if you ask me.
– Okay 1) I guess Lettuce doesn’t need Mew Aqua to become a mermaid. It’s just something that happens to her when she’s transformed and she enters the water, which is cool, but obviously something the anime didn’t keep – in fact, they pretty much spat in her face in that regard by making her unable to swim….
2) Her Mew Aqua time to shine was boring….I am starting to get a little tired of the Mew Aqua Rod shtick in the manga being a constant ‘I feel it calling out to me.’ *goes to it* ‘Mew Aqua Drops!’ *end* I was going to keep giving the manga props for at least letting the others girls use the Mew Aqua Rod when the anime gives them nothing, but your props are running thin if you’re just going to do the same song and dance every time. It’s like they did something cool with Mint, similar but still pretty decent with Pudding and then just gave up and was like ‘eh just do the same thing two more times,’
– In addition, they basically mixed the episode where she saved Shirogane and used the Mew Aqua with the episode where Pudding and Taruto fight for the fake Mew Aqua in the river, and it somehow purified all of the water even though it was fake. Only the manga’s version is less interesting….
– It’s at this point where I realized something very important. I was under the assumption that the manga did the other girls more justice because I knew they all got a turn with the Mew Aqua Rod, but we’re already well into the final two volumes of the manga and I can’t help but say….the anime did them more justice – at least so far.
The other girls are literally set dressing most of the time, and because there’s a lack of filler, there aren’t nearly as many stories about them. In fact, beyond their debuts and the Tokyo Dome storyline, there really haven’t been ANY stories actually about the other girls throughout this entire manga. It’s all been Ichigo, Aoyama, Kisshu and the Blue Knight with some Shirogane.
Yes, you heard me, filler actually worked in the anime’s favor.
It’s quite possible they at least get some better time to shine in the finale, but I’m not holding my breath.
– Her finding out Aoyama’s identity was very similar to the anime, but, again, done in a less interesting manner. Kisshu didn’t go insane and they both kinda left in the middle of the fight.
– What was I saying about the other girls not getting to do anything? As they get overrun by Chimera Animals (off-panel) Ichigo comes in to save them. She needs the help of all of them!….To gather their powers, give her a super special new weapon and attack and save the day.
“Our” new weapon. Uh huh.
– Hah, Taruto calls the guy who is supposed to be their savior ‘geek.’
– There’s a plotline that didn’t make it to the anime. The aliens set up a dome over Tokyo. It’s an impenetrable force field that increases the internal temperature until it’s too hot for any living being within it to survive. And just to get more environmental messages in there, they point out that using the AC will just cause the temperatures outside to rise even more.
– Aoyama’s backstory remains the same, but unlike in the anime where he conveys this information to Ichigo, in the manga he’s just saying this stuff to himself, which, in my opinion, isn’t preferable. I liked that he was sharing that part of himself with Ichigo, especially considering that she needs to know stuff about his past and feelings if they’re going to be together for the rest of their lives. Plus, it was just a nice overall moment for the two of them. Him just saying stuff he already knows to himself is pointless other than informing the audience about it.
– Even though Kisshu doesn’t go hilariously/sadly insane like he does in the anime, he does emotionally break down when Ichigo refuses to love him or be with him. He tries to strangle her but then breaks down crying wondering why he can’t get her to do what he wants or love him back. When he releases her and tells her he’ll buy her some time before everything goes down, she wonders if he truly loves her…..Uh no. No. He just strangled you, and has tried several times to kill you. There is no love here. Only obsession and a deep desire for control.
I would say maybe his species doesn’t understand emotions such as love, which is why he’s so bad at expressing his emotions for her, but I can’t imagine that’s the case. Afterall, the main reason they’re all on earth in the first place is for the love of their friends, family and species, right? And if he were completely ignorant of how love works, he wouldn’t do legitimately sweet and romantic things sometimes.
– In the manga, The Blue Knight actually has an attack name; Indigo Comet Blade.
– It’s….very confusing as to what exactly happens when BK and the Mews use their attack….Are they attacking Pai and Taruto? Where did they go? The dome’s not gone, because Zakuro takes care of that later. Oh look, Taruto and Pai are back immediately. What did that all-team attack do?
– There’s a manga-exclusive plotline where BK and the Mews fight the aliens in a sewer. They try to drown the Mews by flooding the pipes, but BK saves them by using his sword to slash a drainage hole in the pipe.
– Zakuro gets her time with the Mew Aqua Rod, and it’s exactly what you’d expect. Ichigo’s just like ‘Zakuro, find the Mew Aqua.’ She does and then she uses the rod and the dome’s gone.
– Ichigo’s going a bit too hard with the insinuations that she literally wouldn’t be able to fight or win unless Aoyama/The Blue Knight was by her side. Come on, girl, you’ve done it plenty of times before.
– Deep Blue’s awakening is much less interesting in the manga. In the anime, they had BK/Aoyama’s initial trigger being going insane and basically turning himself into a nuke while trying to protect Ichigo from Kisshu. Then Aoyama’s completely out of it the next time we see him, wandering around town. His soul is screwed with by Kisshu, and then when Ichigo arrives he makes the final transformation. Here, Aoyama/The Blue Knight pretty much just collapses in Ichigo’s arms because reasons and then wakes up as Deep Blue.
– Deep Blue actually draws blood on Ichigo, which I think was something that should’ve been added to the anime. He did attack her in the anime, but I think there would’ve been more weight added to the situation if he actually wounded her. Plus, that would’ve definitely been a reason for Aoyama to fight for control over his consciousness.
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This is probably the most I’ve ever been skewed towards the anime side. While the manga did include some plotlines that the anime never adapted, I can’t say that anything was really lost because of it. It’s just ‘these things happened.’ Nothing in those plotlines really had lasting consequences or added anything to the story or characters.
Everything else was either done better in the anime or was basically the same level of quality no matter if it was the same or not, like Shirogane’s backstory. And if I wanted to be petty, I’d ding the manga there based on the fact that they killed a dog for no other reason beyond sadness points.
It actually makes a little impressed with the anime, in spite of its own set of prominent problems. It didn’t do anything that blew my mind with this set of stories, but it did improve upon nearly every aspect, in my opinion.
Winner: Anime
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Plot: Ichigo can no longer keep her Mew identity a secret from Aoyama. How will he take the news?
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– The Blue Knight is WAY more affectionate with Ichigo, especially upon first meeting, than he is in the anime. In fact, outside of a few touches and carrying Ichigo, BK never really does much with her in the anime. But in the manga, he hugs her, kisses her (on the cheek? Or chest? Hard to tell with the angle) he holds her romantically, almost hugging. It’s a lot, and like I said that’s all from their first meeting.
– Did Shirogane seriously revert to Alto form….to help Ichigo find her bell?
– There’s a near miss confrontation with Mew Ichigo and Aoyama that reminds me a lot of episode 13 where Aoyama is targeted by Kisshu and Ichigo runs the risk of Aoyama seeing her as a Mew and finding out her secret. Only the story in the manga is really dumb.
Ichigo returns to the aquarium and sees a fish flopping on the floor, which she immediately believes is a chimera animal, even though the entire aquarium burst…meaning there’d be a lot of fish flopping around. She makes a snap judgment to transform right there and she quickly spots Aoyama behind her, but he doesn’t realize who she actually is. He just asks her if she’s seen Ichigo.
– Pudding has a pet monkey in the manga?! Why was that not adapted?!
– I guess they put a lot of filler in the anime because we jump from episode 13 to episode 40. Now Pudding and Taruto are under Tokyo Dome. Only instead of Pudding finding the tunnel through sheer happenstance after an earthquake as she was attending a show, she was kidnapped. I kinda prefer the anime’s take because it had Pudding being proactive.
I also like the anime more in that they put additional stakes into Pudding’s situation. In the anime, she and Taruto eventually get trapped underground. They’re losing oxygen, but Taruto isn’t affected because he’s an ‘alien.’ Pudding, however, nearly dies, and Taruto struggles a lot with watching her suffer and the idea of letting her die down there. He actually ends up saving the both of them with his plant-controlling powers.
In the manga, it’s much less interesting, at least in my opinion. The girls literally defeat all of the chimera animals in a two page spread and Pudding is never in any danger as severe as what the anime depicted. Taruto, despite having some nice moments with Pudding, doesn’t gain nearly the same connection as he does in the anime, and he doesn’t save her life outside of one time where he spared her from getting poisoned. She’s just trapped in a cage hanging out with Taruto, more or less. There is more added risk later as Taruto attacks again with a bigger Chimera Animal, but The Blue Knight and Ichigo dispatch it rather easily.
The high point here is Pudding also gets to try her hand at using the Mew Aqua Rod. The Mew Aqua called out to her and she used its powers to grow the plant life around the dome to save it from collapse.
It’s great that she got a chance to shine, but I’m not sure it was really worth what we lost.
– The manga includes a passing suspicion that Akasaka is the Blue Knight, which is…Okay I guess. Thing is, it’s dropped just as quickly. BK hurt his shoulder in the same spot Akasaka did. That coupled with his charming nature lead Ichigo to believe he was BK. But then he explains that he hurt himself trying a new trick and broke a plate, which could easily be a gigantic lie, but Ichigo believes it immediately.
– The manga kinda contradicts the anime a little. In the anime, they make it a point that Ichigo sucks at cooking, at least if the chocolate cooking episode was any indication. Even though she had her mom’s help, she made a delicious lunch for her and Aoyama in the manga. Not really sure why the anime decided to make her a bad cook – though I guess that is a bit of a shoujo protagonist trope, kinda.
– Ladies and gentlemen, the hero of our story just cut herself…..on a blade of grass…………….?????????
– Aoyama: “Why do they always attack (Ichigo)?”
Kisshu: “Because I have to. That’s the whole point, dummy.” Lol I can’t not love Kisshu sometimes.
– Aoyama finding out about Ichigo’s Mewness is much different in the manga. In the anime, it was Christmastime and Aoyama got injured in a big two-part battle over Mew Aqua in the town Christmas tree. In a daze, Aoyama seemingly recognized Ichigo in her Mew outfit and she later confessed everything to him while he was sleeping (or wasn’t sleeping?)
In the manga, he gets injured in a completely unrelated incident during a random Kisshu attack during one of their dates. Ichigo doesn’t want to see him get hurt anymore since he’s so adamant about protecting her, so she decides to oust herself in front of him by transforming.
During this incident, BK does badly wound Kisshu, but Kisshu additionally requests BK to kill him. He almost grants him his request, but Ichigo stops him.
Like the anime, Aoyama admits he’s known for quite some time, putting the pieces together himself because he’s not an idiot, but unlike in the anime where they pretty much just cuddle, he actually kisses her.
– In the manga, Ichigo fully transforms into a cat in front of Aoyama after she divulges her secret and she kisses him to turn back. Taruto learns of her transforming secret because of this.
– I guess the kissing is the trigger for transforming back at least.
-….As for transforming…..In the next scene after she leaves Aoyama, the next day I presume, she trips, falls and that somehow turns her into a cat. Taruto kidnaps her, planning to get revenge on her for what BK did to Kisshu, which is a pretty good plan, admittedly, because she can’t transform in cat form and she can’t transform back without a kiss (Still think that’s really dumb…) Alto, however, saves her by kissing her, allowing her to change back and transform into her Mew form. She fends off Taruto and finds out Alto is Shirogane after keeping hold of him for too long to try to check his injuries. His transformation has a time limit, so he couldn’t hold it.
This is a tiny bit similar but quite a lot better than what we get in the anime which is one of the silliest and most convoluted things they had done. Basically, Ichigo goes on a wacky transformation spree. She’d kept accidentally transforming under the most ridiculous circumstances and need to basically sexually assault any female animal she could find for the sake of transforming back.
In one instance, she tries to kiss a female dog only to be blocked by her huge angry boyfriend who has heard rumors about the ‘kissing maniac’ and wants to beat her up for targeting his girlfriend. Alto saves her and kisses her to transform her back, but, like the manga, she keeps hold of him beyond his limit and he transforms back in front of her, ousting his identity as Shirogane.
Additional props for the manga because it doesn’t insinuate that she can talk to birds or dogs, robbing the other girls of their only unique additional powers.
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I struggled a bit more than usual in determining which version was better.
The anime did the brief brush Aoyama had with Mew Ichigo quite a bit better. She didn’t transform for no reason in the anime and the overall plot was more interesting and had higher tension. The anime also did the Tokyo Dome plot better in regards to tension, development between Taruto and Pudding and giving Taruto a neat moment. However, in an odd turn of events, the moment he got in the anime was stolen from Pudding’s big moment with the Mew Aqua in the manga, so that’s quite the bummer.
The manga does have its points of glory, though. I liked Ichigo revealing her secret to Aoyama better in the manga than in the anime, even if they don’t include the stuff about his backstory here. The way he ‘found out’ just made a lot more sense than the anime. I think both post-identity reveal scenes are equally good, even if the manga includes a kiss where the anime did not.
The reveal of Alto’s identity was also done better in the manga than the anime. Sorry, but the anime’s reveal was just built on a foundation of goofiness. A series of ridiculous pratfalls leads her to needing to makeout with a bunch of female animals and Alto saves her from an angry dog….Compare that to Taruto coming up with a good plan to strike Ichigo when she’s most vulnerable to get revenge for Kisshu, Alto nearly dying trying to save her from him and her saving him in return. It’s no real contest there. However, I will still ding the manga for making her transform at least once with no real trigger. She seemingly transformed because she tripped….
I also have to commend the manga for having increasingly better pacing, even though it’s still kinda bad, and I’m getting consistently disappointed that we’re not getting much time with the other Mews. There are only two more volumes left in the series and I feel like we just don’t know nearly enough about the other girls or see them do enough. It feels less like a team story and more of a “and the rest” type situation. I’m aware that this series was originally intended to just be focused on one character, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t make an effort to flesh out the other characters and act like they’re there to be set dressing.
All in all, I really feel I have to give this another tie. It’s just too close for me to make a decision.
Winner: TIE
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Plot: The Mews finally manage to find a way to destroy the cocoon that is housing a moth that could destroy all of Tokyo. Later, Ichigo and Aoyama go on a date to the aquarium when another encounter with the aliens introduces Ichigo to a mysterious man named The Blue Knight.
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– So Shirogane tries to coax Ichigo into a kiss for the sake of experimenting with her cat transformation, but then he stops and says this.
“Wait a second…You turn into a cat when you’re excited. It has nothing to do with kissing.”
*Thinks of the anime*
(HikaYagami explained to me that the TokyoPop translation is kinda off in some places, so maybe this is another poor translation?)
– Interestingly, in the Moth arc, Mint is seemingly possessed/entranced and knows exactly where to go to get the Mew Aqua, which leads her to flying up to the top of the tower and retrieving it. The other girls fight off the aliens to allow her to get to it. This is important because it’s actually MINT who gets to use the Mew Aqua Rod in this arc and use the Aqua Drops to save the city from the toxin when it was Ichigo in the anime.
Granted, Ichigo still gets the final shot because of course she does, but we were robbed of a cool moment where Mint gets 1) to use a new weapon first (All of the Mews get to use this exact same weapon at one point or another, but this is the first) and 2) a moment where Mint got to shine all on her own.
– It was especially cute because Ichigo hugs her after, Zakuro pats her head and Pudding kisses her.
– Aw cute, Aoyama kissed Ichigo’s tears away in the rain scene afterward.
– The near-kiss with sleeping Aoyama doesn’t trigger a full-body cat transformation because we already went through that plotline.
– Oh cool, another reprise of rapist cat and this time he has a ‘love leash’ the two of them will share……Is it possible to have a cat arrested?
– So Shirogane said kissing doesn’t trigger transformation, but then he kisses Ichigo to make her transform when he’s Alto. Is it just because kissing her would get her excited? Is ‘excited’ the same thing as just generally flustered from being suddenly kissed? In the anime, she does fully transform once without kissing, but eventually even getting little platonic pecks from friends and kissing animals (instigated by her) makes her change. Her cat transformation never ceases to confuse me…
– There’s a plotline at an aquarium that isn’t in the anime. I think this might be what the date at the amusement park originally was, but I can’t be certain. Shame, because Ichigo fights a SHARK in it.
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The anime kept pretty close to the manga when adapting this volume. The major point of contention being the Mint moment, and that just makes me irritated because there’s no reason whatsoever why they gave Ichigo the spotlight there outside of the anime having more Ichigo favoritism.
In most magical girl shows that have upgraded transformations, weapons and attacks, it’s common that the other team members will get something cool but the point will be made that the leader gets the coolest one – sometimes the other girls will all get their upgrades one at a time as a buildup to the big leader upgrade, and other times the leader will get her upgrade as a way of opening the door for the other girls to get theirs. It’s still blatant favoritism, but at least it’s better than letting the other team members stagnate to the point where I’m wondering why dusting the cobwebs off of their outfits isn’t a part of the other girls’ transformations after a while.
However, that positive note might be offset by the manga including another scene with rapist cat.
Hmm…
…….Nope, I’m actually going to give the manga this one today. Mint got a time to shine and Ichigo got to fight a friggin’ shark. You don’t get to rob me of those things and get away with it, anime.
Winner: Manga
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Plot: Ichigo’s relationship with Aoyama continues to grow to the point where she gets so flustered that she turns fully into a cat! Meanwhile, the aliens continue their plans, and the Mews learn more about Mew Aqua and what it can do.
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– The scene in the classroom after Ichigo believes Aoyama found out she’s a Mew Mew is quite a bit shorter and, quite frankly, uneventful in the manga. He’s attacked, she transforms to save him and the chimera animal is dispatched very quickly. Aoyama’s never trapped in a bubble and Ichigo doesn’t kiss him to save him.
– The episode as a whole is much more detailed than the manga chapter, but the manga also includes a demonstration of a 1% bit of Mew Aqua bringing a dead bird to life. It’s kinda out of place, in my opinion, but it’s worth noting, and it does establish that Mew Aqua has this capability, which will come into play in the future.
– I still find it funny that she had an out to just fake a name to better cover her tracks and she doesn’t take it. Aoyama apologizes, in both versions, for calling her Ichigo since she reminds him of Ichigo, but her Mew name is Mew Ichigo (Even though she calls out the English, Mew Strawberry, when she transforms) It’s like “Oh sorry, I called you Ichigo. What’s your real name?” “Ichigo!” “….”
– Holy shit, Ichigo gets paid TEN BUCKS AN HOUR at the cafe?! With tips!? What the hell is she complaining about?
– They seem to have separated one chapter into two kinda. Chapter 11 takes place on Shirogane’s cruise ship where the anime seemingly got inspiration for the beach episode and the big fancy party episode. In this chapter, they’re all having a ‘vacation’ on his cruise, but he’s putting them, or moreso Ichigo, to work finding Mew Aqua. Lettuce turns into a mermaid to save a little kid that Pai is kidnapping for no reason, not to save Shirogane, though there is a bit of Shirogane/Lettuce shipping in there. And even though it’s possible he put Mew Aqua in Lettuce’s drink, she seems to have transformed on her own because of either confidence or being in the water.
– Something I’m now realizing is that the manga has crazy fast pacing compared to the anime. It’s way too fast at some points, especially the scenes with the actual Mews.
– The aliens’ backstory is basically the same, which I guess means their motives are still the same despite Shirogane saying they want to destroy the environment (Being fair, they’re very contradictory in the anime too) but I still don’t understand why the aliens just thought earth would be back to lush beautiful landscapes instead of the hellish natural disaster zone they left.
– Huh, I don’t remember Aoyama grabbing Ichigo roughly after they ran into Shirogane on their date in the anime, nor do I remember him kinda flirting with her in front of him.
– I definitely don’t remember Aoyama getting all close and cozy with Ichigo after that by wrapping her in a raincoat and hugging her from behind.
– Aoyama: “You’ve been wearing this!? Who gave it to you? If you were a cat with a bell like this, I’d take you home.”…..Uhhh….Can I have anime!Aoyama back? Because Manga!Aoyama’s getting super creepy. Also…is this because of his tri-personalities or did he just completely forget that he gave Ichigo that bell for some reason? I’m confused.
– This chapter includes Ichigo first turning into a cat, which happens because of the hot and heavy (still creepy) embrace instead of her kissing him while he’s sleeping…..which is also creepy.
– Ichigo doesn’t bathe with Aoyama at the point in which the anime has her do this (even though he was undressing and telling her to get in…..) And Alto doesn’t appear when he does so in the anime either. Shirogane seeks her out when Akasaka detects that she’s in trouble through energy signals.
– Ichigo can’t combat the cocoon because she’s a cat, but the cat transformation has nothing to do with that plotline in the anime.
– Ichigo’s last thoughts as she’s about to die are wishing she had made Mint do more work so she could relax more, wishing she could be around to celebrate Lettuce’s 100th broken dish, learning a circus trick from Pudding, making Zakuro smile and asking Shirogane for a raise…Most of those thoughts are dumb, and a couple of them are kinda mean.
– Aoyama and Ichigo do eventually bathe together….but he’s clothed?…That’s…better?
– Also, Aoyama’s dog, who’s a sweetie in the anime, is a jealous dickwad in the manga.
– Oh good, rapist cat is in the manga too.
– Ichigo: “Nooooooooo!!!! He’s fat!” Nice cat body shaming, Ichigo…..Also, does that mean you’d be happier with a slim cat hitting on you and trying to sexually assault you?
– Alto shows up when Shirogane and Akasaka lose Ichigo after she spends the night with Aoyama.
– So Shirogane bitches out Ichigo for wandering off when a threat could’ve killed the girls, which is warranted, but then he goes on to chit-chat and flirt with Ichigo, even asking for a kiss….while the other Mews are presumably still in danger? Hypocrite.
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This is another one where I feel like I’m on the fence. Most of my notes don’t really affect the quality of either version….but the fact that Aoyama continues to be incredibly creepy and possessive in the manga is putting me off enough to tip the scales.
It’s not simply those creepy moments either. He’s drawn in a creepy manner when he’s not being creepy at all. He could just be standing there looking at Ichigo and they don’t put any reflection in his eyes or expression in his face…Plus there’s fact that the fast pacing of the manga is becoming increasingly apparent as we go on.
Winner: Anime
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The Anime Madhouse 