AniManga Clash! Tokyo Mew Mew Volume 6

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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Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru (Manga) Volume 6 Review

Plot: Blackmail, pregnancy, unknown parental origins, and Yori having a human moment?!

Breakdown: The first chapter leads us to believe Yori will have emotionless sex with Tomoka as long as she keeps his relationship with Iku a secret. He’s being pretty damn aggressive about it, even throwing her onto the bed. But not but four pages later, before they even get undressed, it’s revealed that he was formatting her computer the whole time, meaning the pictures are gone and she has no pull now.

That’s either the fastest computer format ever or they were having the slowest non-sexual foreplay ever. Either way, Tomoka’s a dumbass for leaving her computer alone with Yori (at least password protect it, for god’s sake.) If you’re using anything for blackmail, you can never have too many copies and backups. Worst antagonist ever.

Yano teases Iku some more at her house, Yori comes home and, despite the fact that their parents are still home and Yano is there, Yori suggests doing naughty things and the chapter ends.

Riveting.

The next chapter has Yori getting slightly rapey again as he and Iku start doing the naughty things mentioned before because he states to himself that she needs to tell him what she wants, otherwise he won’t be able to stop himself. Neat.

Yano sits and watches them, but who cares? He already knew about the two of them and we already know he’s a creep. Either way, Yori gets possessive and tells Yano to forget what he saw. He thinks to himself that he’s the only one allowed to see Iku’s cute face like that. If he doesn’t forget it, he’ll never forgive him. At least Yori is seeming a little less aggressive lately, even if he was being damn near assault-y with Tomoka earlier.

Yano leaves, they eat dinner, and Yori passes out because he was caught in the rain earlier. I hate that trope. Getting a little cold and wet for a bit does not give you insta-flu.

We learn that their mom is actually legitimately concerned that Iku and Yori have a thing for each other. I thought she was joking before, but nope. They even clearly state that she’s noticed that Yori is in love with Iku. It’s interesting that it doesn’t say that they’ve fallen for each other. It’s clearly just saying that Yori loves Iku.

She even hears what sounds like Yori about to force himself on Iku, which turns out to not be true, but I really wouldn’t be surprised because these two dumbasses are about as stealthy as a moose made of pans.

The next chapter is mostly pointless. It’s a day in the school life of Yano and Iku. Yano gets turned on by Iku in her pajamas, Yano states that he likes Iku even though she sleeps late, makes other people do her homework for her because she’s too dumb, has no common sense and sleeps in class. Okay, he doesn’t directly say that, but basically. We learn that she and Yori never did anything while he was home because his fever was so bad the whole time that he couldn’t get hard. Lovely.

The only important information in this chapter is given at the end, where…I’ve kinda cheated. Way back when I watched and reviewed the OVA, I read some information on the manga and learned that Yori and Iku are only half-siblings through heteropaternal superfecundation. When a woman has sex with two different men in the time frame of, at most, one week, she can get simultaneously pregnant from both men.

Don’t think that I’m spoiling you early because this chapter is not that subtle about it. In this chapter, we learn of a man named Mori Yuugo, an old friend of theirs that they haven’t seen in 17 years. Iku and Yori’s mother flips out when she hears their father has met back up with him and is especially outraged to hear that Mori has a daughter about Yori’s age, and that they promised to have them get married when they were old enough.

It was probably said in jest, even if he explains how much sense it makes, but Iku and Yori’s mother has an extreme outburst, demanding to know why he believes Yori and the daughter are similar and how similar they are in what ways. She then says it’s ridiculous to even suggest that they should live up to this stupid promise they made years ago and tells him to never see him again.

Yano puts two and two together and calls Yori, telling him that he and Iku might not be twins. Though, at this point, shouldn’t the suspicion be that Yori and Iku aren’t their father’s children? That’s a lot easier to believe than the incredibly rare heteropaternal superfecundation.

Next chapter, Yori doesn’t know what to make of what Yano has told him, but believes it to be too good to be true. He sleeps in class and slacks off, basically in a deep legit depression that Iku’s not around. He states that he only tried so hard in school because Iku once told him that she liked brainy guys. Now that he’s not with Iku anymore, he feels he doesn’t need to put in such effort. Not that that matters anyway because super shoujo manga love interest main character powers activate! He still gets first in the class in exams.

Iku later tells him that Yano’s being nice and helping her with her homework, which Yori couldn’t do the last time he was home because he was sick. He feels bad about it, and Iku feels the need to ‘punish’ him since he wasn’t able to help her. His punishment? You’ll never guess.

It’s sex.

Damn, girl. You harsh.

I will say this is a bit of….nice….development? Because she’s actually the one suggesting it this time. I’m feeling less squicky. Who knew that Yori being away from Iku for a bulk of the manga would make it more tolerable?

Meanwhile, Tomoka, not done with Yori yet, calls up Iku and drops the bomb. She’s pregnant!

Dun dun d—no. No. That’s impossible. Yori hasn’t slept with Tomoka since they were ‘dating’. Why should I care about this? Fake pregnancy tricks always seem so stupid because the person never seems to realize that, come nine months from now, they’ll notice there’s no kid. You could fake a miscarriage, but then you’re back where you started. The only reason I could ever see anyone doing this is that they’re evil enough to want to screw up someone’s life that badly, even temporarily, just to soak up their suffering.

The only other way this could work is if Tomoka purposely got herself pregnant by someone else and is accusing Yori of being the father, which is insane, but Tomoka’s gone far down Insane Lane by now. However, DNA test…..that’s all I have to say in that regard.

Even if I sit here going ‘Oh mon Dieu. How will Iku react?!’ I know that everything would revert back to normal once the truth was given, especially since dumbass Iku takes everything Yori says as gospel.

I wouldn’t care anyway because this manga still gives me no reason to root for them as a couple….or people…..or living creatures.

Next chapter is…..good?

Dun dun du—well, actually, every part not including Iku is good…surprise!

Yori is sent on a punishment game, which is tradition for anyone who gets first place marks on exams. His task is to go into the girls’ dorm and retrieve a specified item. The item is a tie from the girls’ dorm residential adviser, Mayu. Remember her? She’s still here.

The boys also make him dress up like a doctor and tell him to play doctor with the girls, which he doesn’t do, thank god. You’d think this would involve being secretive, but for Yori, it’s not. The girls actually line the halls, taking pictures of him with their cameraphones, telling him that they’ll let him go if he tells them what girls he likes. He says he likes girls who are kinda dumb, and they all collapse in despair because they’re smart. They actually collapsed because they realized they dodged a huge bullet.

When Yori arrives at Mayu, she agrees to just give him the tie and shares a story about Takuma’s experience doing the punishment game. Remember Takuma? The boys’ dorm residential adviser? He’s still here.

When he did it, the girls did try to hunt him down, and his task was to retrieve a garment from the girl he liked while wearing a girl’s sailor uniform. He was planning on taking Mayu’s underwear and ran into her room. He had a mild attack and dropped an exposition bomb that he has until he’s 20 years old to live, so he can’t pursue romantic relationships.

She used a stethoscope to listen to his heart, which was beating wildly. He explained that it wasn’t the running or the illness doing that – it was her being so close to him.

The flashback ends and it’s shown that Yori has the stethoscope that she used that day, and he’s returned it to her. Mayu suggests that this might mean that he doesn’t feel the same way about her anymore, but in a shocking turn of humanity, Yori smiles and tells her that it’s just the opposite. He wants her to hear what she heard that day again.

He returns to the boys’ dorm, gives up the tie and teases Takuma by giving him a pair of panties, claiming he played doctor with Mayu.

Alright, let me stop right there. This right here. This. This one little splash of a moment for Yori…..is positive character development. He’s socializing – positively. He’s smiling. He’s playfully teasing someone. He’s laughing….in a non-creepy way. He’s cheering someone else up. He’s listening intently to someone else’s stories. It may have been just a flash in the pan, but this little moment is proof that Yori can be a better person.

This is also proof that his relationship with Iku is toxic.

I mentioned earlier that Yori seems like he’s more tolerable when Iku’s not around. He mopes, yeah, but he’s slowly breaking out of his shell and becoming a better person. In the ten some odd years of being in love with Iku, he became a horrible, malicious person who never showed any sort of emotion towards anyone but Iku, and the emotions were always extremely aggressive and creepy.

Being away from Iku just for a few months, even taking into consideration phone calls and visits, has made him significantly more tolerable. He still has his creeper asshole moments, but, shocker, these are almost now entirely relegated to anything involving Iku. And, honestly, even those moments aren’t on the same level anymore as the moments they had when he was still living with her.

I can say the same thing about Iku. Using Yori as a crutch, Iku has become an incredibly needy, dependent idiot who is not good at anything…at all and doesn’t even seem like she tries much at all at anything she does. She flops around on the ground like a fish, gasping for air, until Yori or Yano put her in her tank and shake fish flakes over the surface of the water. Then she hides in her ceramic castle until Yori comes to boink her.

Despite getting a little closer with Yano now, Iku is not experiencing the same character development that Yori is having because she’s too preoccupied with him. Rarely a page goes by with focus on her that she’s not thinking or talking about Yori.

Yano is not helping. He’s basically a stand-in for Yori as a crutch. He finds her stupidity and neediness to be adorable and is more than willing to lug around her tank and a backpack full of fish flakes, chasing her flopping stupid body all around town just hoping that he can flop around with her.

This is not a matter of taboo. It never has been. It’s been a matter of two people being in a very unhealthy relationship and not realizing it.

Besides that, this story with Mayu and Takuma is very nice, and every time these two are brought up I wish I was reading a manga about them and not these creepy morons.

But that’s not all this chapter. Iku actually manages to have a brain and states that Yori hasn’t slept with Tomoka since back when they were dating, so she has to be lying. Good girl, Iku. Way to think! I’ll tell Yano to put extra fish flakes in your tank.

Tomoka admits that she was lying. Oh, good. I’ll just take these couple of paragraphs from the previous page and just flush them down the toilet. However, she states that her outburst is proof of jealously, which means they must be in an incestuous relationship, and she threatens to tell everyone about it…..Uh…what? Iku didn’t indicate jealousy. She freaked out at pregnancy news involving her brother and stated the obvious fact that it was impossible.

Even if this did indicate jealousy, how is that proof that they’re currently in a romantic relationship? At most, it just proves she has romantic feelings for him, and even that could be a stretch.

Hey writer! Why not just have Tomoka say ‘I know you and Yori are screwing’? That’s basically what she’s driving at anyway. This pregnancy scare had no purpose but to make an end-of-chapter cliffhanger, which is dumb, because her telling Iku that she knows about the relationship is a very suitable cliffhanger. Or did you just want to drum up fake drama?

Last chapter!

Yano now has a puppy he names Inu-Iku…..*sigh* Iku is freaking out about what Tomoka said, but Yano easily quells her fears by stating she’s stupid to believe her since she has no evidence, and most parents would find such a claim to be ridiculous. Even with her mother’s suspicions, he knows he can keep convincing her that he’s dating Iku and not Yori. She cheers up, falls asleep on a bench, Yano says she looks like an idiot, he hears her say Yori’s name in her sleep and kisses her, wishing to be the one to replace Yori since all he will do to her is make her cry.

Soooooooooo, nothing happens then suddenly a wild sexual assault appears. Ah, I’m getting early volume flashbacks.

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And that’s volume six. Outside of one good moment for Yori and quickly wrapping up several hanging plot threads ridiculously quickly (“I’m blackmailing you with photos! Make love to me!” “Formatted computer. Bye, bitch!” – “You might not be twins!” “Eh, forget about that by mid next-chapter” – “I’m pregnant!” “No you’re not!” “You’re right! Lol” – “I still know you’re porking your womb roommate.” “Oh god!” “She has no proof.” “Thank god!”) this was a pretty uneventful chapter.

This volume really just made me want to keep rooting for Iku and Yori…to find other people. If Iku really needs a crutch, fine, go with Yano. He’s a creepy sexually assaulting weirdo, but at least he’s not as bad as Yori can get with her. Yori definitely shouldn’t be with Tomoka, but anyone else but Iku. I keep finding more and more proof that their relationship is terrible and that they’re better people when the other isn’t in the picture (well, Yori is anyway).

Next time on ‘Wow, You’re Still Reading This? Why?’ Dogs can talk, Tomoka’s a bitch and suddenly gang rape?!?! WHAT?!

…Previous Volume

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Digimon Adventure V-Tamer 01 (Manga) Volume 6 Review

Plot: Taichi and Zero battle furiously against Hideto and Omegamon, but quickly start struggling under his immense power. They manage to eek out a victory in the end with the help of Warg and Melga themselves, tired of Hideto treating them in a fashion that is increasingly similar to Neo’s style of taming. Hideo realizes the error of his ways and vows to take down Neo himself while Zero recovers. With the help of Mari and Sigma, Hideto starts the battle against Neo and Arkadimon, but they may have bitten off more than they can chew.

Breakdown: The action is amping up even more in volume six as we get closer and closer to taking on Neo and Arkadimon, who is now Ultimate level.

It’s hard to believe Zero would have a chance against Omegamon, mostly because it’s a friggin’ Omegamon, but Zero and Taichi show yet again that a Tamer’s bond with their Digimon is vital to victory. Their strength in their bond helped them achieve a new level in power, and Hideto’s increasingly weak bond with his Digimon leads them to turn face against him as they wish to truly stand on the side of good.

Hideto is consumed with a burning desire to achieve his and, supposedly, Neo’s idea of a perfect world for Rei to live and walk in, but it takes Taichi and Zero nearly falling at his feet and his Digimon turning on him in shame, almost killing themselves in the process, to come to grips with the true situation. What they’re doing is wrong, and Rei wouldn’t want any bit of her happiness or mobility to come at the price of the suffering of others – human and Digimon alike.

When you hear that Hideto is heading off to face Neo himself, with Sigma and Mari providing backup, you basically know that they’re all walking off to their doom. It was obvious from the start that Neo never gave a crap about these three, and after what he did to Piemon, it’s obvious what he plans to do with Omegamon and Rosemon. Since we know the final confrontation has to be Taichi and Zero vs. Neo and Arkadimon, the reader goes into this battle with a sense of dread.

Still, it’s the effort that counts, and this entire conflict is vital to the character development of all of the former Aliases. It’s also further development, for the better or worse, for Neo. He is quickly devolving even further into a psychopath who is drunk on power and cares nothing of others, even Rei. It’s clear now that his main mission has been long since forgotten and he only wishes to take over the Digital and real worlds with Arkadimon and nothing is going to stop him. It really makes you wonder if there’s any redemption for him, because, as far as we’ve seen, he’s always been a dick, even before Rei’s accident.

In the end, this volume did a great job in both making both battles massive and important to the characters involved. It prepares us for the final confrontation and creates a deep sense of dread at the same time while not robbing us of hope.

Recommended Audience: This volume gets pretty brutal, but nothing terribly graphic. 10+

Next episode….

…….Previous Episode

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