TOKYO MEW MEW

ANIME

STATUS
COMPLETE
EPISODES
52
RELEASE
March 29, 2003
LENGTH
24 min

DESCRIPTION

On her first date with the cutest boy in school, Ichigo is zapped by a mysterious ray that scrambles her DNA with that of the endangered Iriomote wildcat. The next day, Ichigo discovers that she has developed the agility (and occasionally the ears and tail) of a cat, as well as the power to transform into a pink-haired superheroine, Mew Ichigo. She and four other girls, each endowed with the genes of a different "Red Data" animal, have been selected for the top-secret Mew Project, which aims to protect the Earth from an alien menace known as Deep Blue.

(Source: Anime News Network)

CAST

Ichigo Momomiya
Saki Nakajima
Zakuro Fujiwara
Junko Noda
Mint Aizawa
Yumi Kakazu
Bu-Ling Huang
Hisayo Mochizuki
Lettuce Midorikawa
Kumi Sakuma
Quiche
Daisuke Sakaguchi
Ryou Shirogane
Kouichi Toochika
Masha
Junko Noda
Masaya Aoyama
Megumi Ogata
Keiichirou Akasaka
Hikaru Midorikawa
Tart
Kiyomi Asai
Blue Knight
Megumi Ogata
Deep Blue
Megumi Ogata
Pie
Nobutoshi Kanna
Moe Yanagida
Akiko Nakagawa
Miwa Honjo
Tomoko Kaneda
Seiji Aizawa
Souichirou Hoshi
Sakura Momomiya
Takako Honda
Momoka
Kurumi Mamiya
Shintarou Momomiya
Katsuyuki Konishi

EPISODES

Dubbed

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Not available on Crunchyroll

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REVIEWS

CamiKins19
80/100
A mid-2000s magical-girl series that endeared itself to fans of the genre.
INTRO
Let me admit upfront, that I have a bias for this series which stems from:
A) Being a big fan of the magical girl genre.
B) Reading the manga at an influential age (11-12).

With that said, I found it a shame that there is only one review for Tokyo Mew Mew on AniList, and one which features such harshly expressed distaste. So, here's another review to balance things out.

STORY
Tokyo Mew Mew is a magical girl series following the lives of 5 "tweenage" girls who become infused with the DNA of endangered animals.
With their new powers, they transform into heroines (Mew Mews) who work to purify animals which have turned into tainted monsters called Chimera Animals. The antogonists creating Chimera Animals are a gang of aliens, whose plan involves taking back the Earth from humans, so that they can re-inhabit the planet. The girls also work part-time at a cafe, which masquerades their base of operations. In the words of our lead heroine Mew Ichigo,

"To protect the Earth, we will be of service, nya!~"

Amidst the main conflict in the series, there are strong themes of romance and friendship throughout, as well as brief environmentalism (though sometimes it feels a bit more like a motif). Criticizing the show for not leaning hard enough into the environmental messages is a reasonable nitpick.

CHARACTERS
The cast is an aspect that has always endeared me to this show. Our 5 Mew Mew girls are all quite likable while having different personalities and aesthetics, and it is so fun to see them interact and bounce off of one another. I also have a very soft spot for the 3 aliens -- though one in particular (Kisshu) exhibits skeevy behaviors that have only made him look worse as a character over the years. When I was a teen, I could look past obsessive behavior & boundary issues if the offender was an androgynous alien wearing a crop-top, but not anymore. That said, the story does a nice job depicting their point of view, and taking time to show the girls learning to understand them and vice-versa.

PRODUCTION/PACING
Like other magical girl series (especially in the 90s/early 2000s), this 52 episode anime adapts the entirety of the original manga, but it is padded with filler - granted, the filler episodes and small arcs are ultimately spent to give the audience more time to know the cast of characters and strengthen the bonds of budding relationships. I tend to be a sucker for this kind of added fluff, but it would be fine to use a list of episode synopsizes and skip around, if you don't enjoy that sort of thing. The art I found quite strong in many aspects -- especially the stock footage attacks and transformation sequences. Though again with the episode length, there are a fair number of episodes handled by different animators and you can tell, for better or for worse. In comparing the original series to it's TOKYO MEW MEW NEW (2022) counterpart, I'd argue that there is a lot of care and artistic flair to be found in this series. Innovative shot compositions, attention to detail in character movement, and facial expressions all come to mind. Not bad, Studio Pierrot. Be wary of 2000s-style giant anime eyes though - they appear quite often.

SOUND
The music, sound effects, and voice acting are all done very well in my opinion. The opening song My Sweet Heart will easily get stuck in your head and fits the tone of the series perfectly. The voice cast does a wonderful job, and I'd like to give a special mention to Saki Nakajima as Ichigo, and Daisuke Sakaguchi as Kisshu.

OVERALL
This is my first time writing a review, and I'm trying to keep it concise so many details (potentially important) may have been glossed over.
My TLDR of Tokyo Mew Mew;
This is a magical girl series that while dated, has been loved for a long time by fans of the genre including myself. It's not perfect, and may not be your cup of tea. But I for one, recommend giving it a try. You may find something sweet and satisfying.
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Juliko25
80/100
One of very few anime that actually improves on the manga, Tokyo Mew Mew was my gateway magical girl series.
I have a very sentimental relationship with Tokyo Mew Mew. I remember first watching the English dubbed version, Mew Mew Power, on TV when I was about twelve, and I watched it religiously until it got unceremoniously cancelled. It was also the first anime I ever watched in Japanese with subtitles, and it started my descent into the anime fandom. Tokyo Mew Mew was also the first right-to-left manga I ever bought, and to this day, I still own the old Tokyopop volumes I bought way back when, including the sequel, A La Mode. But weirdly enough, I never got around to finishing the anime. I had attempted to do so many times, but never followed through, whether it be because of other obligations, or because I was watching other, much better anime. But in 2019, I made an oath to finally, finally finish the entire anime in Japanese, making it a new year's resolution as well. No matter what, I intended to finish the anime in full, no excuses. As of 2020, I can proudly say that I finally managed to finish the whole show! And it only took me...what, fifteen years to do so? Better late than never!

I already reviewed the manga, but as a refresher, here's the story: Five young girls are given the ability to transform into animal themed magical girls by being injected with the DNA of various endangered animals. Their mission is to fight a group of aliens who want to reclaim Earth for themselves and terrorize it with mutated creatures known as Chimera Anima. But the main girl, Ichigo Momomiya, really isn't too fond of the idea of being a magical superhero, as all she wants to do is go on dates with her new boyfriend, Masaya Aoyama! So yeah, not exactly the most original of premises, and unfortunately, here in America, any and all magical girl anime are automatically deemed rip-offs of Sailor Moon, even though SM isn't the only magical girl series out there.

My review of the manga is rather critical, and my feelings on it still stand. Some people claim that whenever an anime adapts a manga, the source material is always the best one. While that is true in most cases, especially nowadays, there are exceptions to the rule, with many anime opting to offer its own ideas and improve on their manga counterparts. In my humble opinion, Tokyo Mew Mew's anime is also one of these, managing to rectify a lot of the manga's flaws, even though it itself still has some flaws that prevent it from being a masterpiece. For one, the characterization is very much improved from the manga. The latter focused solely on Ichigo, with all the other characters mostly just serving as literal props to make Ichigo stronger, and we never learn what the others are like outside of being a Mew Mew, like their family lives, hobbies, dreams, and so on. The anime has 52 episodes, and it made ample use of its time to give the other girls time in the limelight and a lot more character development, like how Mint has a strained relationship with her brother, Lettuce making plush dolls as a hobby, showing Pudding actually being a reliable sister for her younger siblings, and even on side characters, such as Ichigo's parents. I know people say filler in anime is always bad, but I'm in the camp that firmly believes that filler in and of itself isn't automatically bad, and that it can be either good or bad depending on the writing and execution. Personally, I feel Tokyo Mew Mew made good use of its run time to focus on bringing its cast to life and giving them more depth and development than the manga did, even if they're not the most complex and three-dimensional. So yeah, having more episodes can make a difference.

Another way the anime improved on the manga's flaws is how it tackled themes of animals and environmentalism. The manga tried to make use of its themes to tell its story, but it was often very clumsy in how it did so. Again, the anime improved on this by focusing on them a lot more, putting them to better use. For example, the anime has the characters interacting with various animals and environments, and having the latter play a much bigger role in the larger conflict against the aliens. Nothing like that is ever shown in the manga, as again, it mostly focuses just on Ichigo and her struggles with romance. That said, the anime doesn't always explain a lot of really important plot details, especially near the end of the series, where a bunch of new conflicts and revelations seem to come out of nowhere, with nary a solid explanation in sight. I won't spoil it for you, but for anyone who's seen the entire series, I think you'll know which episodes I'm referring to.

The animation is fairly standard for an early 2000s anime, with bright colors and lots of still frames, and it's not as fluid as other shows I've seen, but it does its job decently. That said, it does tend to fluctuate a lot over the course of the show's run. Sometimes, the characters have simplistic designs, while other times, especially in later episodes, the features on the characters' faces suddenly get hyper detailed for no reason. Normally I like this, but the way it happens here feels jarring and breaks the immersion every now and again. Maybe Pierrot had different animators on different episodes or something. That does happen. Yeah, Studio Pierrot of Naruto fame worked on this show. Hard to believe they'd go from a magical girl anime to a long running series about ninjas, right? There's also the occasional off-model body parts and character designs looking inconsistent and rushed, but those are relatively fewer in number. The soundtrack isn't very memorable, but I'm not gonna lie, it's still better than the overdramatic, tryhard soundtrack the 4Kids version gave it. The opening and ending songs are pretty nice as well, fitting the show to a T. But I should warn you: Pudding's Japanese voice is REALLY high pitched and grating. Like, super high pitched, almost as bad as Ichigo's friend Miwa (Voiced by Tomoko Kaneda, who is the queen of super squeaky high pitched voices. Pudding is played by Hisayo Mochizuki). It really says something when her English 4Kids voice actress manages to make her sound tolerable (Thanks, Kether Donohue. Where is she now anyway?). Ichigo has a similar problem, but still managed to strike some balance between genuine and obnoxiously squeaky. At times.

So is Tokyo Mew Mew the best magical girl anime ever? Not really. I can name several that I like better than it, and I'm not going to let nostalgia blind me to its flaws. But the anime rectifies a lot of the manga's issues and managed to make a fun, enjoyable show for girls that everyone can enjoy. Now if only someone would re-release the anime in the US on home video or give it a new, faithful dub like Sailor Moon got. Plus, it seems like Tokyo Mew Mew's heading back into the limelight now. Not only did it get a new spin-off manga by a completely new artist, Mia Ikumi herself made a new two-chapter sequel manga, and TMM got a brand new anime reboot. Still, the original anime will always have a place in my heart as the anime that helped pave my way into fandom as a whole.
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