43rd G-View: Tokyo Mew Mew

Hello and welcome to G-Views, where SoL reigns supreme, moe is respected and Dokuro-chan sucks poopie. What can I say about Mew Mew Power? Oh, pardon me, I meant Tokyo Mew Mew. Yes doods and peeps, I am also a victim of the people who watched the much hated 4-Kids adaptation of Tokyo Mew Mew. I’ll explain why it’s bad later on in my review of one of my all time favorite Magical Girl anime ever, Tokyo Mew Mew.

Genres: adventure, comedy, magic, romance, science fiction, slice of life, supernatural
Themes: aliens, henshin, magical girl, sentai, superhero
Number of episodes: 51
G-Rating: 8/10

Might as well get this out of the way now. For those who have seen the 4-Kids dub, Mew Mew Power is the English Translation of TMM. Of course it is inferior to the JP version, however, there are some reasons for this.
#1: The English version was never finished. Its original run was ONLY 26 episodes, which covers the 1st half of the series. The problem is that the really good stuff doesn’t start until the 2nd half, which means that if you haven’t seen the original, English fans will have missed a lot of the action unless they’ve read the manga.
#2: The transformation sequences. Suffice to say, the sequences are inferior to the originals. Remind me to show you examples of Subbed vs Dubbed transformations. Seeing is believing after all. Let me put it like this, the music choice for the dubbed version ruin the coolness that the subbed version has.
#3: Terrible music. Of course dubbed versions are always known for replacing awesome JP OPs with their own mediocre OPs and most of the time, no ED songs.

You know, to save myself the time, check out these example TMM vs MMP vids to see for yourself why TMM is undeniably the superior version.

With that out of the way, on with the review itself.

Although TMM is awesome, I do have some minor gripes with it.
#1: Character inequality. What I mean with this one is that throughout the show, each one of the Mew Mews gets a character specific episode which focuses with them as people, allowing us to see what kind of people they are. Heck, even the male characters get at least 1 episode focusing on them. However, there is one character that doesn’t get the spotlight that often compared to the others, that would Zakuro. It’s like the writers said, all you need to know about Zakuro is that she’s smart, sexy and powerful. Her personal life isn’t important. That’s not saying she doesn’t have any episodes focusing on her, it’s just that those episodes are far and few. what they DO coveer about her is pretty interesting actually, they just don’t cover that much compared to the others. Oh well, Zakuro is still awesome regardless.
#2: Transformation time. Yes, this is nitpicking because, as any Magical Girl anime knows, MG anime are famous for having long and tedious transformation sequences in each episode, which waste precious time very often. It’s inevitable. Oh well, thank goodness for the fast forward button.
Transformations are cool the 1st few times that you see them, but they mustn’t be repeated time and time again with the same length. At least shorten them as the series marches on.
#3: Names. I still don’t get how a parent would name their child after a fruit, vegetable or dessert. I guess it’s to make them sound cuter. However, even the villains are named after desserts. It’s not exactly a major complaint, I just don’t get it. Oh well, naming a Special move, Ribbon Pudding Inferno does make me laugh a lot, so the names serve their purpose.
That’s about it.

The story follows a simple flow. It has your character specific episode mixed with your typical “Monster of the Day” type setting. Sometimes when the story becomes the main focus, you’ll know that when you see an episode like that, expect it to be an intense one with action and suspense. The romance on the show is mixed in my opinion. Some of them are quite lovely, while others can get on my nerves, especially with Ichigo. I ask myself what do these guys see in her that makes her so special…besides being the main character of the show? Oh well, at least Mint has an “interesting” love interest (You can pretty much guess who it is) and Lettuce as well. Heck, even Pudding gets to strut her stuff with some guys. Imagine that. Plot twists…again mixed. There is one in particular that can either be incredibly predictable or unexpected, depending on how well your deduction skills are.

The music is cool and cute. Some songs are fuzzy while others are fitting for action heroines. Unlike the Dubbed version…yuck!

The animation is a mixed bag. the Mew Mews and main villains are nicely drawn of course, however, some of the monsters that the Mew Mews have to fight against just make me feel a little disturbed and freaked out. The Action sequences are also a mixed bag. Sometimes the fights are mostly the Mews showing off their special moves and the monsters are killed by the effects instead of the Mews themselves. You have to watch an episode to understand what I mean. Other times however, the fights can be pretty exciting. This is mostly against the major villains of course, since they’re tougher to beat. As for the Transformation and special move sequences, I enjoy them, even if they do get repetitive, they’re still cool.

Since Lettuce is my #1 fav Mew Mew, I’ll show a vid of her transformation sequence and special move.

This show does have a sequel in the form of a manga titled Tokyo Mew Mew a La Mode. I haven’t read it yet, but I’ve seen plot summaries and it sounds pretty good to me. It’s a shame it was never turned into an anime.

In Conclusion, I can’t exactly explain why this particular Magical Girl series is so special to me, compared to others such as Cardcaptor Sakura, Pretty Cure, Sailor Moon, etc. I guess everyone has their favorite and this one just happens to be mine. It’s up to you doods and peeps if you wish to give this series a go. I’ll say this, should you choose to watch it and you like Magical Girl anime, you won’t be disappointed.

P.S.: Mint and Zakuro are canon.