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Title: Tokyo Mew Mew
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, this story only has mild nudity (which has the girls looking like they're wearing skin-colored bikinis anyway) and very mild violence, as well as plenty of romance (but no sex). There is nothing innappropriate, unless you count an alien pursuing an Earthling girl offensive. Action fans will like this series. The costumes may not be practical (and believe me, they aren't), but the action scenes are choreographed well. Romance fans have nothing to worry about, as there IS plenty of romance in this series and several love triangles. However, these only focus on one girl character and several boys, so if you like romance such as Kare Kano, you may be better off reading something else. |
Sailor Moon was the Harry Potter of mahou shoujo ("Magical girl") action manga. It took a fairly unoriginal concept (I even hesitate to say "unoriginal") and turn it into a classic story that should be released in English by now, but thanks to Toei, it will probably cease to exist. And who are the contenders coming to replace it? Disney's Italian W.I.T.C.H., both a comic and a show, and 4Kids's Winx Club and Tokyo Mew Mew (TMM), which they have renamed Mew Mew Power. I can assure you that it is more of an adaptation of the original anime rather than an accurate translation; if you want an accurate translation, then I suggest reading the manga and sticking to fansubs/fandubs. I have read Tokyo Mew Mew with high expectations, as it has a moderate fanbase in the US. I also saw some of the first episode fandubbed, which influenced my decision to read it. What is my opinion now that I have finished the seven-volume series? Half the time I like it, half the time I hate it. There. I said it. Please don't flame me as I explain why.
TMM is the story about an ordinary girl named Ichigo Momomiya becoming an action hero a la Sailor Moon. She goes on a date with her crush Masaya Aoyama to an exhibition on endangered animals. She meets a girl named Lettuce (...what???) who's being bullied for bringing the wrong drinks, and she tries to help. Three other girls show up, and then they all feel an earthquake. Ichigo has a vision in which she picks up an Iriomote Wildcat and it merges with her. The next day she starts sleeping in the middle of class, biting fish off a lunchlady's tray, and when she falls off a balcony, she lands on her feet. Then she gets attacked by a monster. Suddenly a guy named Ryou rescues her and tells her to transform. She shouts, "Strawberry Metamorphosis!" ends up with pink hair and a strange costume (she even comments on it) and defeats the monster with "Straw Bell Bell!" ("Suturo" translates to "Straw").
Ryou then introduces her to Keiichirou, a man who owns Cafe Mew Mew, and they tell her that she has been injected with Iriomote Wildcat DNA so that she can fight aliens who are determined to destroy humanity. She also has to find four other girls who've been injected with endangered animal DNA so they can form the team Tokyo Mew Mew. We don't really worry about whether or not she'll be able to do this, as she proves to be a natural with her Strawberry Bell. The problems truly start when one of the aliens, Kish, starts to flirt with her, and in recruiting her fellow Mew Mews when some of them don't feel like joining. She also has to start working at Cafe Mew Mew as a waitress, and that means she usually does most of the work because the other girls either break dishes, take tea breaks, or perform outrageous circus stunts. This series doesn't start out too bad. The animals that the girls are injected with are actual endangered animals, and the aliens themselves are interesting villains. Not to mention that it brings up an important topic: what humans are doing to destroy our planet. It isn't Captain Planet, be assured, though some of the aliens' plots may seem so. However, it makes more sense since the aliens are trying to get rid of the humans, while the planeteers' enemies were humans themselves, and they caused pollution for no real reason most of the time except for self-gain.
So where did Mia Ikumi and Reiko Yoshida go wrong? By copying Sailor Moon a lot. For every original detail, there is an unoriginal one. I have made a list of all the ones that I could find:
1) The main character is a bubbling ditz, and the writer focuses on her- Ichigo fits the bill perfectly. I didn't like Usagi Tsukino at first, but Ichigo is not that much of a character either. What made Sailor Moon interesting was not just those long arcs, but how Usagi developed into a stronger character (as Usagi, as you learn, starts out as an unreliable crybaby). The most important thing in Ichigo's life next to saving the world and helping her friends is falling in love with Masaya, and at first she seems to only care about that. Her romance with Masaya is realistic, but uninteresting. We don't see her interactions with her parents develop or anything.
2) Among the stereotypes, there are the meek braniac and the snob who clashes with the main character- Lettuce Midorikawa and Mint Aizawa. It seems that all Lettuce does is break plates while working at Cafe Mew Mew. The only character development that she gets is that she jumps off a boat to save a child even though she can't swim. And guess what? Her animal is a Finless Porpoise! Definitely based off of Sailor Mercury. But unlike Ami Mizuno, Lettuce As for Mint, she is like Rei Hino in the fact that she fights with Ichigo daily in playful bickering. She gets more character development than Lettuce does, which says something, but she is still a stereotype. Rei Hino was more interesting by the fact that she didn't like men and her reasons for this particular aversion. Unfortunately, Mint doesn't really have interesitng characteristics other than drinking tea at a certain time when she should be working at Cafe Mew Mew. The other characters, Pudding Fong and Zakuro Fujiwara, would be very interesting if they were developed a lot more...the series should've stuck to the title and focused on all five girls. Ichigo's love triangles and spontaneous transformations into a helpless cat are only interesting for so long. Though the series does focus on the rest of the team to a lesser extent.
3) Main character's love interest becomes the heroine's savior- Check. And I'm not spoiling anything as there are several guys that toy around with Ichigo. Can you say Tuxedo Mask and Mamoru Chiba, anyone? He comes way out of left field, but after I had finished the series, I realized where he was from. This is really disappointing and brings the series down further.
4) The aforementioned love interest turns evil towards the end- Check. This explains itself, and the story is resolved much too quickly, making it big for about several panels, then ending it. In Sailor Moon there was at least more conflict about this issue. Here, I'm not so sure. But despite all of this unoriginality, the story still manages to be entertaining and addictive. I tried to drop the series after volume 5 because I felt completely turned off (I was reading for pleasure, not reviewing, by the way). But in the end, I finished the series. Now, this series is pretty unoriginal, but you don't notice most of the time when you are reading. It's only when you are rereading it or thinking about it that you recognize the similarities. Some are blatant unoriginals, like the stereotypical characters, but others like the Blue Knight can be overlooked. This is the way Kevin described Guardian Angel Getten and Girl Got Game: the story isn't original, but it's told in a fresh new way. There is another thing I want to comment on: Keiichiro and Ryou's lack of common sense. They choose Ichigo to be the leader immediately. Granted, Sailor Moon was technically the leader of the Sailor Senshi, but you have to remember that she grows into the role gradually and she doesn't give orders; the Senshi work as a democratic team.
The Mew Mews work in the same way, but Ichigo has a more active role, causing this problem: there is an older girl on the team, Zakuro, who is more mature and can handle the situation better with the aliens. If I was working for a girl who was ounger than me, then I'd need real proof to gain respect for her. I'd find it more interesting to see her challenge Ichigo's authority than have Ichigo being pursued by Kish. I haven't commented on the artwork at all so far. Well, it's very vibrant and exciting. The character desgins aren't that original however, but at least you can tell everyone apart. The costumes for the Mew Mews however...let me start by saying that while the costumes are cute, they are also impractical! "Oh, but all girls wear miniskirts in anime, so that's not a problem." Miniskirts aren't the only problem; it's also the way they're drawn when you're fighting. Sailor Moon at least showed the negative/positive (positive because it attracted men) side of wearing a miniskirt: flashing panties. TMM didn't have any of these panty shots, but then what's the point of having those miniskirts? Is it because you want to be like the other animes? Think, Mia Ikumi! Think, Reiko Yoshida! I've already commented on how unoriginal this series is, so why not make the costumes more practical?
Tokyopop did a pretty good job with the preparation and translation, but one thing that is bad is no color pages. I know, I didn't care as much in Del Rey overlooking this for Othello, but here it looks a lot worse without the color because it looks like the girls are in the dark most of the time. But the extras are interesting...there are early stories by Mia Ikumi and Reiko Yoshida included, as well as alternate universe TMM with the Mew Mews in kindergarten, sketches of charatcers, little comic strips that sometimes pop up beside the story, and notes from both the author and the artist. The stories are interesting, but since these are extras and not the actual story, don't expect to read a fantastic story about love. There's one mildly interesting story that Mia Ikumi wrote called "Tokyo Black Cat Girl," about a girl who'd rather spend a day with a boy she likes than help save the world. It's very similar to Spiderman in terms of themes, but I only found it interesting because it brought up something else: the importance of trust in a relationship. See why I am torn about this? TMM is a manga which barely manages to soar off the ground, appears beautiful, but keeps looking at the competition. It has potential to be better, and does get better with its two-volume continuation, Tokyo Mew Mew A La Mode, but that's to review another day as I haven't gotten my hands on Volume 2. And TMM fans, please do not flame me about the grade. I know it is one grade above barely passing, but that is how I feel about the series. Had someone like Satomi Ikezawa or Naoko Takeuchi used this idea, they would've done a better job. And it's not just because Naoko Takeuchi is the author of Sailor Moon.
- -Review By Jaya Lakshmi- -