Manga Review: Tokyo Mew Mew, Volume One by Mia Ikumi & Reiko Yoshida
At the turn of the millennium, Ichigo Momomiya is a junior high school student with a crush on her handsome, smart and athletic classmate Masaya. He seems to be a bit oblivious to her feelings though, being consumed with a passion for environmentalism. Thus it is that their first “date” is at an exhibit about endangered animals at the natural history museum.
Separated from Masaya for a few minutes, Ichigo finds herself next to four other girls at the museum cafe when the earth quakes and a strange light shines. Ichigo has a vision of an odd cat (there’s some Barbie-doll nudity here.)
The next morning, Ichigo finds herself endowed with cat-like abilities, while also developing some feline mannerisms. Soon after, Masaya asks her to come with him…to clean the riverbank.
When a giant rat appears, Masaya is knocked out, and a rather rude (but handsome) fellow named Ryou Shirogane appears to inform Ichigo she’s now a superheroine named Mew Ichigo and pushes her into activating her powers to fight the monsters.
Afterward, Ryou explains that in order to fight aliens that are controlling Earth animals, he and his colleague Keiichiro Akasaka have developed a “gene ray” to use the fighting spirit of endangered animals to purify the controlled beasts. But during the earthquake the beam “accidentally” hit Ichigo and the other girls, giving her the powers of an Iriomote leopard cat. Presumably, the other girls were also given superpowers.
This shoujo manga ran from 2000-2003 in Nakayoshi as a variant on the “magical girl” subgenre. It spawned an animated adaptation, a couple of video games, and a much less well-received sequel. In the U.S., it was published by Tokyopop, and was re-released in 2011 by Kodansha in an omnibus edition.
Ichigo is dragooned into being a waitress at the museum cafe as a cover for her superhero activities, and also detailed with finding the other Mews. In this volume, she contacts the sarcastic and rather rude ballet dancer Minto Aizawa, who has lorikeet powers, and shy pushover Retasu Midorikawa who possesses finless porpoise genetic material.
Ichigo’s about to recruit the fourth Mew when an alien appears to…kiss her!? Seems he thinks she’s cute, and it’s a shame Ichigo will have to die!
There’s a fairly extensive author’s notes in the back revealing among other things the more drama-focused original plotline for the series.
This is cute stuff with a coating of environmental awareness. One could wish that Ichigo had a motivation less connected to wanting to date a boy and more connected to saving the planet, but there you go. Outside the crush, her primary personality trait is being nice to people, useful for a magical girl team leader.
Best suited to younger readers who won’t think too hard about some of the logic holes in the plot.
And here’s a look at the anime:
