The plot is standard Mahou Shoujo fair. Our heroine Ichigo finds herself in the possession of unwanted, embarrassing, and often uncontrollable magical powers. These powers involve her growing cat ears and a tail and having many feline abilities and characteristics. She joins a group called Tokyo Mew Mew to fight against mysterious aliens who are trying to kill off the human race. Other Mew Mews steadily join the group until it reaches five. From here the true motivations of the villains become more defined and the episodes start to play out very much like most magical girl series do with a monster of the week which the girls must use their combined abilities to defeat. As I mentioned earlier, it all feels just a bit too familiar and predictable in the beginning portions of the series.
That all begins to change though as Tokyo Mew Mew starts to carve out its own identity. Even the battles themselves become a bit more sophisticated and unlike many similar shows like Sailor Moon, it doesn’t always feel like I am watching the same battles recycled over and over in every episode. While I wouldn’t say the magical action and special effects are amazing or even all that good, by the end they were far more impressive and interesting than most series of this type.
What was really surprising to me was just how satisfying the romance elements of the plot played out. Ichigo is pretty singularly focused for the most part on her main crush Aoyama, who eventually becomes her steady boyfriend. Though this doesn’t prevent her from occasionally having conflicting feelings about other boys which given her age is not all that surprising or unexpected. It was also nice to see that other characters were given their own relationships though some were better than others. (One in particular was frustratingly annoying) Ultimately the ending both for the main plot and the romance is extremely satisfying and well done.
Ichigo emerges as a very good lead. She shares many of the characteristics common with magical girls; ditzy, not overly bright, not very brave, a bit whiny, but extremely loyal to her friends and courageous when it really counts. She grows up a lot over the course of the story and her burgeoning romance with Aoyama and her own doubts about her own feelings and his feelings for her are compelling viewing. Though at times her personality can be a bit annoying (a lot like Usagi from Sailor Moon) but it’s impossible to dislike her. Saying you hate Ichigo is kind of like saying you hate kittens.
Aoyama is very much a background character for the first half of the series. As the story progresses though his role with the Mew Mews and in the plot becomes more and more important. Though I felt at times the story put some unnecessary and fairly ridiculous cockblocks in the way of his relationship with Ichigo it never reaches the levels of frustration I often feel with the romances in series like this.
The remaining Mew Mew's were all a pretty good mix. They all received enough screen time to develop their characters adequately but not too much that they took away from what was really important. My favorite of the group was Zakuro who was a bit like an older sister or even a mother to the rest of much younger Mew Mew team. Lettuce fulfilled to moe role on the team and I personally liked her a lot too. Though of all the characters I really would have liked to see a bit more back story on her. Pudding is the resident loli and while I was initially mostly annoyed by her she managed to grow on me as the series progressed. The only one of the girls that I can’t say I really liked was Mint. She has her moments but most of the time she just comes across as a spoiled selfish bitch. The only male members and founders of the team, Shirogane and Akasaka are interesting and likeable. They are initially fleshed out pretty well but seem to become less involved with the story as it reaches its conclusion.
The villains also deserve some mention. They actually have some depth to them unlike a lot of similar series. Their actions and motives are quite evil but even so they don’t seem like evil people. Though many of the things they do are pretty unforgiveable I think the depth of character they display and the fact that they are not all black and white is what made this series so compelling to watch.
Even though some aspects of the artwork and animation are a bit dated when compared to what we are used to today, I still found Tokyo Mew Mew to be very good visually. The character designs were cute and not too perverse or unrealistic. Since this is Mahou Shoujo that means transformation scenes! Thankfully these aren’t shown to us in their entirety for the whole series. While some of the animation footage (we pretty much always seem to see Ichigo's complete transformation and battle animation) gets a bit repetitive this is primarily in the first half of the show. When things start getting interesting towards the end and the cast is bigger the show does not waste half of its runtime showing scenes we’ve already seen 40 times before already.
Where I really fell in love with this series is the music. I mentioned how much my daughter loves this show, and that is almost totally due to the cute and entirely addictive OP and EN songs. It’s been a little more than 2 months at the time of this writing since I finished Mew Mew, but I would say not one day has passed since that I have not heard "My Sweetheart" playing in the house. It’s adorable, clever, and always brings a smile to my face. The same goes for the EN song, particularly when coupled with the chibi goodness in the closing animation. The voice cast gives a very strong and delightful performance. I should warn you though, do not bother with the English dub. It is a horrible 4Kids fuck job and an insult to the senses. Thank goodness those no talent hacks are going out of business. Good riddance.
Those of you who enjoy magical girl series should watch this series without fail. Additionally any of you with kids under the age of 10 or younger siblings should also take the opportunity to watch this with them. Tokyo Mew Mew is a rare show that is just adult and serious enough to appeal to older viewers but still youthful enough to charm the little ones. You shouldn’t miss it!
