Tokyo Mew Mew New ♡

Ichigo Momomiya is excited to start high school and fall in love. She is in luck when she meets the popular and good-looking Masaya Aoyama, and she immediately develops a crush on him. When Ichigo learns that Aoyama is passionate about the environment, she seizes the chance to ask him out thanks to some tickets to an exhibition about endangered animals.

During their date, Ichigo is struck by a mysterious light and faints. Waking up to the sight of Aoyama, she remains unharmed—but they both must escape from a giant rat-like creature after it injures Aoyama. To save her crush, Ichigo awakens her powers and transforms into a heroine with the skills of a cat.

After she defeats the monster, researchers Ryou Shirogane and Keiichiro Akasaka explain that Ichigo was chosen to become a part of the Mew Project: a group of five magical girls whose DNA has been infused with those of certain endangered species. Now, Ichigo must find the rest of her teammates to defeat the Chimera Anima—beings infected by aliens who want to take over the world—before it is too late.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Momomiya, Ichigo Main

Tenma, Yuuki Japanese

Fujiwara, Zakuro Main

Ishii, Momoka Japanese

Aizawa, Mint Main

Hinata, Mirai Japanese

Huang, Bu-Ling Main

Toda, Rian Japanese

Midorikawa, Lettuce Main

Juuni, Ryouko Japanese

Quiche Supporting

Okamoto, Nobuhiko Japanese

Shirogane, Ryou Supporting

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Aoyama, Masaya Supporting

Uchida, Yuuma Japanese

Masha Supporting

Ishihara, Kaori Japanese

Akasaka, Keiichiro Supporting

Shirai, Yuusuke Japanese

Furukawa, Shin Producer

Itou, Hirofumi Producer

Yamada, Yuriko Producer

Yamato, Masae Producer

Reviews

Jun 14, 2024

Animelover875

Recommended

Tokyo Mew Mew New is a reboot of the original anime and has made numerous changes from the original, which are all welcome. In my opinion, the shorter season helps the new series reduce the need for filler and allows the plot to more narrowly focus on the elements of the story it is likely intending to develop. This directly benefits the anime, as the story becomes far more concise and easily self-contained in a narrative sense. As such, the series can afford more concise explanations of events and allows for better characterization. The Mew Mews' development has vastly improved since the original Tokyo Mew ... Mew, which can be seen best in their debut episodes; Lettuce and Mint have much better context regarding Lettuce's issues with bullying and Mint's relationship with her brother, while Zakuro benefitted most heavily, getting a fleshed out mini-arc which helped develop herself and Mint as characters. While Ichigo primarily has not changed in her initial role, she is more refined as a main character now and feels like a person rather than a character, as opposed to the past.

As mentioned, one of Tokyo Mew Mew New's main draws is its focus more on plot and important events, which notably gives Kisshu and Pie greater development as antagonists and makes them generally more threatening. One of the main benefits arising from this is that the series is less forced to rely on Mew Aqua and Deep Blue to advance the plot, which helps keep the aliens' schemes fresh, while simultaneously sympathetic enough that a viewer can at least understand their motives. Lettuce, Mint and Zakuro all have short story arcs that help them grow as characters, which adds to the theme of them all maturing and coming into their own roles to protect the Earth. This can also be seen (albeit indirectly) in their age up to high-school age (aside from Pudding), as they (as characters) are now able to comprehend the actual weight of their role to protect the Earth.

Zakuro's mini-arc was one I particularly enjoyed, as her origins as a character were not covered in as great detail as I had hoped in the initial anime. Here, however, Zakuro's song stands as an excellent representation of what she believes to be her "path," and we see her perspective versus being forced to fight and how she is perceived by the other Mew Mews. Her development also directly affects Mint, who also develops heavily as a character thanks to Zakuro, and becomes more than a simple obsessed fan of Zakuro; in fact, this element of her character is severely diminished after this, which helps flesh her out as more her own person than simply a rich fangirl.

One of the only aspects of Tokyo Mew Mew New that I would criticize would be the romance. Kisshu and Ichigo's romance (if it can be called that even) is far less nuanced in this version, and Kisshu is downright creepy to Ichigo more than a handful of times, which comes across as far more predatory and malicious than would seem to be appropriate for the anime. Aoyama seems to struggle as a character for different reasons; as it's shown that he and Ichigo meet each other after the season begins, their relationship seems far less natural than when it seemed Ichigo already semi knew him in the original. This gives the impression that they're growing attached to each other too quickly after only knowing each other for a very brief amount of time. Aside from this, Aoyama is an alright, if rather plain, love interest for Ichigo, although I will note that it is due to him that she is able to have enough morale to continue fighting in battle, and that this is not a knock towards his character or any potential role this may fill in the plot.

Overall, Tokyo Mew Mew New is a great reboot of the original which fixes many problems that were initially present and seems to not add in any new problems while simultaneously making notable quality of life changes, such as the aforementioned reduced quantity of filler (which helps the plot advance more quickly). This directly leads to the Mew Mews getting more immediate character development as well as the antagonists being more intimidating yet complex in their role in the series. Overall, 8/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Nov 2, 2023

Lilamon

Recommended

This is my first impression of Tokyo Mew Mew since I didn't grow up with the original anime or manga. It's not a boundary breaking series and has every trope typical of 2000s-era magical girl media, yet I still found it engaging. The characters each have their own charm and unique personalities. I found Quiche particularly entertaining as an antagonist and look forward to seeing more of him in the second season. The music stood out to me right away and I constantly get the opening stuck in my head. The only issue I have with this adaptation is the animation. It's very simple which ... works well for the movement, but also comes off as bare-bones. I wish I could've seen more of the outfit detailing since the new animation style oversimplifies the character designs. Overall this is a show I can safely recommend for magical girl fans.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 20, 2022

KANLen09

Mixed Feelings

A classic revitalized, though that's nothing compared to the AniManga scene of the constant sequel effect, and it's honestly quite average at best.

Ask any die-hard fan of Reiko Yoshida and Mia Ikumi's Tokyo Mew Mew, and they would say that it's one of those shows that were once in the pipeline slew of the gaining classic Mahou Shoujo a.k.a Magical Girl genre of the early 2000s, right at the time of the immense success of Sailor Moon that has made its way into the West that has taken into effect for years. Of course, with the advent of Madoka Magica that completely turned and screwed ... the genre upside down, it's of no surprise that the genre has continued to evolve, even to this day with more tried-and-true tropes flooding its market just like all other genres nowadays. But what if there is a way to relive how the anime scene was like back then, and this remake which serves as the series' 20th anniversary is defintely part of that celebration...which was lukewarm at best given its popularity.

But if the recent complete adaptation of the subpar reboot that is Hiroyuki Takei's Shaman King has taught us one thing, is that even if the source material doesn't sell like hotcakes nowadays, it uses nostalgic memorabilia to re-define the revingorating success it once had, though that ultimately amounted to the loss in overall quality just for the sake of "putting things right" of how the source material should be adapted. And yes, bar for the course that Tokyo Mew Mew New's rendition is going, it doesn't actually cover the entire manga, but rather, adds its own whimsical spin thanks to Yumeta Company's in-house director Takahiro Natori and series composer Yuka Yamada, which the latter has a knack for shows similar to it from shows like Koisuru Asteroid to the more recent Slow Loop. And in the sacrifice of having to adapt the entire manga (which would've taken another 12 episodes to do so, that thankfully has Season 2 coming next Spring), ultimately, this I felt was the better approach in trying to weigh between counterbalances of having a decent reboot than one that feels rushed. And even then, pales in comparison to Studio Pierrot's original 2002 rendition of covering the entire manga plus fillers in 52 episodes.

The Mew Mews of Ichigo Momomiya (bearing the Iriomote cat DNA), Mint Aizawa (bearing the Blue Lorikeet DNA), Lettuce Midorikawa (bearing the finless porpoise DNA), Bu-Ling Huang (bearing the golden lion tamarin DNA) and Zakuro Fujiwara (bearing the gray wolf DNA), they are the stereotypical "Girl Power" team to save the world from the aliens whom had their home destroyed to smithereens, and Earth is their next place of interest to do the same evildoer stuff. Like you know, each and every Mahou Shoujo tried-and-true formula that predates Madoka Magica. This is pretty stereotypical for the time, and for the most part, the remake serves its purpose well by adapting only the first 3 out of the 7 volumes closely and sprinkling whatever the production staff wants to add into it, making it into a modern remake of an old property, plus new songs to boot in its decency. But this is the same reason where the remake also lost a lot of its luster by being a low-tier production of today's anime industry standards, that not only gives little to no respect to the original, but instead is made in such a way that provides a source of income invested into the project. It's just sad that old legends, whether popular or not, their status have been mostly being castaways of a time where anime was fun (and it still is to this day), but it's how the anime industry had grown up to become an exploitative industry of work that all works are regarded the same way, and to me, this is not how things should've been, but it is what it is.

The general advice, as is any hardcore fan of said source material, would be for you to read the manga that's enclosed in 32 chapters in 7 volumes, something that's more feasible than watching the 52-episode anime (which can take too long). Good thing there's a Season 2 to continue for the fans who love this new iteration. Even if this is or isn't speaking out of nostalgic bias, as someone who really hasn't seen much of the oldies (but have enough knowledge about it), I guess the banter's true that "the original is (undoubtedly) better". I would just like to wish that the remake got the attention and respect that it truly deserves, but it just ended up falling flat on its face.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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