.:WHAT IS "MEW MEW"?:.

Tokyo Mew Mew is a Japanese comic - or manga - drawn by Mia Ikumi and written by Reiko Yoshida, and it was first published in Nakayoshi magazine in 2000. [Note: Nakayoshi's appearance is like a phonebook. It holds a collection of various comic titles, some of which have been Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon, Card Captor Sakura, Kaitou Saint Tail, and Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch. There are a few color pages per issue, but the majority of the pages are monochromatic (one ink color). Nakayoshi also comes with stationary, jewelry, and other goodies known as furoku.]

The Mew Mew story is of the "magical girl" genre. TokyoPop classifies it as action/sci-fi. There are seven volumes (or tankoubon) in the original manga, and 52 episodes of the anime (animated television series) which followed it. There is additionally a follow-up manga series called Tokyo Mew Mew a la mode which consists of two volumes only. No movies or OAVs were ever released.

Fans of both the anime and manga will notice a considerable amount of differences between the two. For example, some scenes from the manga happen differently in the anime, or not at all. The show - which was colored using computer graphics rather than old-school painted cels - delves further into the characters lives and expands on what the manga has established.

The story begins with 11-year-old Ichigo Momomiya (she is 13 in the television series) who is out on a date with her crush, Masaya Aoyama. After exiting the science museum, Ichigo comes across a cafe she had never noticed before. There is a strange and sudden earthquake, and Ichigo soon finds herself in a dream-like state, standing face-to-face with an endangered Iriomote Wildcat. The cat then leaps into her body and merges with her DNA.

The next day, Ichigo is really tired, and strange things begin happening to her. She falls from a balcony and manages to land on her feet, then at lunch she steals someone's fish - with her mouth! Just when she's really getting worried about how she's been acting lately, Masaya shows up and her speech becomes a mixture of words and meows.

After school, Ichigo follows Masaya into the park. By this point she's very concerned with what's happening to her. Without warning, a huge rat-like monster appears and Masaya is knocked unconscious. As the monster prepares to strike Ichigo, the girl is swept into a tree by a blond-haired boy who tells her she has to fight it. With the help of the pendant he gives her, she transforms into superheroine Mew Ichigo.

After managing to defeat the monster, the boy, Ryou Shirogane, explains about the so-called Mew Project. Ichigo is now their key weapon against alien forces that are trying to reclaim the Earth. The aliens plan to do this by implanting jellyfish-like aliens into animals and turning them into monsters known as Chimera Animas. Ichigo, ofcourse, is totally overwhelmed. Ryou is about to drag her along with him, when Keiichiro Akasaka (Ryou's partner in the Mew Project) shows up and convinces her to trust them. Their secret base turns out to be in the basement of the cafe she had previously seen. Four other girls just like her have been infused with the genes of other endangered species - Ichigo's first mission is to find them.

Along with Mint, Lettuce, Pudding, and Zakuro - Ichigo must defeat the new monsters that appear, and manage to keep her new identity a secret. She also has to figure out how to juggle school, battles, and her new job as a waitress at Cafe Mew Mew. It's not going to be easy.

Mew Mew Power is the American adaptation of the Japanese show. The English version of the TV series was the work of 4Kids Entertainment, which licensed the series back in early 2004 along with The WinX Club, as an attempt to appeal to female audiences. The action was met with much negative feedback by the existing Mew Mew fanbase, because of many changes that the series would undergo. These changes involved "Americanizing" character and weapon names, removing Japanese text and [sometimes] Mew Mew marks, creating a new musical score, and the alteration and deletion of scenes. [Note: Around three minutes of footage from each episode is cut due mostly to air time.]

In the fall of 2004, 4Kids TV (then the "FoxBox") launched a "You Pick It, We Play It" poll among three shows it had aquired, Mew Mew among them. In the end, the series didn't win the poll, and also when the other two shows began airing normally in the line-up, Mew Mew Power was left out to the disappointment of many fans. In February of 2005 - about a year after being licensed - Mew Mew Power finally began airing on the 19th.

The story follows five teenage girls who are fused with the DNA of endangered species. These girls must work together to protect Earth from the Cyniclons and their creations, the Predasites.

Season 01 included the first 13 episodes of the series (100-112). Season 02 aired in the fall, with another 10 episodes that had already been recorded. Three episodes have yet remained unaired on American television, but have debuted in English on 4Kids TV in Canada and Nickelodeon in Australia. Merchandise dates were set tentatively for fall-winter 2005, but no TV-based merchandise was released in America. Mew Mew Power was eventually taken off the air and there was no other word about the series. 4Kids has stated that they do not currently have the rights to air or continue dubbing Mew Mew and that there are no plans of bringing it back at this time.

Mew Mew has been adapted into over a dozen other languages across the globe, many of them borrowing the script and names from the English 4Kids dub. Others, such as the Italian dub, Mew Mew Amiche Vincenti, feature their own set of names.

Mew Mew is a really cute and light-hearted series. It never gets extremely complicated, so it's easy to follow and enjoyable to read. Mew Mew has a lot of elements that allow it to appeal to a variety of people: romance and love triangles, drama, endangered species, technology and action, friendship and teamwork. Mew Mew may be created in the same vein as other magical girl series, but it is by no means a Sailor Moon ripoff, and offers a more modern spin on the genre that people all over have come to love.