Tokyo mew mew (東京ミュウミュウ, Tōkyō Myū Myū) was originally a mahou shoujo created and illustrated by Mia Ikumi & written by Reiko Yoshida. The manga ran from 2000-2003. It focuses on 5 girls infused with the DNA of endangered animals that allows them to transform into 'Mew Mews', all named after various foods. Led by Mew Ichigo, the girls fight aliens who want to reclaim the Earth. The series has strong environmental and science themes.
The first anime aired from 2002-2003, and was dubbed in English as 'mew mew power', an objectively bad but really charming dub that changed the names of just about everyone and only got halfway through the series. A two-volume sequel to the manga, Tokyo Mew Mew à la Mode, ran from 2003-2004. The sequel introduces Berry Shirayuki or Mew Berry, who's infused with a cat and rabbit, and who becomes the temporary leader of the Mew Mews. There are two video games that were never officially translated; one of them adds Mew Ringo, a girl infused with her pet penguin. Originally, Tokyo Mew Mew was planned to be a horror magical girl manga; the prototype, Tokyo black cat girl, was featured in the manga as a preview of what could have been. There's a prototype mouse girl (see the gallery to see her) that never made it on the team, but with her, ringo, berry, and hime azumi from tokyo black cat girl, there are actually 9 'official' mew designs.
In 2020, a second, two-chapter sequel called Tokyo Mew Mew Re-Turn was released, featuring the main characters with updated designs; and as well as a spinoff, titled Tokyo Mew Mew Olé!, which features a new team of male Mew Mews (I'm not a huge fan of this one, but then, I don't really care for 'all male magical girl teams', lmao). In addition, a new anime adaptation of the series, Tokyo Mew Mew New, aired in 2022-2023. I like this series a bit less than the original anime/manga, as I don't think the designs are as strong and it does not take enough time to develop the girls or their personal bonds with each other, but I did adore the additional alien lore it offered!
This is my shrine to tokyo mew mew, the series that's probably the biggest influence on my art, ever! I first watched it on 4kids when I was around 9-10, and it was being dubbed as Mew Mew Power. To this day I adore it and still consider it my favorite series of all time. 🩷
The girls work at cafe mew mew, an adorable pastry cafe with colorful maid outfits as a cover; the lab run by Ryou and Keiichiro, their bosses, is in the basement of this cute pink castle-like cafe! Ichigo's magical girl mascot is a high-tech, pink and fuzzy robot! The series pushes that all the magical girl stuff is science-based, which I thought was very cool.
the series really lends itself to making ocs/self inserts which is fun!! both the mews and aliens designs have common elements in common that makes it easy to make your own character just by taking a food + animal + color! All of the aliens are named after pastries (Pie, Tart, Quiche) and all of the mews are foods + animals (mew ichigo (strawberry), mew mint, mew lettuce, mew pudding, mew zakuro (pomegranate), mew berry, and mew ringo (apple).
some links!!
-watch tmm on youtube (there are several channels with the full series if this one goes down!)
-the og anime’s OST, including some great character songs!
-watch mew mew power / a compilation
- the ps game playthru english translation
- Smewthie’s youtube channel go listen to the new anime’s music and watch their super cute music videos!
- Read tmm ole! and Read Tmm Re-Turn! @hikayagami scans them, @ribbonstrawberrysurprise translates and @berrychanx cleans and edits them. I’d totally recommend all of their blogs for tmm content too, like news, translations and meta posts ^^
-the manga including a la mode can be bought still!! I’d recommend trying bookstores near you or ebay for cheaper editions. (you can also read it online!! but sites usually get taken down or moved around so I won’t link them here) tokyo black cat girl was included in a la mode I think :)
Tokyo Miracle is my fan spin off comic; it's a next-gen story centering around Ichigo's child, an OC named Mira. The full site for the comic is here with more info & the comic itself! Mostly... I was very inspired by tokyo mew mew and wanted to use the bones of it and flesh out some concepts that weren't touched upon a ton in the original but had potential! It's also just a big love letter to the original series. I'm not entirely sure how comprehensible it is to anyone who hasn't read/watched the original series ^^;
my fanart
my favorite official art
