#I think that's why Blue Knight looked like Ryu but turned out to be Ayoma

[sheepydraws]

I first watched Tokyo Mew Mew in 2010 and haven't watched it since, so I've decided to recount what I remember of the plot before Tokyo Mew Mew New airs later this year (hopefully).

Basic Premise:

First, we meet Ichigo, our lovable, very normal, slightly ditzy protagonist in the vein of Usagi SailorMoon (I don't know either of their last names). She is a high school girl and has the required two mundane friends.

Ichigo has a crush on a guy named Ayoma whose only noticeable personality trait is that he does kendo

Ichigo is having a lovely stroll in the park when a blond guy named Ryu and his brunette friend whose name I don't remember activate...um...

They did something with endangered animal DNA? To meld it with humans? As part of an...awareness campaign about endangered species??? This is never brought up after the first three episodes.

Ichigo merges spiritually with a special kind of wildcat and now she's a catgirl who is also a magical girl.

She also gets the requisite "cutesy magical girl sidekick" in the form of a pink puffball with bat wings. (It is in fact very cute).

Ichigo proceeds to act in weird cat-like ways such as sleeping through class and liking fish (this is strange, I guess?)

Also, her cat ears keep popping out when she's embarrassed, which is terrible because Ayoma has no personality, and therefore no taste, and therefore probably won't find that hot.

Ichigo tracks down Ryu and his friend, who are funding their bizarre experiments by running a maid cafe. Ichigo needs to work with them so her cover is that she is now working at a maid cafe. Sure.

There is a secret lair under the maid cafe for the experiments and stuff. I really hope I'm forgetting that Ryu or his friend came from money because no way does this make sense otherwise.

Monster of The Week Stuff Happens While More Characters Show Up, Namely:

Mint (my favorite character back in the day) shows up. She does ballet, spiritually fused with an endangered bird of some kind and has little red wings that kind of look like birthmarks on her back.

Actually, all the girls were supposed to have little cutie marks like that and I think Ichigo's was on her thigh, but then the animation department ran out of money or something because I don't remember seeing the other girl's marks. (Maybe Zakuro's was on her belly button?)

The unspellable Kisshu/Quiche. I KNOW his name is supposed to be "Quiche" but your average American can barely pronounce that, so 2010s fansubbers trying to decode mangled Frechanese had no chance. They generally transcribed it however they felt was right in their hearts.

Kisshu is a green-haired alien pissbaby whose first appearance involved forcing Ichigo to kiss him. He behaves like a bratty younger brother but is the best love interest on entertainment value alone.

Lettuce (yes, this poor bitch is named Lettuce) who spiritually fused with a dolphin. She was so so lonely her nascent powers caused paranormal activity at her school and Ichigo had to pretend to kill the timid, bullied Lettuce to placebo the girl into gaining some confidence and becoming a magical girl in earnest.

I remember Lettuce was the only chracter who could use her Special Magical Girl AttackTM without moving her arms, so there were a few times she did it while wearing handcuffs.

Lettuce's weapon of choice were castanets. I don't remember any of the others with surety but I don't think this was the weirdest.

Pudding, who spiritually fused with a monkey, and is somehow supporting her five younger siblings as a street busker. I think it was implied that they are for real living in poverty while she's also doing all this magical girl stuff? Weirdly dark subplot for a magical girl anime.

Zakuro, who spitirtually fused with a wolf. We meet her late in the series after she has done some of her own vigilante work, Sailor V style.

I believe her name means "Taro Root" which convinced me to try a taro root bubble tea for the first time when I was a kid. It was purple and tasted like sugar cookies and convinced me that Zakuro was super cool.

Mint is in lesbians with Zakuro.

Zakuro was the only girl who never got an extended trasnformation sequence. (The "animation department ran out of money" theory strikes again.)

Kisshu's Alien Buddies: The stoic, straight laced Pai, who was kind of Lettuce's love interest, and...oh god...I watched this on youtube, back when you could do that as long as all the episodes were split into three parts and there was one part which opened with Pudding shrieking this guy's name so loud it broke my eardrums, but I can not for the life of me remember his name. We'll call him Caramel, he's Puddings love interest.

The Parts of the Plot That Weren't Monster of the Week Stuff:

Ichigo and Ryu had a will-they-won't-they despite the fact that she's in high school, he's a fully grown man, and he experimented on her without her consent.

Actually, between all three of Ichigo's love interests (Ryu, Ayoma, Kisshu) it seems like the writers, in their shameless Sailor Moon rip-off decided "You know what's better than one Tuxedo Mask? Three Tuxedo Masks!" and just carved Damien into three parts.

The...villian? Of the series is something called Deep Blue. It's the planet's life force and the aliens want to steal it because they used to live on earth, and then the ice age happened(???) so they fled to another planet, which was worse because it is also going through an ice age(???).

Either they think earth belongs to them or they just want to harvest Deep Blue and bring it to their new planet where it can stop the ice age.

But wasn't Deep Blue also the force that was creating monsters of the week?

It's possible either that this was badly explained, or I didn't understand it as a kid, or I didn't understand it because it was badly explained.

There was a hot springs filler episode.

A blond elf-type guy is running around with a fancy sword. He looks exactly like Ryu, except with longer hair and elf ears. His name is the Blue Knight and his purpose is the show was....um...to fufil Ichigo's "getting rescued by a handsome elf" fantasy?

All I remember is that he actually turned out to be Ayoma? Mr. Zero-Personality? He never even manages to remember that he is the Blue Knight, but this still tricks Ichigo into thinking he has a personality.

Pai and Lettuce proceeded to have a conversation during their final battle that could only have been conducted through telepathy.

Uh....I don't remember the next bit, but then it goes SECRET TUNNEL THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS SECRET TUNNEL SECRET TUNNEL

The crisis was averted, once again the day was saved thanks to the powerpuff girls, the aliens returned home...empty handed? Fuck them, I guess. Ichigo gets to go back to being a normal girl dating her boring-ass boyfriend.

The only thing I really remember about the ending is being deeply disappointed that no one actually got a hot alien boyfriend.

THE END