#strawbellbellsurprise

[ribbonstrawberrysurprise]

Hi! I am a big fan of the Tokyo Mew series, and I was wondering if you could do an analysis on the Mew Mew's projected elements and animals and colors, and how they all tie into their powers as magical girls?? I've always wondered if there is a certain mythology or reason behind it, but it seems like the girls' colors are mostly based on their names(Strawberry- red and pink, Lettuce-green, etc), but what about their powers?

Like you said, TMM colors are much more based on their food names than on their animals. (Although, based on that one 4-panel side comic in volume 1, it seems that the colors came first, then the characters were given food names that matched.) There are two seeming exceptions:

1) Mint, but it is relatively common for mint flavored candy and gum to have blue packaging.

2) Berry, whose theme color doesn’t seem obviously related to her fruit. There are a few plants with white berries (snowberries, white beautyberry, etc.), but none that are very common in cuisine or native to Japan as far as I can tell.

Actually it seems to be the opposite (at least for the manga), with characters’ animal parts being colored as to fit with their food/theme color! Zakuro’s ears are colored much more purple than on an actual wolf, and Berry has pure white ears and tail despite neither of her animals being that color irl.

I guess it’s possible she’s supposed to be based on albino plants and animals? Her Mew form does pointedly have pale blond hair and red eyes…

Anyway, as for their powers/elements…

The Mews don’t really have defined elements, with the exception of Lettuce! They more so seem to have different methods of using generic light/emotion-based attacks.

Lettuce obviously has water powers in both the manga and anime. She’s introduced telekinetically controlling a swimming pool, and her attacks are always drawn/animated as water. (Except possibly in ReTurn? It’s hard to tell if LettuSniping Shot is a jet of water.)

Her power is clearly based on her animal and not at all on her theme color. She’s actually one of the few water powered magical girls who isn’t blue! I guess you could also make a connection with her name, in that Lettuce tends to have a lot of water in it (at least Iceberg does), but I’m not convinced that’s relevant.

Ichigo seems to have the power of love/heart/purification, in that her attacks can purify the Chimera Anima. You could also argue something to do with harmony/friendship, as she tends to get upgrades by receiving power from the other girls. Also, maybe healing, considering she brings Masaya back to life? In a way, it seems like the Mew Mews powers are very analogous to the Mew Aqua. As for her animal…. I guess people do love cats? But again, it seems more based in genre conventions than exclusive to Ichigo. Pink is classic love, but it’s also classic magical girl leader.

Berry seems to have the same powerset as Ichigo (logical, since she’s her replacement), at least at first. Her powers seem to be emotion-based, as she’s able to undo mind control with Ribbon Loveberry Check, but the other girls’ words (plus the fact that they attack her classmates first) imply this is true of all Mew Mew powers, not just hers. In ReTurn, however, she seems to explicitly have healing powers, which does seem like a natural direction to go from purification/love. Same as Ichigo for the animal connection. White does seem very associated with purity and healing (at least via association with nurses/doctors). Plus white mage.

Speaking of healing, Ringo pretty much exclusively has healing powers, plus her ability to grant power to Ichigo. Very appropriate for a Mew Aqua powered character! She also has a little bit of a music theme since her mini attacks are named after solfege and involve music notes. Penguins aren’t really associated with healing or music (really, you’d expect ice), nor are red or apples (really, they’re more associated with poison!), plus Ringo was explicitly designed to be a healer so your party wouldn’t get wiped out in the RPG. So, her powerset came first, then her design…

Next up is Pudding! Her element, as it were, seems to be… pudding! Sort of… It really looks more like gelatin than crème caramel. In the anime, she does raise up the ground to protect herself in her first appearance, and her attack animation does show it tunneling through the ground, so I can see why you’d make the argument her element is earth, but she never really does anything with this again. Even when it could really come in handy, like when she's trapped underground. And her attack is edible, as per the manga, so it can’t be clay or something! As for an animal connection, I guess you could say that monkeys are kind of known for eating things, I feel like this is clearly based solely on her name.

Zakuro…. sort of has an element? Her whip is called a “whip of light” in the anime, and in the manga it’s literally a glowing cross-shaped whip. This plus the “Cross” and “Pure” give it definite holy/purification/light vibes. But, in my opinion, this isn’t unique to Zakuro! Mint’s arrows are also pure light/energy, Ichigo’s attack is also very glowy, and Pudding’s… puddings(?) seem to form from light/energy. It seems like rather than a unique light element, she has the normal Mew powerset but used in a way that can cut or tie up the enemies. I can’t say wolves are particularly associated with light. Really, I’d assume dark, if anything, since they tend to be cast as villains? Same for purple…

Moving on to Mint! I’ve seen it claimed that Mint’s element is sound, but she never really does anything sound-based. Sure, her weapon has “Tone” in it, and her attack has “Echo”, but Pudding’s attack has “Inferno” despite having absolutely nothing to do with fire. “Check”, “Surprise”, and “Pop” are also seemingly unrelated to the attacks they describe. As for her weapon being lyre-shaped, yeah! All of the anime-style weapons are based on instruments!

As a a ballerina, she has an association with music, but she isn’t particularly useful in the fight in episode 6 vs Mary McGuire Chimera Anima, who really does attack with music. When she fights the ballerina bird Chimera Anima in episode 9, she doesn’t use music, or even really dancing! She defeats it with the power of Kicking Really Hard. And she does hear the Mew Aqua swan calling for help, but that’s just an extension of the generic “can talk to animals closely related to their infused genes” power that Ichigo and Zakuro also demonstrate.

Really, it seems like her power is just “arrow”. Like Zakuro, she doesn’t have an element; she’s just the one who’s able to aim the best from a distance. I guess when Lettuce steals her thunder in ReTurn, she's forced to upgrade to “a whole bunch of arrows all at once” and hit everything.

All Mew Mews basically have light and emotion based powers that they use slightly differently, with the exception of Lettuce, who seems to actually just generate water out of nowhere. But her powers are obviously connected to her emotions still (see how they manifest when she first awakens them). Them all having the same base power is supported by the way the manga will often not depict each attack individually, instead having each girl say her attack name and then showing the Chimera Anima exploding in a collective burst of light.

In short, rather than individual elements, I think it’s more like:

Ichigo: big finishing move

Mint: long range precision attack

Lettuce: knocking back the enemy? area of effect? (water)

Pudding: holding the enemy in place

Zakuro: cutting through small fry or holding the enemy in place

Berry: big finishing move, healing

Ringo: healing (music)

So, none of their character traits (color, animal, power) are that related? There’s some stuff that seems linked, but overall it seems like they’re most informed by genre tropes. (Also, a lot of the details of their powers were hammered out by the anime.)