I have a very sentimental relationship with Tokyo Mew Mew. I remember first watching the English dubbed version, Mew Mew Power, on TV when I was about twelve, and I watched it religiously until it got unceremoniously cancelled. It was also the first anime I ever watched in Japanese with subtitles, and it started my descent into the anime fandom. Tokyo Mew Mew was also the first right-to-left manga I ever bought, and to this day, I still own the old Tokyopop volumes I bought way back when, including the sequel, A La Mode. But weirdly enough, I never got around to finishing the anime. I had attempted to do so many times, but never followed through, whether it be because of other obligations, or because I was watching other, much better anime. But in 2019, I made an oath to finally, finally finish the entire anime in Japanese, making it a new year's resolution as well. No matter what, I intended to finish the anime in full, no excuses. As of 2020, I can proudly say that I finally managed to finish the whole show! And it only took me...what, fifteen years to do so? Better late than never!

I already reviewed the manga, but as a refresher, here's the story: Five young girls are given the ability to transform into animal themed magical girls by being injected with the DNA of various endangered animals. Their mission is to fight a group of aliens who want to reclaim Earth for themselves and terrorize it with mutated creatures known as Chimera Anima. But the main girl, Ichigo Momomiya, really isn't too fond of the idea of being a magical superhero, as all she wants to do is go on dates with her new boyfriend, Masaya Aoyama! So yeah, not exactly the most original of premises, and unfortunately, here in America, any and all magical girl anime are automatically deemed rip-offs of Sailor Moon, even though SM isn't the only magical girl series out there.

My review of the manga is rather critical, and my feelings on it still stand. Some people claim that whenever an anime adapts a manga, the source material is always the best one. While that is true in most cases, especially nowadays, there are exceptions to the rule, with many anime opting to offer its own ideas and improve on their manga counterparts. In my humble opinion, Tokyo Mew Mew's anime is also one of these, managing to rectify a lot of the manga's flaws, even though it itself still has some flaws that prevent it from being a masterpiece. For one, the characterization is very much improved from the manga. The latter focused solely on Ichigo, with all the other characters mostly just serving as literal props to make Ichigo stronger, and we never learn what the others are like outside of being a Mew Mew, like their family lives, hobbies, dreams, and so on. The anime has 52 episodes, and it made ample use of its time to give the other girls time in the limelight and a lot more character development, like how Mint has a strained relationship with her brother, Lettuce making plush dolls as a hobby, showing Pudding actually being a reliable sister for her younger siblings, and even on side characters, such as Ichigo's parents. I know people say filler in anime is always bad, but I'm in the camp that firmly believes that filler in and of itself isn't automatically bad, and that it can be either good or bad depending on the writing and execution. Personally, I feel Tokyo Mew Mew made good use of its run time to focus on bringing its cast to life and giving them more depth and development than the manga did, even if they're not the most complex and three-dimensional. So yeah, having more episodes can make a difference.

Another way the anime improved on the manga's flaws is how it tackled themes of animals and environmentalism. The manga tried to make use of its themes to tell its story, but it was often very clumsy in how it did so. Again, the anime improved on this by focusing on them a lot more, putting them to better use. For example, the anime has the characters interacting with various animals and environments, and having the latter play a much bigger role in the larger conflict against the aliens. Nothing like that is ever shown in the manga, as again, it mostly focuses just on Ichigo and her struggles with romance. That said, the anime doesn't always explain a lot of really important plot details, especially near the end of the series, where a bunch of new conflicts and revelations seem to come out of nowhere, with nary a solid explanation in sight. I won't spoil it for you, but for anyone who's seen the entire series, I think you'll know which episodes I'm referring to.

The animation is fairly standard for an early 2000s anime, with bright colors and lots of still frames, and it's not as fluid as other shows I've seen, but it does its job decently. That said, it does tend to fluctuate a lot over the course of the show's run. Sometimes, the characters have simplistic designs, while other times, especially in later episodes, the features on the characters' faces suddenly get hyper detailed for no reason. Normally I like this, but the way it happens here feels jarring and breaks the immersion every now and again. Maybe Pierrot had different animators on different episodes or something. That does happen. Yeah, Studio Pierrot of Naruto fame worked on this show. Hard to believe they'd go from a magical girl anime to a long running series about ninjas, right? There's also the occasional off-model body parts and character designs looking inconsistent and rushed, but those are relatively fewer in number. The soundtrack isn't very memorable, but I'm not gonna lie, it's still better than the overdramatic, tryhard soundtrack the 4Kids version gave it. The opening and ending songs are pretty nice as well, fitting the show to a T. But I should warn you: Pudding's Japanese voice is REALLY high pitched and grating. Like, super high pitched, almost as bad as Ichigo's friend Miwa (Voiced by Tomoko Kaneda, who is the queen of super squeaky high pitched voices. Pudding is played by Hisayo Mochizuki). It really says something when her English 4Kids voice actress manages to make her sound tolerable (Thanks, Kether Donohue. Where is she now anyway?). Ichigo has a similar problem, but still managed to strike some balance between genuine and obnoxiously squeaky. At times.

So is Tokyo Mew Mew the best magical girl anime ever? Not really. I can name several that I like better than it, and I'm not going to let nostalgia blind me to its flaws. But the anime rectifies a lot of the manga's issues and managed to make a fun, enjoyable show for girls that everyone can enjoy. Now if only someone would re-release the anime in the US on home video or give it a new, faithful dub like Sailor Moon got. Plus, it seems like Tokyo Mew Mew's heading back into the limelight now. Not only did it get a new spin-off manga by a completely new artist, Mia Ikumi herself made a new two-chapter sequel manga, and TMM got a brand new anime reboot. Still, the original anime will always have a place in my heart as the anime that helped pave my way into fandom as a whole.