TMM was a huuuge part of my middle and high school years, and basically kickstarted my future art career. I have read the manga and watched the anime so many times, and I can still draw the characters from memory. Naturally when the reboot was announced, I was pretty psyched, but that was dampened when the news of Mia Ikumi's passing broke. Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how you look at it, this new anime is starting off differently enough to distract me from getting too emotional, and I just want to get my thoughts out. THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR EPISODE ONE FOLLOWING THE READ MORE BREAK. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
The first thing I saw before even watching the episode were the opening and ending. The opening was about what I would expect from an anime with an idol group tie-in. It feels more like a magical idol anime opening for sure, kinda like PriPara. The original anime opening is super nostaligic, sure, but this one is definitely nice to look at, and catchy. No complaints. The ending is definitely a huge callback to the original ending, down to the alternating sung and chanted parts before the chorus and all the chibis. The visuals and weird little dances the Mews do is more fun than the scrolling art of them, but the song is absolutely not as catchy. Still, it's okay for a reboot.
The episode itself basically starts how I would have expected it to start; we're introduced to Momomiya Ichigo strolling through her school and noticing all the couples, and wanting a romance of her own. She stumbles into a group of raving fangirls watching Aoyama Masaya practicing kendo. There are two key differences at this point that I have noticed: Ichigo is in HIGH school, and she has had no prior contact or relationship with Masaya. I expected the new anime to take a different route with their relationship, as in the previous anime and manga, Ichigo and Masaya already at least knew each other. This new take on showing the beginning of their relationship already adds a bit of depth to their relationship, which is nice, since in the original you didn't really get a sense of what Masaya saw in Ichigo in the first place until the end.
The change from middle school to high school is unexpected though. Most childrens' magical girl series take place in middle school, and the original series wasn't any different. After all, it's easier to market the cute toys to the kids who would be the target audience. I guess this is like the Sailor Moon Crystal reboot, and they want to market to the older audience that remembers it more, so they're making the characters older to compensate? SMC didn't do that though? Or is it to make the relationship between Ichigo and Masaya less childish? I'm a little cautious of it, mostly because I really, really don't want people doing creepy things with their image. I see enough creepy fanart of underaged characters in the PreCure fanbase, and I've seen enough of TMM back in the day. They're still children!! Children for the child audience to look up to! Don't do that!!
The next thing is they gave Ichigo's friends some actual characterization! It was a short conversation, but we already have a decent idea of who Moe and Miwa are! I really hope they get even more appreciation.
MINT IS AT ICHIGO'S SCHOOL!! AND SHE'S A SPY?? This was completely new and really out of nowhere. I can't say for sure if I like it or not, because there was some pretty distinct character moments that relied on her being an unwilling superhero. It really helped build Ichigo and Mint's friendship to have Mint be a stubborn, snooty rich girl that conflicted so much with Ichigo's naïve but sincere personality. But I guess they're doing something very different here, and it's new enough to make it more interesting. It's kind of nice to have an actual reboot, not just the source material animated beat for beat (*coughsailormooncrystalcough*).
Her transformation is fine. It's definitely more flowy and PreCure-like, and the opening of her symbol and her cat is a nice touch, and the ending pose with the cat is pretty cute and more on-theme than her original ending pose. But it feels like it lacked the charm of the original. The crossed DNA, the little paw-knead as her gloves appear, the tail wiggle as the bow appears on it... those were charming. There's just so much movement and glitter in the new one, it's kind of hard to watch. I'm gonna have a hard time seeing Mint's changed (she had the BEST transformation in the original), but seeing Lettice get a better one will probably make up for that.
Also I hate that her hair isn't pink anymore. The new outfit is fine though; I'm sure they wanted to make it more magical-girly without sacrificing the iconic look of the original, but the original looks were so different, it would have been hard. I kinda would have preferred that they save the frills and bows for a level-up form (kinda like what the absolutely wonderful artist Beedalee had imagined six years ago here), but it's whatever.
The music stood out in the transformation, and it's very Suite PreCure and/or SMC, and I don't hate it. It feels overdramatic. If it were me though... well, the music in the dubbed version, Mew Mew Power, was pretty poppin'. I probably would have preferred that route. I'm not even joking. The music was good. IT'S HARD TO SAVE THE WORLD WHEN YOU'RE FALLING IN LOVE LA LA LA LA LA
Anyway, that's enough about the transformation. I didn't expect to go that deep into it, whoops.
Did Ryou and Keiichiro have a big rig in the original? It just seems really out of place here? I had been under the impression that the giant DNA-mutating cannon was hidden at the café in the manga, but I might have to go back and look. The truck just sticks out to me so much when Ichigo is riding in it, having her little dramatic crisis, and then watching her climbing out of it was just so, so strange. I don't know.
And that's where the episode ends. Pretty solid first episode. Looking forward to the next.
I really, really hope they get the opportunity to introduce Berry and Ringo after the main story. A La Mode was the first manga I ever owned, and Berry has a special place in my heart. I never got to know Ringo, but I liked her concept, so I hope we get to that point.
If there's any spelling or punctuation errors, just know that I wrote this at 1am after a work day and I am t i r e d. ;w;
The episode itself basically starts how I would have expected it to start; we're introduced to Momomiya Ichigo strolling through her school and noticing all the couples, and wanting a romance of her own. She stumbles into a group of raving fangirls watching Aoyama Masaya practicing kendo. There are two key differences at this point that I have noticed: Ichigo is in HIGH school, and she has had no prior contact or relationship with Masaya. I expected the new anime to take a different route with their relationship, as in the previous anime and manga, Ichigo and Masaya already at least knew each other. This new take on showing the beginning of their relationship already adds a bit of depth to their relationship, which is nice, since in the original you didn't really get a sense of what Masaya saw in Ichigo in the first place until the end.
The change from middle school to high school is unexpected though. Most childrens' magical girl series take place in middle school, and the original series wasn't any different. After all, it's easier to market the cute toys to the kids who would be the target audience. I guess this is like the Sailor Moon Crystal reboot, and they want to market to the older audience that remembers it more, so they're making the characters older to compensate? SMC didn't do that though? Or is it to make the relationship between Ichigo and Masaya less childish? I'm a little cautious of it, mostly because I really, really don't want people doing creepy things with their image. I see enough creepy fanart of underaged characters in the PreCure fanbase, and I've seen enough of TMM back in the day. They're still children!! Children for the child audience to look up to! Don't do that!!
The next thing is they gave Ichigo's friends some actual characterization! It was a short conversation, but we already have a decent idea of who Moe and Miwa are! I really hope they get even more appreciation.
MINT IS AT ICHIGO'S SCHOOL!! AND SHE'S A SPY?? This was completely new and really out of nowhere. I can't say for sure if I like it or not, because there was some pretty distinct character moments that relied on her being an unwilling superhero. It really helped build Ichigo and Mint's friendship to have Mint be a stubborn, snooty rich girl that conflicted so much with Ichigo's naïve but sincere personality. But I guess they're doing something very different here, and it's new enough to make it more interesting. It's kind of nice to have an actual reboot, not just the source material animated beat for beat (*coughsailormooncrystalcough*).
Her transformation is fine. It's definitely more flowy and PreCure-like, and the opening of her symbol and her cat is a nice touch, and the ending pose with the cat is pretty cute and more on-theme than her original ending pose. But it feels like it lacked the charm of the original. The crossed DNA, the little paw-knead as her gloves appear, the tail wiggle as the bow appears on it... those were charming. There's just so much movement and glitter in the new one, it's kind of hard to watch. I'm gonna have a hard time seeing Mint's changed (she had the BEST transformation in the original), but seeing Lettice get a better one will probably make up for that.
Also I hate that her hair isn't pink anymore. The new outfit is fine though; I'm sure they wanted to make it more magical-girly without sacrificing the iconic look of the original, but the original looks were so different, it would have been hard. I kinda would have preferred that they save the frills and bows for a level-up form (kinda like what the absolutely wonderful artist Beedalee had imagined six years ago here), but it's whatever.
The music stood out in the transformation, and it's very Suite PreCure and/or SMC, and I don't hate it. It feels overdramatic. If it were me though... well, the music in the dubbed version, Mew Mew Power, was pretty poppin'. I probably would have preferred that route. I'm not even joking. The music was good. IT'S HARD TO SAVE THE WORLD WHEN YOU'RE FALLING IN LOVE LA LA LA LA LA
Anyway, that's enough about the transformation. I didn't expect to go that deep into it, whoops.
Did Ryou and Keiichiro have a big rig in the original? It just seems really out of place here? I had been under the impression that the giant DNA-mutating cannon was hidden at the café in the manga, but I might have to go back and look. The truck just sticks out to me so much when Ichigo is riding in it, having her little dramatic crisis, and then watching her climbing out of it was just so, so strange. I don't know.
And that's where the episode ends. Pretty solid first episode. Looking forward to the next.
I really, really hope they get the opportunity to introduce Berry and Ringo after the main story. A La Mode was the first manga I ever owned, and Berry has a special place in my heart. I never got to know Ringo, but I liked her concept, so I hope we get to that point.
If there's any spelling or punctuation errors, just know that I wrote this at 1am after a work day and I am t i r e d. ;w;