Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Is Tokyo Mew Mew New's Story Rushed?
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MFrontier
Posts: 11191 |
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Honestly I feel like they've done a solid job of pacing things out (I mean, it isn't until 7-8 episodes in that we even get the full team together) compared to a certain other magical girl reboot show I know, and does a good job of developing the characters as well.
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BalmungHHQ
Posts: 392 |
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From what I understand, this series is a relatively straightforward adaptation of a few of volumes of the manga, so it feels a little off to use comparisons with the old TV series' storytelling as a basis, when that series artificially stretched things out and added a whole bunch of original one-off episodes to fit the magical girl anime trends of the time. (And to fill its big episode count, lol.)
Anyway, I'm left wondering if another season of this series may occur to finish up the rest of the story. |
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anpansparking
Posts: 40 |
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The original anime adaptation stretched things out a lot, so I'd imagine this one is actually closer to the pacing of the manga (haven't actually watched it yet, because I've been unable to pull myself away from Xenoblade 3).
There were definitely shipping wars back in the day! Between livejournal and the forums for one of the more active fansites, I've got vague but fond memories of the debates. I think Ryo was the most popular, but I was always more of an Aoyama fan myself. |
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JennLegacy
Posts: 107 |
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I'm actually pleasently surprised at how much I've been enjoying this series. Sure, part of the reason was because I was using the initial Sailor Moon Crystal seasons as a barometer and had my expectations very low because of it, but after the first 4 or so episodes when the newer elements started getting more and more obvious, I was having a blast! There are some things that I think it even does better than original, namely Zakuro's characterization and Ichigo and Aoyama's relationship.
I was really worried about the pacing too early on when I heard this was only 12 episodes, but the more it went on, I've grown more or more convinced we're getting a new season announcement in the coming weeks. I believe we're up to the halfway point of the original at the moment. Sure, the pacing is fast compared to the old anime, but it's pretty on par with the manga which I'm personally more familiar with. Completely fair to criticize flaws that got passed on over, though I do think that's definitely worth noting. |
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Lady Multi
Posts: 673 |
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It's not really rushed; its more in pace with the Manga. Everyone just used to the long-drawn out meta of the repetitive Magical Girl series of the late 1990's early 2000's when, in reality, the manga series were over a lot faster.
They were marketing cash-grabs for merchandise (these long drawn-out series) in order to keep interest in the series and to push merchandise for more and more fancy little toys, dolls, make-up, etc. Now days, with so many series, with streaming platforms, people can jump around and bulk-watch...that most people don't care nor want things to be drawn-out for no reason. They'll stop watching it. Getting to the point is for the best. There is no reason for them to replicate the older anime. If you want to watch the older anime...go watch it. EDIT: Comparatively, the original anime was, and is seemingly twice as long as this series is apparently going to be.. Original anime was 52 episodes. Considering the "main villain" isn't introduced in New, then we can complete that arc in another 12 episodes no problem how it works out in the manga. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 11191 |
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Yeah, with the way it's been set up, it really feels like they're going to announce another cour/season 2 when they finish up next week. |
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Chiibi
 Posts: 4829 |
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I still think this reboot is awful compared to the original anime. Which is why I dropped it after three episodes. It was boring and the pace is way too fast. The 2002 one is very entertaining and it takes its time so you actually care about what's happening with the characters.
Now this is plain silly to say. All you have to do is watch a few episodes a day and you'd be done in no time lol It's really not hard. 52 episodes is nothing compared to Inuyasha's 167 + 24 or Sailor Moon's whopping 200. And I'm PRETTY sure there are adult fans on here who have seen every single episode of One Piece and/or Naruto to date. |
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NeoStrayCat
 Posts: 610 |
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As what the others have stated, TMMN isn't rushed, its basically going at a pace similar to SM Crystal in episode count and such. Not only that, we're most likely basically around the halfway point for those that remember the manga and the OG anime. To where the Tokyo Tower fight is.
And more than likely, there's going to be a second season, since someone mentioned, we've yet to see the main villain/leader of the aliens. (Though the TMM fans obviously know who it is, lol.) To which more than likely the second season will pace the leftover half of the manga and OG anime given the references, with possible original content for "New". (Changes, similarities, and differences throughout.) |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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This might be an unpopular opinion....but Sailor Moon Crystal was horribly rushed....because the manga was also rushed. Yet somehow the manga was way better than SMC...it's weird.  I think the directing of SMC was just bad maybe.
Now when I say that TMMN is "rushed", what I basically mean is...the pacing is so fast and shows so little of the characters....that it's impossible for me to care about any of them. We were actually expected to care about Ichigo and Masaya's relationship by the middle of episode one....why? Sorry, they're not that interesting and also, I'm not that easy.  Why does she like him so much? What reason does he have to like her so much by episode 03 that he puts a collar on her? It's weird! What has either one done for the other to get them both obsessed with each other? It's certainly not 'chemistry'.
I loved IchigoxRyou in the manga....yet I wasn't able to love them in this new anime either. I stuck around to see Kish because I thought he might save this show...but....nope, they weren't able to make me care about him either....even though Nobu is one of my favorite voice actors. So...sorry for the rant but I just wanted to explain what I mean by "rushed". Maybe this adaptation isn't rushed compared to the manga...but I 100% believe a manga can be rushed too or have too fast pacing, if you will. |
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SHD
Posts: 1752 |
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As noted previously, the show's pacing pretty much follows that of the manga... whether that's a good thing or not, is another question. I haven't seen much from the old Mew Mew anime, so I can't compare those two, but having re-read the manga recently, I think this is a case where a looser adaptation would have been much better. It's like with Sailor Moon, the old anime may not have been a very faithful adaptation, but all that "filler" and "dragging out" did wonders to the characters, rounded out their personalities, their relationships, group dynamics, even made the villains a ton more fun, especially in the first arc where in the manga they may as well be faceless goons. Crystal didn't work for me precisely because as it was a faithful adaptation of the manga, it brought the same issues that I've had with the manga, re: characterization, pacing, etc. (Well, and there was the terrible animation.)
Tokyo Mew Mew is not a very good manga to begin with (IMO, etc., I don't mind it, I don't hate it, but let's face it it's not an "A tier" effort). This anime is not only not improving on it, it's actually making things worse at some points, at least as far as I'm concerned. With a story like this, where the characters are the show's heart and soul, I think it would have been much better if it had some more time to breathe and give the characters time to show off their personalities, build their relationships, etc. I'm not hating on the show, I enjoy it for what it is, but that doesn't mean it's great. |
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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EXACTLY!!! ♥ I'm glad you see it that way too. 
When "filler" spends time developing characters, it's not longer "filler"; source material be damned. |
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JennLegacy
Posts: 107 |
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See, I actually think the Ichigo/Masaya stuff is one of the things the new show has been doing a lot better on than the original (talking about both the old show and the manga here). It always felt like they just plopped the two together and expected us to be invested in them right away, and they wound up giving that weird feeling where they felt like an established couple but also barely knew each other at the same time. Actually bothering to show the set up to the zoo date and having all these moment where not only Ichigo but Aoyama are awkward around each other makes it feel a lot more clear they're still in the early stages of their relationship. It's way past the point where you dropped, but there's a later episode that honestly did more to endear me to the Ichigo/Aoyama pairing than pretty much anything else that's ever come out of the franchise. (Though this might just say more about how dire their chemistry was to begin with, lol.) For the record, I'm not trying to prop this up as the best version of Mew Mew. I rewatched the original recently and was really impressed how well it held up. Pretty much the moment I found out this wasn't getting a 50-ish episode run, I already knew it wasn't going to be a replacement. And that's perfectly fine. The industry has changed a lot in the past 20 years. There's a reason they don't make kid friendly magical girl shows that aren't tied to big toy brands anymore. We were never going to get something like the original. And that's why I do appreciate the changes that have been popping up. It's still following the same plot beats of course and the changes aren't massive, but there's been enough of them that this feels like its own experience. It feels like a genuine attempt to do an modern version of the show. Not a masterpiece by any means, but still a really solid magical girl anime. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
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I think it should also be pointed out that the original Tokyo Mew Mew manga ran as a monthly publication and it's an inherit issue with a lot of these monthly manga that they often feel "rushed" like with the Sailor Moon and Cardcaptor Sakura manga. This is why the original anime adaptations often fleshed the stories out with filler in episodes to explore stories around the characters they don't have the time to cover in the manga. And a lot of these kinds of series like Sailor Moon were adapted as cross media where you're supposed to watch the anime and read the manga side by side and both versions are intended to compliment each other rather than replace them and the original manga is meant to be like the cliff notes version of the story. But nowadays there's more of a push for literal adaptations both from the fans of the manga and also the mangaka becoming more involved in the anime production side of things. It also probably hasn't helped with the advent of streaming we've seen the decline of prime time anime blocks where a lot of these kinds of four cour yearly shows used to air.
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Chiibi
Posts: 4829 |
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Yeeeesh the beginning for them was awful in this version; she basically says "I want a boyfriend" and then picks out the first guy she sees like she is window shopping. I prefer the way the first anime did it; they are on a date already, Ichigo accidentally falls asleep in the grass and we learn than he watched over her for three hours. That's a very patient and sweet guy right there. NOW you can see why she likes him
Yeah....it's goddamn Madoka Magica's fault.  Other creators saw what a success it was, saw that otaku men will shovel out big bucks for figures and pillows of their angsty loli waifus and now they're STILL trying to copy it.
But to be fair, MANY magical girl shows that ran over 26 episodes only got to that length from the magical items they used because Bandai and Sega KNEW they could turn 'em into toys. Even when magical girl manga like Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne got adapted to anime, they gave Jeanne more items so more toys relating to the series could be sold. It was ALWAYS about the toys. It always has been and it always will be. |
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Triltaison
 Posts: 724 |
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I pretty much agree with this. I love the character designs and the idea behind it, but it's not a particularly well written story. I just re-read the whole thing plus A La Mode while watching alongside the new adaptation to compare. New Mew is pretty close to the pacing and fairly accurate to the manga, with the notable major difference of Mint's introduction. Not really sure why they changed it to have her be part of the team before Ichigo joins. One thing that really bothered me years ago that I now REALLY noticed is that poor Zakuro doesn't get to do anything after joining up in the manga. She barely even gets to talk beyond partaking in group attacks. Having the extra fluff episodes of a longer series like you described gives the supporting cast some stuff to do and actually get some personality. I'm still enjoying it in pretty much the same way SHD described. I do truly love the ending animation, though. It really showcases the personalities better than the show in some ways. |
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