As you all know the people who brought us Tokyo Mew Mew are Ikumi Mia and Yoshida Reiko. Mia illustrates the story & Reiko writes the story make the manga "Tokyo Mew Mew" a great success. Here are more information about the two.
References below are taken from the extras in the TMM Mangas published by Tokyopop
HOW DID MIA & REIKO FIRST MEET? ~ They both first meet in a metropolitan hotel & during that time they both had lunch together in a Chinese resturant inside the hotel. Mia was wearing a Chinese dress as they were going to have Chinese food & she shared her food with Reiko.
REIKO ON MIA ~ Reiko describes Mia as an generous & adorable person in life. Her first impression of Mia is She is going to be a fun person to work with.
HOW DID THEY GET THE IDEA OF CREATING TMM? ~ I suppose some of Mia's earlier works gave some ideas of creating TMM, but the story was that Reiko really wanted to work with Mia & when she saw Mia at an autograph signing session, Mia would show up in cat ears & tails, so Reiko decided to make a story based on something Mia would like.
THE PROCESS IN CREATING TMM ~ When Reiko started to work with Mia. Reiko became the story supervisor & the basic plot of the story was determined by Reiko, along with 2 other editors & organised direction lines for the characters. Then they go over the plot & edit it and once it was finalized, the scenario was given to Mia. Mia would then add her own ideas into the scenario & began drawing rough drafts.
AVOIDING THE SPOTLIGHT? ~ Most Manga artist prefer to avoid the spot light, like CLAMP as in the past they have used animation to present themselves, but these days they began to reveal themsevles. The good news is that Mia is not one of the artist who aviods the spot light, so that means anyone in Japan can get a copy of TMM signed if they meet her!
OTHER WORKS BY REIKO & MIA ~ Titles of Yoshida Reiko works & Ikumi Mia works up to 2002 are taken from Tokyopop's site, however summary was written by me. The rest of Mia's works were submitted by Mew Shinju, thanks!
YOSHIDA REIKO
1994-95- Dragon Ball Z [TV series]
1996-97 ~ Hana yori Dango [TV series]
1998-99 ~ Hatsumei Boy Kanipan [TV series]
1999 ~ Ojamajo Doremi [TV series]
2000 ~ Digimon Adventure Children's War Game [Movie]
2001~ Digimon Adventure 2 [Movie]
2001-2 ~ Neko no Ongaeshi [Studio Ghibli Movie]
IKUMI MIA
1998 ~ Usagi no Furasu Hoshi [Stars Dropped by Rabbit]
1998 ~ Ichigo no Mori no Nemuri Hime [Sleeping Beauty in the Strawberry Wood]
This was one of Ikumi Mia's first project as a professional manga artist before TMM was created. A friend of Mia's helped her with the screen tone of this project, but apart from that everything was her own work. The boy's name in this story was never mentioned & after all of the fan letters she received requesting for his name, Mia announced the boy's name was called "Yota and the other birds name (the bird�s name was also unmentioned and it was the bird who Rose fell in love with) is called Jack Somehow the charcter Kotori is meant to be a version of Ichigo & Yota is meant to be a version of Ryou since they look alike and don't you agree? You can find the whole story of this manga called Sleeping beauty of strawberry forest in vol. 6 of Tokyo Mew Mew, published by Tokyopop, but here is the story�. A young girl called Kotori was going out to play with her bird called Rose and while she was taking a walk, she saw an orange light in the woods & thought she will check it out, but then she thought that she should go home because she will get lost if she goes too far. Suddenly a bee came next to Kotori which made her dropped her cage, making Rose escape and flew away. Kotori started to enter the woods to look for Rose, but then suddenly she bumped into a boy & she started to follow him since she was already lost. The boy agreed that he should walk Kotori back home, but then it was getting dark & suddenly Kotori tripped over & just as she fell on the ground the boy broken into her fall & got hurt instead. Kotori started to fix up the wounds on the boy's leg & the boy talked about the bird Rose. As they was talking they saw an orange light which was actually a bunch of fire files & the boy suggested that Kotori should use them as a light to guide her out of the woods. Kotori with the fire files started to walk out of the woods with the fire files, but then thinks about the boy & his injures & she knew she couldn't leave him alone in the woods, so she quickly runs back to him to comfort him during the night. As the next morning comes Rose came back inside her cage which made Kotori happy, but a bird flew down to Rose. Kotori knew that Rose was in love with him so she decided to let Rose fly free. The boy said to Kotori why did she let Rose go if she was looking for her & Kotori answered saying Rose will never be happy in a cage no matter how much she loves her, then Kotori went up to the boy & kissed him & asks him for his name.
1998-1999 ~ Super Doll Rica-chan
1999 ~ Tokyo Kuroneko Musume [Tokyo Blackcat Girls]
Tokyo kuroneko musume is a mini story which was featured in Nakayosi magazine back in 1999 for the special winter break land issue. When Mia was creating this manga, she just moved into Tokyo at that time & she thought that Tokyo will be a good name for a title, so the word Tokyo was included in the title for this Manga. The story & characters are similar to TMM because Azumi (the main character & the Mew girl) has a similar personality to Ichigo, and Noda (Azumi's crush) is similar to Masaya... also Masha appears in this manga too! So moving onto the story�. A girl called Azumi turned into a Mew Mew by Masha in order to defend peace on earth and at the same time Azumi had a huge crush on a boy called Noda & while she went on a date with him, Noda suspects something from her, since Azumi didn't answer his call the other night. Azumi was abit upset since she had to fight aliens called Bakus & she could not tell Noda the truth, therefore she was worried that Noda would not like her anymore. Azumi started to make a promise with Noda that she would not hide things with him anymore. When the night falls Azumi transformed into a Mew girl & started to fight with more Baku's, but then an alien ate up her cell phone & in a panic Azumi rushes home to call Noda as she promised him earlier that she will give him a call. As Azumi rushes home she bumps into Noda & tells him that she will make lunch for him for the next day. When the next morning came, Azumi pretended to be ill in front of Masha as an excuse to go on a date with Noda. When Masha left Azumi went to see Noda & just when they nearly kissed.... a boy told Noda to go to the gym. Azumi was now waiting for Noda to return, but then Masha came & told Azumi about the Bakus destroying everything in the gym. Azumi knew that she had to do something since her crush was in the gym, so she ran inside the gym & transformed into a Mew girl in front of Noda's eyes & defeated the Bakus. Noda was shocked & said to Azumi I thought that you would not hide anything from me .He walked away & Azumi started to feel upset, but then Noda walked back up to her, kissed her & said you owe me a lot of lunches
2001 ~ Petit Mew Mew
2002 ~ Petit Mew Mew 2
Click here for Petite Mew Mew info
2005 ~ Repure [Ripyua]
This Manga was published in October 2005 and has a picture of a boy with purple hair on the cover. The boy looks exactly like Ryou Shirogane....except for the purple hair part. There are 4 main characters, the young blonde boy, the pink haired boy on the cover, a girl, and an older boy with long dark hair. The pink haired boy and the girl, both have fangs, I think they may be "iffy" characters. The long haired boy, with a striking "Blue Knight" resemblance, and the young boy do not have fangs and both look good. Tthere also is a young girl involved who wears her hair up in two buns, like Minto. Also, seen in nearly all the scans is a dove-like bird. I think this dove belongs to the little boy. The main character is a boy who looks a heck of a lot like Ryou (blonde hair, blue eyes), but appears to be maybe like, 10 or 11. There's an older girl and guy too in it. The translation I've gotten via Worldlingo, is pretty rough. Something about a robot/doll/ Chobits-like-thing in it that kills people ?! Its a boys' manga, running in Asuka magazine.
Al Brownie, 27, is on the hunt for dolls. Murderous, mechanical dolls. When he was still a boy his little sister Fluer was killed and now he seeks revenge. He and his companion Pixiel travel the land on the trail of distruction reeked by these dolls.
While in a town, he and the villagers are attacked by an army of dolls after Al finds a strange little boy. What's so strange, he fell out of the sky. No sooner are the dolls defeated than Al is attacked again, this time by the child he rescued! His body subsequently is transformed into what it was when he was younger!
Now a little younger, but none the wiser, Al carries on, joined by the little boy and an archer prince from another country.
2005 ~ The Wish Which Passes Every Request
Rikako Sawaki, Ai Nomoto, and Mai Kato are all best friends. They all go to the same school along with Ai's crush, Yamaguchi. Mai and Rikako try to help their friend get together with the boy. One day they hear about a special address. Supposedly, it is the address of a wish-granting angel who lives in a mirror in the school. Sometimes referred to as the 'Night Angel', she wears a witch's hat and always has a black cat with her......and she'll grant your every desire! With that in mind the three girls go to their school at night to send the letter. The bravest, Rikako send their wish: for Ai and Yamaguchi to be together. The angel agrees and the next day Yamaguchi asks Ai out. But, Rikako and Mai become jealous. They didn't know it, but the angel secretly loved Yamaguchi too. Did the angel purposely plan this to break up their friendship and take Yamaguchi for herself?! Anyhow, Rikako tries to write to the angel a second time to undo her wish. But apparently, the angel will only grant one desire. And, since the girls all wished for the same thing together, they used their one wish up already. The angel gets mad at them for breaking the rules and reeks havoc on their school with a monster. Rikako and Ai are caught by the monster with no one to save them. (Even Mai, who hasn't really been mentioned again.) Yamaguchi prays for their rescue and that they can all be friends again. He makes his wish. The angel grants his wish, but he ends up dying to save his friends. With Yamaguchi gone, nobody can be jealous of anyone else and the fighting would cease. Finally, the angel admits to loving Yamaguchi.
2006 ~ Koi Kyuu
