Picking up right where they left off, Ryou and Keiichiro show Ichigo their base of operations and she asks the question she should have asked before she even THOUGHT about getting in their van... "Who are you guys?"
They stand outside the building and give their rich playboy Batman alter-egos... which begs the question why they couldn't do this before seeing how standing in the open discussing shenanigans isn't exactly super secret, but that's not all! They also re-introduce themselves once they're deep inside. And after telling Ichigo that she'll be fighting aliens for them. To which she seemingly has no reaction to.
But look, they have a cute puffball thing for a robot sidekick! That makes everything better!
Keiichiro is apparently a highly lauded researcher specialising in unproven animals such as the Loch Ness monster or Yetis. He claims that they're just Chimera Animals and it's the fault of super sneaky aliens.
So either Keiichiro has no detractors who would seat him firmly in the tinfoil hat section or they're just choosing to ignore them. Should Ichigo ask more about this since it's clearly going over her head and she doesn't realise how strange these guys are? NO TIME! She's too busy basically being assaulted by Ryou who just wants to show her the new tattoo he gave her... specifically on her upper thigh. The shot of him lifting her skirts lingers waaaaay too long for my liking before Ichigo blasts him off Team Rocket style. Judging by the giggling Keiichiro I'm guessing this is supposed to be funny? Buut I am not laughing.
They 'explain' how they needed people who were a perfect match for the specific animal's DNA - and they found Ichigo. This has always bothered me - like... how can they be a perfect match? They're two different, too different species. I'mma look it up.
Well, touche. Apparently domestic cats share about 90% genetic similarity with humans. Not sure if that's going to be the same for a wild cat. Chimpanzees share 96% genetic similarities. Cow - 80%. Fruit fly - 61%. BANANAS AND CHICKENS - 60%?!
Let's look at their other claim - that endangered animals are more likely to fight to survive. It's fine for the story, but the first animal that popped into my mind was the Giant Panda. These are no longer endangered, but still a vulnerable species. The reason I thought of them was the way they have evolved. They used to be carnivores, and then switched purely to bamboo - of which they need to eat a lot of to survive, and it's digestive system isn't well equipped to handle it. They have a very small breeding window, if they have more than one child they tend to focus on one and ignore the other offspring. These offspring are basically human babies for about three months - they're cute, sneeze a lot and can't do much by themselves.
Pandas are no longer endangered, but only because of the great steps humanity has taken to rectify some of the reasons they were extinct... which were largely human caused no doubt. I also wonder if other animals realise they're endangered.. because.. honestly - how would they know? They might notice mates are getting harder to find, but they could just assume that "your mate is in another castle/plain/jungle/lake etc". It's clear that lots if not all animals experience grief - but from what's been observed, this is just from physically seeing a mate/offspring/companion die, and not from existential crisis.
But if we're going by what they've said in the anime.... WHY do none of the girls have any actual animal characteristics besides cutesy ears and tails? Why not claws? Why not actual fangs? Camouflage? Eyesight? Animal appropriate skills like flying? And for that matter, where are rich boy and tinfoil fedora getting these DNA samples?
Alright, now I've gotten off of that rant let's keep watchi-- aww geez. Here we go. Ichigo just asked them if it's JUST her fighting. We are less than five minutes into this episode and she's already forgotten who Mint is. WOW. "Oh yeah, 'her'." How many other animalistic magical girls have you seen to confuse her with, Ichigo??
Ichigo gets a moment of redemption when she realises this is something she can do for the environment... but when she flashes back to the animal exhibit it just seems like she still only wants to do it for Aoyama. Plus she only gets mad about not being told how easy it is to change back into her ordinary clothes, and nothing else about what's happened to her in the last day.
Walking out, Ryou offers his jacket when Ichigo sneezes. Ichigo says "Oh, so you can be nice!" like being turned into an experiment unwillingly and then basically assaulted is just like being called a mean name like 'stinky face' or something. Ryou tells her that she's very important to him, so he cares. Ichigo immediately jumps into "I HAVE A BOYFRIEND" mode but then seemingly gets angry at Ryou when he calls her an important bio-weapon.
At school the next day, Ichigo noms fish weird, paws her face, gets into a literal cat fight and is very sleepy. She puzzles over this until she remembers that yesterday was like a whole thing and she was injected with cat DNA. I think they did the fish eating better in the original episode 1 but the catfight made me lol despite of how stupid it is. Next, Aoyama rocks up like he wasn't concussed to buggery and isn't concerned that he 'passed out' then woke up at home. So... what does he remember from yesterday?
The two share an awkward heart thumping stare while Aoyoma is convinced Ichigo is coming down with a fever. Ichigo then realises her reflection in the window has cat ears, and runs from the scene entirely backwards. Aoyama stares at his hand - the one that touched her - for a bit toooo long. I mean, he could be considering the germs that could be there if she did have a fever but maybe he has a hand fetish, IDK.
Next scene is Ichigo on a busy street for some reason. Exactly where you'd go if you were concerned that you were morphing into an animal and wanted to get away from people. Did school even finish? She turns away from her shop window reflection when she realises the cat ears have gone but smacks into Lettuce. Can someone let me know why Lettuce was walking directly behind Ichigo (and pretty much towards the window, not the shop door) when it seems like her intended direction was back the way she came from? Lettuce got some crepes for her creeps useless friends who exclude her from their selfies.
Back at the café, Ichigo moans to Ryou about their non-disclosure of the animal traits popping up. I wouldn't think this would be too much of a problem, considering early in the episode they made a point of showing how easily she can transform back. Plus, it's only really Ichigo that has this problem.
Ryou tells her to forget about this and get undressed. This time Ichigo punches at him - which is better. She SHOULD be getting mad about all this. Unfortunately, I think we're still meant to laugh at this.
As you can probably guess, Ryou meant 'get changed into this waitress outfit' not 'strip off for me' but sure. Ichigo is obsesses with her cute appearance and barely thinks about reassuring Ryou that she'll work hard until she realises he actually means - you're forcibly working at this café.
Keiichiro, Ryou and also Mint have a chat to Ichigo about working here as a spy for gossip and being a Mew Mew right in front of their customers. You'd think as they weren't sure where the aliens were that they'd be a bit more careful. Or that they'd realise spying can go both ways. Ichigo is eventually lured into servitude by the promise of eating as many desserts as she can stomach. Happy to see classic Mint is back - turns out she never really went to Ichigo's school and she simply can't work during tea time.
It just so happens that the crepes weren't enough, so Lettuce and the jerk posse are in the café too. They start blabbing about a ghost in the school pool and want Lettuce to check it out. You know, because they're suuuch good friends. Ichigo 'trips' and throws a parfait into their faces to scam some alone time with Lettuce while Keiichiro cleans the trio up. She tries to be friends with Lettuce, but Lettuce holds back and runs out after her friends. After hours, Ryou and Keiichiro review that Lettuce is also a Mew Mew.
They don't really explain why they didn't approach her when they saw her again. Presumably they have her details along with her DNA. I mean, shoot, what was their plan to re-find these girls again after the DNA shot? What if Lettuce moved town with her family the next day and no one ever heard from her again? Anyway, they 'deploy' Ichigo and Mint in their civilian personas. They spend a lot of time naming R-2000 Masha after Aoyama and they see one of the girls from the café - seemingly attacked by the ghost. It sort of seems like they transformed right next to her - which is bizarre because presumably you'd remember a rude, clumsy waitress who turned up at your school after hours and turned into a cat that got into her owner's crafting decorations.
I suppose it doesn't matter because this girl either vanishes or dies off-screen.
Predictably, Lettuce is the ghost. She's in a lot of mental anguish and also stuck in a water spout. Then she transforms. Ichigo tries to explain that she's a Mew Mew - but it has no effect, probably because only one of these animals could conceivably make a 'mew mew' sound and it's sure as heck not Lettuce. Lettuce attacks the duo with water balls, which apparently are enough to kill a blue lorikeet. Lettuce has dead eyes which is awesome. She can float too - which is annoying. You're the swimming team member, get your butt out of the sky so the bird character can pretend to be relevant!
Lettuce comes back to life a bit and explains that she tried so hard to make friends but will always be forever alone. Ichigo gets cranky about this because she tried to offer friendship. But I mean, from Lettuce's perspective, with her lousy friend experience, she likely didn't feel she could trust this random person who seemingly only wanted to be friends out of pity. Now this loudmouth is yelling at her about it. Anyway friendship is magic-AL GIRL POWER and they're all friends and okay!
Phew, I was thiiiis close to a lawsuit!
The next day Lettuce blows her 'friends' off to go work at the café. Kisshu appears in the afternoon light advising someone... or maybe the wind... a bird? A plane? That he can't have them interfering in their plans. Roll credits!
So clearly I'm getting around to watching these later than other people, and these people have largely made their thoughts known about the pacing of these episodes. Me - I don't really care. You can tell a good story in 12 episodes or so, and I'm old enough to care less for crappy filler episodes. I'm GLAD these episodes are rocketing past, however I do have a problem when the plot runs away with one concept and fails to slow down on the bigger issues. Like... focusing more on Ichigo's outfit changes or how she's creeped on but just flying by any of the questions about the science of this whole thing. Long shots of Aoyoma staring at his hand - still weird.
I think I preferred how the original had Ichigo showing cat like traits before her first battle instead of after, like the reboot did. For one thing, Original Ichigo had no idea she had a DNA mix-up so she was genuinely freaking out about it. Reboot Ichigo had already been told this several times by the time she's like "Whaaaaaaaa... am I a cat now?" It just made her seem.. really, really unbearably stupid. I mean in the first 15 minutes she's already forgotten about Mint fighting with her, giving her event tickets and basically kidnapping her in a wind tunnel. She's already made questionable decisions about getting into cars with boys. Her response to someone creeping on her is 'but I like another boy!' instead of 'Don't F*cking touch me!' All of this alongside her being forced into waitress-spying.... she's just spineless and vapid.
Her friendship speeches to Lettuce seem like they're aimed at making her look caring, protective and sharp but it's also annoying. When you think about it - Ichigo has seen Lettuce for what - all of five minutes? Yet she's so sure she has the measure of Lettuce's friends. While her friends - yes, aren't the best.. they also didn't seem like they cared too much about what she did. I got the impression that Lettuce and those girls were never friends, they just drifted into each other's social circles and just stayed that way, for no real reason.
Happened to me when I was younger too. Had a friendship circle merger, some of the friends ended up leaving the state and the rest of us just stayed together like we had an obligation. We didn't, we weren't compatible and most of us didn't even like each other. We were never outright bullies to each other, but obviously we weren't besties or above the occasional snark. Lettuce's friends were not nice, but I got the feeling that they all kind of wanted her to leave the group but were too 'nice' to say it aloud. Lettuce meanwhile, is suffering some severe sunk cost fallacy though.
That said - Ichigo's school friends are bitches too so where's the acoustics on that front? Anyway the point I was getting too was that it was a bit weird how Ichigo was fighting so hard to be friends with Lettuce when let's be honest, it was only because she was about to drown everyone. Ichigo yelling at Lettuce that of course she can make friends but she knocked Ichigo back so she can't be serious about actually having friends was annoying.
It was like she was assuming having one new friend would immediately solve her problems. I'm with Lettuce on knocking her back - we know Ichigo is the protagonist but to Lettuce she's just some random waitress she literally just met - trying to be pity friends. I'd be weirded out and probably suspicious too.
Also it makes me uncomfortable with how much Masha can talk in this episode. I seem to recall that it only spoke in baby talk in the original and Ichigo used to take it in the bath. Here it's like "oh Ryou, you cad!" and displaying a live video feed to base. I really hope that Ichigo doesn't bathe with it in this reboot because yikers!
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