The perky recap before the show continues - well, I say perky but that's a polite way of saying "I think Ichigo is the bastard lovechild of Zero Punctuation and Excel Saga, and the 'inspirational' music in the background makes me feel carsick on my computer chair."
Masha the freaking freaky robot just flies past customers in the café yelling about how their business is booming. No one questions this. Lettuce in her first job as a waitress thinks it's a good idea to carry several surprisingly clean plates and of course... trips over.
'Oh boy,' sighs Ichigo. Hey kitty litter for brains - maybe when you stop falling over teeny tiny pebbles and little sticks you can judge someone falling over themselves.
Besides, it wasn't really Lettuce being clumsy - it was more that she was apparently trying to clear the plates and glasses from every single table instead of following a safe working practice like.. NOT doing that. I've been guilty of the "one trip or die trying" grocery bag gauntlet before, but Lettuce does not appear to be as competitive as me. It's also a concern that someone as nervous as she is is taking these massive loads. Like - as much as you worry about letting the team down, odds are you're going to either break something or injure yourself trying to carry the whole damn shop.
Mint is the one to approach Lettuce to check if she's okay and reassures her with a great saying - "No plate lasts forever." And that wasn't sarcasm, I actually like that. Creeping on our girls are the two dudes who make comments about 'how far the Mews have to go' while they sit on their butts and just stare at screens all day. Look, you can have it fast, cheap or good. Pick two. Or better yet, next time target adult pro-athletes/fighters/trained forces to be your minions instead of easily intimidated, cheap child labour.
Oh it gets better - they discuss how they need to find the other two while bringing up what appears to be live footage of the other two. Then we have this amazing quote; "There's no guarantee they'll agree to work with us after their powers activate."
WOW. REALLY?! Almost like you should have maybe spoken to them before you experimented!
This episode then jumps to Ichigo waiting for Aoyama at the zoo, having asked him out on a date but it doesn't look like he's coming so she's doubting herself. One of the things she ponders is that Aoyama really wanted to go to the endangered animal exhibit.. but.. And I quote! ..."but the animals at the zoo aren't anything special."
Yes. This is the defender of the earth you guys. But only if the animals are like.. super rare AND totally cute!
Yes. This is the defender of the earth you guys. But only if the animals are like.. super rare AND totally cute!
Aoyama does that thing that must be a law in Japan - he arrives just late enough to make the other one doubt if they were going to show up, and makes the other person say "Nah, I haven't been here long, I just like standing under giant clocks and looking nervous."
They go on their date, at the weirdest zoo I've ever seen. Why are there gorillas chilling next to llamas?
Why are the fences so low?
Despite her talk of zoo animals not being cool enough, Ichigo acts like she's forgotten her chill pills and is bouncing off the non-existent walls gushing about how awesomely cute each animal is. Aoyama thinks it's cute at first, but then seems to get over it quickly when he can hardly get a word in edgeways. Ichigo notices and immediately starts thinking it's her fault.
UGH. She did this while waiting for his late ass at the gates too. "Oh no, maybe it was too forward of me to ask him to accompany me to a place of shared interest in our local area!" Now it's all "Maybe he didn't want to go on this date." Honey, you asked him, you didn't take him to the zoo at gun point. Dude has a brain and some lips, I'm sure he could have said "no thanks!" or "I'm busy!" or "the last time we dated I'm pretty sure you drugged me because I don't remember anything and my neck is ruined now". He came to the zoo and didn't want to be on a date with you? That's on him. He can leave at anytime. Stop persecuting yourself!
So she gets the idea to go somewhere more exciting - the nocturnal room! This is where things get freaky. It's not the critters or lack of lights, or any rumpy pumpy.... no, it's Ichigo walking behind and slightly to the left of Aoyama being all sad face then suddenly after her mopey inner dialogue, she realises he's not there.
She falls to pieces. It's end of days! Then suddenly, he appears at her side and we get a full on smack sound as he grabs her forearm and scares the crap out of her. Now - this exhibit seems to be a tunnel. How the hell did Aoyama get around her when she was close enough to headbutt him if he stopped walking?
Especially when it pans out and shows that it really is a tunnel going past what I presume could be exhibits but kind of looks like cooled lava flows. He drags her off by the wrist and they go outside. And I do mean that he drags her outside, he pulls her wrist to get her moving but then when she protests a little he actually YANKS her arm forward.
Ichigo then does..... nothing. In shock, maybe? She just continues her monologue about how she hopes he's not mad at her, and sooks that she can't see his face. Well, no duh, it's a dark room and he's directly in front of you, dragging you bodily out the room. That DOES make it a little hard to see.
Outside, they stop for a moment before Ichigo whimpers out his name and he realises he is still holding her captive, at which point he freaks out and asks if he hurt her. Ichigo could have had her arm broken in three places and she'd still reply in the negative here, which is super sad.
Aoyama gets around the huge red flags by saying that he didn't want to get separated again so he 'held on too tight.' Yes, well, next time why don't you stay with the tour group instead of teleporting around like an idiot then? Ichigo's penny drops when she realises what Aoyama means when he says he was nervous and my insides shrivel up from second hand embarrassment. To be fair, both of them have permanent blushes so it could be harder to tell for them, but Aoyama says "I was nervous" and Ichigo thinks "Wait... could this mean that he was nervous too?!" Good job, detective! You've solved the case of the pre-tween dweebs!
This zoo - or somewhere near the zoo - has a kitty cafe. Sure, animals. But also... would this not freak the pet cats out being close to wild animal smells and noises? Anyway, Ichigo gets bitten by a cat and Aoyama schools her about animals. He has no idea what she's doing while she sits next to him spazzing out about him 'loving cats!' but luckily she changes the subject by pointing out a floppy looking cat and asking if it's okay.
She goes over and has a look, and when Aoyama notices that it has a wound on it's paw he bandages it and now the cat can walk again! Which, is great but like... why would you not go to the owners/managers? So they talk about the nervousness of before which I suppose is either hyping up the romance aspect or hinting at his reveal and they're about to kiss when it's time to cram in the next character. Yep, Pudding appears, and somehow convinces everyone in the shop to go outside to watch her show.
No one at the zoo seems to mind this customer stealing busker who has a whole set up with dynamite, fire and a trapeze swing attached to.... well heck, I don't even know what.
Ichigo rightly says "What a trip! I need a drink!" So she leaves Aoyama to go find a vending machine. Does she get a drink? Maybe. It sends like what she really needed was a place to openly monologue to herself again. Pudding finds her and demands a tip for her show. Unfortunately, this scares Ichigo and makes her cat ears pop out. 
Somehow Pudding sees this despite hiding behind a giant prop and Ichigo hiding her ears immediately but whatever. It's weird her cat ears didn't pop out when she witnessed Pudding nearly blow herself up before but sure. Whatever.
Original Pudding spent the majority of her introductory episode absolutely hounding Ichigo for a tip - but Ichigo had just been in the area and happened to watch the whole show. She forgot about the tip when she thought she could get Ichigo to teach her how to get cat ears. Pudding annoyed the heck out of Ichigo but eventually she realised she was irritating her and backed off.
Here the pacing being sped up 1000x really shows some flaws. Like, we don't need another episode devoted to the busker being underpaid but this Pudding almost forced her audience to attend. Ichigo barely saw anything of the show, then she immediately gets hunted down for a tip when I assume that Pudding had just left a large audience to go and find one girl. Kinda weird.
I don't want to be too harsh on Pudding in case she has the exact same backstory of "I'm a young kid trying to keep my younger siblings alive by any means necessary because my parents are either dead or missing, and we've fallen through the welfare cracks!" It's interesting that they've aged her up significantly though. Almost like the writers realised that a poverty stricken youth that is then forced into two kinds of probably unpaid work isn't the best thing to have on their superhero team.
Anyway, Pudding is interested in cat ears but not enough to really talk to Ichigo about it before yet another character comes into the scene. It's the mysterious sky yelling alien Kishu! He talks to them from the top of a pole and we spend a very long time watching both Ichigo and Pudding just swivel their heads around looking for this omnipresent voice.
For some reason, Kishu has a large cloth. For some reason he throws this onto Ichigo's head. He probably doesn't need Chimera Animals because she pretty much can't get out of this wet paper bag of a plot device designed to let Kishu kiss her for no real reason.
Pudding looks like she's also been indoctrinated by whatever romance crap Ichigo deals in, because she entirely misses the point that this kiss is completely unwanted and uninvited.
This Kishu is a bit more unhinged and sociopathic than in the original anime, but I'm down for it. No, I'm not shipping or supporting anyone - I just always liked Kishu as a character because.. well, he has one. He's actually entertaining to watch, this weird, sassy and scary dude in a bombastic outfit. Plus I have a thing for yellow eyes in my villains.
I wish they'd spent less time on the kiss and more on how he found Ichigo. Did he see the ears? Is there an energy signature he can track? Did he read the script? Hecking what???
Anyway, he releases a bajillion alien things and within seconds all of the zoo critters are upon them. Consistency. Love your work, zoo-fiends.
Ichigo just stands there and watches a stampede of giant mutated animals run towards her.
Aoyama also stands there while a stampede of people flee the area. Didn't he do this in the first episode too? Maybe these two idiots are destined to be stupid together forever. A weird bird attacks but here comes the cat from the cafe! It saves him at the cost of it's little bell collar. More on that later. Ten bucks it was these dang fools what left the cat cafe doors open and let the felines out. Although this cat seems suspiciously sentient... it better not be a transformed Ryou or anything, using his transformation to creep on cat cuddlers.
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| PHOTOBOMB! |
Kishu decides that Ichigo is boring because she just stands there with no instinct to protect herself (mmhmmm but red data animals were chosen because they fight harder amirite?)
I had sympathy for Ichigo (well, a little) given she's just been assaulted and is scared and taken by surprise... but then she does this.
Nothing about her family who - wait, do they even exist in this interpretation?
Just "OH NO I will perish before I can tell my first crush that I kinda sorta like, like-like him?? Eeek!"
F that noise. Go on Kishu, give her the lobotomy that I'd swear she's already had!
Dang, the cavalry is here. I loved Mint's snark but Ichigo is just "Heeey.... why are you guys here?" like they've just walked into each other at a party instead of having their asses saved. I don't know Ichigo - do you think your stalker bosses have video feed about the situation or a tracker of some kind for alien presences... or was the news report about the zoo being freaking evacuated enough?
They tell her to transform - finally - which she does instantly since someone gave her a command.
Then it all goes back to slowing right the hell down. Well, for Ichigo at least. Mint and Lettuce are rapid firing at the animals and destroying them - which is nice to see some different animations but we don't actually see the scale of the zoo attack... so we only have Mint's "Oh no, there are too many of them! We need a convenient fourth Mew Mew" to go by.
You got it Kishu, nice observation there. She is.. just standing there. She's not helping her team mates. She's not getting Pudding to safety.. she's just... there?
Even before she was transformed, she just stood there while Pudding was grabbed by a giant elephant. I guess I thought things would change when she remembered she has powers?
I guess Pudding doesn't care, but that's no excuse. Now she's transformed, she attacks the elephant and causes Pudding to fall. So, zero for zero on that one. I struggle to believe that Pudding couldn't have saved herself, but we get a 'heroic catch' from Ichigo, and apparently this and a shot of Ichigo 'sacrificing' herself and then being too slow to move from an elephant stomp is enough for Pudding to get upset enough that she transforms and saves the day, by making all the animals stand together conveniently so that she can catch them.
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| Pictured: Pudding. Not Pictured: Inferno. |
This whole fight scene is... odd. Like, Ichigo just one shotted the elephant but now she just stares down a charging bull and only has time to yeet Pudding away and not save herself?
Classic Ichigo was able to run and jump to dodge attacks from behind while carrying Pudding but sure.
Then New Ichigo - she just sits down for a bit and watches the slowest rhino in the world try to step on her. Mint and Lettuce even have time to look over for a dramatic reaction (their foes are kind enough to pause and allow this).
They made a big deal about Ichigo using more traditional fighting methods but it seemed pointless when we see that all of the girls can take the beast out in one blast, and Mint/Lettuce can fire repeatedly but Ichigo can't because...plot? Or flashing pantaloons.
So that's it, they nerfed Ichigo so that Pudding had a reason to join the fight. Pudding is inspirational in the way she gives no hecks about being a mutant because she got an animal tail. It's stupid but eh, kinda fits her. Makes me again wonder why Ichigo didn't ask more questions to make it seem that Pudding's response is NOT the norm to what's going on.
Speaking of what's going on, Kishu buggers off and the girls tell Ichigo to get back to her date. It's still a bright sunny day and they can see Aoyama calling for her. However - by the time Ichigo leaves them to make a bizarrely long run to him it's clearly late afternoon.
HE GOES OFF AT HER. Where was she when the park was being evacuated he demands. Gee, maybe she evacuated? If he was that worried about her safety, then why wasn't he happy to see her? It's not like being with him would have been safer, he nearly got stampeded and then he had to be saved by a dang cat.
Ichigo - to my ever mounting fury - agrees that she should hang her head in shame and thinks that Aoyama is right to be mad and hate her because she's always disappearing on him.
I get it, the super hero double life trope. Great. Makes for good stories.
Except... when is she always disappearing on him? Episode 1? Sure. But as far as we know, he's none the wiser. In the nocturnal exhibit? It looked like he was the one that disappeared. And she told him she was going to get a drink.. it's not her fault that things went down. As someone who went through the same self blaming, obsessive, self doubting phase and had a boyfriend who constantly gaslit me, belittled me and made everything about his wants and needs.. I want Ichigo to grow a spine and get above this.
It's like watching someone be indoctrinated into a cult though.. only someone decided to one up the original anime and make it WORSE. This line of dialogue alone should have Ichigo running for the hills, even without the dead eyed stare but nope, this love obsessed fool embraces being gifted AN ACTUAL ANIMAL'S COLLAR AND BEING TREATED LIKE A POSSESSION.
She REWARDS his douche bag behaviour with cuddles.
How long has this cat been here and is it plotting ways to get it's collar back?
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Did this whole escapade happen right next to the exit? This zoo is so weird.. there's more greenery near the vending machines than near the animal exhibits!
Animation Abomination
This dress is so hideous and misshapen..
Kishu Dishes
So far this is my least favourite episode. The series is basically a speed run but then they just spend so much time on useless stuff that it's really irritating.
Things that should really be explained like HOW Kishu found Ichigo get nothing.
Ichigo is just a pile of self doubt and internalised loathing that it's painful to watch. The kicker is that again, after her life is really at risk, her friends are in danger, animals are being used/hurt... all she cares about is telling her crush how she feels or telling Kishu that "he'll pay for that kiss!".
Yeah - what Kishu did wasn't cool by any means but why is Ichigo more concerned about being kissed instead of nearly being stabbed in the frontal lobe or crushed by a chimera animal? Like - COME ON!!
Pudding was kind of annoying in this episode.. and that pains me because she's my favourite. I just don't think the ageing up aspect works. Totally get why they would do this, but her aggressive tip seeking is only cute when she's young enough to get away with it. Not a fan of her aggressive "get out here and watch my weird show that isn't zoo sanctioned" that only seemed to force the protagonists together. I mean, why not have Ichigo and Aoyama just go for a walk and come across the performance casually?
Her outfit has gone from simple to generic adventure kid from the 1990's. It does seem like they're trying to remove any reference to her being of Chinese heritage.. which, yeah, a Chinese person doesn't have to wear Cheongsam style shirts all the time but the original casual clothes she had suited her and would be infinitely more comfortable to perform in, I'd imagine. Current outfit, like the Mew Mew outfits just have too much going on.
Now, I both really like how Pudding didn't care about the reasoning behind her transformation but also feel like the writers just leant into that as a plot convenience because they wanted to spend more time on the 'romance.' As I mentioned earlier it did seem like Ichigo was stunted to force Pudding to step up. Mint can just get out of here with her "Oh look here's a convenient Mew victim, you should transform!"
Absolutely no attempt to get Pudding to safety. They wanted her at risk so she'd develop her powers.
For me, the threat was so ill defined.
The initial stampede was good.. but then the animals seemed to stop attacking if any main characters had dialogue or needed to provide a reaction face.. we only see a couple of animals storm the team but then we're told that there's just too many, but we don't really see how many or what the scope is? Mint and Lettuce take out sooo many... yet they "can't handle it?" You know what I can't handle? Watching Ichigo not react until the ginormous elephant has already gone right up to her face and threw Pudding up into the air.
If she's not scared, why should we be? Why should we believe these animals are actually a threat? Why did we have the animation budget for more dynamic fighting moves (which are great and refreshing) if we can't have the 'enemy' be animated? Ichigo's "great sacrifice" for Pudding did not hit the emotional mark for me for these reasons.
UGH. Aoyama is just the worst here. Late for date, irrationally moody, physically aggressive, hailed as a hero for doing his own 'first aid' on an injured animal instead of notifying the owners, yells at Ichigo and giving her a used pet collar complete with red flags...
I get it, Ichigo is so besotted that she could watch him murder her parents before her eyes and only care about his feelings about a third date.. but heck me, this show is doubling down on any crappy trait he displays and normalises it as the romantic standard. Granted, we're not even sure if Ichigo has parents so yeah.
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