Tokyo Black Cat Girl

Tokyo Black Cat Girl (東京黒猫娘, Tôkyô Kuronekomusume) is the name of a one-shot manga series written and illustrated by Mia Ikumi. It is shown at the end of volume four of Tokyo Mew Mew. It was published in Nakayoshi magazine, a shoujo manga magazine in Japan for girls, in 1999 (Winter Break Land Issue).

Story
Tokyo Black Cat Girl is similar to Tokyo Mew Mew. It stars Hime Azumi, who has just been asked out by her crush, named Noda, when she suddenly receives superpowers and is told by Masha that she has the responsibility of protecting the world from the invading aliens called Bagu  (mistranslated as "Baku" by TokyoPop).

At the end of the manga, Noda is attacked by the Bagu's leader. Hime transforms in front of him and, with a bit of effort and her strongest attack yet, manages to save his life. All the Bagu's victims survive, but Noda is angry Hime kept her secret. He walks away from her, only to come back and kiss her just when she's sure he is gone. He says she owes him a lot of lunches, and Hime happily agrees. At the end of the manga, Hime goes off to defeat the Bagu, her secret work and love life both going smoothly.

Production of Tokyo Mew Mew
Mia Ikumi spent a year designing the Tokyo Mew Mew manga before the release of the first volume in February 2001. The story she originally presented to her editors was Tokyo Black Cat Girl. However, the production team decided to focus on five female superheroes and Mia was asked to reconstruct the lead character. She had reservations about the changes, as the character was originally designed for a more dramatic series. After this, Hime would come to be replaced by Ichigo Momomiya.

Characters

 * Hime Azumi
 * Noda


 * Masha
 * The Bagu

Trivia

 * Tokyo Black Cat Girl has a few similarities to Tokyo Mew Mew in that it also had a magical cat girl as the main protagonist, the protagonist has a crush on a boy at her school, both Hime and Ichigo have a partner called Masha and the antagonists are also aliens, although they are non-humanoid and also parasitic unlike the aliens seen in Tokyo Mew Mew.
 * Only one known color illustration was released, which confirmed Hime's colors. Mia Ikumi has also confirmed that Hime's eyes and scarf are pink.
 * As Tokyo Black Cat Girl was written before Tokyo Mew Mew, it is likely that Tokyo Mew Mew was based off it, making Tokyo Black Cat Girl the original and Tokyo Mew Mew the "remake" of sorts.
 * In the TokyoPop version, the alien name was mistranslated as Baku while the Kodansha translation is translated correctly as Alien Bugs.

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