Masaya Aoyama

Masaya Aoyama (青山 雅也, Aoyama Masaya) is Ichigo Momomiya's classmate and love interest in the Tokyo Mew Mew series.

Name Changes (Manga)
All English translations of the manga keep Aoyama's name. However, unlike the original Japanese version, TokyoPop's translation has Ichigo refer to Aoyama by his first name.

Name Changes (Anime)
While some dubs keep Aoyama's original name, most dubs use his Italian first name, Mark (Including the 4Kids English dub.). The Chinese dubs (Mandarin and Cantonese) use their pronunciation of the Kanji that's used to spell his Japanese name.

Etymology

 * The name Masaya means "elegant, graceful" (雅) (masa) and "to be, also" (也) (ya).
 * Masaya's surname Aoyama means "blue, green" (青) (ao) and "mountain, hill" (山) (yama).

Trivia

 * The original Japanese version is the only one where Masaya is voiced by a woman. His voice actress also voices his dual personalities of shadow and light- Deep Blue and the Blue Knight.
 * Just as with the dark-haired fifteen-year-old Hotaru Tomoe of the Sailor Moon manga, 1990s anime's third and fifth seasons, and the 2014-2023 reboot, Masaya turns out to unknowingly possess two personalities that are entirely separate from his own; one of pure goodness (the spirit of Sailor Saturn) and one of pure evil (the extraterrestrial female entity Mistress 9 of the Death Busters); the second of which was ultimately driven out, leaving only the enduring sleeping spirit of the "infamous" Sailor Guardian of Death and Destruction alongside Hotaru's own personality.
 * In most Mew Mew Power dubs (excluding the French version) Mark doesn't have a last name.
 * While his birthday is on May 22, it's unknown if this is his actual birthday or the day he was adopted.
 * The first part of his last name means blue hence the alter-ego's names Blue Knight and Deep Blue.
 * He has a strong resemblance to Mashio Akai. They are both voiced by Megumi Ogata.

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