Twenty years later, the 2002 children's anime continues to appeal to both younger and older audiences with cute fairies and extensive adventures.
By: Nicole S. Castro on June 16, 2022 at 16:38 PHT
If Yakitate!! Japan made us passionate about bread, Mirmo de Pon! made us passionate about desserts and very, very cute chibi fairies. Honestly, those two elements alone were more than enough reasons to watch the show.
But cuteness overload aside, Mirmo de Pon! was a highly entertaining series that won the hearts of even older anime viewers in 2002-2005 (even though this series was aimed towards children).
So, let's look back on these adorable fairies and shout MIRU, MIRU, MI-RU-MO-DE-PON!
About
Mirmo de Pon! (Japanese: ミルモでポン!, Romaji: Mirumo de Pon!) is a manga series written by Hiromu Shinozuka and serialized in Ciao magazine from July 2001 to December 2005. It was also published in 12 tankobon volumes by Shogakukan.
The manga series was awarded the 2003 Kodansha Manga Award and the 2004 Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga. The series was licensed for an English language release in North America by Viz Media.
Studio Hibari adapted the manga into a TV anime series titled Wagamama Fairy: Mirumo de Pon! (Japanese: わがまま☆フェアリー ミルモでポン!; English: Selfish Fairy: Mirmo de Pon!). It aired in Japan on TV Tokyo from April 6, 2002 to Sept. 27, 2005, with a total of 172 episodes divided into four seasons.
Plot and Throwback (anime)
Alright, before we relive the plot, we must relive the cute dances!
The Mirmo series stars human protagonist Kaede (called "Katie" in some dubs) Minami (CV: Mai Nakahara). She is a second year junior high school student with a crush on classmate Setsu ("Dylan") Yuki (CV: Yukitoshi Tokumoto (Seasons 1-3), Daisuke Namikawa (Season 4)).
One day, Katie stumbles into a shop selling magical wish-granting mugs. Not believing they actually had magical powers, Katie buys one and wishes on the mug to help her make Dylan fall in love with her. This ends up summoning the fairy Mirumo/Mirmo (CV: Etsuko Kozakura), who is also the prince of the Fairy World. As Mirmo helps Katie with his magic, Mirmo's fairy fiancée Rirumu/Rima (CV: Mayuko Omimura) follows into the human world as Dylan's fairy.
As Katie and Dylan grow closer, transfer student/Katie's rival-for-Dylan Azumi Hidaka (CV: Hitomi) also discovers her own magical mug and summons Yashichi/Yatch (CV: Yukiji), who is Mirmo's fairy rival. Mirmo's younger brother and the second prince Murumo/Mulu (CV: Rie Kugimiya) eventually follows as the fairy of rich boy Kaoru ("Kyle") Matsutake (CV: Sōichirō Hoshi), who wants to be Katie's boyfriend.
In addition to the cute fairy dances, another one of the most memorable things about the Mirmo series is the fairies' love for specific desserts. Mirmo's favorites are chocolates and KumoCho (short for "Cloud Chocolate"), while Rima loves cream puffs. Mulu favors marshmallows, while Yatch is fond of the traditional Japanese food karintō (花林糖), a deep brown bite-sized pillow-y snack made primarily of flour, yeast, and brown sugar.
How does the anime end?
The bulk of the anime features the fairies' and their human partners' lives interacting to produce comedic results. Mulu gets a funny case of a bad cavity (wherein Mirmo and gang had to fight mini Mulus so the dentist could work on the actual tooth), Yatch falls in love with another fairy, Rima continues to mess up her magic and spelling trouble for Mirmo, and Katie, Dylan, Azumi, and Kyle find themselves hanging out more often due to their fairies.
Seasons 1 and 2 featured the Warumo gang as the "antagonists." They're not actually bad, just a bunch of fairies pulling off childish pranks and causing trouble. In season 1 they plot to take over the Muglox Kingdom. In season 2, they become lackeys for Darkman.
In season 3, a robot octopus named Tako convinces the gang to look for the legendary seven crystals which are drawn out by different emotions. In the fourth and final season, Katie almost loses Dylan to the latter's childhood friend, Haruka Morishita (CV: Satsuki Yukino). But Haruka realizes Dylan is in love with Katie and willingly lets go of him.
Summary
The best part about watching Mirmo de Pon! is that the cuteness never got boring! While the plot remains light-hearted and kid-friendly, the adventures (and misadventures) made for a fun watch that evolved to more extensive story arcs as the seasons progressed. This long, four-season run also gave enough time to realistically develop Katie and Dylan's feelings when Dylan wasn't so fond of her in the very beginning.
If the TV channels ever replayed Mirmo de Pon!, we'll definitely be there to watch, and we're bringing our younger family members with us because they can't go wrong with this show.
Digest by AniradioPlus
NICOLE S. CASTRO
Author
Nicole is based in the Philippines and works as a freelance Japanese Translator/Interpreter and copywriter (English). She is a JLPT N2 passer who watches anime to "study" for N1. She has a long career history on LinkedIn (with primary focus on media and translation), but her anime watchlist is much, much longer.
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