TMM Weapon and Attack Descriptions
Small followup to the character bios post, featuring the information about each Mew Mew's weapon and attack from the 2002 Fanbook vs the TMM New Artbook (both the 2002 insert and the main section).
See the comparison chart here.
First, one BIG thing to notice right off:
The '02 Fanbook actually spells the attacks as リボン/ribon instead of リボーン/riboon. This is big because there's always been debate on whether they should be transcribed as "Ribbon" (usually spelled リボン, with a shorter o) or "Reborn" (usually spelled as リボーン, with a longer o).
Basically, does the stretched out o sound mean it's meant to be understood as "Reborn"? Or is it meant to be understood as each girl stretching out the first word dramatically ("Ribboooon,") before moving on to the personalized ending section. This is definitely the way they enunciate it in the anime and parallels the way other magical girl shows structure attacks (e.g., Mars... Flame Sniper, Precure... Blue Forte Wave, Hirogaru... Sky Punch). I've weighed in on this here.
So, does this settle it once and for all?
Well… not in my opinion. Like, I do still think "Ribbon" is the correct transliteration! But I don't think the Fanbook is reliable for a few reasons:
1) The editing on the Fanbook is a little spotty, so there are multiple spots of inconsistent formatting/spelling. For instance, in the charts, all items in lists are separated by interpuncts (・) except for Buling's special skills, which is separated with a comma (、). There's also a missing interpunct in the list of Retasu's favorite foods (the other girls' lists do put an interpunct on the end of a line, so it's not a purposeful choice), and Shirogane's name has a space between the kanji of his surname and given name, something done for no other names*
*(Okay.... so it's also done for Buling's, but this is a real thing sometimes done for Chinese names to indicate that the surname is only one kanji instead of the 2-3 you'd expect of a Japanese surname...... But this is also changed/corrected in the New version, though, so???)
In my non-professional opinion, some of the phrasing also feels a little weird, and there's not much care put into text spacing and especially where lines break, but I'm not confident enough in my Japanese skills to state this for certain or put specific examples...
2) There is no other place where the attacks are written as リボン/ribon across the MANY places they are spelled out (e.g., the original manga, a La Mode, ReTurn, the PS game guide, character profile stickers). See above for examples!
3) Even though the TMM '02 insert in the TMM New Fanbook reuses a lot of text from the '02 Fanbook, it does NOT maintain this spelling, which suggests it was another error that was corrected.
So it's net zero information imo 🤷♀️
More small things under the cut:
