 The characters introduced in "a la Mode" were also praised for their visual appearances, but criticized as being repeats of the original series.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, "Tokyo Black Cat Girl", featured a heroine named Princess Azumi who is given the ability to transform into a cat-girl by an intergalactic police officer named Masha.