Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch

Plot

Lucia Nanami is the mermaid princess who rules the North Pacific Ocean. She discovers that a being named Gackto and his sea demons are attacking the sea world. To stop them, she needs to find six other mermaid princesses and combine their pearls to call forth the goddess Aqua Regina. Lucia goes to the human world to get her pearl back from Kaito Dōmoto, because she used it seven years earlier to rescue him from drowning. Kaito and Lucia love each other, but he does not recognize her in her human form, and she cannot tell him who she really is or she will dissolve into bubbles. Lucia joins forces with two other mermaid princesses, Hanon and Rina. Using their pearls, they transform into idol singers and use their voices to fight the sea demons. After several battles, Gackto captures Kaito and tells him they are twin brothers who come from the Panthalassa clan. Lucia and her friends attack Gackto’s castle to free Kaito and the other captured mermaid princesses, and Kaito finally realizes that Lucia is the mermaid who saved him. They also learn that Sara, the last mermaid princess, planned to destroy the oceans because she felt abandoned by their music teacher, Taro Mitsuki. The mermaid princesses help Sara make peace with her feelings, and they summon Aqua Regina to trap Gackto at the bottom of the ocean. Sara, understanding that Gackto has feelings for her, chooses to remain with him. Back in the human world, a fake angel named Michel, created by higher angels, steals Kaito’s memories to use as energy. Kaito starts growing close to Michal Amagi, which causes tension with Lucia as she tries to make him remember her. Sara warns Lucia that a new mermaid princess named Seira will be born to replace her, but Michel steals Seira’s heart, stopping her birth. Kaito gets his memories back and rejects Michal’s romantic feelings, but Michel uses Michal’s loneliness to convince her to give him her body. Now fully powered, Michel seeks revenge on humans for destroying the Earth. Seira, having felt Michel’s emotions through her stolen heart, helps him face his loneliness as a fake angel. Weakened, Michel allows Seira to be born, and with Aqua Regina summoned again, the mermaid princesses defeat him. Michal is reborn as a baby, and the mermaid princesses continue their lives. In a final side story, Lucia awakens as the next Aqua Regina.

Production

The manga that would become Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch started when Nakayoshi's editorial team asked Hanamori to create a series promoting Takara's E-kara karaoke device to a young female audience. Since this was her first serialized work, three editors—Kawamoto, Ōzawa, and Zushi—supervised her. The group decided a magical girl or transforming heroine would suit the project best. Hanamori initially wanted to draw an animal-themed manga, but she proposed mermaids instead, as they fit the singing angle, and the editors felt this matched her artistic style. The editorial department brought in screenwriter Michiko Yokote to develop the story. Ōzawa coined the title Pichi Pichi Pitch, a pun combining the Japanese onomatopoeia for a mermaid's tail flicking with the idea of the characters having good vocal pitch.

Because the anime aired while the manga was still being serialized, Hanamori struggled to manage her workload, including finalizing the upgraded idol outfits for the mermaid princesses. She loved the anime's songs and was impressed by their lyrics, so she got permission to include some of them in the manga, such as "Beautiful Wish" and "Love Goes On." Several assistants helped her, one of whom was Michiyo Kikuta, the creator of Mamotte! Lollipop.

Hanamori found she could only write characters she shared traits with, so she based Lucia, Hanon, and Rina partly on her own personality. Yokote provided Lucia's name, while Kawamoto gave Rina hers. For other characters, Hanamori used her friends as models or gave them qualities she thought her friends would enjoy. Hippo was modeled after her chief editor. Hanamori created Kaito and chose his first name, with Yokote selecting his surname. She struggled to depict Kaito's emotions in a way that felt impressive without being predictable, and asked the chief editor for advice on writing romance. For the other love interests, one editor came up with Taro, while Nagisa and Masahiro were developed based on suggestions from her other editors.

Media

The manga Pichi Pichi Pitch ran in Nakayoshi magazine from the September 2002 issue (released in August 2002) through the April 2005 issue (released in March 2003). It had 32 chapters, plus two side stories, and was collected into seven volumes by Kodansha. The last volume also included three short stories Hanamori had previously drawn for Nakayoshi between 2001 and 2002: Become Nude, Moonlight Goddess Diana, and Cherry Blossom. In October 2005, Del Rey Manga licensed the series for English release in North America as Pichi Pichi Pitch: Mermaid Melody, with translation by William Flanagan, and the volumes came out from April 2006 to October 2007. A sequel, Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch: Aqua, also written and illustrated by Hanamori, started in the September 2021 issue of Nakayoshi on August 3, 2021. The idea came from the editorial department after an unofficial fan event Hanamori and the anime voice cast put on in 2019 drew public interest. Hanamori handled the story alone for Aqua, choosing Lucia’s daughter as the lead because she wanted to explore a mother-daughter relationship. To support the first Aqua volume, the original manga got new shinsōban reprints in 2022. Kodansha USA announced on March 31, 2026, that they would release Aqua digitally in English. An anime adaptation of the original series, Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, was produced in 2003 by TV Aichi, We’ve, and Tokyu Agency, with animation by Actas and Synergy Japan. Yoshitaka Fujimoto directed it, Junki Takegami wrote the scripts, Kazuaki Makida handled character designs, and Masaki Tsurugi composed the music, with Katsunori Shimizu as music director. The first season aired from April 5, 2003, to March 27, 2004, totaling 52 episodes. The second season, Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch Pure, ran from April 3, 2004, to December 25, 2004, for 39 episodes.

Reception

A 2008 School Library Journal report placed Pichi Pichi Pitch 24th overall and 11th for readers aged 13 to 18 among the most borrowed books in 41 U.S. libraries. Critical response to the series was split. Hanamori's art was often praised, with one reviewer calling it delicate and curvy. The story, however, drew criticism. Publishers Weekly labeled the first volume an industrial-strength shōjo, citing cardboard villains and a recycled love story. For the second volume, Anime News Network found the narrative childish, barely coherent, and confusing for older readers due to gaps in the plot. Mania.com gave every volume a C or lower, giving the final book an F- and calling the characters and storytelling offensively stupid. The sequel, Pichi Pichi Pitch: Aqua, also faced criticism from Anime News Network for its artwork and logical problems.

The anime adaptation also received mixed reviews. Some critics compared it to Cardcaptor Sakura and Sailor Moon, arguing it offered nothing new to the magical girl genre. A more favorable review praised the voice cast and their singing. Fan reaction was more positive, with Animefringe noting a cult following in 2004, especially in Germany, spread through fansubs and Game Boy Advance games.

The show found strong viewership in its target demographic internationally. In Taiwan, over one million VCDs were sold across four volumes, and the first volume topped convenience store online sales for a month. In 2009, the first season ranked among the top 20 cable programs in Portugal for ten consecutive months. In October 2011, 59.5% of the target demographic watched the Greek premiere.