Miracle Girls
Miracle Girls is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Nami Akimoto, with the first book being released on July 6, 1991. It was Akimoto's third work, during her career as a manga creator. It was a commercial hit and would see the creation of 12 more manga books. The manga is about two twins with opposite interests and talents, but combined ESP abilities when they linked their pinkies together.
It falls under the Magical girl genre, and has some comedic elements. It was adapted into an anime series by Japan Taps in 1993, starting in January and finishing in December of that year. Tokyopop licensed the manga for English release in North America in the year 2000. This is not to be confused with Miracle Girl Limit-chan or Miracle Girls Festival. It is sometimes referred to as its Italian name of È un po magia per Terry e Maggie to differentiate itself by its fans.
Plot
Manga Book 1:Tomomi and Mikage Matsunaga are identical twins with special powers. Together, they are able to teleport and communicate telepathically. The athletically challenged Mikage begs Tomomi to switch identities with her for her school's sports day track meet, where she and Tomomi are teamed with Mikage's arch enemy Yuya Noda, in the relay race. Tomomi, however, finds herself drawn to Yuya. Tomomi's success in the relay causes the captain of the track team, Hideaki Kurashige, to try to recruit Mikage. So, once again, the sisters switch identities. However, the science teacher, Shinichiro Kageura, finds out about their psychic powers, and begins to stalk Tomomi. Sensing that Mikage has been behaving strangely, Yuya visits them at home.
Anime Episode 1:
Tomomi and Mikage are twin high school girls with powers hidden from everyone but themselves and their boyfriends: They can communicate with each other telepathically, and if they hold hands, they can teleport. Tomomi, the elder twin, is a tomboy with a knack for sports, and Mikage, the younger twin, is a brilliant academic and is in the chemistry club. One day, they receive big news: Mikage's boyfriend, Kurashige, is transferring to England to further his education; in addition, the ESP fanatic Kageura, the chemistry teacher, is getting married. Though she is initially heartbroken, Mikage recovers and wishes Kurashige well. At Kageura's wedding reception, Kurashige gives her a pocketwatch as a going-away gift. Meanwhile, four flowers, two in England outside of a castle and two in Japan outside of the twins' house, suddenly begin to shine and bloom.
Characters
Original Japanese names/Names in Tokyopop's translation;Tomomi Matsunaga/'Toni Morgan
;Mikage Matsunaga/Mika Morgan
;Yūya Noda/Jackson Neil
;Hideaki Kurashige/Chris Kubrick
;Shinichiro Kageura
;Kōhei Yamagishi
;Rumiko Daijōji
;Marie Milgraine Diamas
;Emma Winston
;Mr. X
;Masaki Takamura/Mason Templar'
;Risa Sarashina
Media
Manga
During its original Japanese run, the manga was split in two main parts. The first part is what the anime takes from, but the manga continued on after the anime had finished. This makes the anime an unfinished adaptation of the series it is based upon.The Miracle Girls manga was licensed for English release by Tokyopop, who released the series from 2000-10-17 until 2003-05-13. It was licensed by Editions Star Comics for Italian released, where it was serialized in Amici. The manga has been released in Spanish by Norma Editorial as Gemelas Milagrosas from December 2004 to June 2006.
Anime
It was adapted into an anime series by Japan Taps in 1993. It received 51 episodes, starting from January 8, 1993, to Christmas Eve of that year. The anime was dubbed into Italian by DENEB Film where it was broadcast on Canale 5 from March 1996 and on Italia 1. It would be known as E un po magia per Terry e Maggie when translated into Italian , and was a success in Italy. In the Philippines, where it was known as Magic Girls, the show was dubbed in Tagalog and broadcast by ABS-CBN. It is also available in Spanish and Korean.The series uses three pieces of theme music. The opening themes of the whole series are performed by GARDEN, with "KISU no Tochuu de Namida ga" as the opening for episodes 1-29, and "Koi no Mirai" as the opening for episodes 30–51. Dio performs the ending theme for all 51 episodes, "Futari ja Nakya Dame na no".
The Italian dub used its own opening theme.
The first two series of the book were not made into anime by any companies, but it started with the third book of Miracle Girls''.
Merchandise
During the heyday of Miracle Girls, multiple releases of items based on Mikage, Tomomi, and other characters from the anime were made. The generic pins, rulers, and shirts came out. Artbooks with the art from the show would also come out. There was a mini-fashion set made that is now rare. There were little toys the size and shape of Fisher-Price toys created. A doll line featuring Mikage and Tomomi hit store shelves. And when these would be promoted on TV, there would be a short animated segment from Miracle Girls and voice lines from the voice actors of Mikage and Tomomi would correlate with what was being promoted.Video game
A video game adaptation of Miracle Girls was developed by Now Production and released for the Super [Nintendo Entertainment System|Super Famicom] by Takara on October 22, 1993. The player can choose to play as either Mikage or Tomomi and use candies as weapons to stun enemies and use them as platforms which the gameplay is similar to Capcom's Little Nemo for the NES, and when the player clears a level, the player challenges the area boss to a mini-game.Some characters also appeared in the crossover Nakayoshi All-Stars: Mezase Gakuen Idol for the Nintendo DS.