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Miracle Girls
English Cover of the first volume of Miracle Girls, featuring Tomomi and Mikage
ミラクル★ガールズ (Mirakuru★Gāruzu)
Genre	Magical girl
Manga
Written by	Nami Akimoto
Published by	Kodansha
English publisher	US: Tokyopop
Magazine	Nakayoshi
Demographic	Shōjo
Original run	6 July 1991 – 6 August 1994
Volumes	13
Anime television series
Directed by	Takashi Anno (eps. 1-17) Hiroko Tokita (eps. 30-51)
Music by	Michiru Ōshima
Studio	Japan Taps
Original network	Nippon Television
Original run	8 January 1993 – 24 December 1993
Episodes	51 ( List of episodes)

Miracle Girls ( Japanese: ミラクル★ガールズ, Hepburn: Mirakuru Gāruzu) is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Nami Akimoto, originally released in 1991. It was Akimoto's third (and most prolific) work, during her career as a manga creator. It was a commercial hit and would see the creation of 12 more manga books. Naoko Takeuchi of Sailor Moon fame worked on early publications of the Miracle Girls manga (seemingly the artwork), before moving on to make Sailor Moon. The manga is about two twins with opposite interests and talents, but combined ESP abilities when they (telepathy, and teleportation 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 (an anime about a cyborg, made in 1973) or Miracle Girls Festival (a Japanese exclusive rhythm game for the PlayStation Vita, made in 2015). It is sometimes referred to as its Italian name of E un po magia per Terry e Maggie (or Terry e Maggie for short) 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 (who was really Tomomi) has been behaving strangely, Yuya visits them at home.

Characters

Original Japanese names/Names in Tokyopop's translation

Tomomi Matsunaga (松永 ともみ, Matsunaga Tomomi)/Toni Morgan

Voiced by: Nariko Fujieda

Older twin sister of Mikage, Tomomi is tomboyish, and the more athletic of the two, who once originally attended an all-girls school, but transfers to Mikage's school after she falls in love with Yuya and even eventually begins to get better and is able to communicate telepathically with Mikage, and Yuya to an extent, but is still able to use more powerful abilities when she is in direct contact with her sister.

Mikage Matsunaga (松永 みかげ, Matsunaga Mikage)/Mika Morgan

Voiced by: Noriko Hidaka

Younger twin sister of Tomomi by only thirty, Mikage is feminine, and the more intellectual of the two, though she was introduced to readers right after blowing up her chemistry work and is currently in love with Hideaki Kurashige and even eventually begins to get better and is able to communicate telepathically with Tomomi, she is able to use more powerful abilities when she is in direct contact with her sister.

Yūya Noda (野田 侑也, Noda Yūya)/Jackson Neil

Voiced by: Kappei Yamaguchi

Member of the track team, Yuya develops a romantic relationship with Tomomi. Mikage consistently opposes Yuya do to conflicting interests, although not the relationship between him and Tomomi.

Hideaki Kurashige (倉茂 秀明, Kurashige Hideaki)/Chris Kubrick

Voiced by: Kaneto Shiozawa

Member of the chemistry club and the track team, Hideaki is Mikage's romantic interest. He gets kidnapped and taken to Marie's kingdom in an attempt to force him to marry her.

Shinichiro Kageura ^[1] (影浦進一郎, Kageura Shin'ichirō)

Voiced by: Ken Yamaguchi

A science teacher, Mr. Kageura (also known as Mr. K) is convinced that paranormal abilities exist in the world, and is focused on proving his theories, in order to become famous amongst the scientific community. He has suspicions of Mikage and Tomomi possessing ESP, and will do anything to expose them.

Kōhei Yamagishi (山岸 耕平, Yamagishi Kōhei)

Voiced by: Nobuo Tobita

Rumiko Daijōji (大乗寺 ルミ子, Daijōji Rumiko)

Voiced by: Rei Sakuma

Mikage's rival, due to her jealousy of Mikage's intelligence in classes, compared to her own. She is also jealous of her beauty, although she believes with simple changes, she is more beautiful than Mikage.

Marie Milgraine Diamas (マリエ, Marī)

Voiced by: Wakana Yamazaki

The princess of Diamas who is romantically obsessed with Hideaki and winds up being kidnapped together under her kingdom's orders. She grew up unaware that she has a fraternal twin sister named Emma whom her father took right after their birth due to fears that she would be killed so that Maria could be the sole heir to the throne. She has a snobbish and charismatic personality, who often rivaled and bullied Mikage.

Emma Winston (エマ・ウィンストン, Ema Uinsuton)

Voiced by: Okimoto Fumiyo and Yumi Tōma

The long lost sister of Maria who has long been hidden by their father. In episode 50, the Matsunaga twins locate and find her to have been under strict protection. Once reunited with Maria, they are revealed to also have the ESP ability. In contrast to her sister, she has a shy and timid personality after a long period of being isolated from the outside world.

Mr. X (ミスターX, Misutā X)

Voiced by: Norio Wakamoto

A famous paranormal researcher, Mr. X seeks to control paranormal abilities through science.

Masaki Takamura (高村 マサキ, Takamura Masaki)/Mason Templar ^[2]

Voiced by: Ryo Horikawa

A member of an organisation of ESP'ers, Mason seeks to bring Mikage and Tomomi to their organization.

Risa Sarashina (更科 理沙, Sarashina Risa)

Voiced by: Miki Narahashi

Media

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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. ^[3] It was licensed by Editions Star Comics for Italian released, where it was serialised in Amici. The manga has been released in Spanish by Norma Editorial as Gemelas Milagrosas from December 2004 to June 2006. ^[4]

Anime

It was adapted into an anime series by Japan Taps in 1993. 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 ("È un po' magia per Terry e Maggie" by Cristina D'Avena).

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. ^[5]

Merchandise

During the heyday of Miracle Girls, multiple releases of items based on Mikage, Tomomi, and other characters from the anime (as seen by the artwork on the material, although some were based off their manga appearance) 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 (the one that started the commercial was new) and voice lines from the voice actors of Mikage and Tomomi (which were also new) 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 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.

Reception

Adam Arnold of Animefringe praised the manga series, particularly for the detailed an expressive eyes, and the story "light-hearted and fun to read". ^[6] A writer at The Anime Review said on the anime "Miracle Girls reminds me of plenty of other better shows". ^[7] On the website MyAnimeList, out of 1.6k rating, the Miracle Girls anime achieved a 7.5 out of 10. ^[8]

Doujin

Miracle Girls has two Doujin manga as of now. The first is the usual Porn doujin (this one has incest), and is called Milky Girls. The other however, is called M☆G Club, ^[9] featuring Tomomi in a pink school dress with some green in a blue background, in what appears to be a watercolor cover. It appears to be about the everyday life of Tomomi and Mikage like the anime, with a greater emphasis placed onto Tomomi, from what little is known on it.

Pop Culture

In the Italian TV Show "Questo mondo non mi renderà cattivo" or "This World Can't Tear Me Down" in English, Miracle Girls (alongside Captain Tsubasa and Doraemon) are parodied by one of the businessmen in the show.

References

External links

• Miracle Girls at TOKYOPOP. (Archive)
• "Miracle Girls" Nazo no tenkousei at IMDb
• Miracle Girls (anime) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia
• Miracle Girls (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia