Highland Mew Mew is an episodic, drama-action AU series set on a military base in highland territory. Its plot involves two girls’ battle against an alien threat known as the Magmalites, and their attempt to reach out to a third girl who has fallen in with the enemy alongside her mother. The series has two seasons totaling 21 episodes.
Gwen Elliot: A strong, but fairly stubborn student who excels in her work and answers to no one. Before meeting Miel, she mostly keeps to herself and only engages with others when absolutely necessary. Overall, she is dedicated to everything she does and refuses to give up. Gwen is the first of the MEWs and works with Miel to protect the base against Velaira. Gwen's alias is MEW Velvet and she has the DNA of an Addax.
Miel Pretto: A shy yet intelligent Honduran transfer student attending Saint Florian’s Academy. She is very sweet and friendly, but initially hesitant and heavily dependent on others. Miel is the second of the two MEWs that protects the base against Velaira. She fights alongside her friend and partner, Gwen. Miel's alias is MEW Honey Cream and she has the DNA of a Honduran White Bat.
Anya Ning: A snobbish yet poised Chinese girl who is as hardworking and determined as Gwen, yet constantly puts others down to bring herself up in her determination to carry herself highly. She bullies Miel until Gwen steps in to help her. Overall, Anya serves to cause the girls grief and regularly acts as an obstacle to them. Anya is the third and final MEW who works under Velaira due to her mother's meddling. Anya's alias is MEW Lĕng Yē Zi and she has the DNA of a Dhole.
Nancy Elliot: Gwen’s mother and head scientist of Sector 9, a specialized sub-unit for unusual phenomena. She studies the Purple Stone, an object unearthed by a weapons test just outside the base, and works on the Magmalite Expulsion Workforce (MEW) project, which was implemented due to the numerous Magmalite attacks on Highland North's research facility. Nancy works under Judy Ning.
Judy Ning: The mother of Anya, chief financier of Sector 9, and boss of Nancy. She is a no-nonsense, stubborn woman who expects results and fights to win. She governs Anya strictly, expecting the girl to mimic every one of her qualities precisely. Judy has a razor-sharp tongue and a cold heart, often detaching herself from others in order to stay focused on her work. She does not spend time with her daughter except to reprimand her for any failures, like faltering academic performance.
Velaira: The main antagonist in Highland Mew Mew. She is sent out by her colony to find a planet suitable to host her people. She ends up crashing onto Earth, but finds the planet livable and perfect for the Magmalites. Velaira is coy and sly in nature, the kind of person who always plans ahead. She is also very selfish and steps on others to get where she needs to.
Ravela: The leader of Velaira's colony back on her planet. Throughout the series, Velaira keeps in contact with Ravela via a radio on her grounded ship. The leaderly Magmalite is largely heard, not seen throughout the entire series. She does not make a formal appearance until the second season.
Zarela: A fire-aligned Magmalite who is sent to Earth to aid Velaira in her fight against Gwen and Miel. Zarela is from another colony that neighbors Velaira's. She plays a minor role in the series and only appears for one episode. Unlike the other minor Magmalite characters, Zarela has extremely bright and saturated colors, and is the only Magmalite in the main series to be seen with a lighter color scheme.
Ivazen: A brute male Magmalite from a neighboring colony who is sent to Earth to aid Velaira in her fight against Gwen and Miel. He is the only male character in the entirety of Highland Mew Mew. He has enormous physical strength and proves to be difficult to defeat at first. Ivazen plays a minor role in the series and only appears for one episode.
Evarie: A Crystalline Manipulator Magmalite who comes to Earth to aid Velaira in her fight against Gwen and Miel. She was supposed to be next in line to become Velaira's colony leader, after Ravela. Not too unlike Ravela, Evarie is graceful and poised, remaining calm and collected in battle. Her role in the series is minor and she only appears for one episode.
Enaiza: A brute female Magmalite who is sent to Earth to aid Velaira in her fight against Gwen and Miel. She is the only minor Magmalite character who doesn't engage in any combat, as she arrives at the tail end of the series and is set up to serve as a messenger to her people about what occurred on Earth. Enaiza plays a minor role in the series and only shows up for a portion of one episode.
Locations
The series takes place within the borders of Highland North Military Base, the story's sole setting. It's a large military base in the middle of a remote highland territory. It's massive size allows it to host a generously sized community of workers, soldiers, and their families, as well as several businesses, residences, and schools.
Research Facility[]
The facility is a major subsection of the base, located away from residential areas and accessible only to soldiers and staff. The facility's specialty lies in its various sectors—military sectors can test weaponry in the more desolate and open parts of the territory because it is so wide open, and the territory is rich with data and samples for sectors dedicated to seismic and geode research to study. In addition, there are a few specialized, secretive sectors dedicated to studying unusual phenomena, such as Sector 9. Sector 9 is responsible for handling the production of the MEW project, and is where Velaira is initially held and studied.
St. Florian's Academy[]
St. Florian’s Academy is a private boarding school that houses the adolescent children of Highland North Military Base employees whose work keeps them severely busy, and exchange students whose families settled in the area due to military stations or research on geographic or geological phenomena—Miel Pretto is one of these students, from Honduras. The school is a pristine, elite institution with high educational standards for its students, exclusive to those that show high academic promise. St. Florian's offers core classes and specialized extracurricular activities, as well as programs not typically offered in regular schools, all meant to help propel its students into specialized fields and prepare them for college.
Velaira's Ship[]
A moderately sized spacecraft meant primarily for exploration and ferrying light cargo. It crashed by Highland North Military Base when Velaira came to Earth. She'd been caught by surprise at the planet's gravitational pull, which was far stronger than what she was accustomed to, so her ship fell and hit the ground hard enough that it became deeply embedded in the Earth and was extremely difficult for the humans to uncover. It no longer functions, aside from some communications devices that Velaira uses to keep in touch with Ravela, her leader. Velaira at some point finds a way back into her ship that the humans remain unaware of, so she uses it as her primary base of operations after escaping from Highland Military Base.
Sector 9
The MEW Project[]
MEW is an acronym for Magmalite Expulsion Workforce, and each member recruited to the project is given an alias and referred to as “Magmalite Expulsion Worker ____”, or "MEW ____" for short. The project was established by a scientist of Sector 9 named Nancy Elliot for the purpose of weaponizing an object only referred to as the "Purple Stone". Theoretically, the project would be used to create a team of genetically enhanced fighters to combat Highland North's Magmalite threat. Individuals would be infused with power from the Purple Stone alongside animal DNA, meant to heighten senses and reflexes, in order to make them strong enough to fight off the Magmalites constantly attacking the base, especially the research facility.
The humans remained unaware that these Magmalites were seeking out Velaira to free her—the alien had sent out a distress signal before crashing on Earth that went largely undetected by the humans. While the MEW project was initially established as a way to fight off the Magmalites, higher ups declared that it would be militarized if proven to be successful. Essentially, the task of extinguishing the Magmalite problem also doubled as a test run for the MEW project. Once the Magmalites were driven away and affected workers assessed as genetically and physically stable, the project would be deemed a success and move into its next stages of military implementation.
The Purple Stone[]
Dormant
Active
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The Purple Stone is a powerful alien artifact that is used by Highland North's research facility as a power source for the MEW project, and that serves an important role throughout the entirety of the series. The Stone was unearthed by the blunt force of an outdoor weapons test that tore up the ground where it had been buried for an unknown amount of time. When discovered, the Stone strangely radiated with a strong, bright pink light before becoming dormant and returning to it's much more opaque color. It's unusual nature caused the humans to brand it as an object of interest, one to be immediately retrieved by facility workers.
Upon collection, the Stone was given to Sector 9 to be studied and eventually utilized. Nancy conducted a series of tests which revealed the Stone's high reactivity to the human body. After reporting her findings and receiving orders to begin weaponizing the artifact's power, she started working on her plans for the MEW project. Neither Velaira nor the humans knew of the Stone’s origin, but given its physical properties and the type of power it harnessed and expelled, both believed that the object originated from somewhere in the Magmalites' solar system.
Gwen is the only MEW who does not play her weapon like an instrument, and the only one who uses a combination of instruments as a weapon (similarly to Mew Pudding from Tokyo Mew Mew).
Gwen and Anya's mothers were originally going to be male fathers, but I opted for a mainly female cast. The only male character in the series is Ivazen in episode 13.
The series is not set in any one country for the sake of ambiguity, and to isolate the setting from any real-world location. I did, however, alternate between the idea of American and European given the highland setting. Because of the school system used, it may lean more toward the former.
Highland Mew Mew began as an idea for a One-Off Mew. I took a Medieval literature course in university and got the idea to do a Mew themed around this period, but the idea was scrapped after I started creating more characters. Anya was meant to be an evil princess Mew, and Gwen a former knight of hers fighting against her after breaking from her influence. However, I wanted Gwen to have someone to fight with and grow to love and care for, so I created Miel to counter her personality! At that point, I dropped the Medieval motif for all the girls, though I kept some elements, like Gwen’s love of Medieval culture, and both the main girls' Mewfits (Miel's loosely borrows aspects of some cleric designs in various fantasy media. I'd even intended to draw Miel in a full robe before opting to design something more efficient and sporty). Furthermore, some of the songs In the playlist were chosen initially due to having older, fantastical sounds often associated with a Medieval period. While the overall theme was let go, I kept the music.
Some of the music chosen for the series relates to each MEW—some songs feature one particular girl's instrument (either their weapon or their hobby instrument), some are almost like instrumental duets, and others have all characters’ instruments within it!
The logo for Highland Mew Mew is a combination of everyone's Mew Marks, and Velaira's flames.
Despite working as a team, Gwen and Miel never have an official team name for themselves other than what they are labelled as under the MEW project.
