I bought this solely for comparing the quality of Kondasa's comics to Tokyopop's, and read both the omnibus and single volumes along side each other.
Alright, let's start rambling...
I can say off the bat that Kodasha knew what they were doing when reprinting the series. The images were crisp, and easy on the eyes; they resized the comic in a way that the screen tones weren't choppy (as compared to Tokyopop's), and used the right amount of contrast to the darker images so they didn't show up as black blobs (which Tokyopop did a terrible job at.) As a matter of fact, Tokyopop's use of contrast really detracted from the art itself.
Though Ikumi isn't the best artist out there, the way her images were printed in the first release didn't really credit her at all. The extreme darks and lights made it seem like she didn't know what she was doing.
Some panels are cut short of where they were supposed to be, making some pages look incomplete and/ or unbalanced. On some pages, (in the bottom corners of the first volume), you can see the page boarders (which the artist uses as a boundary to where the printing press will cut off. It's extremely unprofessional looking. (Imagine watching an old VCR movie, do you know how it sometimes "jumps," where you'll get fuzzy lines on the screen, and the scene may flicker up and down vertically?) This is sort of what I felt when looking through Tokyopop's copy.
Some images were already too small to be scaled, making the lines in those particular panels sketchy, even at times non existent, where as the omnibus edition had very strong lines, and didn't look like they were being stretched nor squished.
In all, you're interested in this series, I'd defiantly reccomendation the omnibus addition. Though with that said, it's not perfect. Some of the translations could have been worded better, and there are some editing goofs, but it's still much better off than its predecessor series.
Tokyopop addition(s)
Art quality: 3/10
Editing : 3/10
Typography: 4/10
Translation: 5/10 (the translations are a bit wonky, and don't follow their Japanese archetypes as they should, but makes up for it with its (totally) girly tone. It makes a cute series seem cuter...I suppose.
Total: 15/40
Kodasha's Omnibus
Art quality: 7/10
Editing: 10/10
Typography: 6/10
Translation: 6/10 ( though closer to its Japanese meanings, the translations seem forced and out of character for the settings of the comic.) They could have worded things differently, (even by changing a single word in some situations.)...I supposed it reminds me of bad acting,.....robots...or something.
Afterthoughts
Tokyo Mew Mew is a simple, easy to read comic for anyone looking for something cute, but don't expect much from it! It's THAT simple.
