Magical Angel Creamy Mami is a famous magical-girl franchise from the 80’s which follows the adventures of Yū, a young girl who’s granted the use of a magic wand for one year by some aliens she winds up helping. Yū uses her powers to transform herself into a teenager and become a hugely successful idol who goes by the stage-name, Creamy Mami.
In the spirit of properties like Maleficent, Emi Mitsuki’s Magical Angel Creamy Mami and the Spoiled Princess flips the script on the original story and retells events from the perspective of the series’ villain, fellow idol and Mami’s rival, Megumi!
Synopsis:
Megumi has been Pantheon Productions main star for years and is largely responsible for the company’s success. Being both talented and extremely driven, Megumi has worked hard to craft herself into the perfect idol, but she can also be demanding and short-tempered with her co-workers. She’s becoming especially impatient with Shingo, the President of Pantheon Productions, who seems to have become bored with Megumi and is devoting all of his attention on looking for new talent. That’s when Creamy Mami appears on the scene, a fresh-faced and naïve girl with an almost magical quality to her. She fills in for Megumi when she’s running late to a show, giving an unpolished but enchanting performance that makes her an overnight sensation. Everyone – including the fickle Shingo – becomes obsessed with the mysterious Creamy Mami. Well, Megumi is having none of it! She’s not about to let herself be replaced by some upstart, and vows that she will both stay on top and show Creamy Mami what it takes to be a real star!
Review:
While she might not have the most pleasant personality, Magical Angel Creamy Mami and the Spoiled Princess, succeeds in making Megumi sympathetic and likeable, despite her flaws. Far from being spoiled, we see that Megumi is dedicated and indefatigable. She practices regularly and always pushes herself to be the absolute best that she can be. She’s earned her skills and poise, and all of her success has been a result of genuine tireless effort on her part.
While she can be temperamental and frequently takes her anger out on people who don’t deserve it, a lot of Megumi’s complaints are perfectly justified. Shingo is ungrateful for everything Megumi’s done to make his company a success and she has a right to be angry about how negligent he’s become about promoting her career. It’s also completely unfair that she’s being compared to someone who is only captivating and good at singing because she’s using literal magic to gain those abilities – though Megumi doesn’t know that that’s the case.
That said, while her feelings are understandable, Megumi does take things too far in her quest to put Creamy Mami in her place. Particularly when she locks up little Yū in a cage, because she suspects that she and Creamy Mami are the same person and wants to prove it.
But, you know what? Sometimes it’s entertaining to watch a character behave badly, and Megumi’s catty scheming is frequently hilarious. Mami might be her rival, but Megumi is her own worst enemy and her cunning plans almost always comedically backfire on her. As the lengths that Megumi is willing to go to starts to get more and more extreme, I expect her misadventures to get more and more insane, and I am here for it!
I think Megumi’s most fatal flaw, is that she seems to be in love with Shingo, for some reason. Shingo is self-absorbed and completely disregards Megumi’s feelings at every turn. He doesn’t seem to care about either Megumi or Creamy Mami, beyond their usefulness to him as Pantheon’s stars. If this series ends with him and Megumi getting together, I will be very annoyed, as he’s the real villain of this series as far as I’m concerned.
I wish I was more familiar with the original work so that I could recognize some of the side characters and know all the details of what’s going on with Yū and her friends, but, even without having seen the anime or read the manga that this was based off of, I really enjoyed reading Magical Angel Creamy Mami and the Spoiled Princess. This manga is a ton of fun and I’d recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of magical girl anime, and especially to anyone who loves the original Magical Angel Creamy Mami series.
Final Score: 8 out of 10
What did you think of this manga? Should I try watching the Magical Angel Creamy Mami anime? Let me know in the comments!
For more information on this manga, visit Seven Seas Entertainment’s website.
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Al's Manga Blog 
I knew this was some kind of separate story, but I didn’t realize the Spoiled Princess of the title was an alternate version from the villain/rival’s perspective! Like you, wish I knew more about the original story. Plan on picking this up.
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Yeah, I initially thought this was a sequel of some kind.
I enjoyed this so much that I think I’ll try and watch a couple episodes of the original anime. I was able to follow the story just fine while having only a general level of knowledge about the original’s premise, but I’d like to know more.
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Can I give some spoilers of the original anime, which may tell something about this how series ends, I’m not sure if this will end differently?
In the original anime, Megumi is similar to how she’s portrayed, she gets sympathetic moments and you seen her side, but somtimes takes things too far. Overall you’re not meant to root for her anti Mami plans, but you’re meant to hope things go well for her.
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Spoilers are welcome, since I don’t think I’ll have an opportunity to watch the anime anytime soon.
I’m glad to hear that the original series was sympathetic to Megumi too, as she gets a raw deal in a lot of ways. Of course, her over the top plans are pretty crazy, but I’m still hoping for things to work out okay for her in the end. 🙂
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This may disappoint you, but Megumi is in love with Shingo and in the original anime, one could easily say the dysfunctional romance between these two antagonistic characters is secondary only to Toshio and Mami’s relationship.
There’s alot of humor with Shingo and Megumi’s zany schemes counteracting eachother with Shingo having romantic aspiration for Mami and being cloddish enough not to understand “no” (its animeland logic, so its a silly quirk).
Like an episode(21) has Shingo’s birthday and his dad is pushing for him to get married, Shingo’s trying to get Mami to attend his party so she can say she’s his girlfriend to his dad, this upsets Megumi whom thinks Mami is trying to steal Shingo from her.
Meanwhilst Mami has a date with Toshio as Yuu, so she says she isn’t going to Shingo’s party much to the latter’s distress, but later she accidentally insults and tells him she’s not going to Toshio on the phone, thinking he was Shingo calling her again. As a result Toshio goes to Shingo’s party.
Yuu as Mami finds Toshio at Shingo’s party, so she writes an angrily letter, telling a waiter to give it to Toshio, Megumi picks it up, thinking its a love letter and hoping to make the relationship public so Shingo/Mami can’t happen.
But when she reads it out loud, she finds its a child’s letter, than Mami disappears and switches back to her kid form, saying it was her letter, foiling Megumi’s scheme leading to everyone laughing. Meanwhilst Shingo’s dad is impressed by Megumi, but Shingo ends up doing something stupid and getting slapped again, though his dad still roots for the relationship.
Silly anime hijinx, essentially. Another episode has Shingo crossdress with Megumi’s help to find out about Mami, only for the latter’s manager to fall for him. Shingo certainly doesn’t seem like a catch, but we aren’t meant to take it too seriously.
By the end of the original series, Megumi and Shingo basically gotten together and one of the timeskip OVAs has two get married onscreen, though at that point, both are more mature, thankfully, LOL!
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The anime sounds like a lot of fun. Can’t say I’m thrilled with Shingo and Megumi getting married, but I guess if they’ve worked through some of their issues by then it could be okay. I’ll always believe that Megumi deserved better though, LOL!
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Understandable, reaction don’t worry. Megumi can definitely do way better, LOL! I think Kidokuro, her manager, also had some feelings for Megumi too.
I get the impression, Megumi, Shingo and especially their relationship are meant to be something thats interesting, enaging & funny to watch, but probably wouldn’t be so enjoyable in real life.
Like I know you reviewed Maison Ikkoku, its like some of the relationships in that and other Takahashi comedies like Ranma 1/2 were they’re funny and shippable, but if you think about them in real life terms, they probably wouldn’t be healthy.
From my recollection, Shingo does eventually apologize to Megumi for overlooking her.
Interestingly in the anime, whilst Shingo possesses a manipulative side, he often comes off as a buffoon such as a gag in the crossdressing episode being him finding out that his employees don’t actually think highly of him, whilst the manga from Megumi’s perspective shows off his manipulative side from what I’ve heard.
Maybe because from Mami/Yuu’s perspective, and she views Shingo Tachibana as “her silly fool of a boss with a dumb crush”, whilst Megumi sees him differently due to their different relationship.
Also the anime series is on retrocrush, for free with ads, to my recollection.
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From what you’ve told me, Shingo is definitely more manipulative in this version (though he’s still a bit of a buffoon). The most recent volume in the series has been fleshing out Megumi and Shingo’s backstory and it does give a lot of context as to why Megumi is in love with Shingo. It’s been pretty interesting.
Maybe Shingo will get a redemption arc in the future and I’ll feel better about their relationship by the end of the series. Here’s hoping!
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