Tokimeki Tonight

Tokimeki Tonight (ときめきトゥナイト, lit. Heart-Throbbing Tonight) is a Shojo manga series by Koi Ikeno which ran in Ribon magazine from 1982 to 1994, with 30 volumes. The plotline spans 3 generations of the Etou family, starting with Ranze Eto and continuing on with her brother Rinze and her daughter Aira. Years after the original manga was published, a reimaging of the series called Tokimeki Midnight was published in the magazine Cookie Box with 9 volumes.

This series is about a girl named Ranze Eto, a Tall, Dark and Bishoujo girl who looked like an Ordinary High School Student, but her family is something that came straight out of The Munsters. You see, her father is a vampire and her mother is a werewolf. And it also turns out that Ranze has special powers of her own: for example, whenever she bites anything, she can change herself into a carbon copy of that object, whether it's another person or an inanimate object such as a piece of bread. Only by sneezing can she return to her normal self.

On her first day of school, Ranze meets a handsome guy named Shun Makabe. The chief problem with this is that Ranze's parents will not allow her to date a human - although there may be much more to Shun than meets the eye. On top of this, Ranze also has a bitter Rival in the pretty but spiteful Yoko Kamiya, the daughter of a yakuza boss, who is also in love with Shun (and has been for a while) and doesn't take kindly to Ranze intruding on her turf.

The manga was adapted into an anime that ran at 34 episodes on Nippon TV from October 7, 1982 to September 22, 1983, produced by Group TAC and directed by Hiroshi Sasagawa, famous for Gatchaman and the Time Bokan series. The anime has also aired in Italy under the title Ransie la Strega and in Arabic speaking countries.

Must not be confused with Konami's Dating Sim series Tokimeki Memorial.

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Tropes used in Tokimeki Tonight include:

• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Seldom used as a nice little throwaway gag. Mori Eto (a vampire by birth)'s family tree shows that one of his relatives is... Christopher Lee. Also, one panel that shows a vampire village in Magic World has Vlad Tepes as one of the inhabitants (among other references such as Graf Orlok and... Frank N. Furter!?).
• Betty and Veronica: Ranze's the Betty and Yoko's the Veronica.
• Bowdlerization: Amusingly inverted in the case of the Italian version of the anime, called Ransie la strega (Ransie the Witch). This version directly referred to the Demon/Magic World as Hell, the ruler of that kingdom as Satan thus implying that Shun really was Satan's son and all the creatures who sometimes visited the Eto household as coming from the depths of Hell. Yes, even Santa Claus.
• Dub Name Change: In the Italian dub, Ranze is Ransie, which isn't much of a change, but Yoko became Liza (pronounced "Leeza," not as in Minnelli) and Shun's name was changed to Paul.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Ranze.
• Fur Against Fang: Played with. Mori and Sheera clearly love each other, but they fight at the drop of a hat. Heck, the very first pages of the manga show Sheera flinging furniture and other stuff at her husband!
• Gecko Ending: The anime, though it's justified since the manga only finished in 1994. In this one, Shun turns out to be the long lost prince of the Demon World, but he denies it and says the birthmark proving this is merely a mole. The Etous are kicked out of the Demon World until they can bring the prince back. And when Ranze's about to personally talk to Shun, Yoko interrupts... and the story ends there.
• Gorgeous Gorgon: Fira, the chosen bride for the Magic World prince Aron, appears to be a cute blonde girl... but piss her off and she turns into a snake-haired fury with a petrifying gaze! Ranze and her friends sometimes use her ability to their advantage.
• Gratuitous English: Plenty during the anime theme songs... "Super Love Lotion", "I love you", "Fifty-fifty", etc. Heck, it's even in the series title.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Let's see... Ranze is voiced by Eriko Hara (five years before another Genki Girl role where she's one of the vortices of a love triangle made her a legend), Shun is played by Yuu Mizushima, Sheera is voiced by Noriko Ohara, Aaron is voiced by Hirotaka Suzuoki, Sand is voiced by Hideyuki Tanaka, Mina Tominaga is Yoko, and so on...
  • The theme songs were sung by Harumi Kamo, who also performed the themes to Attacker You!.
• Hybrid Overkill Avoidance
• Ill Girl: Narumi as a child.
• Informed Ability: Mori's job as a struggling writer. After his novel becomes a smashing hit and gets turned into a live-action film, his writing job is almost never mentioned again, and Sheera one time even lampshades this!
• Monster Mash: What the Magic world appears to be. It is divided into tribes of various species such as vampires, werewolves, witches and so on.
• Ms. Fanservice: Ranze, in the ED sequence, where she cavorts while wearing a black cape - and nothing else. The ED of the final episode has all the characters get in on the action.
• Names to Know in Anime: Besides the aforementioned Hiroshi Sasagawa, there's episode director Tsutomu Shibayama (Ranma 1/2) and Gisaburo Sugii (Street Fighter II, Night on the Galactic Railroad, the 1984 Glass Mask), who worked on the series OP. Also, the character designer, "Magoichi Takazawa" (who worked in that same capacity on the first Urusei Yatsura movie), is really legendary animator/illustrator Shinya Takahashi.
• Ordinary High School Student: Ranze, at least in appearance.
• Our Vampires Are Different: As stated above, Ranze can change herself into anyone (and anything) she has bitten.
• Screwed by the Network: Come spring 1983, the anime was continually pre-empted by NTV in favor of professional baseball. Only one episode aired during all of April 1983, and no episodes aired at all for all of August and most of September, which essentially killed any momentum the series had built up.
• Shinigami: The first one that appears, named Georges, has to claim Ill Girl Narumi's soul due to a heart failure. Rinze, who's fallen in love with her (at 5!), with the help of his sister convinces him not to do so and save the little girl. Later on, Georges becomes an ally of the Etos and a semi-regular character (and a bit of a goofball too).
• Small Annoying Creature / Team Pet: Pek the parrot.
• Strange Girl: Ranze
• Talking the Monster to Death: Ranze does this to the Meioh, ruler of the Dark World and real Big Bad of the manga, just after he disintegrated the King of Magic World.
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Yoko.
• Victorious Childhood Friend: Narumi, in the manga.
• Werewolf: Sheera.
• The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter: Yoko and her father, who looks not unlike a shaved gorilla.
• Yakuza Princess: Yoko again, whose father is a yakuza boss.