A short-livedCartoon Network original series based on the Real LifeJ-Pop groupPUFFY (called Puffy Ami Yumi in the States to avoid offending a certain trigger-happy rapper) previously known in America for providing the theme for Teen Titans. The series lasted from 2004 to 2006.Produced for television by Sam Register with the help of former Jellyfish member Andy Sturmer, who had previously worked with the real duo. Animation was done with Flash by Renegade Animation in California, making it the only show at the time to have been fully animated in the US (thus making their choice of characters quite ironic), with characters designed by famed Canadian artist Lynne Naylor which got the show nominated for the coveted Annie Award. The series follows the two best friends/musicians and their manager Kaz as they travel around the on their world tour with a number of nutty adventures along the way.Tropes used include:
Balloon Belly: The girls, after their chocolate binge in Taffy Trouble and after eating all the sushi in Rock N Roe
This trope is used nearly every time Ami and/or Yumi overeat. The only time it was averted was, oddly, the episode where Yumi is competing in hot dog eating contests.
Bifauxnen: Many viewers who have never heard of Puffy Amiyumi before thought Yumi is a bishieGoth.
Big Eater: Kaz and Yumi in the cartoon. Ami and Yumi in the opening skits.
Bigger on the Inside: The Tour Bus. Lampshaded when Kaz tried to sell it with a claim of it having "thousands of rooms, some even we don't know about!".
Bilingual Bonus: Japanese honorifics, and, on occasion, words and phrases, pop up every now and then.
Creator Provincialism: It's a show about a Japanese pop duo. Or so we're led to believe. The characters themselves say and do things easily identifiable with American Culture as all the writers and animators are from North America. They attempt to remind Ami and Yumi are from Japan by having them speak in Gratuitous Japanese, use chopsticks to eat, obsess over sushi, and spend yen (even though there doesn't seem to be any rate of conversion...) but after all We All Live in America.
Day in the Limelight: Minor Characters like Harmony and The Talent Suckers received their own episodes. Kaz and the cats frequently had their own Tom And Jerry inspired shorts that were devoid of Ami and Yumi's presence.
The Danza: In one episode, King Chad is dating an Emotionless Girl named Janice, who is voiced by Janice Kawaye, Ami's seiyuu. Of course, the REAL Janice is a pretty nice lady, according to the producers.
Everything Is Online: "Home Insecurity," where Yumi's crazed security AI brings everything on the bus, including the fridge, toilet, toaster and her guitar, to life to kill her.
Expressive Shirt: The Skull on Yumi's T-Shirt shifts expression to match her own.
Extreme Omnivore: Yumi. Her competition in an eating contest tried to sabotage her by dumping a bag of metal horseshoes into the food meant for her the night before. It didn't work. In another episode she expresses the desire to eat the aliens that abducted the band (although they were giant bananas so that one could be excused).
Eyedscreen: Used during the showdown in "In the Cards"
First Name Basis: Or last name if you place surnames first. The duo and their manager are only known by their given names. It was highlightened when Ami and Yumi tried to visit Kaz at the hospital and the receptionist asked for his surname. Neither Ami nor Yumi knew it.
Foot Focus: Happens in "Team Teen" when Ami and Yumi arrive at Team Teen's superhero lair. Jarhead tells them to remove their footwear for the sake of keeping it clean. Ami and Yumi comply, toss their boots in a corner, then march inside barefoot.
The production team's (now 404'd) blog once had a post featuring a drawing of the girls in a distinctly non-heterosexual passionate embrace. This was said to be inspired by the real-life Puffy's amused reaction to the show, something to the extent of "Why are they writing us as gay?". Of course, it also had a series of drawings involving Ami falling victim to an Alien chestburster which Yumi then dispatched with a knife, so it was quite clearly not a network-approved source of series information.
This was actually toned down after season one, with the girls not hugging nearly as much, but the hints are still there, such as the two of them growing old together in the episode set in the future and each with a life dream list including starting a band with each other.
Human Mail: Kaz attempts this to get back into the tour bus when the cats, Jeng Kang and Tekirai, lock him out. Kaz gets mailed to a bunch of other places courtesy of the cats until the package eventually returns.
Hurricane of Puns: Used and abused frequently. Most heavily in "Rock and Roe".
Hypno Fool: The episode "Hypno-Kaz" was based on this trope.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: Only eight episodes (seven from season one, one from season two) were ever released in English. The entire series was released on DVD in 2009...but only in Japan.
Lisa Needs Braces: Yumi in "Scowlitis" - except these braces, projected to make her smile, are impractical (highly magnetic and work just like lightning rods), deform her so her smile is half-Stepford, half-Slasher, eventually put her in a depression due to these... And become a sensation with fans.
My Nayme Is: Ami (Ah-Me) is often mispronounced as Amy (A-Me) in promotions and discussion.
Neat Freak: Ami displays such an attribute once, then never again in the appropriately named "Neat Freak".
Negative Continuity: In the first episode it's stated that Yumi has been petrified of squirrels since age 5. In season 2 not only can she fluently speak squirrel but she was also President of the Squirrel fan club. As a whole there's not much tying these episodes together.
Not Quite Starring: The real Puffy Ami Yumi only appeared in live action opening sequences that make it clear that their accents would be too thick to understand for an native English-speaker anyway.
Our Founder: in Ami Yumi 3000, when all of civilization is based on Puffy music, there's an enormous statue of the girls back-to-back in a signature pose in the middle of the futuristic city. (the Yumi statue's head has a wormhole over it)
Power of Rock and Power of Friendship were used alternatively, if Rock solved the problem in the last short, Friendship would the problem this time.
Quintessential British Gentlewomen: The opening sketch for "Fan Clubs" features Ami and Yumi sitting at a table in fine dress drinking tea and biscuits, dubbed with British accents with a sophisticated style of speech while an autoharp plays in the background.
Recursive Canon: Animated Ami and Yumi see their live action counterparts on TV and don't recognize who they are in "Sitcom Yumi". A poster of the real duo also appears in "In Harmony's Way".
Repurposed Pop Song: Songs by the duo are placed into various sections of the show. If you can understand Japanese, the placements of the song will seem rather strange.
Roger Rabbit Effect: in Sitcomi Yumi, the live-action Ami and Yumi sit on a couch with the animated Kaz, while the animated versions of the girls wonder who those two women are, and who would want to watch them.
Spin-Off Babies: The Mini-Puffs, although technically the show itself is an example.
Spiritual Successor: Compared to the format of pre-The Flintstones era of cartoons with the format of three shorts framed by a live action segment.
Strapped to an Operating Table: the girls and Kaz find themselves in this situation (and have their brains probed by intelligent bananas from space) in the episode "Spaced Out!"
Artistic License - History, when you remember that rock was introduced in The Fifties, and became more what it's like today in the 1970s, what with the ever-growing branching into prog, glam, hard, plus the first bands of heavy metal.
Tim Taylor Technology: Yumi continues to give her amp exponential power until it causes a fuse to blow.
Tomboy and Girly Girl: Ami loves the colour pink, cute cuddly animals and likes girly things like makeup. Yumi is pretty much the opposite.
Too Dumb to Live: The Citizens of Dusty Gulch in "Showdown". They would rely on a chicken to protect them.
Too Soon: The episode "Tsunami Yumi" was never aired due to issues to the then recent Indian Ocean Tsunami.
The real Puffy Ami Yumi appeared in an awareness ad for the tsunami.
Training Montage: Spoofed in "Ninjcompoop" were Yumi's skill do not improve with training. Set to one of the band's song ironically enough.
It happened again in "Chow Down", an episode where Yumi had to win an eating contest against the reigning champion, Sauerkraut Malone. It literally spoofed Rocky by showing Yumi training against frozen sides of beef in a meat locker, just like Rocky Balboa did... but instead of punching them, she had to eat them. All of them. The girl has an appetite.
True Companions: Ami and Yumi are as close as best friends can be, and for all his jerkiness Kaz does have his moments few and far between, even going so far as to refer to himself as their "dysfunctional father figure".
Unreadable Disclaimer: Kaz's contract is filled with lengthy subsections and loopholes that are a subject of many of the escapades the duo find themselves in but the real kicker is a section hidden under a flap and written in Russian saying that he reserves the right to sell the band.
which got the show nominated for the coveted Annie Award. The series follows the two best friends/musicians and their manager Kaz as they travel around the on their world tour with a number of nutty adventures along the way.
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