Tart arrives on Earth alongside Pie to help Kish prepare the planet for Deep Blue's arrival. He's energetic and bratty, constantly needling Kish about his losses to the Mew Mews and calling him weak. Like the other aliens, Tart can fly, teleport, and create chimera animas. In combat, he relies mainly on physical attacks and his chimera creatures, though he's also adept at manipulating plants to bind enemies and fire energy beams. The anime gives him the quirky addition of fighting with a click-clack toy.
Ichigo is basically his favorite target. He antagonizes her constantly, escalating to insults, and genuinely doesn't get why Kish is interested in what he dismisses as an "old woman." The "midget" insult is his weakness—Ichigo figures this out and uses it to provoke him into releasing Pudding without thinking. He and Pie once held Pudding captive under the Tokyo Dome, with Tart on guard duty. That's when things get weird for him. Instead of crying or being difficult, Pudding's unexpectedly kind to him, gives him candy, and calls him her "bud." It completely throws him off.
After losing to the Mew Mews, he labels her "spooky," but then catches himself smiling at the candy she gave him. In the anime, Tart's the one who saves Pudding from suffocation in the underground cavern rather than the Mew Mews pulling through. Late in the series, he catches her when she collapses from exhaustion and admits he doesn't want to fight anymore. She tells him that having him around makes her stronger, moving in close—and there's real chemistry there.
By the manga's ending, after his and Pie's final defeat, Tart confesses to Pudding that he never actually hated her. When the aliens prepare to leave after Deep Blue falls, Pudding gets emotional about him going and kisses him while slipping him a candy drop. She loads him up with other gifts too, insisting she doesn't want this to be goodbye. Tart blushes and hints he might come back for more candy.
Japanese voice actor: Asai Kiyomi. In the English Mew Mew Power adaptation, he's called Tarb.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
