Lokenstein's

My Melody (2005-2006)

Progress: episode 14

Kuromi (クロミ), who was locked in the Mariland's castle's dungeon by the King, manages to escape into the human world with Baku (バク, the animal she rides). My Melody (マイメロディ), accused of aiding her escape because Kuromi jumped on her head to reach the portal, is exiled to the human world by the King, tasked with thwarting Kuromi's evil plans.

Kuromi is prone to anger, resentful and a frequent liar who loves to scare people. She started to hate My Melody because the pink bunny's naivety made her easy to blame whenever bad things happened to Kuromi. As her hate for My Melody grew stronger, Kuromi kept getting increasingly into bad situations, until she was locked into the dungeons. She keeps track of every instance My Melody supposedly ruined things for her in a notebook.
While escaping the dungeon, Kuromi found two magic artefacts, and she decided to use them to get revenge on My Melody. The two artifacts are the Melody Key, which can be used to open the Dream Door which makes people's dreams come true, and the Melody Bow, which needs to be used to play violin so it can power up the Melody Key. With these in hand, Kuromi will try to make people's dreams come true - and by dreams here, we mean their goals and aspirations in life - in order to get black music notes. The notes are like food for Kuromi, and if she collects 100 notes, she will gain the Dark Power, with which she hopes to beat up My Melody.
However, we learn from My Melody that the Dark Power is the ultimate power of Nightmare Magic, which would suck all human's dreams into one big nightmare, preventing them from ever dreaming again. Additionally, Kuromi always ends up turning people's dreams into nightmares, and only gets a black note if they end up liking their nightmare. In the beginning, it's unclear if Kuromi knows that the power she's using is "evil".

On the other hand, My Melody is very forgetful, naive and a huge crybaby. She uses her own tools to give people their dreams back: the Melody Takt, which puts Melody Marks on objects which then come to life to help her; the Melody Box, which stores pink music notes; and Melody Candies, which turn her allied enchanted objects back to normal. If people's dreams get even stronger than before, she will receive a pink music note, which also serves as her food.

Although humans always think Kuromi and My Melody are stuffed toys, the fact that they are able to talk and move usually convinces them pretty quickly that they are sentient creatures, and this way they are able to gain allies.
My Melody is quickly adopted by Yumeno Uta (夢野歌), Kuromi's first victim, and her sisters, who welcome her home and support her. Because Uta's mum has passed away and her dad is always away on work trips, My Melody also takes care of their house in a kind of maid / mother figure mix, despite being very childish. Uta's friends, Sakurazuka Miki (桜塚美紀) and Fujisaki Mana (藤崎真菜), also become part of My Melody's team.
Meanwhile, Kuromi meets Hiiragi Keiichi (柊恵一), a violonist prodigy who also happens to be Uta's senpai... and crush! He says he doesn't have any dreams, so Kuromi can't use him for her plan, but he falls in love with the Melody Bow and decides to help her anyway. After spending some time with him, Kuromi also develops a crush on the high school boy.

At some point, My Melody's Melody Takt stops working, and she discovers that just like the Melody Key needs to be charged with the Melody Bow, the Melody Takt can be recharged by Uta's singing. Uta means "to sing" in Japanese, so this doesn't feel like a major plot twist, except to the characters of course.