Tim♡Tim♡Circus (ティム♡ティム♡サーカス) is a Japanese Shōjo manga written by Keiko Nagita and illustrated by Yumiko Igarashi. It ran in the magazine Nakayoshi from March 1981 to March 1982.
The manga was Nagita and Igarashi's second collaborative work after Candy♡Candy, and their last, after the copyright dispute over their intellectual properties cropped up.
Set in America before the advent of the 21st Century, it focuses on a girl named Tim Tim, a circus star and trapeze artist who works at a famous circus owned by her parents. She's well known for her complicated and wondrous acts with her cat Mephisto and dog Tiffany. She considers all the members of the circus like a family to her, and always pours her heart and soul in every performance.
When the circus falls to a deadly arson attack that claims the life of her mother, her cat, the disappearance of all the animals and the mysterious absence of her childhood friend Rasha, she is distraught. Now she must be sent to her grandmother in Oklahoma and pursue a proper education, while her father and the remaining troupe work as a traveling act until they can successfully regain their fortune and glory. However, Tim Tim refuses to be confined to such a life. With the help of a mysterious mute boy named Jessie, she runs away and decides to forge her own destiny. Making new friends along the way, and reuniting with some old ones, Tim Tim has many colorful adventures as the mystery around the tragic incident unfolds.
Tim♡Tim♡Circus (ティム♡ティム♡サーカス) has examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: There's Tim Tim (that's obviously a stage name), Jessie, Christine, Van, Diadora and...Rasha.
- Ambiguous Time Period: The circus setting and the lack of child labour laws places the series as taking place between the midst of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th, particularly during The '60s, '70s or '80s, but no specification is ever given.
- Anachronism Stew: Like Nagita and Igarashi's other well-known work Candy♡Candy, the manga makes the mistake of portraying long hair as the norm in the pre-21st Century.
- Big Bad: The Parrington family circus. Envying that the Tim Tim Circus was more successful than them, they plotted an arson attack that killed one of the owners, and sabotage Rasha's performance, leading to his death.
- Bittersweet Ending: Tim Tim's family is able to get up on their feet again and run their business smoothly, and Jessie is now part of the troupe and funds their activities using the wealth of the de Barral family. However, many of their loved ones are dead all because of a feud that none of them asked for, and worst of all, the Parrington Circus got off scott-free.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The manga seems to be rather lighthearted at first....and then we see the fire at the circus and the charred bodies of those who didn't make it out in time. Tim Tim narrowly survives, taking in a heavy amount of smoke inhalation but being carried to safety by Rasha.
- Coming of Age Story: For Tim Tim. The story covers her life from when she's a cheeky young girl to when she's an independent older woman, and explores themes such as separating from family, life in poverty, exploitation at the workplace and the loss of loved ones along the way.
- Cute Kitten: Mephisto is an adorable kitty who dons a dress while performing with Tiffany and Tim Tim.
- Creator Provincialism: Averted. Both Nagita and Igarashi are Japanese, but Tim♡Tim♡Circus takes place in the U.S.
- Creator Thumbprint: Like most Yumiko Igarashi illustrations, frilly hair, Tareme Eyes, sparkles and flowers in the background, Scenery Porn and Costume Porn are a common sight.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Tim Tim is a very young girl who works as a trapeze artist for a living, performing dangerous activities no child actor would legally be allowed to do in the modern day. In fact, a few child artists actually die to the unsafe working conditions.
- Kill the Cutie: Tim Tim has a cat named Mephisto, who is amongst one of the first characters to be killed in the story.
- Love Dodecahedron: Rasha and Jessie both like Tim Tim, who is oblivious to both of their crushes. Jessie's relationship with Tim Tim becomes further complicated when he remembers who he is. In the past, both Rasha and Van had feelings for Alicia, until she died during a trapeze accident, both never getting to confess to her.
- Official Couple: Tim Tim and Jessie become an item in the end, and he uses his wealthy family's assets to finance the revival of the circus.
- The Reveal:
- Jessie is actually the long-lost son of a very wealthy family named Gilles de Barral, and he has a fiance waiting back home.
- The circus was burned down by the Parringtons, who were jealous that their rivals were overshadowing them in popularity and taking all their customers.
- Red Herring: It's suspected Rasha was behind the arson, because he was mysteriously absent that day and never seen since. The true culprits are actually the Parringtons, who committed the act to crush their competition, and later they murder him as revenge for not collaborating with them earlier.
- Scenery Porn: The flowers during Tim Tim's Imagine Spot in the first episode are of many vivid colours and swarm her completely.
- Shōjo: One that covers romance and ambition and reaching for your dreams even when the odds are stacked against you, with the protagonist being a Plucky Girl.
- Shout-Out: Many to Candy♡Candy, which is unsurprising considering the creator/writer duo.
- Tim Tim's two main love interests, Jessie and Rasha, harken back to Candy's first two love interests, Anthony and Terry. In both cases, the former is a kind-hearted and gentle blonde young man who hails from a rich family and is Spoiled Sweet while the latter is a dark-haired, aloof bad boy with a terrible reputation and a promising role in the showbiz industry, who's cold to everyone except his sweetheart. Except in this case, the bad boy dies, not the kind-hearted one.
- Early in the series, Tim Tim discovers an amnesiac Jessie, and takes care of him until he regains his memories as the wealthy son of the Barrel family. In Candy♡Candy, Candy cared for Albert while he was amnesiac until he remembered he was Uncle William, of the prestigious Ardley clan.
- Rasha's First Love Alicia, a fellow performer, died after falling off a trapeze line. This is similar to how Terry's Love Interest Susanna, a fellow actress, Attempted Suicide by throwing herself off a roof.