Catch! Teenieping (Korean: 캐치! 티니핑), or Catch! Teenieping: Fairies of Emotion in the West, is a South Korean Magical Girl series based on the toyline of the same name. It is produced by SAMG (Miraculous Ladybug, Miniforce).
Teenieping are mischievous mind fairies who love to "enter" people's minds, but their playful nature and magical powers can wreak havoc in their hosts' lives. After an unknown force led her to a mysterious secret room in the castle holding a magic cube, the Teenieping are accidentally set loose on Earth, so Princess Romi of the Emotion Kingdom follows them to Earth to catch them back all again. Now living a life as a seemingly ordinary girl, she must balance her life between collecting all the Teenieping and her new life in Harmony Town.
The series premiered on March 19, 2020 on KBS2 in South Korea. The series also airs on Disney Channel in South Korea, starting on April 17, 2020. The show made its western debut on Netflix on 30th of October 2021.
Tropes in this series include:
- Arc Villain: Akdongping serves as one in the first half of Part 2, helping other Teenieping cause trouble.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Happing was corrupted by an unknown party, turning her into Akdongping.
- Dub Name Change: In the English/Western localization, this applies to some of the Teenieping due to their names being plays on Korean words or onomatopoeia.
- The title is changed from Catch! Teenieping to Catch! Ping, though the titular creatures are still called Teenieping. This is a pun on the Teenieping's naming convention, —ping.
- Hachuping is Heartsping, seeing as hachu is used as Gratuitous English for "heart" here.
- Baroping is Dadaping.
- Ajaping is Gogoping.
- Happing is Happying.
- Akdongping is Giggleping.
- Geurimping is Artping.
- Fairy Companion: The Royal Teeniepings allow Romi to transform into different forms depending on what Teenieping she uses, and often help her in catching and defeating Teeniepings. Heartsping is her personal companion and is the Teenieping that travels with her the most.
- Gotta Catch 'Em All: The show's premise is Romi needing to catch all the Teenieping back again as they cause chaos in the village. The official synopsis on SAMG's website even namedrops this trope.
- Green Thumb: The Royal Teenieping Chachaping wields a watering can that allows her to revive dying plants as well as other living beings, simply by swinging it and letting her Water of Hope splash on the plant or living being in question. Likewise, when Princess Romi transforms into Princess Clover, she gains the same ability when she summons and uses a watering can using her wand, with the water transforming into things like clouds that can stop enemies.
- Inflating Body Gag: In the episode "The Bubble Gum Disaster", the Royal Teeniepings are told of a story about a Teenieping who chewed and swallowed gum, and then blew up to the point where the Emotions Kingdom fell. This story, however, only serves to make them crave the gum (which Sara had put away in a pantry) more, and they decide to obtain it for themselves. While they're successful, Gogoping ends up chewing and swallowing multiple cubes of gum, which causes him to inflate and grow to the point where he begins to rip the Heartrose Bakery off of the ground. Romi transforms into Princess Heart and uses star candy given to her by Mr. Monju to deflate Gogoping, and at the end of the episode, Moseyping ends up eating a piece of gum and swallowing it.
- Magical Girl: The show's genre. Romi is a magical princess fighter with a magic wand. She can transform into different magical girl forms depending on which Teenieping she uses.
- Monster of the Week: Almost every episode in Season 1 features Princess Romi attempting to find and catch a loose Teenieping who likes to cause trouble and mischief for innocent townspeople.
- Open Secret: Romi needing to hide her true identity or the existence of the Teeniepings isn't necessary. The people in the town are caught off-guard more by encountering a Teenieping at all rather than discovering that Teenieping exist.
- Our Fairies Are Different: The Teeniepings. They're small creatures, or "mind fairies", with magical powers and hail from another world. They're not evil, just mischievous, as the synopsis puts it.
- Production Throwback: Romi's teacher, Dane, secretly likes playing with toys. Those toys? The Miniforce toyline, another SAMG cartoon.
- Same Content, Different Rating: On Amazon Prime Video Japan, episodes alternate between being rated "ALL" and being rated "7+". The final arc notably recieves the latter rating, likely due to Happying's sacrifice.
- The Sixth Ranger: Happing, who joins the team halfway through Part 2, only long after the other Royal Teenieping have already joined and once she's purified from being Akdongping.
- Transformation Name Announcement: After transforming, Princess Romi annnounces her name according to which form she assumes. She states the name of her form, followed by what concept the form represents.
- Transformation Trinket: Princess Romi uses the tituar Teeniepings to help her transform into different forms depending on which Teenieping she transforms with. Each form also comes with its own unique powers that correlate to each respective Teenieping.
- In Season 1, the six Royal Teeniepings are used to transform Princess Romi into different elemental-themed princesses (Heart, Cloudia, Star, Clover, Melody, or Sunshine).
- Season 2 has Princess Romi transform into jewel-themed princesses instead. Heartsping returns to help transform Romi into Princess Diaheart, while Joahping, Teeheeping and Trustping are used to help Romi transform into Princess Emerald, Princess Ruby and Princess Sapphire, respectively.
- In Season 3, Romi has four new forms that she can transform into, again with the help of Heartsping along with four other Royal Teeniepings. Heartsping helps transform Romi into Princess Floraheart, with Okeydokeyping, Nanaping and Trueping also helping her transform into Princess Crystal, Princess Solaris and Princess Gloria, respectively.
- Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The show takes place in the small town of Harmony Town. It seems to be set somewhere in the West or at least not in South Korea, given that the locals all have Western names and the usage of Western values (such as the characters wearing shoes inside their homes, though this could be because of Limited Wardrobe).
- Wrecked Weapon: The Heartwing Stick gets broken from Romi overexerting her magic, leading to Dr. Monju giving her the Teenie Heart Shield as a replacement.
