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Tamami (タマミ) is a shape-shifting alien girl who was discovered on the moon. She lives off the power of a rare moon element called Lumanite, and without it, Earth's atmosphere turns her to stone. She only appears in episode 34 of the 2003 series. In the English dub, her name is Penelope and she is voiced by Faith Salie.

Phoenix: Future

Tamami originally appears in the second book of Osamu Tezuka's Phoenix, called "Future", from 1968. She is an alien called a Moopie, which can shapeshift into almost any living creature, living in an underground city with her human lover Masato. Tamami and Masato are forced to flee after an Moopies are outlawed, and an official named Rock tries to have her obtained and destroyed.

2003 series

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Tamami in her purest state, attempting to reconstruct a human form

Tamami is the last survivor of the alien species, Moopie, and originally lived in a temple-like tower on the moon that was guarded by the phoenix. A research team attempted to explore the tower, and Tamami began to form as a humanoid to greet them. As a raw Moopie, Tamami appeared as a golden-coloured plasma creature. This accidentally scared a member of the team, who instinctively shot her, and she turned to a pile of stone in self-defense.

Dr. Saruta, a colleague of Dr. O'Shay, took a sample of the "stone" from the moon tower in an attempt to study Moopies further. As the moon tower fell to pieces, Dr. Saruta fell into a crater in the moon, almost knocking him out. Tamami read his mind and transformed into a humanoid woman - Saruta's daughter in the English dub, and Saruta's dream woman in the Japanese version - and teleported him back to Earth.

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Tamami in a sustanence pod

In addition to shape-shifting, Tamami has healing powers. She was able to seal a gash in Astro's artificial skin by just holding her hand over it, and she uses her healing power to soothe Dr. Saruta's lingering radiation sickness. However, in order for her to survive on Earth, she can either stay in a fluid-filled sustenance pod or be powered by the rare element Lumanite. A young esper named Rock became interested in Tamami and offered to help Dr. Saruta research her. Rock uses his psychic powers on Tamami to manipulate her into shape-shifting into various animals, to steal Lumanite from museums, and to attack various people like Astro.

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Tamami as a dog, with Rock

Tamami was only being used by Rock in his scheme to get to the original moon tower to become a god. Tamami is extremely ashamed of the Lumanite robberies Rock has forced her into, but still needs the stolen Lumanite to live. Tamami is also used as a thread by Rock to guilt Astro to participating in the moon tower power portal summoning. Finally, Tamami is shot by Rock when she jumps in the way of a beam intended for Saruta.

Tamami turns into stone once more, with the last known piece of Lumanite in Rock's possession, with Rock falling through the power portal. Tamami's episode ends with Saruta vowing to bring Tamami back one day.

Himekawa manga

Tamami appears in the Akira Himekawa series, in an adaptation of her episodes with Rock. The major change in this series is how Tamami takes on a comforting motherly figure for Rock. At one point, to stop Rock from going through with the power portal, she shapeshifts into his estranged mother.

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