Cutey Honey

Cutey Honey (or Cutie Honey, キューティーハニー; kyūtī hanī) is a widely known anime and manga series created by Go Nagai in 1973. Although an android, the main character Honey shows striking similarities to the magical girl concept (e.g., she can change into any outfit, especially when revealing herself to enemies) with a few key differences.

• Honey's powers are mechanical rather than magical. However, in practical terms she could still be defined as a magical girl.

• Honey was originally intended for all audiences in Japan, but it is what Americans may consider inappropriate, although there is a slightly more "cleaned-up" version years later, which has younger female fans.

Honey is considered the original template for the group of magical girls who are active fighters, particularly the "darker" magical girl series aimed at male audiences rather than female. Honey herself is referred to and parodied overtly in many manga and anime series over the years.

Most famously, the character Sailor Moon (the most famous magical girl outside of Japan) used overt theme references when the series was made into an anime from the original manga. Like Honey, Sailor Moon has a tendency to speechify before a fight in an amusing way, as well as fighting sometimes almost attractive, yet bizarre, exclusively female monsters.

In 1994, an first OVA remake (Shin Cutey Honey, New Cutey Honey in English) was released. A tokusatsu version was released by Gainax in 2004, along with a second OVA series animated by Gainax.

Plot Details

Honey is an android girl created by an elderly scientist to be his "daughter". She had no idea she was an artificial being, and attended a Catholic school (where an ugly, lesbian teacher was always trying to molest her). She found the truth about herself on the day her "father" was killed by members of a villanous organization called the "Panther Gang". She discovered that by saying "Honey Flash!" she could transform into a red-haired female superhero, with great strength and agility, as well as a sword. In fact, she had several other forms, all beautiful women with different abilities. (Her "real" form has long blonde hair.) Honey continued to battle the Panther Gang (and its woman-monster agents) while attending school, until defeating them.

The OVA continued the story several years later, with Honey not having aged, but having forgotten her true identity. Once she recovers her memory, she continues to battle evil. In this stage, her shapeshifting powers have increased to the point of being able to imitate any person's form (but not to change gender, curiously, even when mimicking a man). The notion of a shape-shifting android can, of course, be traced back as far as Hirai and Kuwata's science fiction manga series, 8 Man. In some respects, Cutie Honey was an overtly sexualized version of the earlier character; significantly, Honey's deceased father is a dead ringer for 8-Man's creator, Doctor Tani.

Honey is notable for being mischevious for a Japanese female hero, often teasing her male friends and mocking her enemies in combat.

Manga

1. Cutey Honey (2 volumes, 1973–1974, serialized in Shounen Champion)
2. Cutey Honey (2 volumes, 1992–1993, remake of the 1973 version)
3. Cutey Honey Flash (4 volumes, 1997–1998)

Anime

1. Cutey Honey (TV series, 25 episodes, 1973–1974)
2. Shin Cutey Honey (OAV, 8 episodes, 1994)
3. Cutey Honey Flash (TV series, 39 episodes, 1997–1998)
4. Cutey Honey Flash Movie (1997)
5. Cutie Honey tokusatsu movie (2004, directed by Hideaki Anno)
6. Re Cutie Honey (OAV, 3 episodes, 2004)

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