Cutie Honey

Cutie Honey (Kyūtī Hanī) is a manga created by the popular Go Nagai. It first appeared in 1973 in the Shōnen Champion magazine. Cutie Honey is considered to be a in the magical girl genre, and is actually considered by some to be the first magical girl manga that was ever created. Cutie Honey’s first round in manga lasted a little less than a year. In 1997 the manga returned under the name Cutie Honey Flash. It ran for a year. The series was picked up the first time to become an anime in 1973, and was turned into an anime again in 1997.

Synopsis

Cutie Honey is about a girl named Honey Kisaragi. She is just your normal, every day, average Catholic school girl until her father is murdered by an organization known as Panther Claw. Honey grieves and then discovers that she is not a normal, every day, average girl as she thought she was. She is, instead, an android that was created by her father. She has a fixed system of air elements inside of her, and only needs to say “Honey Flash” in order to turn into a superhero that is known to the world as Cutie Honey.

Panther Claw wants the fixed system of air elements that rests inside Honey. The group is run by Panther Zora and her baby sister, Jill. They believe that they can get an unlimited amount of money by getting the fixed system of air elements out of Honey, and will do anything they can to get it.

Honey has a few friends who help her in her mission to take revenge on Panther Claw: Hayami Danbei and his two sons, Seiji and Junpei. Junpei has a crush on Honey, but has a girlfriend already. Honey has a crush on Seiji but believes that he doesn’t realize that she exists. Honey is very mischievous at school, teasing her teacher and her classmates. They all like her and some of them have major crushes on her.

Cutie Honey Flash

A new version of Cutie Honey was created in 1997. It was called Cutie Honey Flash and managed to get the popular timeslot that was vacated by Sailor Moon. Cutie Honey Flash was also known as Cutie Honey F. Cutie Honey Flash fits the traditional magical girl series and was aimed at the girls who liked Sailor Moon. It was seen in Germany and got a huge following there. A new person is introduced in this series: her name is Misty Honey. She is Cutie Honey’s sister and is also able to change into a superhero. In this round, though, Cutie Honey is able to change into more than one different persona, while Misty Honey can not. This causes some animosity from Misty towards Cutie Honey.

There was a live-action version of Cutie Honey made in 2004. Japanese model Eriko Sato became Honey on screen. The movie is about Honey’s battle against the Panther Claw. Once again she is trying to avenge her dead father.