Anime Impact. Chris Stuckmann
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a Chun-Li look-a-like to a leather-clad, whip-wielding S&M queen. This dominatrix form is taken during a battle with the nude—except for a few well-placed diamonds—Jewel Princess. Honey seems to be having a bit of fun with both the Jewel Princess and the viewer:
“If you can call yourself a Princess, Princess, just call me the Queen!”
While some might write New Cutey Honey off as either tasteless nonsense or a combination of the worst sexist anime tropes, there are many aspects that elevate it beyond similar offerings and other, more traditional magical girl anime. Remarkable production values, appealing and sometimes absurd character designs (a Go Nagai trademark), beautiful color palettes, and well-choreographed action stood out in the over-inflated (thanks to the enormous success of Sailor Moon) magical girl market. The transformation sequences, of which there are many, are incredible. Transformation sequences are are a hallmark of the magical girl genre. Often this animation is elaborate and costly, resulting in the reuse or recycling of the same sequence many times throughout the run of a series. Unlike many magical girls shows, the animation in New Cutey Honey’s transformations is never recycled—each one is unique and they never fail to impress.
Of course, the degree and frequency to which her naked body is revealed also set Honey apart. The nudity in New Cutey Honey is certainly more realistic and gratuitous than anything presented in the original 1970s version. Although undeniably sexy, it can be interpreted as a big, cheeky, laugh at the whole genre. Magical girl series, such as Magical Emi, Magic Knight Rayearth, and Sailor Moon all feature varying degrees of fan-service or exploitation of their female characters. So while New Cutey Honey is certainly more explicit than those shows, the major difference here is that Honey is in on the joke. During a dangerous encounter with a punk-rock villainess, Honey finds herself cornered. To escape, she feigns an infatuation, professing her love and pressing her body against the woman’s. Alarmed by the advance, the villainess tosses her out:
“Ugh! Get out of here—I’m not into THAT!”
Having escaped into the alley, Honey giggles and admits to herself that she enjoyed the sensation of the woman’s breasts against her own:
“That was too close … but I sort of liked it too!”
In another instance, Honey momentarily breaks the fourth wall and reveals she is wearing a steel bra:
“My contract says I have to wear one of these—if my breasts were damaged, fans everywhere would be grieving!”
This lively sense of humor is also displayed in the joy she receives when teasing and mocking her opponents. Witty and self-aware, in these moments Honey is reminiscent of a female Spider-Man, though she’s more self-assured than most superheroes. Many times she defeats her opponents utilizing both brain and brawn. She is a mature and principled tough girl whose kindness and empathy for others is extolled as often as her physical attributes.
The dub done by ADV Films is worthy of mention for several reasons. New Cutey Honey is a frenetic carnival of excesses—the scenarios range from the zany to the deathly serious. The English direction and performances capture the high energy and excitement of the material. Honey is voiced by Jessica Calvello (hand selected by Go Nagai) and the actress rubber-bands between sexy, aggressive, comedic, and vulnerable moments with an ease and understanding of anime not typical of the period (though typical of many of ADV’s high quality productions). Her laugh is a pitch-perfect mischievous purr.
Sadly, the series ended after only eight episodes. The first four episodes tell a complete story arc regarding Honey’s revival and her battle with Dolmeck, “The Lord of Darkness.” The remaining four take a more monster-of-the-week approach, and while the episodes are clearly building toward an encounter with a revived Panther Zora (Honey’s ultimate adversary), the episodic nature means that the series doesn’t end on a cliffhanger despite its cancelation.
There are many other adaptations of Cutie Honey, most recently a 2016 live-action film. The original anime and it’s OVA sequel however, are often cited as the best interpretations of Go Nagai’s work. In many ways, New Cutey Honey feels like a culmination of every magical girl series that came before it, albeit with each genre-defining aspect ratcheted up to eleven. Many viewers may at first find themselves struggling to reconcile the voyeuristic nature of the transformations with the portrayal of a powerful female hero. It may help to consider that sex appeal and strength are not mutually exclusive, but in many ways it is these seemingly contradictory elements that make the series so exciting. Honey’s combination of grit, grace, sexiness, and strength—as well as her creator’s willingness to push the envelope—have established her as one of Japan’s most beloved heroines.
Joshua Dunbar is a freelance illustrator and art educator and holds an MFA in Sequential Art from the Savannah College of Art and Design. A lover of all forms of Japanese media, he is currently working on his first creator-owned comic inspired by the Magical Girl genre and late twentieth-century animation. You can find his work on his Instagram at @j2dstar or joshuadunbar.com.
1979 • The Castle of Cagliostro
Kariosutoro no Shiro
— John Rodriguez —
My introduction to Hayao Miyazaki—to anime in general, in fact—didn’t come at the movies. It didn’t come via home theater, nor even through a local club. My introduction came, rather, in the bowels of a dingy video arcade, before a cabinet whose marquee read CLIFF HANGER in garish pink.
This was one of those newfangled laserdisc games. If you remember any of those games … well, first, congratulations, you’re old, here’s a Geritol. But if you remember any of those games, it’s surely Dragon’s Lair. Yes, the one where you guide Dirk the Daring through the castle by moving the joystick in exactly the right direction at exactly the right time.
Cliff Hanger played like Dragon’s Lair, but the similarities ended there. Whereas Dragon’s Lair reflected the sensibilities of its creator, ex-Disney animator Don Bluth (he of The Secret of NIMH and An American Tail), Cliff Hanger looked like nothing I’d ever seen before. Its palette was more muted, its characters more stylized. It was also utterly incoherent in a way that Dragon’s Lair—which featured a script written specifically for the game—wasn’t. An escape from a casino! A runaway princess! Ninjas! Sword battles on a clock tower! This game had everything … everything, that is, except story transitions that might explain what in the Sam Hill was going on. I remember walking away confused and frustrated, certain that the gorgeously animated scenes I’d witnessed held some deeper story I just wasn’t grasping.
Arcades eventually faded from relevance here in America, and with them my memories of Cliff Hanger. But childhood memories don’t die easy, as I discovered one night nearly ten years later.
“Hey, I know this!” I exclaimed to my friend just seconds after the film we’d rented—some old anime called The Castle of Cagliostro—began to play. And I did! There was that casino escape scene, the very one I’d witnessed in that dingy arcade. Only now we had something new: context! Sweet, blessed context! Here, at last, was the full feature I’d glimpsed only in snippets, viewable from start to finish!
Freed from the demands of dexterous joystick handling, I dug into the story with eager curiosity. Quickly, I learned that the pair of crooks who’d made off with the cash were Arséne Lupin III, mastermind thief extraordinaire, and his crack-shot partner Jigen Daisuke. What princess Lupin was chasing after was Clarisse de Cagliotros—heir to the Cagliostro family fortune and soon to be unwillingly wed to the vile Count Cagliostro—the very villain our hero Lupin would ultimately confront on that clock tower. At long last, everything was making sense!
And the ninjas? Well, they’re just ninjas. But seriously … ninjas! This film had everything!
My (re)discovery of The Castle of Cagliostro delighted me beyond my ability to express. It wasn’t just the scratching of an old itch, the filling in of long guessed-at details. This was a legitimately excellent film, excellent in a way I wasn’t