Cutie Honey

One day, Honey Kisaragi's a trendy, class-cutting Catholic schoolgirl. The next, her father's been murdered by demonic divas from a dastardly organization called Panther Claw. When his dying message reveals that she's an android, Honey uses the transformative power of the Atmospheric Element Solidifier - the very thing Panther Claw wanted to steal - to seek revenge against the shadowy clan. Can Honey fight her way up Panther Claw's ranks to defeat its leader, the sinister Sister Jill while managing to escape the watchful eyes of Miss Histler, her school's headmistress?

Aided by journalist Hayami Seiji, his ninja father, and his lady-loving grade school brother, Honey sometimes appears as a racecar driver, sometimes as a glamorous model, and sometimes as a beggar, but her true identity is none other than the warrior of love, Cutie Honey!

(Source: RightStuf)

Kisaragi, Honey Main

Masuyama, Eiko Japanese

Hayami, Danbei Main

Tomita, Kousei Japanese

Hayami, Seiji Main

Mori, Katsuji Japanese

Aki, Natsuko Supporting

Yoshida, Rihoko Japanese

Sister Jill Supporting

Watanabe, Noriko Japanese

Black Claw Supporting

Kitahama, Haruko Japanese

Tsuneni, Miharu Supporting

Tsuda, Nobuyo Japanese

Breast Claw Supporting

Nakanishi, Taeko Japanese

Tomahawk Panther Supporting

Octo Panther Supporting

Katsumata, Tomoharu Director, Planning

Kasai, Osamu Episode Director

Shidara, Hiroshi Episode Director

Fujikawa, Keisuke Script, Screenplay

Reviews

Apr 27, 2017

Inuyoujo

Recommended

Funny

It was truly an honor to be able to view this anime! It's way sexier, feminist, and socially aware than most of the stuff on the market today. I've always get the hots for sexy characters that know they're sexy and want to be sexy! And, there's still so few anime with a shonen theme and a respectable female lead.

I find the character's places to be balanced to where they need to be. The others help Honey, but they don't steal the spot light with how helpful they are. Honey takes down the enemies alone, without anyone jumping in to rescue her. Something way too ... common in modern anime.

I thought the show would be more science-y, given the setup, but it's a lot of magic. The deaths are more real, than expected from the rest of what's going on.

the only things that disappointed me were 2 characters died that didn't have to, and it ends on a cliffhanger. And, sometimes there are those "IYA!" moments, but that's an ecchi thing.

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Mar 18, 2025

thewiru

Mixed Feelings

Cutie Honey is an anomaly, and in a good sense.
Preceding Sailor Moon by nearly two decades on the idea of a female henshin-hero anime and preceding Minky Momo by one decade with having the idea of it's protagonist transforming into a new profession every week, Cutie Honey works as a parody of super-hero stories typically associated with Ishinomori Shoutarou: An android/cyborg/mutant fighting an evil organization with villain-of-the-week androids/cyborgs/mutants as well as their goons. This time, however, with a "female" motif and an erotic-comedy spin to it (Though the ecchi is very mild by modern standards).

Episodic shows live or die depending on how good it's episodic ... structure it is, while trying to avoid the sin of being repetitive. Perhaps due to it being only 25 episodes instead of 50, Cutie Honey succeeds on that by having a different transformation in every episode (As opposed to only using the same ones established at the beginning) and finalizing the weekly villain in a slightly different way.
While it would be expected of the male cast to simply be useless perverts trying to land a humor that is no longer funny, this is definitely not the case here, with them working as a pretty endearing and helpful side-cast to Honey's adventures.

The one thing that I would see as a problem are the usual early segments of Honey having to escape her academy while evading her ugly teachers: Sometimes the jokes land, but often I feel that they don't. They feel more reminiscing of Nagai's previous works with school erotic-comedy in Harenchi Gakuen, while in here they usually don't result in any consequence of Honey continuously eloping, don't connect to the rest of the episode (Anything would've sufficed, really, but there really is nothing) and the stories themselves could easily just start elsewhere, skipping those segments completely (Which is what happens later on).

Something that can be either a pro or a con depending on how you look at it is the fact that, other than the standard one-and-a-half-minute opening sequence, Cutie Honey also possesses a three-minute ending sequence, directly followed by a two-minute episode preview, which is mostly just straight excerpts from the next episode. If you choose to skip those, as I did, it makes episodes, an therefore the whole series, 20% shorter.

While Nagai's artstyle (And by consequence his character designs) feel "made to a flat 2D plane", thus not often taking "three-dimensionality" into consideration, only made to be seen in certain angles and certain poses (Which isn't a problem in a manga), the animation doesn't really feel "stiff", and other than the occasional weird-perspective shot or slight character off-modeling, it feels very good for an anime of the era.

While I complimented the anime for being innovative in every episode, sometimes this is done in the way of Honey having a new power or gadget never seen or mentioned before (The first episodes are quite fond of that).
The "transformation gimmick" is still very interesting regardless, as some transformations might have special skills (Such as being able to tame lions or be proficient in any vehicle) and others might be first and foremost be used as disguises, which adds the factor that Honey must first find an opportunity to change to her "combat form" before being able to win a fight.

Part of the dynamic is that Honey cannot transform in public, as she fears that she will be shunned and hated by all if people find that she's an android... but this fact doesn't have a lot of energy to it, as we never see characters expressing negative opinions about androids, so it's more something that you have to think "Yeah, I guess that would make sense" rather than something the anime will try to convince you. Maybe it was common trope of the era and it's supposed to be "obvious" for you if you've read enough similar stories?

The biggest problem would likely be that it eventually gets a bit boring, as a lot of it's "episodic episodes" don't have much in terms of plot, and the personality of a lot of the villains of the week doesn't differ much between one and the other.
While by it's latter half the story goes to an "around the world" route, it mostly seems random, as rarely is stated a reason for Honey & crew to be there or go there, and this is where I feel the anime would've benefited a lot of having a more overarching plot at that point. It also has a bit of an open ending.

It really isn't bad at what it promises, but the main issue is that it never promised much in the first place.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Jan 26, 2018

TrashDax

Not Recommended

Remember back in the day, when people still used to fap to magazines? Lucky you.

Story:
There is not much of a story, more like an excuse for the show to exist. Panzer Claw want that device (whatever it does) from Honey, she wants revenge for her killed father. Later on we get a second motivation for the heroine, though it neither changes her goals nor her attitude, so I don’t really know what the purpose of that scene was. Besides the first and the last, Cutey Honey is a monster of the week anime, with pretty much nothing important happening in the other 24 episodes. Not ... only that, all these episodes are also basically the same. You can do this formula and still be interesting (see Sailor Moon), but boy was this show boring. You can easily skip 16 to 18 episodes and you will not miss anything. This is basically Filler - The Animation. The fights are not even entertaining or anything, it’s just a huge waste of time.
2/10

Art:
I don’t hate old anime. I can look at something in relation to the time it was released and realize that it may have been good-looking back then or the top possible quality. I never understood people who said everything old is shit. Everybody who refuses to watch pre-2010 anime with that justification should be put on death row. With that off of my chest, Cutie Honey looks like shit. It ran about the same time as (still) pretty shows like Alps no Shoujo Heidi and even later than Attack No. 1, so I can compare it to its contemporaries and say this with certainty. The animation is awfully lazy and it just looks bad more often than not. The character designs of the villains are ugly as hell and even the normal humans are off-model way too often. This show also features next to no backgrounds, though this is more due to its age, so I’ll give it a free pass for that. If you don’t believe me, look at Honey’s pantyshots. Half the time they look like fucking diapers!
2/10

Sound:
The only highlight of this show is the pretty cool psychedelic soundtrack. Only Honey’s character theme gets a little annoying after 20 episodes, but it’s not bad or anything. The voice acting is not bad either, though obviously the sound quality is far from what you may be used to from modern anime. The opening song is catchy and stylistically very different from the J-Pop of today. The ending was very cool, being a full blown ballad that reminded me of the chansons of the 60s and 70s. I also liked the fact that these songs were actually about the show instead of basically nothing like so many others.
8/10

Characters:
I thought Honey was a stereotypical fanservice babe like so many others, but it turns out she is a very cynical and violent girl, mocking and occasionally mutilating her enemies. That’s kinda cool, but it doesn’t really fit her father-avenging motive she keeps bringing up. Maybe that’s just an excuse so she can do all these mean things? Would put a whole new twist on the plot. Her companions are really lame “perverts”, though they’re somewhat likeable. Many of the side characters were either totally useless (the little girl with the crush on Junpei) or extremely annoying (Alphonne), so there was not much entertainment gained there. The villains were, as mentioned, hideous, which is weird seeing how big their titties are. Am I supposed to fap to them or not? Whatever the case, they sure as hell weren’t very developed, not even Sister Jill. I got the impression that they were merely evil for the sake of being evil. And what exactly do demons need to steal art for?
3/10

Enjoyment:
If Cutey Honey was shorter, it would have been much more bearable. Sadly it drags on and on and on with nothing coming of it. Watching the same badly animated, meh written episode over and over again was very tedious, something an anime should never ever be. I don’t know how the remakes turned out, but I am pretty sure that they would be worth watching a lot more, even if it’s just for sake of looking a whole lot better than this. I know, I can’t expect a show from the early 70s to be a masterpiece, but come on.
3/10

Overall:
3.6/10

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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