Rating: 
Summary: EVEN EXPOSURE GETS BORING
Review: You know, I keep hearing that Go Nagai is this manga/anime legend. After viewing Cutey Honey and looking at the character designs and reading reviews of his other works, I'm not impressed. To me, it would be like saying Tiny Tim was a pioneer of rock music. It just doesn't add up. The first volume of this collection was fair, but the second disk became unwatchable fast.The world of Cutey Honey is a strange place, looking like something from Hell basically. Cosplay City, where the action takes place is a gloomy, sunless, place where you would expect to find Lucifer. We do find his equivalent in the uni-brow demon crime lord Dolmek. The city is overrun with crime, even the parents of the preadolescent Chokkei, are involved in the crime wave. The new mayor is trying to change things but even he can't rid the city of crime alone. That's where Cutey Honey comes in. Cutey Honey is a well-endowed female android whose powers allow her to shapeshift to defeat the evil person of the week. She also has an attraction to Chokkei which borders on the illegal.
In the end she always transforms into a beautiful red-headed warrior with a sword, but before she does that she catalogs all of her guises she used in the episode before she kills her enemy. To transform she has to yell "Honey Flash!" This is a good pun because all her clothes dissolve off her body and she is stark naked as she changes. Her enemies are usually human in appearance until she begins to fight them and then they shoot up something from a syringe and they transform into a demon. The first disk ends in a confrontation with Dolmek in which the ship she is fighting him on blows up as Chokkei looks on helplessly. Is Cutey Honey dead? Did she win? Did she escape?
Who knows? When you put in volume 2, unexplainably you are on a different world. The characters are basically the same, except Chokkei looks about 17 or so now and Cutey Honey is asking him about sex. The city has the same name and mayor but it has transformed into a modern looking city with skyscrapers and such. Without any explanation, we have dimensionally shifted to a world completely different than the first volume. This is where my attention span dropped off. It was too disorienting to me. I mean, 2001: A Space Odyssey made more sense to me. The series was interesting at first but the battles all ended the same way. It followed an unalterable formula. The abrupt change with no explanation on the second disk destroyed any enjoyment. I didn't even finish watching after the 2nd episode on Volume 2. There are tons of extras if you're a Honey fan. Especially amusing were the sections showing these 3 Japanese actresses portraying characters from the series at press conferences and anime festivals. At one point, they are singing the theme song, and they are the most horribly choreographed 3 people I have ever seen. They can hardly even keep a beat, and their moves are so slow, you can tell they didn't get much rehearsal time. when they act out a fight scene from the show, it looks like William Shatner and Dolemite had a hand in the stunts. There are interviews, trailers, phone messages, and a recording session of the theme song. If you really like Cutey Honey, you'll love this collection. If you're not a fan, I would recommend you not waste your money on these dvds. For better fan serviced action that actually is of good quality, I would recommend Najica Blitz Tactics on Dvd.
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