In a cyberpunkish near future, dark and sinister forces are afoot in the city where Chokkei and his half-bionic grandfather, Danbei, reside. The newly elected mayor is trying to fight back against the roving gangs and criminals running rampant in the streets, but finds himself overwhelmed by the challenge. Still, Chokkei finds the mayor as a man worth looking up to even though his own parents are criminals themselves. Incompetent criminals, but criminals none-the-less. Then the evil Dolmeck shows up on the scene and all hope appears lost, but Danbei knows a secret about the mayor's lovely young secretary named Honey Kisigara. A secret even she is unaware of. When trouble breaks out during one of the Mayor's speeches Danbei tries to protect the mayor and finds himself quickly overwhelmed at which point he calls upon Honey to remember her past and reclaim her power. Honey calls upon the power and unlocks not only her memory, but her true form as the warrior of love, Cutey Honey. As it turns out, the legendary Cutey Honey is an android with the ability to change into a dozen different types of women each with their own particular talents. It's rather ironic that she has to yell "Honey Flash" when she transforms from one form to the other as that's exactly what she ends up doing to the viewer as her clothes shred and reform around her every time she changes forms, and she changes forms often. Needless to say, the adolscent Chokkei finds this transformation process to be rather fascinating. The series continues with the story of Chokkei, Danbei and Cutey Honey and their struggle versus the evil Dolmeck and his minions.         Cutey Honey was originally a television series back in the 1970's and was later brought back in 1994 in a series of 6 OAV (original animation videos) as the "New" Cutey Honey. The latter is what you'll find on your local video outlet's shelves in four tapes with two episodes each running about a half hour per episode. Cutey Honey is classified as a "Magical Girls" show despite it's differences from most shows of that type. The series tends to be action-packed and serious with some graphic violence. Also, she is described as a "sexy" warrior and her character design emphasizes that fact. The series is put out by A.D. Vision here in the States and it's available in subbed and dubbed formats. As of this point I don't believe A.D. Vision has any plans to bring the original television series out here. N.A. Release by: A.D. Vision Price Sub/Dub: $24.95/$19.98 Series Length: 8 eps. on 4 tapes Formats Available: Subbed & Dubbed Genre: Action Notes: This OAV series has much gratuitous nudity and violence. Definitely not for kids. Les' Review:         I really wanted to like this series, but I just couldn't get into it. The premise sounds really promising, but it seems the creators of this anime were still going through puberty themselves and forgot to put a story in. Mind you, it's not so much the fact that there is a lot of nudity in this series, and there is a lot of nudity, that bothers me as much as how formulated it all feels. Granted, I've only purchased and watched the first tape which has the first two episodes on it, but it left me feeling that I'd probably seen pretty much what will happen in all the episodes save for perhaps the last one where, presumably, Cutey would finally duke it out with Dolmeck. Otherwise, it's little more than a lot of Well-animated skin and a lot of blood with a jiggle-factor that's off the scale. Hairboy's Review:         I really like Go Nagai's stuff (Devilman is great!), but this version of Cutey Honey suffers from the more nudity and less story syndrome that plagues many anime titles. There is an interesting story underneath all the flesh bouncing around and it could also be quite interesting, but it takes too long to unfold, and the episodes fall into the old enemy of the week formula. The art is quite good, but that doesn't make a series. Maybe if they had made a new TV series then they would have been forced to develop the storyline more. Definately a renter as opposed to a buyer. That is if you happen to live near a place that rents anime, if not have a friend buy it and watch theirs. :) Eric's Review: Eric's review is pending... Mirahla's Review:         Well, there is not much for me to say about this show. Lots of jiggling flesh, lots of explosions and not a hell of a lot of story. Not really my sort of anime. The underlying concept of the state of the city is somewhat interesting. The problem with that, however, is what Hairboy describes as the "enemy of the week" syndrome. That sort of storyline gets old very quickly. Bottom Line: If you run across this title in a friend's collection, go ahead and borrow it and give it a watch. But I would not recommend putting any real EFFORT (or $$) into getting your paws on this title. Overall, tolerable, but far from impressive. Their isn't much in the way of Cutey Honey related webpages available at the moment as the series isn't overly popular with a lot of people. At least not with the sort of people that go through all the trouble of putting up webpages. Still, there's at least a couple of sites you can check out alone with the A.D. Vision homepage for more information. Cutey Honey's Homepage has little in the way of background on the series, but does have some nice scans of cels from the series as well as the theme song in a couple of different formats. Cosplay City: Cutey Honey will probably be the best site to learn more about Cutey Honey in the not too distant future. The site is still in it's formative stages, but plans to be the site to get Cutey Honey information. This is a page by a true Cutey Honey fan and he's already got more info than Cutey Honey's Homepage above. Definitely check here if you want to learn more about it. Reviews | Anipedia | Resources | Essays | Zines | What's New Images from Cutey Honey copyrighted by Go Nagi/Dynamic Planning/Toei Video/A.D. Vision. All other content copyrighted 1996, 1997, 1998 Les's Place Productions, Ltd.