Anime / All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku

The heartwarming story of a Boy and his cat... ...and a major Military Equipment Manufacturer.

Boy #1: What's your favorite food?
Nuku-Nuku: Dried mackerel and horsemeat.
Boy #2: What's your favorite hobby?
Nuku-Nuku: Sitting in the sun.

Combine a state-of-the-art combat android with the brain of a stray cat, wrap it all in the appearance of an enthusiastic teenage girl, and what do you get? Nuku-Nuku, aka Atsuko Natsume, "daughter" of engineer/roboticist/high school teacher Kyusaku Natsume and "sister" of ten-year-old Ryunosuke Natsume. Busty, bouncy and absolutely innocent in the way a kitten is, Nuku-Nuku is also a powerful combat cyborg who is fiercely protective of her family and friends. Since her "father" is the estranged husband of the CEO of Mishima Heavy Industries, Japan's number one military contractor, and she herself is a stolen prototype he created, that means she sees a lot of action. From a pair of trigger-happy goonettes to a psychotic android that wants to steal her body to the task of trying to reunite Kyusaku and his wife so her little brother is happy, Nuku-Nuku approaches every challenge with a smile, a laugh, and a grip that can bend steel I-beams.

Originally released as a manga written by Yuzo Takada, All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku is a fun, light-hearted romp with one of the more endearing anime heroines of the early 1990s. It's proven popular enough to spawn several Alternate Universe Spin-Offs. The anime franchise as a whole consists of three entries:

• All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku / Bannou Bunka Nekomusume (All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl) - Two three-episode OVA series based on the original manga. The entry most find to be the best, and the only one non-fans have likely heard of. Follows the basic premise as outlined above.

• All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku TV / Bannou Bunka Nekomusume - A fourteen-episode TV series which features a Lighter and Softer tone, focusing more on slapstick comedy than action. TV famously changed the character dynamic, focusing less on the Natsume family and more on Nuku Nuku's misadventures as she attempts to adjust to the life of a high school girl while battling regular robot attacks instigated by Hell Mishima, a Corrupt Corporate Executive who takes over Akiko'sposition as the major antagonist (with Akiko downgraded to Punch-Clock Villain) .

• All-Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku Dash / Bannou Bunka Nekomusume Dash - A twelve-episode OVA series which serves as TV's antithesis, being a (slightly) Darker and Edgier reimagining of the basic premise wherein Nuku Nuku is an escaped Mishima Industries android with Laser-Guided Amnesia who battles MHI robots while maintaining a second life as the older sister figure/crush of Ryunosuke, who in this series is an Ordinary High-School Student as opposed to a child.

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Examples:

Tropes associated with two or more versions:

• Alternate Continuity: None of the different series take place in the same universe, allowing for them all to have a different plot with the same basic premise.
• Amusing Injuries: Characters are routinely subjected to massive physical violence; they're caught in explosions, hit by runaway mecha, crushed under rubble, and so forth. None of it ever actually leaves anything more than the need to wear some bandages for scene, and it's always played for laughs, even when it's the entirely normal characters getting abused and not the Made of Iron androids.
• Beach Episode: Nuku-Nuku visits the beach at least once in all three incarnations, which naturally serves as an excuse to put the curvy cute catgirl gynoid into a skimpy bikini.
• Biting the Handkerchief: In the very first OAV, a distressed Akiko can be seen biting into a handkerchief to try and keep from crying in distress as she rewatches a video of her husband's explanation for why he took Ryunosuke and the gynoid body that became Nuku-Nuku and ran away.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Arisa and Kyouko, Akiko's primary underlings, are put through the wringer in both the OAV and the TV continuities. They're constantly failing in their efforts to defeat Nuku-Nuku, which typically results in them painfully getting their butts handed to them, and then Akiko usually punishes them for failing. In the very first OAV, after nearly getting killed when Nuku-Nuku pulverizes the Powered Armor and combat VTOL they fought her in, Akiko then blames the destruction of those very expensive pieces of tech on the two of them, despite having ordered them to use them in the first place without her grandfather's permission. In the 5th OAV, they're shown to be living in poverty, as Akiko has docked their pay and increased their working hours massively to cover for all the stuff that they've gotten wrecked in failed battles against Nuku-Nuku — and then, for added insult, she orders them to stay away from Nuku-Nuku when she takes a job at a restaurant Akiko owns because she's making a big profit off of her presence. When they ignore her and seek revenge against Nuku-Nuku on their own initiative, they get beaten up by some nerds with a crush on Nuku-Nuku, then get beaten up, stuffed in a trashcan and rolled into a canal by the restaurant owner for trying to sabotage Nuku-Nuku, and then finally, they earn Akiko's full-blown wrath when she learns they not only disobeyed her, they destroyed the restaurant whilst doing so.
  • Yamagata-sensei, Nuku-Nuku's classroom teacher in the TV article, similarly cops a lot of slapstick violence and comedic misfortune due to having the bad luck of trying to teach a class with a super-powered gynoid in it who's being actively hunted by a crazy corporation.
• Calling Your Attacks: Being a light-hearted action-comedy from the 90s, characters will sometimes call out their attacks whilst trying to be dramatic. This only appears one time in the OAV, when Akiko shout's "Mother's Love Missile!" whilst firing missiles at Nuku-Nuku. But in the TV continuity, Nuku-Nuku likes to do this herself, shouting things like "Nuku-Nuku Punch!" and "Nuku-Nuki Kick!" when she makes her attacks.
• Cat Girl: Played with; despite "Cat Girl" being in the title, Nuku Nuku doesn't have the typical cat ears and tail of this trope, though she does have a fold-out set of robotic antennae on her head that vaguely resemble cat ears. However, each version of her is a Full-Conversion Cyborg with some kind of cat biology implanted in her that makes her act very catlike. In the OVA and fourteen ep TV series, she has a cat's brain. In Dash, it's implied she has a cat's brain and its entire nervous system. Which would logically also apply to her "sister", Rei-Rei.
• Cross-Popping Veins: When characters in the OAV or TV series get really mad, expect to see cross-shapes popping all over their forehead to express that fact.
• Cute Bruiser:
  • Regardless of version, Nuku-Nuku is a Robot Girl who looks like a very attractive sixteen year old girl... but she's also outfitted with Super-Strength and martial arts abilities that allow her to make absolute mincemeat out of dedicated combat Mini-Mecha with seeming ease.
  • In the OAV, rival Robot Girl Eimi Yoshikawa looks like a cute girl, but is actually outfitted with the strength and integrated weaponry to battle Nuku-Nuku on relative ease.
• Cute Little Fangs: Nuku-Nuku's most overtly cat-like feature is that the tip of one or both upper canines can be seen peeking out of the corner of her mouth whenever she smiles or has her mouth open. It just makes her look cute.
• Determinator: Nuku Nuku will never give up, no matter the odds against her. It helps that she's a super-strong, super-fast battle gynoid, but even with those traits, she still will not stop to protect those she cares about. Semi-lampshaded by Kyouko in the very first episode of the OVA.
  * Nuku Nuku emerges from a pile of wreckage*
  Kyouko: What are you, the Terminator?!
  Nuku Nuku: No, I'm Natsume Nuku-Nuku! The fruit of Papa-san and Ryunosuke's love!
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Megumi Hayashibara, who provides Nuku-Nuku's voice, performs all of the theme music for every incarnation.
• Dumb Muscle:
  • Nuku-Nuku has Super-Strength to the point she can throw cars around as if they were golfballs, but is generally portrayed as The Ditz — incredibly sweet, but also very stupid. It's justified in that the core of her processor is a cat's brain, and even with the programming to uplift her to full sapience, she's still basically a young child in the body of a super-strong teenager.
  • Eimi Yoshikawa is strong enough to fight on equal footing with Nuku-Nuku, but is even dumber than she is. When she first appears, she actually comes off as even more socially inept than Nuku-Nuku. Then comes the grand reveal at the episode's end that after she decided she wanted to steal Nuku-Nuku's body for herself... she never figured out how to actually pull it off, she just ran off immediately intent on catching her precursor.
• Eek, a Mouse!!: Inverted. Nuku-Nuku, having a cat's brain, interprets the sight of a mouse as "YAY!" and starts chasing after it, regardless of any destruction said chasing may incur due to her gynoid body.
• Enemy Mine: The last episode of the original OVA series has Nuku-Nuku and Eimi and Akiko's Office Lady warriors all team up to go into space and destroy the rogue satellite that will kill Akiko at midnight. The final episode of TV sees Kyusaku and Hell Mishima team up to prevent a giant cat-shaped planet from crashing into the Earth.
• Full-Conversion Cyborg: Nuku-Nuku is depicted as a cat's brain (and possibly some of its nervous system) that has been installed into a completely mechanical Robot Girl body. It's implied even some of her brain is actually cybernetic, which would explain how she's able to function with a human-level of cognizance.
• Genki Girl: Nuku-Nuku in the OAV and TV continuities is a bubbly, chipper, near-perpetually happy bundle of energy (when she's not taking a catnap). It takes a lot for her to stop being happy and optimistic.
• Heavy Sleeper: Ryunosuke is established to be a very heavy sleeper, to the point that in the OAV, Nuku-Nuku's morning routine involves banging on a pot and shouting at him to make him wake up — and he still won't wake until she yanks off his bed covers.
• Humongous Mecha: Mishima Heavy Industry's business seems to primarily consist of churning out piloted war-machines, ranging from Mini-Mecha to full-blown massive ones, with the precise models varying depending on the continuity. They range in shape from conventional vehicles like the Poison One combat VTOL jet fighter to tracked, vaguely-humanoid tanks like the Golem 2000 to more abstract machines like the Armored Octopus, a Mini-Mecha resembling an armored sphere on two humanoid legs with multiple Combat Tentacles.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Whenever anyone is firing a gun or launching missiles, expect them to hit anything except their actual target.
• Mermaiding Swimsuit: In the second episode of the OAV, Kyusuke hands Nuku Nuku a bikini with additional gadgets and a monofin named the "Mermaid RX-24" that allows Nuku Nuku to swim (being a full body cyborg, she sinks like a stone otherwise). For further comedy, the TV version of the same scene has Kyusuke noticing that the swimsuit's floating devices are battery-powered and he had not charged them before giving them to Nuku Nuku, so she swam in the subsequent action scene purely because the swimsuit acted like a Magic Feather.
• Noblewoman's Laugh:
  • Fitting her characterization as an Ojou in the OAV and Dash continuity, Akiko's laugh is a high-pitched "oh-oh-oh!" sound when she does laugh. She even laughs this way in the TV continuity, where she's more of a blue-collar minion type.
  • Chieko in the TV continuity, having taken Akiko's place as the Ojou Rich Bitch, naturally has the iconic Noblewoman's Laugh to cement what an arrogant, stuck-up snob she is.
• No Water Proofing In The Future: Surprisingly, one of the tropes played straight in TV. The very first Monster of the Week is a Humongous Mecha washing machine whose waterproofing failed and caused it to go on a rampage after it shorted out.
• Ojou:
  • Akiko is a wealthy heiress and a high-ranking manager in Mishima Heavy Industries in the OAV and Dash continuities. She conducts herself as a haughty, arrogant heiress, complete with a Noblewoman's Laugh. Averted in the TV continuity, where she's an inventor and underling like her husband Kyusaku.
  • The TV continuity has newcomer Chieko, a Rich Bitch who thinks herself the greatest thing since chopsticks.
• Punch-Clock Villain:
  • Zigzagged with Akiko in the OAV continuity. She's technically the boss of Mishima Heavy Industries (though she actually reports to her own grandfather, who's the head of the company), and in the first episode she orders her underlings Arisa and Kyouko to capture Nuku-Nuku and bring her Ryunosuke by whatever it takes. However, her reason for doing this is because she wants the return of the NK-1124 gynoid she funded and her son Ryunosuke, whom Kyusaku technically stole and kidnapped. In the 2nd OAV, she actually turns out to have not planned to order her underlings to arrange for Ryunosuke to get injured during his trip to the beach after making a "deal" with Kyusaku that if Ryunosuke got hurt on said trip, he would return to Akiko. In the third OAV, she agrees to try and take the role of a traditional housewife in exchange for Kyusaku moving back into her family home with Ryunosuke and Nuku-Nuku, and genuinely does give it her best to live up to it until she realizes Kyusaku basically tricked her. Finally, she's a complete non-antagonist for the last three OA Vs; she's trying to stop the rogue runaway gynoid Eimi in #4, orders Arisa and Kyouko to leave Nuku-Nuku alone at her new job in #5, and actually needs to be saved from a fault Kill Sat in #6.
  • Akiko is downgraded to one of these in TV, as she is seen to still be Happily Married to Kyusaku and acting as a doting mother to Ryunosuke when off the clock. When on the clock, she becomes "Bloody Akiko", completely devoted to fulfilling whatever inane plot her boss has in store that week.
  • Completely averted by Akiko, Arisa, and Kyouko in Dash. They simply work at the company and none of them are in any way depicted as villainous, though all three do at one point or another cross paths with Nuku Nuku in her alternate identity without ever putting it together that she and the 'androbot' they're trying to find are the same person despite having the exact same body type and hair style as well as hair color. Hell, Akiko lives with her!
  • Arisa and Kyouko are this in every incarnation, being literally just Office Ladies who do whatever their boss tells them, whether that's pushing paper or flying around the city in a Mini-Mecha and attacking Nuku-Nuku.
• Punny Name: Nuku-Nuku's name is a both a pun related to her serial number (NK-1124) and her "civilian" name Atsuko. "Nukunuku" means something similar to "Warm and Cozy", while "Atsuko" is "Hot Girl". Also rather ironic considering that Nuku-Nuku, being a gynoid, doesn't even register excessive temperatures and has to have the fact that something is hot pointed out to her by Kyusaku.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: Even though Nuku Nuku is an android with the mind of a cat, she often partakes in human actions that should be impossible like eating, blushing, and getting drunk on catnip.
• Robot Girl: A feature of every incarnation of the series is the presence of robots designed to look like cute teenage girls. Nuku-Nuku is, of course, the iconic example. She's technically a Cyborg, in that she has a cat's brain integrated into her body somehow (presumably part of her processor), but the bulk of her body is mechanical and designed to look like a cute human 16-year-old. The DASH continuity has an entire line of NK-series gynoids, all built to resemble beautiful busty young girls. Nuku-Nukue even has a "sister" called Rei-Rei. The OAV has Eimi Yoshikawa, a gynoid called the SNK-98 created by a scientist in the image of his dead granddaughter.
• Roofhopping: Thanks to her Super-Strength and feline agility, Nuku-Nuku is able to make incredible leaps, so she often travels quickly around urban environments by leaping from rooftop to rooftop.
• Rule of Cool: The designs of the various mecha, and the scenarios that Nuku-Nuku gets into, are justified by just how cool they look.
• Rule of Funny: Pretty much anything that happens in the series is justified by it being good for a laugh. Why design a robot that looks like a cute girl and give it the strength to run faster than the speed of sound or kick a tank like a soccer ball? Because it's funny!
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Arisa is an average-sized woman who is typically seen hauling around huge guns, ranging from simple two-handed assault and sniper rifles to heavy machine guns, rocket launchers and futuristic energy blasters, but Eimi (who looks like a 16-year-old) tops her at it by dragging a minigun around in order to give Nuku-Nuku a special "Christmas Present" in the final OVA episode.
• Super Drowning Skills: Nuku-Nuku can handle water just fine, but she can't swim because her robot body is too heavy to float and she sinks in any large body of water. She is eventually upgraded to get around this. The OAV does imply she can actually drown if she spends too long submerged, as she's shown desperately trying to conserve air.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Recurring Office Lady underlings Arisa and Kyouko; Arisa is a hot-headed, violence-loving action-junky, whilst Kyouko is calmer and usually more sensible and reserved, but often ends up being dragged into chaos by Arisa.
• Word Salad Title: "All-Purpose Cultural Catgirl Nuku-Nuku" makes absolutely no sense when you stop and think about it, and it means pretty much nothing descriptive, but it sure is catchy!

Tropes associated with the original manga and OVAs:

• Accent Adaptation: The Crusader Video release uses regional British accents for the dub.
• Author Appeal: In-Universe; Akiko notes that Kyusaku built a gynoid outer appearance for the NK-1124 chassis to match his ideal in female beauty.
• Big Fancy House: Akiko lives in one of these, and so does the rest of the clan in the one episode that Akiko tries to go straight.
• Bullying a Dragon: Arisa and Kyouko in OAV #5, after having had their asses repeatedly kicked by Nuku-Nuku and directly ordered to leave her alone whilst she's working at a restaurant owned by Akiko, decide to seek revenge by first humiliating her, then trying to get her fired, and then finally by just shooting up the place. It goes about as well as all the other times they fought her.
• Car Fu: Kyusaku and Shinji (Yoshimi's uncle) slam a Land Rover into Arisa's Armor Tako to allow Nuku Nuku to escape from it during the Beach Episode.
  "LAND ROVER ATTAAAAAAACK!"
• Cross Counter: What eventually ends Nuku-Nuku and Eimi's brawl during episode 4 is when they go for a punch, only to catch each other right in the face at the same time, knocking them both to the ground simultaneously... Until they get right back up and start going at it again.
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: This is Mishima Heavy Industries' entire shtick, using their vast technology to create weapons of mass destruction up to and including Humongous Mecha and Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids, while at the same time using the exact same resources to expand their reach into the private sector.
• Exact Time to Failure: During the 6th OAV, everybody is struggling desperately to deactivate the malfunctioning Kill Sat, which has become set to fire at Akiko Natsume exactly at the stroke of midnight. Thus, the rush to deactivate it before the deadline.
• Grand Theft Me: The plot of the 4th is that MHI gynoid SNK-98, better known as Eimi Yoshikawa, is intent on finding some way to upload herself into Nuku-Nuku's body, as her own body has a fatal flaw where she will explode if she overheats too badly.
• Groin Attack: Nuku-Nuku can briefly be seen pressing Eimi's groin with her foot during their "rematch" in the fourth episode.
• High-Powered Career Woman: Akiko Natsume is the head of a powerful corporation. She is also estranged from her husband and her son, and is shown to have no idea how to perform basic household tasks. In one episode, she invites them, and Nuku Nuku, to her mansion to try and patch things up. Her effort at preparing a meal involves her believing that you wash rice with dish soap, and she burned the fish to inedibility.
• Instant Fan Club: Nuku-Nuku gains one when she starts working at a family restaurant in the fifth OAV.
• The Masochism Tango: Mr. Natsume and Ms. Mishima. You'd think they're still married by how happy they seem to be when they are actually together... Except that just that scenario takes place for an entire episode and proves that neither of them are really happy unless they're trying to kill each other.
• No Guy Wants an Amazon: Invoked in the 5th OAV, when Arisa and Kyouko become exasperated at how a "bimbo" like Nuku-Nuku catches so much attention and they, being "strong and intelligent" are ignored. Subverted in that it's not their "strength and intelligence" that chases off men, so much as their stupidity and impulsive violence.
• The Nose Bleed: Happens to a young man who overhears Eimi's Skinship Grope of Nuku-Nuku during the Furo Scene the fourth episode.
• Quirky Household: The Mishima mansion when Nuku, Kyusaku, and Ryunosuke go to live there for a short period in the third episode. It's an enormous, palatial estate hiding all kinds of hidden techno-gadgetry, like hidden doors and a small army of robots, and so big that Kyusaku is able to set up a fascimile of a traditional middle-class Japanese dining room inside one of the room whilst barely taking up a tenth of the space. As for the quirky, the family consists of the elderly Mr. Mishima, who thinks playing "shoot-em-up" with real combat robots is a good way to bond with his great-grandson; eccentric heiress Akiko, Mad Scientist Kyusaku, Only Sane Man Ryunosuke, and hyper-active cat-brained gynoid Nuku-Nuku.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Eimi's crimson eyes subtly give away that she's a rival gynoid with sinister plans when she debuts.
• The Rival: Eimi is obsessed with defeating Nuku-Nuku, largely in hopes that she can then steal Nuku-Nuku's body for her own.
• The Scream: Towards the climax of the 3rd OAV, Akiko realizes she has been duped by Kyusaku when she agreed to let him and Ryunosuke move back in, provided she does all the "motherly duties" like cooking and cleaning — as a letter from one of her underlings points out, this means she has no more time with her son than when they were separated, because she's so busy. She promptly lets out a scream of rage and horror that can be heard all across the massive estate, before she dives into the Golem 2000 and tries to hunt Kyusaku down.
• Serial Escalation: Nuku-Nuku's bike rides. At least one series review has referred to them as "BMX-Tours-Are-For-Wimps" rides. The gets to the point where OVA episode 5's plot is kicked off by her having destroyed Ryunosuke's bicycle during one.
• Skinship Grope: In the 4th OAV, after inviting Nuku-Nuku to a public bath, Eimi gets right up close to Nuku-Nuku and starts groping her, complimenting her on things like the quality of her skin and the size of her bosom. It takes a darker twist with The Reveal that Eimi actually plans to switch bodies with Nuku-Nuku and she was looking for Nuku-Nuku's power switch so she could turn her off.
• Sleeping Single: Akiko sleeps in a bed that wouldn't be wide enough for him even if Kyusaku wasn't usually up all night.
• Smoking Is Cool: Kyusaku, the "cool" father-figure of both Ryunosuke and Nuku-Nuku, is rarely seen without a cigarette in his mouth.
• Stab the Salad: The 3rd OAV opens on darkness, a pounding heartbeat, a flash of light across a knife blade followed by a gush of blood and Akiko screaming... only to reveal it's Akiko grossed out by a live fish on her chopping board as she tries to prepare dinner.
• Taking the Kids: Kyusaku takes Ryunosuke with him when he bails on MHI, not wanting Akiko's Overprotectiveness compromising the boy's childhood.
• Tempting Fate: Arisa and Kyouko are injured when Eimi escapes MHI at the beginning of the fourth episode. Later on we see them using this rare chance to take time off from work. Arisa then utters "I only wish we injured a bit more!" Cue Eimi and Nuku-Nuku rocketing into their apartment, wrecking it and leaving them under the remains.
  Kyouko (Just before passing out): Are you happy now?
• The Tokyo Fireball: Quite literally in the fourth episode, which sees Nuku and Eimi destroy a sizable portion of Nerima by exploding the large natural gas tank field which is a landmark of the district.
• Too Dumb to Live: Arisa and Kyouko are introduced in the 5th OAV with massive pay cuts and overwork to try and recompense Mishima Heavy Industries for all the damage they've caused in their failed fights against Nuku-Nuku. When they discover Nuku-Nuku has a part-time job at a local restaurant owned by MHI and report this to their boss Akiko, she orders them to leave Nuku-Nuku alone, as she's making them a lot of money. They promptly ignore her, try to get Nuku-Nuku fired, and end up shooting up the place in yet another failed attack. Guess what happen when Akiko finds out about them blatantly ignoring her orders and destroying a very profitable business venue in the process?

Tropes associated with Nuku-Nuku TV:

• Artificial Riverbank: Kyusaku goes to one to angst in episode 4, only to be subjected to several of Nuku's classmates practicing their karaoke.
• Beyond the Impossible: In TV, Nuku rides her bike so fast that she winds up 15 years in the past when she finally stops. Not even her Mad Scientist creator can explain how it works.
• Boss Subtitles: Used for just about every single character in most early episodes.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Kyusaku and Akiko met as children at a Tokusatsu stage show, were together their whole lives, and eventually wound up getting married.
• Class Representative: Nuku-Nuku's best friend Futaba. We later find out that she also has a number of sisters, each of whom is also a Class Representative. Every last one of them is extremely controlling and obsessed with organization and order. They actually carry out arguments with one another using their whistles.
• Discontinuity Nod: The first episode opens with Kyusaku expositing dramatically about the new backstory. Then, Ryunosuke pops up holding tapes from the series' two previous incarnations, sighing "That's not the way I remember it happening... but, whatever." Even more funny... The design she uses and concept that she's describing are for Nuku Nuku DASH!
• Heroic Sacrifice: Subverted. Nuku-Nuku manually directs a missile to prevent the Colony Drop in the final episode, but later turns up no worse for wear.
• Living Prop: Miyuki Miyuzawa, who mostly just stands around reading books and not saying or doing much of anything until the second Musical Episode, where she's revealed to have been the one playing the main character in the film being made by everyone.
• Mars Needs Women: Spoofed. An alien mouse-woman comes down to Earth to profess her love for Yamagata-sensei. She eventually ditches him when she (eventually) realizes that he doesn't have a tail.
• Musical Episode: Two. The first centers around a Mishima-sponsored singing contest, while the latter uses Nuku-Nuku's class working on a student film as a Framing Device.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Kyusaku has several, where he shows up attempting to be Nuku-Nuku's Mysterious Protector.
• Psychic Powers: The Speedy Girls display some form of telekinesis.
• Rich Suitor, Poor Suitor: In their high school days, perpetually broke mad scientist Kyusaku and corporate heir Hell Mishima competed for Akiko's hand with ridiculous robot battles. She ultimately split the difference, marrying Kyusaku and working for Mishima.
• Running Gag: Pretty much 50% of what happens in any given episode.
  • Chieko says something haughty, followed up by Migiko and Hidariko exclaiming "That's right! That's right! Miss Chieko is exactly right!"
  • Eiichi breaks out into a Filk Song. "Lalalala...~"
  • Rintarou says something cool and aloof; with or without a "Hmph".
  • Futaba goes into full-on Class Representative mode, insisting that everybody follow her orders and panic in an organized manner.
  • Yakumo Oizumi says something to the effect of "FOR SCIENCE!" or "How Unscientific!".
  • Ryunosuke refers to his father as "Mr. Kyusaku" and is corrected.
  • Yamagata-sensei is hilariously injured by something, followed by any given person who saw what happened commenting that "Yamagata-sensei has been in another unfortunate accident".
  • Nuku-Nuku mispronouncing Chieko's family name each time she sees her.
• Shout-Out:
  • This series spoofs several popular anime, such as when Harmless Villain Hell Mishima decides to hold a singing contest after seeing a rather transparent knockoff of Basara Nekki on TV and being inspired. Nuku-Nuku takes off to school every morning on her bike while yelling "SCRAMBLE DASH!". Another instance is Kyusaku's high school invention, the Geta Robo (which forms from his geta, japanese sandals).
  • He then later upgrades to Geta Robo G, and fifteen years later, Shin Geta Robo.
  "CHANGE GETA ROBO! SWITCH ON!"
  • In the Sports Festival episode, Kyouko and Arisa summon Robo the Giant to capture the mysterious Manekigaoka student who's been interfering with Mishima's schemes.
• Theme Twin Naming: Hidariko and Migiko. Their names literally mean "Left Girl" and "Right Girl". The valentine's day episode gives us a second set (who also look like the first, but without moles) named Ueko ("Above Girl") and Shitako ("Below Girl").
• This Is Unforgivable!: Nuku-Nuku tends to say this whenever dispatching a Monster of the Week.
• Troubled, but Cute: Spoofed with Rintarou Shimazaki, whose Character Subtitle is "Nihilistic Pretty Boy". He's almost never taken seriously.
• 20 Minutes into the Future: The opening scene of some episodes show the episode taking place in 2013 or 2014.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Hell Mishima and Kyusaku seem to think that they're in a dramatic toku show when they're really in a slapstick comedy. Made doubly hilarious when you see Dash, where their ideas about Nuku Nuku, at least, are spot on!

Tropes used in Nuku-Nuku Dash:

• Adaptational Curves: In Dash, Nuku Nuku goes from cute to outright boob-loaded, in addition to the change in hair and eye color.
• Call-Back: To one of Nuku Nuku TV's jokes. The supposed design for Nuku Nuku in the Fake-Out Opening IS Nuku Nuku in Dash, with the only difference being hair colour, in that the original Nuku has reddish-pink hair, and Dash!Nuku has light green hair.
• Fanservice: The whole purpose of Dash seems to be to make the series they kept referencing in the TV series.
• Male Gaze: Nuku Nuku's transformation sequence is full of close-up shots with "bouncy" bits. Also, Akiko gets plenty of leg close-ups and a hot spring scene.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: The character identified in the other versions as "Arisa" is known as "Kyouko" in here, and vice versa. The two share personality quirks.

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