Cutey Honey / YMMV

Awesome Music:
- The anime theme song. It's become so iconic that each era's Cutey Honey uses a different variation of it, and it still stands the test of time. In fact there was a lot of criticism that Cutey Honey Universe used a different theme instead of the classic one.^note
- The 2004 film had the "Sister Jill" anthem sung by a random...evil jazz singer lady played by Japanese popstar Koda Kumi (who DID cover "Cutey Honey" for Re).
Base-Breaking Character: Honey's portrayal in Re. Some fans find her nicer, more ditzy personality adorable and cute, while other fans consider it to be a downgrade compared to her more clever and cockier personality seen in the original series and other adaptations.
Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: During the live-action film, Black Claw suddenly appears just before his fight with Honey, singing a song with his henchmen accompanying on violins. Cutey Honey's facial expression at that point has become slightly memetic.
Character Rerailment: Cutey Honey became smarter again in Universe after spending the 2000's as The Ditz.
Complete Monster: See here.
Crossover Ship: When Go Nagai's other famous character Akira, also known as Devilman, appeared in episode 7 of Shin Cutey Honey, some fans clearly began shipping the two. It helps that Akira gets slightly flirty at the end of the episode, and there's a possible Did They or Didn't They? moment teased.
Fair for Its Day: This is actually the first mainstream Shonen manga to have a female protagonist... a Ms. Fanservice, but still.
Fashion-Victim Villain: A lot of the members of Panther Claw fall under this, due to their either weird or outright silly costume designs which haven't aged well.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Honey's title as the "Warrior of Love" is interesting, when you consider that one of her voice actresses would later become best known for voicing another character whose nickname is the Hashira of Love.
Moment of Awesome:
- The latter half of the fourth episode of New Cutey Honey is one long moment of awesome when Honey fights Dolmeck and it's revealed Black Maiden is the reborn Panther Zora.
  - Dolmeck's Badass Boast when it turns out he wanted Honey to kill him in order to unleash the evil souls he's collected so Black Maiden would finally regain her true powers as Panther Zora.
    Cutey Honey: My God! You, what are you?! What kind of monstrous demon are you?!
    Dolmeck: I AM DOLMECK, THE DEVIL'S CONSORT! GUARDIAN OF ALL EVIL!
  - During the surge of energy and devastation created by Dolmeck, Daiko doesn't even hesitate to run through the swirling mass of evil souls to reach Chokkei.
  - As Dolmeck screams Honey can never understand the true ugliness of the human heart and the reason Panther Zora will continue to be reborn is because of the eternal evilness of humanity Honey screams back that the human heart is the birthplace of love and kindness, and no matter how many times they return, she'll find a way to do so as well until they're stopped for good.
    Cutey Honey: I believe in man's innate humanity! The human heart is the birthplace of love and kindness! If you return, then I swear I'll return as well! I'll come back again and again to destroy you once and for all!
Moral Event Horizon: In Universe, Sister Jill crosses this in Episode 6 when she gives the order to bomb the St. Chapel Academy, which ends up killing everyone there. Then, once that's over, she sadistically whips and kills Snake Panther as punishment for (supposedly) blowing Honey to pieces rather than killing her and leaving her body in tact. Even Tarantula Panther is horrified of her acts.
Nightmare Fuel:
- The Jewel Princess casually murdering women by turning them into statues, and getting off on watching them scream and cry before they die.
- Gene's possession and her dwindling sanity reaching the point where she gladly murders two of her former friends without a second thought. Even worse, all we hear is Jan and Pokey suddenly screaming in horror before cutting off rather abruptly. When Chokkei and Natsuko wonder what happened, all they find are two puddles and a single hat left behind.
- Gold Digger murdering the security guards in the gold vault, opening fire on them with a machine gun. The scene plays out with it cutting back and forth between Gold Digger's gun and the guards screaming in agony, before ending with a sudden glimpse of Panther Zora smiling in pure delight at all the carnage. It's then followed by Gold Digger gleefully declaring all the world's gold is her, completely unaware of Panther Zora appearing in the reflection behind her.
- We don't see how Taranthula Panther died. We just left her happily sharing her powers with Honey and then we get to see her and her duplicate-evil self horribly maimed and injured trying to hold hands. She died alone, suffering and no one cared.
Parody Displacement: How many people have even heard of Tarao Bannai? That was the source for Honey's "Sometimes I'm a..." speech, which is now more associated with Cutey Honey than anything else, at least in the West. The speech can also be heard in Cyborg 009 (1966), which must be a Tarao Bannai reference and not a Cutey Honey reference because that movie, from 1966, predates Cutey Honey.
Periphery Demographic: Go Nagai says he was surprised when he found out that the series attracted so many female fans. Hence, the creation of Cutey Honey Flash.
Squick: Near the end of the manga,Junpei, a 10 years old boy licks Honeys crotch while she is naked and only covered in gold paint.
Spiritual Successor:
- According to Go Nagai, Cutie Honey was inspired by an early 70s tokusatsu TV show known as Warrior of Love Rainbowman, which also featured a protagonist that was a master of disguise and used seven different transformations.
- Cutie Honey can also be seen as this to Kikaider.
- Flash was this to Sailor Moon by design, being airing on the same time slot after the previous series had gone off the air.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Several fans were upset when Universe didn't feature the orginal Cutie Honey theme. By episode three Honey has also barely used any of her transformations, or done her typical speech using them, something many feel takes a bit of the fun out of the series.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Panther Zora in Universe. Before she actually appeared in the series, several articles where hyping her appearance as the "Last Boss", as well as announcing that singer Sachiko Kobayashi would be voicing her. However, when she actually does finally appear in episode 12, not only was her appearance nothing more than a cameo, but she's literally just a white and grey still image, leaving many fans disappointed.
What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Despite all the explicit content of the manga, it was still published in a shonen magazine.

YMMV / Cutey Honey

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