Cutie Honey Universe - Episode 4 [Review]

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Cutie Honey Universe - Episode 4 [Review]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF5p6eJxNBw

Cutie Honey Universe is quickly becoming a series at odds with itself. There's a sense of wanting to adhere to its classic cartoonish roots, but it's also been trying to tell an arc-based story within a modern one-cour framework. This week's episode does take a step forward, but then falls not just one step back into its persistent status quo, but another step thanks to some misplaced bad habits.

At least the positive can be highlighted first since it kicks off the episode. The most welcome development is that Honey has already tired of just reacting to the monster-of-the-week formula instigated by Panther Claw and wants to take more direct action. It's a good idea for a series in this position, and given CHU's propensity for lighter elements, it makes me wish Cutie Honey Universe would go even further with the meta-jokes. A classic romp like this one could absolutely support bits with the characters commenting on their archetypal situation. Instead, this just provides an opportunity for Genet to ‘assist’ Honey in an infiltration plan to further her nebulous agenda.

As a result, we get a new Honey transformation in the idol-based Misty Honey, along with a dance number that would have been a great place to insert the classic Cutie Honey theme song, but sadly no dice on that one. At least there are other crowd-pleasing elements to this episode. The idea of Honey infiltrating the enemy's turf, complete with a disguise, is right out of the classic anime's playbook. She even does a variation of her iconic appearance speech, which ups the hype for the big fight scene of this episode. Even as the fights keep making use of the anime's speed-line dimension, they've found ways to continually spice things up, like bringing in masses of land and rocks to affect the fight. In general, this episode just has more to do action-wise, so it looks better than last week's. If nothing else, it seems like Cutie Honey Universe can be counted on to deliver entertaining super-heroine action.

Beyond Honey's initiative, the story development for the villains is another plus. It's a comparatively short scene, but seeing some internal conflict in Panther Claw as Jill's subordinates question the same motives we still don't understand is refreshing. It helps that we seem to finally have a recurring villain character besides Jill in the form of Tarantula (sporting a terrific update of her classic design). It's already established that this show has too many elements to really keep track of (Natsuko isn't even in this episode after her epiphany in the last one), but Tarantula's dynamic with Jill is one the show would do well to keep leaning on. In fact, all the most interesting stuff in the show so far has focused on Jill/Genet's motives. It's no wonder that Honey wanted to take the focus back in her own show.

Unfortunately, that focus comes at the cost of her own dignity this week. Fanservice is of course going to be an integral part of any Go Nagai production, and things seem par for the course in this episode's first couple acts. The unconscious captured ‘Honey’ actually incurs the first use of the ol' ‘Buy The Blu-Rays’ lights, and demonstrating that Honey's transformation dissolves as she runs out of energy is a perfectly fine use of fanservice as well. This also leads to an appreciably clever moment where Honey uses her transformation device not to access a new form, but to disguise herself as a statue.

But that statue bit leads into the most divisive part of the episode, an agonizingly long segment where Danbee and Junpei unintentionally assault the statue-fied Honey. It's not that there's no place for sex comedy in a show like this, and it's even thrived in some of the earlier episodes, but this scene is simply unfunny, disconnected from the rest of the episode's plot, and goes on far too long. Maybe you'll find more humor in an old man and a little boy dry-humping a statue that's actually a disguised android woman, but personally I was with Honey in just begging them to leave. The fanservice in Cutie Honey works better when it's incidental to the action, like making those cool fights the show excels at and making them sexy in the process. The show doesn't need to bother with these annoying attempts at skeevy sketch comedy.

So that last scene not only derails all the fun and goodwill the episode delivered, it also abruptly stops Honey's whole proactive infiltration scheme to reestablish the status quo. That's a shame, since the first half of the episode, along with parts of earlier ones, showed that this series might work better if it shifted into a proper serial format. As it stands, we've got about two-thirds of a great episode with a not-so-great chunk that really drags it down.

Source

Cutie Honey Universe - Episode 3 [Review]

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Cutie Honey Universe - Episode 3 [Review]

Jill's cover identity of Inspector Genet has already caught the eye of everyone around her, and this week Honey's BFF Natsuko finds herself hopelessly head-over-heels for her. After two episodes of laying out the format and giving us Honey's backstory along the way, Cutie Honey Universe starts developing its subplots with some of the side characters. It makes for a more cohesive episode of the show than we've gotten before now, even if it is at the expense of some of the other things it was doing well before.

Natsuko and Genet going on a date forms the backbone of this episode, so your enjoyment of it will live or die based on your opinion of that premise. I thought the incredible awkward silences between them in the car were hilariously on-point, but I can see them just feeling extremely awkward to others, as Genet not-so-subtly probes Natsuko for information on Honey's coveted plot devices. Still, the exploration of others' reactions to Jill's machinations make for the most surprising development in a previously shallow show.

Honestly, the strength of this episode is letting the ancillary characters contribute to the plot, unlike the cameo-induced whiplash we got out of them in prior episodes. A running gag features Naoko and her Sukeban entourage stalking Genet and Natsuko, making numerous jealous remarks along the way. It's only kinda funny in that very 70's face-fault-driven way, but it's still nice to see people besides just Honey and Genet getting involved, and we actually learn more about these oddballs along the way. There's also a rewarding fake-out shot of Natsuko being attacked by this week's Panther Claw monster that reveals Naoko actually took the hit for her. Over the course of just one episode's side-plot, Naoko has gone from one-dimensional bully to a laconic badass with a heart of gold. It speaks to the staying power of Go Nagai's characters and the tropes they embody.

Other characters get similar bits sprinkled throughout the story. The gaggle of detectives pops in for just a moment to justify their inclusion with a good gag about how Akebi and Momori don't actually do anything on the computers they're constantly seen using. Jill's M.O. becomes more defined, though her exact goals stay somewhat muddied. She makes it clear that anyone not deemed ‘useful’ to her will be eliminated, so this week's monster gets offed while she lets Natsuko walk away mostly untouched. Natsuko, for her part, turns out to be the first cast member capable of putting two-and-two together about this Saturday-morning plot, having already begun to suspect Genet. This last development was one of the most surprising to me, and Natsuko has proven to be a charming character so far, so I'm looking forward to seeing her do more.

But the entertaining use of characters and decent plot momentum end up crowding out some of the other elements that already worked in Cutie Honey Universe. Honey herself winds up with hardly anything to do this time around, save for declaring her intent to safeguard Genet and Natsuko's date, and that gets derailed when a distraction of a robbery turns most of Honey's time-killing into a shaggy dog story. As long as this series is leaning into the stock elements of its plot, it might have been more entertaining to see Honey try to keep monsters away from the focal couple while they went about their business in the foreground. Even when our heroine does catch up with the monster-motivated date gone awry, the resulting battle is relegated to her one-shotting the monster with one hell of a Rider Kick. Is it too much to ask for the character work and parallel plotting of this episode to be accompanied by the awesome action of the previous ones? I can't be the only one who find it conspicuous that we've only seen two of Honey's many forms so far, and there was hardly even time for any fanservice this week!

But if the show has to conserve some resources to make the most of what we got this week, I'll take it. The hodgepodge introductory material finally settling down was exactly what I wanted, and the resulting cohesion goes a long way toward improving this episode. Cutie Honey Universe has gone from feeling like a formulaic old-school superhero serial to a slightly later version of the same thing, with an overarching plot you could feel developing over the course of scattered episodes. Maybe it's not really damning Cutie Honey Universe with faint praise to call this the best episode yet, since it feels like the story is just getting started now.

Source

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wH6tiqD5mw