A Classic Returns: "Cutie Honey a Go Go!" Review

Fans of the work of Go Nagai have had a lot to take in recently. We have new works in the Devilman and Cutie Honey franchises and we have several older adaptations being made available to fans both new and old. Our friends at Seven Seas Entertainment will be bringing several Devilman and Cutie Honey manga releases over the next few months and I will be reviewing their new release of Cutie Honey a Go Go!

Before we begin let's talk a bit about the background of this manga. Written by Shimpei Itoh and originally developed as a tie-in to the 2006 Hideki Anno live-action Cutie Honey movie, this manga series never actually saw completion at the time of its publication. This version, newly translated by Seven Seas Entertainment, was originally released in 2013 and it collected all of the ten completed chapters, some of which were collected here for the first time in book form. Even though this volume marks the true "complete" Cutie Honey a Go Go!, it isn't actually a complete story as it abruptly ends on a cliffhanger that unfortunately will never be resolved. There is an afterword from the author in this volume that goes a bit more into detail regarding why this was, but all you really need to know is that out of all the live-action Cutie Honey tie-ins (which also featured the OVA "Re Cutie Honey") this one was the only one that didn't see completion. While it can be argued that the main reasons for its abrupt cancellation were probably due to the fact that it strayed quite far from the movie it was meant to promote and seemed to be going beyond its original intended chapter count, it isn't a series that should be cast aside and forgotten. Anyhow, with that bit of history out of the way let's jump into the review proper.

Cutie Honey a Go Go! tells the story of Honey Kisaragi, AKA Cutie Honey, who is out to stop the terrorist organization Panther Claw which is led by the evil Sister Jill. Sister Jill and Honey Kisaragi are the creations of Takeshi Kisaragi, with Honey being the bearer of the Ai System. (Strangely mistranslated as the "I-System" in Seven Seas release. It is called "Ai System" since "Ai" is the word "love" in Japanese.) The Ai System allows Honey Kisaragi to transform into the Warrior of Love, Cutie Honey and there are several factions out to get control of both the Ai System and Honey herself, the most obvious being Sister Jill and her Panther Claw minions. Honey is aided by government agent Natsuko Aki and reporter Seiji Hayami. While the story starts out slightly resembling the aforementioned live action movie by taking place mostly in Tokyo, the story moves to St. Chapel Academy for almost the entire second half. St Chapel Academy being the location of the original Cutie Honey manga and anime. While the story takes several turns, and has more than its share of plot twists, it still follows the basic premise of Honey fighting various minions of Sister Jill and some combination of the heroes struggling to stay one step ahead of Panther Claw and largely failing but still managing to defeat the main villain of each chapter.

This volume has two very strong points going for it, the first is the variety of deep characters present in this otherwise somewhat short story. There are truly more characters than I could ever hope to cover here, but we'll take a look at some of the main ones. Honey is the most obvious to start with and I found her to be a much deeper character in this manga than in the live action movie. She often comes off as innocent and naive, but there are moments where she loses her composure and we see a darkness in her that is displayed by both a higher level of violence and her actually showing emotions like sadness. She's not always a "perfect" hero and this is a good thing. Her interactions with Natsuko, Seiji, and her father make her very endearing to the reader and while this type of character might come off as boring if not done correctly, the right balance is present here. Natsuko, on the other hand, takes a bit more time to develop and grow as a character. We see most of the story through her and we get to learn a lot about her by the way she treats her subordinates as well as Honey and Seiji. Natsuko is often seen abusing said subordinates here and there, both physically and by way of workload/tasks, but on the flip side we also see her often throw herself into harm's way to defend them. I will say that she did came off rather annoying in the first few chapters (probably owing to the story still following the movie's plot more) but she grows more likeable by the second half. Seiji is a character that suffers due to the problems with this work being unfinished. We never really get to know his full backstory or exactly why he's helping out the duo as the cliffhanger ending comes into play right when his motives are being revealed. We're left wondering just where Shimpei Itoh was going with his character as he is left pretty open-ended here. There are other characters that are worth mentioning, such as those introduced in the St. Chapel Academy chapters, but I will refrain from covering them all for the sake of space, brevity, and to keep from spoiling anything for those who might want to check this out for themselves. The only true negative regarding characters is that some of them, such as Seiji and the mysterious Daniel Bey, never get the screen time they deserved/needed and fail to get completely fleshed out before the volume's abrupt ending.

The second place Cutie Honey a Go Go! shines is in its artwork. Shimpei Itoh's art here is some of the best in the series and he does a good job adapting the live action movie designs, taking some from the Go Nagai originals, and even including some of his own. The art here blends the retro appeal of Cutie Honey with modern sensibilities that don't seem to have aged at all even though this volume is over a decade old. All the character designs here are flawless and special mention should be given to the Panther Claw minions, especially Dragon Claw, whose designs are far beyond the standard "moster of the week" fare. Action is well captured here as well and even when the going-ons are calm, the backgrounds are often lively with small touches here and there that keep everything from appearing flat or lifeless. One great point in this series is that there are several characters that are introduced in rapid succession, as well as many one-off secondary characters, and all look unique enough that I never wondered who one was or got confused by similar-looking characters. My only minor gripe here is that this volume could've benefitted from more full-color panels, but the lack of more than a few isn't anything that detracts from the overall experience. Also I'll mention here that this release comes with a few pages of original design sketches. These don't make up a significant contribution to the release, but their inclusion was a nice touch.

Since this is an adaptation of a very famous work and each one of these, be they manga or anime, tend to reboot the Cutie Honey series, I'm going to try to rate the quality of Cutie Honey a Go Go! as an adaptation. Cutie Honey at its heart is a sort of "adult" take on the magical girl genre. That isn't to say that it's chock-full of sex or 18+ scenarios, but you will find fairly extreme gore and violence coupled with a large slice of fan-service and nudity. Taking this into consideration it's safe to say that this manga version is actually a more faithful adaptation than the live-action movie it was supposed to be promoting as the latter featured very little extreme violence and no nudity at all to speak of. Its departure from the movie's plot might be seen as a point against it, but I have to admit that this work seems to have benefited greatly from it as once it moved beyond the boundaries set by the movie, it was able to tell its own story and find itself with much better pacing. Even though this isn't a work of Go Nagai himself, the average/new reader could be forgiven for assuming it was by way due to the quality of the adaptation, it's that spot on. The one negative point regarding adaptation though regards the fact that there was not a single scene of Cutie Honey giving her usual speech rattling off her various forms taken in the episode/chapter culminating with her declaration of being "Warrior of Love, Cutie Honey!". The absence of these scenes might have been a stylistic choice, but it was the one core element I felt could've pushed this into the realm of near perfect adaptation. Also speaking of Cutie Honey's other forms, very few of them are featured here and while Cutie Honey's ability to transform herself in many ways to battle her enemies is a staple of all other versions of the series, it is curiously largely absent here.

So now we reach the end of this review and the question we're left with is whether Cutie Honey a Go Go! is for you. Well, if you're a fan of the works of Go Nagai (even though he isn't directly involved here) or Cutie Honey in general then this is definitely for you. If you want a good story then I find it especially hard to recommend this as it is unfinished and never will see completion. That said there is something to this volume that makes me want everyone to go out and pick it up in spite of this, and the rather low price of this large 400-page volume makes it easier to recommend almost blindly. Basically if if anything I said above made you curious to check out the series then by all means pick up Cutie Honey a Go Go! I'm sure you won't regret it if you take a chance on this series!

-Manuel (alavic_222)

Cutey Honey a Go Go! is available now via Seven Seas Entertainment at all major outlets. It is rated Older Teen. More info can be found at the link below.
http://www.sevenseasentertainment.com/books/cutie-honey-a-go-go/

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Overall Rating: A-

Pros:
+Some amazing art that rivals the Go Nagai original.
+One of the few official English releases of a Cutie Honey manga.
+The characters are well developed and the volume contains lots of nods to past adaptations.
+Great price for such a large volume.

+- Doesn't follow the movie plot very well, but also tells a good story of its own.

Cons
-Does not have any sort of satisfying conclusion.
-Feels haphazard in presentation at times as if the series' direction wasn't always in focus.

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Note: This item was provided to us by the publisher for the purpose of this review. This fact does not affect the outcome of the review in any way.