Cutie Honey Universe

Episode 11

There are times in this episode where it feels like the consistently troubled Cutie Honey Universe is truly in free-fall. The series has never been the most tightly-written, skating by on pure spectacle even in its best moments while dragging its feet unenthusiastically in its many worse ones. But something might have finally given way at this point. This episode of CHU actually features some of the strongest action in a while, a huge spectacle of a battle that's still carrying on by the end. And some of the themes and character arcs developing through that conflict could be considered effective. But it's difficult to give this any credit for working when everything else about the story is just so stupid.

Predictably, the crux of the story falling apart is Honey finally learning that Inspector Genet and Sister Jill are the same person, after weeks of not being told by other characters for the thinnest of reasons. Given that the audience has always known this, there's little surprise that this overdue revelation finally occurs before the final episode. With that in mind, I actually laughed out loud when Honey burst into the Panther Claw palace to find Genet just nonchalantly sitting on the throne. Admittedly, the touch of Genet co-opting Honey's iconic transformation speech to debut her dark secret was a pretty clever touch, and I can almost get behind the idea that Genet's reveal could break our heroine to the degree we see this week. But even with nice bits that like, there's just no way this event could live up to the anticipation it's built after being artificially dragged out for all these weeks.

Protraction is the theme behind most issues that come to a head in this episode. I know I harshly mentioned how I disagreed with Tarantula's method of therapy for Honey last week, but it appears I was right since she still doesn't seem to actually be over her trauma, still blaming herself for the tragedies and rushing into action in fits of headstrong self-destruction. This was a compelling direction for the character immediately after the jarring school-attack, but still going through this cycle of moping and making rash decisions after five weeks has become more repetitive than the first half of the show's monster-of-the-week plots. It's also an unpleasant side effect that so many characters have been casualties of keeping that tone going.

So between Jill finally wanting to make herself known and Honey rushing off to accept her challenge, we come to the biggest writing failings for this episode. It's become apparent that a major weakness of Cutie Honey Universe is its refusal to clarify how much knowledge characters have, such as Natsuko apparently not knowing about Honey's robot super-powers. In this episode, Seiji and the PCIS have to get to work tracking down the palace headquarters of Panther Claw, and during the entire exercise Seiji completely forgets that two former members of the organization are currently hiding out at his house. This isn't even a hypothetical oversight in the plot; Honey immediately teams up with Dragon to have her show the way, and Seiji himself is later offered Tarantula's assistance when he's randomly musing on finding the place where she used to live right in front of her. It's a baffling method of prolonging this episode's plot, trading on stupidity that the show apparently hopes we won't notice.

That's the biggest inconsistency in the story, but so many other things don't work. Seiji's idiocy is consistent enough that he only discovers an extra-dimensional secret compartment in Genet's office through contrived wall-press. The crystallized forms of deceased girls, including Natsuko, explain nothing and have no payoff at this point. Meanwhile on Honey's side, while her team-up with Dragon leads to some cool action, the former villain's turn has never been properly explained and only gets vaguely handwaved as her looking for a good fight. Even Jill's constantly nebulous motivation is presented as just an intense desire to see a prolonged Honey torture-porn show. Like Jill's identity itself, this makes for a weak payoff after all this inflated build-up.

Like I said, there were things about this episode that worked for me, and I wish I could say I liked it more because of them. But there comes a time in a sub-par series where the bad finally starts to outweigh the good, and you can't ignore the shoddy writing, tonal roller coaster, or poorly-thought-out characterization any longer. Maybe it's a blessing in disguise that Cutie Honey Universe only just got to that point with me now, so all that's left to do is watch it march to its apparent end with what little dignity it has left.

Rating: D+

Cutie Honey Universe is currently streaming on HIDIVE.