Cutie Honey Universe

Episode 12

I genuinely wanted this to turn out better. Not just this final episode, of course, but Cutie Honey Universe as a whole. It started as a spirited revival that definitely had some issues in its tone and presentation, but it also had high energy and its heart seemed to be in the right place. Sadly it could just never stick the landing on anything it tried to do, and that's true of this finale as well. Its execution barely reaches competent at best, and the rest is an unfortunate hodgepodge of ideas that don't pay off because they were never set up properly. "Inexplicable" describes most of the decisions at the end here.

For starters, the series feels like it has no idea what to do with its characters at this point. After failing to properly explain her shifting motivations in the previous episode, Dragon Panther is rather bluntly killed off at the beginning of this one; I guess someone always gets decapitated at the end of a Gō Nagai series. Her turncoat cohort Tarantula at least gets more to do, bringing in the cavalry for a scene I'll address momentarily, but all the disguises being the result of her web-creation powers isn't explained clearly enough. She barely gets to reiterate her friendship with Natsuko as the motivation for turning on her white doppelganger before they both kill each other off-screen, more victims in this series' fixation on meaningless death as the only cave to mine for depth. On the opposite end, Naoko is revealed to have survived her apparent death from halfway through the show, with no explanation save for what seems to be a burn-induced tan. It smacks of a shallow retcon of a singular sacrifice when so many other characters have been casually offed. And all those issues are just with the backup characters who actually got some development, as the climactic fight between Honey and Jill gives us nothing.

Motivations go completely out the window in this would-be climactic final duel. Honey is fighting to defeat Jill in revenge for all her dead friends, but partway through the fight's major turning point, our heroine starts monologuing about seeing the good in her old cop buddy, perhaps leaning toward saving her soul. Then she ends up just killing her anyway, so the villain's demise rings as a serious downer. As long as killing her was always going to be the plan, the series would have done better to build it up as a more triumphant victory, especially as the mood whips around and the show tries to end on a higher note overall. For her part, Jill outright admits that she has no interest in the Airborne Element Fixing Device anymore, leaving her weak torture-porn motivation revelation from last episode as the only thing keeping the character going. This makes the show trying to sell us on the tragedy of her demise feel especially limp.

The big turnaround of the final fight scene should have been this series' last opportunity to do something impressive and entertaining, but it can't even get that right, thanks to its bad habits of misplacing tone. Honey's supporting cast showing up for an I Am Spartacus moment leading to a ridiculous dance number could have worked if the series had committed to that kind of outrageous tone beforehand. But a dismal losing battle in a rain-soaked wasteland is neither the time nor the place, and the presentation does nothing to abate that.

Speaking of presentation, can we talk theme songs for a moment? Cutie Honey Universe's decision to eschew the series' traditional opening theme has been a relatively petty but understandable nitpick with this version, and this conclusion really drives home what a misstep it was for this whole series. This supposedly invigorating dance-off would have been the perfect place to deploy that original song: a bunch of classic characters coming to Honey's aid using music to prove that they embody the ‘real’ Honey. A different insert song kicks in moments later, still not the right one, and then the regular version of Universe's theme song is used for the powered-up final battle with everyone. That's three missed opportunities in a row to pull off an absolute gimme of a crowd-pleasing moment, further sealing Cutie Honey Universe as a pale imitator of its namesake.

I could feel bad for the show failing to live up to its potential, but instead I mostly have pity for Cutie Honey as a franchise being revived with this sorely lacking series. There were scattered shots of strength early on, but the ambition always sputtered in the face of technical or visionary limitations. It almost feels like insult added to injury the way Cutie Honey Universe rolls classic manga panels alongside the final credits, seemingly in homage to the anniversary it's celebrating. But maybe that's true to what little good the series did accomplish, by reminding us of how long this story has endured and how many better versions there are to seek out.

Rating: D+

Cutie Honey Universe is currently streaming on HIDIVE.