Kyûtî Hanî

I remember seeing posters for this in the weeks leading to the cinema release, and well ... Cutey Honey's outfit is pretty darn cute .. I have a figurine on my window that I got with a box of fizzy candy - much to my girlfriend's ire.

Next to ninja's, cute chic's in revealing armour highly rate with me, so I was instantly intrigued. I was familiar with the source material, and the the director (of Evangellion and Nadia fame) and I knew that this film had a very unique visual style, but I still wasn't prepared for what I witnessed when I finally put the disc in the slot and hit play.

This film IS Live Action Anime to the Nth degree! It lives and breaths anime craziness, and over the top silliness. Honey's facial expressions are something straight out of an SD anime. From the opening scene this film is an anime joy - yet live action.

It's a nutty film, and it had me chuckling constantly. I would love to show this to friends of mine, but I know they'd look at me strangely and try and lock me away. Cutey Honey won't be appreciated by everyone, but I think that anime fans, with an open mind will really dig this film.In the back of my mind a voice told me that I was not supposed to like this film, but try as it did, it couldn't pull me away. I was hooked .. right until the end.

It's strange that .. on first look, and without proper perspective, this film look bad. Everyone over-acts, and there are more butt and cleavage shots than you can shake a stick at - very much an exploitative fan service vehicle. Many viewers I assume would get so many bad Power Ranger flash backs that it'd hard for them to keep watching.

Watch it in the right context however and you will see genius! Well maybe that is taking it too far, but Hideaki Anno and the team that worked on this film should be praised for creating the closest live-action rendition of anime I have ever seen. It has all the ingredients, crazy over the top expressions, a VERY cute scantily clad girl, and ultra-surreal bad-guys, including bondage'ish outfits and an androgynous male villain.

It's all there. Until I find out later down the track that the film contained subliminal hypnotising messages, I will say that I really liked this film, but that I still can't really work out why I did so much. Cutey Honey is for anime fans, and I think anyone else would struggle a little to accept this film's wild personality.

Killion

Not to degrade the movie, but if you can't get over a "Power Rangers" feel, then pass this title by. However, if you enjoy humor, weird costumes, crazy action, and insane levels of Cuteness, then this may be the movie for you. Based on an old anime (manga too?) by Go Nagai, this live action version is quite amazingly a live action anime. I was never a huge fan of the original animation, but this move almost makes me want to go back and recheck it out. The movie is fast-paced, and action-oriented. It has decent character development (but don't look for anything too deep) and best of all, it was just silly. If it weren't for that last factor, the movie would have completely sapped an hour an a half from my life. The cast was great, considering the roles, but the thing that stands out is the way they were able to combine the live action with a very cartoony style (watch as Honey dodges all those missiles in the beginning, it a whole new style on it's own.) It was very entertaining, and it was definitely an example of camp gone right.

Let's put it clear from the beginning, the film is an exercise in style, and the style is anime. If you like anime, this is THE FILM you'd love to see, characters, timing, acting, dialog, cameras, lights, sound...An fan's dream, a film made by a man who loves anime for all the people who love anime. When I found that Anno, the man who made Neon Genesis Evangelion, was in this project, I thought it would be great. When I finally saw it, I found it was better, I kept a smile all time long. If you don't like it, well, try something else. If you don't like blues, you'd protest about repetitive riffs and metrics, long guitar solos and so on. Each kind of art has its codes, and if you share them you understand and appreciate it. For me, this is a masterpiece of live action anime.

Saw Cutie Honey at the Leeds Film Festival on Saturday... not sure if James Maruyuma had been paying attention until the last half of the movie, because people breaking into song for no particular reason and "metaphysical" (actually psycho-sociological but nevermind) thoughts about love and opening your heart to people are there throughout. The film is 95% very very very silly, with a couple of curveball moments where things get a bit more serious, then right back into silliness and fluffiness again. The film is shot and edited in a very anime-esque way, with extensive use of CG to enhance the stylisation and "cartooniness" that's already quite abundant from the costumes and overacting. In fact, so much effort has been spent making the live action film feel like an animated film that one sometimes wonders why they didn't just animate it ;) The answer is, of course, the super-cuteness of Sato Eriko (though I was actually more partial to Ichikawa Mikako's super-repressed detective character, make of it what you will).

Overall, very very camp and silly fun with a fluffy message about the power of love n' stuff. Not the stuff classics are made of, but worth seeing if the opportunity arises.

I've always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with anime. Quick flashes of artwork reconciled within the plot lines of the larger work have always felt more intrusive than they have integral to the total story, but, as could any reader, there's always something in there worth appreciating. Whether it's the personal history of the lovable lead or the angry clutter of a villain bent on destroying life, some element always gels, fueling the vicarious excitement for as long as I'm willing to suspend disbelief.

Then again … when the lead actress is an absolute knockout having the time of her life chewing scenery, slaying bad guys, and decked in spandex, who am I really kidding? The live-action (the term should be used loosely, as the film is full of heavy CGI sequences) adaptation of "Cutie Honey" feels like an idea that originated from anime but desperately desired to rise above the conventions of the literature. In this story, Honey – an ordinary office girl turned super-powerful android by magical uber-genius of her deceased scientist/father – is granted the chance of, well, her second lifetime: she can avenge dear ole dad's death by bringing an end to the notorious Panther Claw gang … but is she willing to risk the lives of her new-found friend, Detective Natsuko Aki (Mikako Ichikawa), in the process? Of course, androids have never been lovelier than this one embodied by Eriko Sato. As Honey, Eriko bears the weight of the film, delivering a performance of a visual marvel: her features strike an almost perfect balance between doe-eyed-anime-schoolgirl-cuteness and drop-dead-gorgeous-comic-book-heroine-beauty. She's perfectly cast, and it would appear that she knows it! She uses her feminine wiles and impish lunacy from start to finish with nothing short of total commitment. Such dedication should give even the most impotent Scrooge something to admire, if not a resurrection of male blood flow. Yes … she's … just … that … stunning. In her capable hands, what could have been a farce becomes a force to be reckoned with.

"Cutie Honey" is not without its flaws. The high-fashion, sparkly camp design works well most of the time, coupled with some terrific special effects work. Anime sequences – largely used for flashbacks and battlefield filler – are impressive, but these scenes don't offer much to differentiate themselves from straight anime pictures. Despite or to the advantage of the goofy feel-good banter, the actors all seem to enjoy themselves, as it's clear that no one is taking this stuff too seriously.

At some points, I couldn't suppress the "What am I watching?" effect. Normally, a film like "Cutie Honey" is not my cup of tea … but, one scene later, I was drawn up into this goofy world once more, laughing at the campy villains or admiring what little fabric the costume designer refused to waste on Eriko's ordinary-girl-alter-ego outfits.

Did I mention that Cutie is a real cutie? In the end, there's something wholesomely redeeming to watch a group of mismatched heroes take time out from saving the world to drink sake, let loose, and sing karaoke.