Cutie Honey (Franchise)

Cutie Honey (Japanese: キューティーハニー, Hepburn: Kyūtī Hanī, also spelled Cutey Honey) is a Japanese shōnen manga series written and illustrated by Go Nagai. First appearing in Weekly Shōnen Champion's 41st issue of 1973, the series ran until April 1974. It follows an android girl named Honey Kisaragi, who transforms into the busty, red or pink-haired heroine Cutie Honey to fight against the assorted villains that threaten her or her world. One of the trademarks of the character is that the transformation involves the temporary loss of all her clothing in the brief interim from changing from one form to the other. According to Nagai, she is the first female to be the protagonist of a shōnen manga series.[4] The Cutie Honey franchise spans many works, including numerous manga series, three anime television series, two OVA series, two drama CDs, three live action adaptations, and four stage plays. The first anime aired in 1973 and is considered a magical girl series in retrospect. In addition, the theme song of the series has become one of the most famous theme songs in the history of anime, and is widely known in Japan, even to those unfamiliar with the series.[5] Despite the many different Cutie Honey works made, this theme song continues to be sung in all live-action and animated works except Cutie Honey Universe and Cutie Honey: Tears, with different arrangers and singers. According to a Bandai survey, Cutie Honey ranked first in the "Favorite Characters" surveyed in April 1997 in two categories: girls aged 3 to 5 and girls aged 6 to 8.[6]