is a Japanese tokusatsu production of the manga and anime series Cutie Honey by Go Nagai. It was directed by Makoto Yokoyama and mostly written by Toshiki Inoue. It first aired on TV Tokyo on October 2, 2007. Honey Kisaragi is portrayed by the gravure idol Mikie Hara. Discotek Media published the show on Blu-ray in 2021.
Premise Honey Kisaragi is an android posing as a high school student. Her father, a scientist, implants her with a device that allows her to transform into Cutie Honey. He is killed by the evil organization Panther Claw, whose leaders exploit and kill innocent civilians and want to obtain Honey's power. Honey uses this power to fight back.
Characters
Honey Kisaragi/Cutie Honey
is an android girl who can transform into by tapping on her heart necklace and saying the words . Her powers come from the installed in her body, also known as the . The Honey System allows the creation of objects out of thin air, allowing Honey to transform her outfit into practically any disguise. The Honey System can also reduce objects to thin air just as easily, which Honey uses as a finishing move to destroy anything she is in contact with. She possesses super intelligence, strength, and healing abilities. Her emblem is a Red heart and in battle, she can summon a rapier called the . She seems to have a crush on Yuji's third personality, Giza. However, her strong crush also inadvertently gives him a fourth personality named Hikaru.
On a few occasions, the energy of her Honey System goes out of control and begins to destroy everything which she touches. When this happens, Honey sleeps for 3 days and then goes into berserk mode. To prevent this, Seiji has a device that will drain away all the excess energy and return her to normal. To date, this has only occurred twice.
After finding out that both Miki and Yuki could transform as well, she tries to unite the three of them against Panther Claw. However, their clashing personalities make this difficult. It was also revealed that she was the one who buried her father, Doctor Kisaragi, one year ago. However, she does not know the cause of his death.
After driving off Hikaru, Honey brings Miki's lifeless body to Mayumi, requesting an operation in order to revive her. Mayumi accepts, but tells Honey that Miki would be depressed if she is to go on with the operation. Regardless, she is prepared. However, Hikaru once again manages to mess up the proceedings, and even steals Honey's power in the process. With Yuki's help, he is driven off one more time. After hearing Yuki's request to kill Honey, she willingly accepts, but on the condition that Yuki takes care of Miki in her stead. With that, Yuki accepts her request, then decapitates Honey on the spot.
Honey's lifeless body is picked up by Hiromi, who forcibly transfers her powers to Yuki. The conversion makes Yuki evil and destructive. After Miki retrieves her, Honey is revived by Mayumi and imbued with Miki's powers. When she comes to, the first person to greet her is Hayami, who doesn't have the heart to tell her the truth about everything. She runs to Professor Kisaragi's mansion to find the truth for herself. It is there that she finally meets Yuki again, this time completely under Hiromi's control. She initially refuses to fight her, but after finding the backup limiter, she Flashes, this time with a blue outfit and Kukri weapon similar to Miki's. After Hiromi is killed by Yuki, Honey manages to ultimately destroy her. After the battle is over, Honey decides to help out Hayami, now known as the Warrior of Love, Cutie Honey. In the epilogue, it is hinted that both Miki and Yuki "live on" inside Honey as Honey demonstrates fighting techniques similar to Miki's headbutt and Yuki's kick.
This version of Cutie Honey is more empty-headed than her previous incarnations, possessing a very poor grasp of social conventions and an almost perpetually upbeat attitude, which has caused animosity amongst her peers in her class. Unlike the original where she was a Catholic schoolgirl, she attends a standard all-girls high school in this version.
Honey is portrayed by Mikie Hara.
Seiji Hayami is a young, excitable private detective who helps support Honey. His dream is to write a book on the "demonish (sic) things in modern Japan's shaddy (sic)[underworld]", and to this end he lives in a slum so as to better understand the dark side of society. He met Honey 14 months ago, while he was helping a girl get her "notebook" from a gang and subsequently running away from that gang. Honey was disguised as a fortune teller and transformed to fight the gang members. In the present, Honey is helping him with his detective cases.
He constantly goes after different women. He confesses his love for Saotome Miki in a letter, which she tears up in front of him. He also expresses feelings for Yuki, who rejects him. Although he is rejected by both girls, he continues to court them, especially Yuki.
Some time after the final battle ends, Hayami returns to the Kisaragi residence to gather Doctor Kisaragi's research. His original intention is to safeguard the information from Panther Claw and similar criminal organizations, but after discovering Doctor Kisaragi's notebook and learning the truth about the creation of Honey, Miki, and Yuki, he destroys it. Seiji is portrayed by Shouma Yamamoto.
Miki Saotome/Sister Miki
is an introverted and anti-social young girl. Like Honey, she has the Honey System installed in her body, changing her into a blue armored form called . In this form she cannot control her aggression, causing her to develop a fear of herself. She stays away from other people because she is afraid of hurting them against her will. Despite her cold demeanor, she cares about Honey.
Miki was originally a normal schoolgirl in a happy family. Her parents are killed when Doctor Kisaragi uses the Atmospheric Element Condenser to create a giant hand made of stone that stops the car her family was in and ultimately takes her life. She is then reprogrammed as Doctor Kisaragi's daughter. However, when flaws are shown in her Honey system, she is discarded by Dr. Kisaragi. After Miki finds out the truth, she kills Doctor Kisaragi in cold blood before turning herself in to a juvenile institution for young girls.
When Miki stays transformed for too long, her kukri becomes a rusted piece of metal. In this state, she is captured by Yuji and trapped in a room of chains to prevent her from transforming to escape. When Honey comes to save her as bait to get Honey's Honey System, Miki transforms to save her, sacrificing her life in the process. She then reveals that she was the one who killed Professor Kisaragi, their father, because her true family and herself had been killed by him in order to transform her into an android. She dies, impaled from the inside from the chains she had taken into her body during her final Honey Flash.
She is revived again at Honey's request by Mayumi, albeit with a limited lifespan. She then goes on a rescue mission to save Honey and Yuki from Hiromi, only to find Honey's lifeless body at the surgery site. She returns to Mayumi, requesting the same operation Honey did for her, not only to save Honey's life, but for her own sake so that she can live on in Honey who is able to "throw everything into just being alive". Mayumi accepts, saving Honey and transferring Miki's powers and abilities to her at the price of Miki's life.
Like Honey, she transforms with the phrase by pressing her personal emblem, a blue spade. However, her transformations are flawed: she draws any loose metal she is in contact with into her body when she flashes, only to pull them out painfully later. Her weapon is a kukri called the . Miki's blue motif and stark contrast to Honey's personality draw many parallels between her and Misty Honey, Cutie Honey's rival from Cutie Honey Flash.
Miki is portrayed by Ayame Misaki.
Yuki Kenmochi/Sister Yuki
is the adopted daughter of the prestigious Kenmochi family. She states that she has only been living with the Kenmochi family for three years. She is very proper in how she speaks and acts, and is extremely naive, although she is very fond of curry.
Yuki was originally a young girl living in a hospital. She was dying of a terminal disease when she was discovered by Doctor Kisaragi, who remade her in a second attempt to recreate his daughter. The experiment was initially a success, but just like with Miki, she was eventually discarded when flaws were shown in her system.
She develops romantic feelings for Honey after they meet for the first time. After this meeting, she begins to show a darker nature, becoming jealous of any of Honey's companions she shows affection for. She becomes increasingly self-centered and greedy, believing that Honey is meant for her alone. When she learns the truth about Dr. Kisaragi, believed to be her real father, and Miki's ability to Flash, her personality changes dramatically, killing anyone who will not give her answers about her past on sight. She is responsible for killing Duke Watari and twice threatens Miki's life.
She also possesses the power of the Honey System, changing into a white armored form called with the phrase . In this form she becomes a cold, merciless warrior using graceful and powerful karate. Her personal emblem is a white diamond. She can summon a chakram called the as her weapon. Like Miki, her Honey System is flawed. This flaw began with materializing random toys outside of her body. The malfunction progresses later on into absorbing objects into her body and forced out later in a similar fashion to Miki's flaw. Upon being told by Yuji that Honey is not a human but simply an android, she becomes convinced that Dr. Kisaragi created Honey to be "spare parts" for her, so that she can repair her flawed Honey System.
Since then, she has forced Honey to reveal the truth about being an android in front of her classmates, and started a campaign in order to keep Honey alone; this way, Yuki would be Honey's only friend, and ensures that she would be around when she will need the spare parts. She has threatened Seiji many times. After beating up Yuji with Honey's help, she then decapitates a willing Honey in order to maintain her own life, but not before promising Honey to "take care" of Miki in her stead. However, before any of that could happen her Atmospheric Element Condenser fails. Yuji returns to see both Yuki's and Honey's lifeless bodies. Their bodies were eventually taken by Hiromi and her husband whose plans were to take Honey's powers and transfer them over to Yuki's body. This process turns her evil with a will to destroy anything in her path. She would later have a backup limiter placed on her neck when the initial limiter implanted within her fails, placing her fully under Hiromi's control. In the battle with Honey the backup limiter is destroyed. However, still unable to gain control of herself, she kills Hiromi and continues to fight Honey who ultimately destroys her. After her body is destroyed, Yuki comes to Hayami as a spirit with a final request for him to take care of Honey.
Yuki is portrayed by Makoto Takeda.
Natsuko Aki is Honey's best friend and room-mate. When Honey flashes to save one of her classmates, she becomes aware that Honey is an android. She, along with her other classmates, tries to avoid her after learning this. Natsuko then develops a fever, and after realizing that Honey has taken care of her, she rekindles her friendship.
Natsuko seems a bit nerdy, and she has glasses that she constantly adjusts. She often expresses concern about her looks, the size of her breasts being an especial worry for her.
Natsuko is portrayed by Megumi Komatsu.
Gen-san