Anime REVIEW: Cutie Honey Universe

Cutie Honey Universe is available in streaming form on Hi-Dive

2018 celebrates 50 years of Go Nagai's work as a writer and manga artist, and given the influence of his back catalogue it's not surprising that his most famous works have been undergoing a resurgence lately. The Devilman franchise has reached an all-new audience with mega popular Netflix exclusive Devilman Crybaby, while the original Mazinger Z anime received a proper sequel over 40 years later with the Mazinger Z Infinity movie. So where does this leave Nagai's high-action, lowbrow magical girl series? An influence to the pantheon that followed, Cutie Honey returns for its first animated outing since 2004 with the release of Cutie Honey Universe. Closely patterned in both story and character design after the original manga series, Cutie Honey Universe was animated by studio Production Reed (who until 2007 were Ashi Productions) and ran for a total of 12 episodes.

First Impressions: Cutie Honey Universe

Cutie Honey Universe is available in streaming form on HIDIVE

With 2018 celebrating the 50th anniversary of Go Nagai as manga artist, there's been a pretty noticeable revival of his most famous works in the past few months. The original 1972 Mazinger Z anime series received a continuation in the form of the Mazinger Z Infinity movie, while Devilman became the talk of the town after Netflix launched the Devilman Crybaby remake back at the beginning of the year. The only one missing from the trifecta is of course Cutie Honey , the 1973 manga turned anime series which had a huge influence on the magical girl genre and spawned numerous sequels, remakes and reboots. This spring season sees Nagai's fanservice favourite return in Cutie Honey Universe, a brand new series from Production Reed (the studio formerly known as Ashi Productions).