Demashita! Powerpuff Girls Z

Powerpuff Girls Z (PPGZ) is the retelling of the homonymous American cartoon (I’ll just call it PPGA), the silly adventures of a trio of supergirls as they protect their world from all sorts of criminals and monsters. Instead of just stopping to a dubbed version for reasons that I only imagine being fan pleasing, Japan decided to have its own PPG series, made from scratch. And boy, did they change a lot…

This is not exactly new in the industry. Since as far as the 80’s America and Japan make their own versions of the same story. Famous examples are Macross/Roboteck, American-only sequels to Voltron Defender ... of the Universe, an American-only OVA conclusion to the Saber Rider and the Starsheriffs, several Japanese-only sequels and spin-offs to the Transformers. The thing is, all those shows were 90% identical or easily recognizable to be of the same franchise. PPGZ is way too different to PPGA to the point it feels as a different show. But I thought it was some what of a good show.

ART (PPGA: 8, PPGZ: 5)

PPGA was using a rather simple to draw and animate artwork which looked very 2-dimensional. It was also made to be a tribute to both the pop-art movement, superhero comic books of the 60’s, as well as a parody to several Japanese anime stereotypes. That made it look special and unique in a way, even if there are several series that were made the same way, like South Park, Dexter’s Laboratory or Ying Yang Yo. It was still somewhat different from the typical cartoon, which packs a lot more animation, 3D effects and lip-synch.

PPGZ on the other hand looks way too typical. If you have watched several anime, you can easily see how average its animation is, with its jerky motions, frozen panels and repeating transformation clips. I’m pretty sure it costs more to create 3D effects and fluid animation but at the same time it looks far less captivating. It has no in-jokes to comic books and the anime jokes are not working that well, since mahou shoujo parodies are abundant in Japan but not in America.

I don’t blame studio Toei for animating it like this, since it follows their recipe of how to make a nice children’s show to the letter. It’s just that it was too safe to be given to them and not to, let’s say GAINAX or SHAFT, which would definitely have done a lot more experimenting and would have produced a far more uncommon result.

I think that was the only problem or thing I hated about this series. But anyway I thought the storyline was better then the original.

I was a big Powerpuff Girls fan back when originally aired on CN. So, hearing that my much-loved animated series was getting an anime series was great news to me. However, this anime series was a great disappointment.

Story: 6 The storyline was fair. Changes of course had to be done, but the number of changes were a little too much for my tastes.

The main disappointment was just how weak they made the heroines' powers. Having yoyos and barrettes made Powerpuff girls go from an age-less great show to a kiddy show in my opinion.

Art: 10 If there was one thing standout feature about ... this anime series it was the art style. It looked like an anime, but still kept the overall PowerPuff look. Colors were bright and indeed colorful. It was something pleasant to see.

Sound: 5 Don't judge me too much by sound, this is my not my strongest review point. However, the songs weren't too memorable or wouldn't be going in my album of anime songs.

Character: 7 One of the most disappointed thing asides from the story. Half of the characters were so different compared to the original series that it was an annoyance. The worst being the RowdyRuff Boys and Sedusa. Sedusa looked horrible in design, and the boys were changed from strong villains close in age and strength to the series heroines, to younger misbehaved boys.

Enjoyment: 6 The initial excitement of the series quickly stopped once the episodes passed on.

Overall: 7 Overall this could have been a really great show with a very large following, if they had stayed closer to the original series.

Overview:

The United States is constantly getting bashed for producing horrible adaptations and ripoffs of other countries' shows, movies, etc. Many times these criticisms are justified and the American version truly was shit. Other times the the US version is judged unfairly by people who never even saw it. Today's review is an example of a shitty adaptation of an American cartoon. Have you ever wished that some country would take a beloved US cartoon and do to it what the Yanks did to "The Wicker Man?" This is that cartoon!


Background:

The original Power Puff girls was a popular US cartoon during the animation bubble of ... the 1990s. During the 90s, nearly every channel on American TV had a Saturday morning cartoon lineup and over 200 American cartoons were airing in any given year of that decade. In 2015 only 2 channels on US TV are airing cartoons and their are no more than 20 current American cartoons. This was a double edged sword because while the total number of awesome cartoon series was much higher during the 1990s, the average quality was actually lower. There were some BAD cartoons in the 1990s like the Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter cartoons made by the USA Channel that would never pass current expectations of quality.
Power Puff Girls (same writers as 4chan's beloved MLP) was one of the top tier or roughly top 10 percent cartoons of the 90s decade.

So what did the original do well?

1. It featured cute character designs that paid homage to and parodied anime, which was a fairly new concept in the US.

2.It had lots of action, much of which was also heavily anime inspired. One of the early fights between Blossom and Princess was directly taken from the first Goku vs. Vegeta fight from DBZ!

3. Power Puff had MUCH younger and more "hip" writers that knew how to make pop culture references that actually hit home for the current generation. An example would be when they did a hilarious spoof on the then brand new 1998 Zelda game "Ocarina of Time" and Navi's extreme obnoxiousness. This was the decade when we had many shows with octogenarian writers like Hey Arnold, Doug, and others making constant references to Peter Lorre, Frank Sinatra, Mickey Mantel, and other 1950s pop culture jokes! Kids literally had to watch with their GRANDPARENTS to get the pop culture jokes in those shows! Power Puff was one of the first US cartoons written by younger writers in their 20s and early 30s for a young audience of kids and teens.

4. It didn't just patronize kids and offered some moral complexity and occasional witty writing instead of REALLY stupid PSA commentaries.

5. It could occasionally be surprisingly dark and wasn't afraid to push boundaries, but it also knew not to take itself TOO seriously and kept a balanced tone.

6. It actually had pretty good music and excellent animation for an American TV cartoon of its time.

7. It was freaking funny! My elder cousin would watch this show with me when he babysat me and my brother. He was a tough guy who was on his college's rugby team and was a bar bouncer and even he laughed his ass off!

Damashita Power Puff Girls Z and why it DIDN'T work!:

1. The Art Design: The character models are changed to be more realistic and less cutesy. This is a show for little kids! What's wrong with cutesy?! The girls in the anime version are WAY too oversexualized and it gives this show a very creepy, pedo vibe. These girls are in KINDERGARTEN for fuck sake! The redesigns of the villains are also just stupid as hell!

2. The Animation: PPG Z is 10 years newer than the original PPG and the animation is FAR worse. Of course this was animated by God Damn Toei, so you know exactly what to expect! The last popular American cartoon that had as low quality animation as 2000s decade Toei was the first few seasons of Ninja Turtles in the mid 1980s!

3. The Writing: Remember how I said the original PPG had generally good writing and was very pop culture savvy? PPG Z has NONE of that! PPG Z makes every character unbearably annoying, takes itself too seriously at times when it shouldn't, and has jokes that either fall flat or induce serious cringing. The Rowdy Rough boys peeing on people? Seriously?! Who green lights this shit!?

4. The Entertainment Value: The original PPG was a fun show that even older audiences like parents could watch with their kids and enjoy. PPG Z is about as entertaining as having your fingernails ripped off one by one. Even for little kids this shit isn't entertaining!

5. The Retcons: An adaptation is free to change things like background, time, etc. However, the changes made here were overwhelmingly for the worse. In the original show the girls were born with super powers and like Superman had to learn how to live among normal people. This was done in an interesting way and provided both laughs and some introspection. In PPG Z the girls are normal students that transform into heroes and are basically like every Magical Girl ever made! The villain backgrounds are changed and none of them are as amusing or creative. The setting is changed to Japan, but doesn't take advantage of this change by integrating any elements of Japanese culture or giving a REASON for the change. It is just a ripoff PPG that happens to be set in Japan for some reason.

Overall:

I can now finally understand the anger that British people feel when watching the American versions of Top Gear! This was just PAINFUL to sit through! Even by the 1990s low standards of a kid's show and assuming I hadn't seen the original it would STILL be a terrible fucking show! This is one the worst adaptations of a children's movie or show I have ever seen! I think that giving it a rating of "2" is being generous!